RaceFuel85

Spicher was lost on the first night of ODS, so it wasn't a case of "being overly confident due to winning every previous engagement" or whatever you were implying. You can have every advantage, the best training, and be supremely well equipped, but if someone makes a mistake..you can still be killed because someone else got lucky.

Lt Cdr Scott "Spike" Spicher was a former Hornet flight instructor and had a considerable amount of flight hours in both the A-7 and the Hornet. He was hardly inexperienced. In war mistakes happen, and that night a number of mistakes resulted in the death of Spike.

I believe the last word was that the Tomcat would be available for purchase (likely as Early Access) in 2017.

During ODS Alphas actually had to plug into burner in order to maintain speed and angels when refueling due to the high altitude, thin air and hot conditions. The A+'s didn't have that issue, obviously.

Yes, Heatblur is working on a Forrestal class

It'll be released... Soon™

The name "Tomcat" was originally supposed to be assigned to the Grumman F7F Tigercat, which was primarily a night fighter and "Tom cats", aka male cats, tend to be active and do quite a bit of night time scrapping. The powers that be at the Navy in the mid 40's however felt the name promoted feline promiscuity and wasn't morally upright enough to befit a Navy aircraft..so the name "Tigercat" was given instead. Flash forward 25 years to 1969 and the name was brought back both due to Grumman tradition of naming their aircraft after felines (Wildcat, Hellcat, Bearcat, etc) and as a tribute to Tom Connolly who championed the design and the aircraft before congress and the Navy.

Dave "HeyJoe" Parsons was a RIO, but yes..he's absolutely correct. The 6 phoenix loadout typically was only anticipated to be carried when facing squadron level attacks from bombers/threat of multiple cruise missiles.

I think they said they were reworking the carrier in game to handle the Hornet/flight ops.

I know..the model isn't even complete, etc...but I started wondering what skins either were in the works to be released or what skins the community would prefer? Personally I'd love.. F-14B 1: VF-32 Circa 2003 2: VF-103 (Sluggers) circa 1990/1991 3: VF-143 Pukin' Dogs F-14A 1: VF-114 Aardvarks 2: VF-51 Screaming Eagles 3: VF-41 Black Aces The esprit de'corps of the above units could really make for some fun virtual fighter squadrons, especially VF-32 and VF-143. Thoughts?

Yep. If that had happened to a Hornet they would have just parted it out and pushed it off the edge of the deck..the engine struts would have gone up through the intake trunks and engine bays.

Pretty much..I live near the 173rd FW (Oregon ANG) and back about 10 years ago was able to visit the base frequently under their old Wing CO (the current one revoked my credentials and started "locking the doors" as it were). One day I was visiting for an article I was writing on the role of a local base in the transformation of the USAF (since Kingsley is the school house for the F-15C) and watched a full on practice scramble of a 104th FW student. From the time the siren started until they were wheels up was only around 6 minutes..which wasn't even their best time from what I was told.