Gunslinger22

I did a 4.5 hour sortie on the 104th about two months ago with multiple refuelling's and didn't notice any degrade whatsoever to the SAS or any flight control for that matter. Orbited one CAP station for 1.5 hours with autopilot on the entire time and it didn't falter at all, thought this has been my only experience with a 2.5+ hour flight in the Tomcat, so purely anecdotal.

Oh now we're talking! You really are the man aren't you 8! Wish we could also place munitions on statics ------------------------

I like it mate! The Tomcat never hurts with some colour!

It is interesting to also note though, that Slammer Richardson said he thought the non DFCS A/B were better pure BFM aircraft over the D.

Got 3 more squadrons coming, this time NE birds. VMA (WA) 121 NE 401-415 1987-89, VA-145 NE 500-13 1987 and VA-145 NE 500-13 1989-93:

VF-1: Wichita, VF-2: Bullet, VF-11: Ripper, VF-14: Camelot, VF-21: Lance, VF-24: Rage, VF-31: Tomcat, VF-32: Gypsy, VF-33: Tarbox, VF-41: Fast Eagle, VF-51: Eagle, VF-74: Devil, VF-84: Victory, VF-101: Gunfighter, VF-102: Diamond, VF-103: Clubleaf, VF-111: Sundowner, VF-114: Aardvark, VF-124: Gunslinger, VF-142: Dakota, VF-143: Dog, VF-154: Knight, VF-211: Nickle, VF-213: Black Lion. These are the callsigns for all frontline squadrons.

I feel your pain, has happened to me twice with PS on my MacBook which is where I do all my skinning, lost 5 DS Sluggers and 5 Be-Devilers skins that were ready to go with complete and individual weathering on each bird.

Sadly I think that is the case! If you'd like I can try and do google drive or something rather.

On the user files like my other skin packs.

Alright well I reckon I'll save my efforts on any 11/31 skins then, personally have been trying to do more around the 86 timeframe rather than 88, it was very difficult to match all of VA-176's BuNo's from what the CVW site has them listed as and from what actual pictures of the 86 cruise show.

Just uploaded my VA-176 pack to the user files, enjoy!

Doing some dirty VF-31/11 Birds up next, though so far I think I'm over doing the oil stains. Also my VAQ-132/VA-175/VAW-122 packs have been uploaded and are awaiting approval.

(Sorry if slightly off topic!) Thought I'd go all out and create my own template and basically make all of CVW-6, just wish someone would publicly release that A-7 mod... Should be on the user section soon!

I’d personally like to see a block 60/70 A, with the beaver tail, different cockpit layout with the earlier hud tapes and TID functionality. 70’s tomcats would be amazing. We already have too many modern MFD simulators in DCS.

For me the easiest thing to look for, something I honestly judge all skins people upload now on how much they care, is the intake warning chevron. Hurts my soul now to see A skins the still have the enlarged warnings.

I'm actually now going to take Tomcatter97's lovely VA-176/VAW-122/VAQ-132 skins and do full squadrons with accurate BuNo's so we can have the Forrestal deck complete apart from the Tomcats and Cosairs.

Well how I do it isn't either easy or quick, but for some really specific weathering patterns I try to find really hirez picture of a Tomcat that has a certain salt and dirt area on it and create a layer above that image and basically trace and draw over it, creating a template I can then transfer onto the skin. One other thing I've found is changing the different tones of the overall paint layer (lets say on the wing) and mix them with the base to create the effect of paint that has dried at quicker/slower speeds than the other areas. This is especially important for panels and patches that have had some corrosion control paint done over the base layer. Edit: My skins have finally been uploaded, I've also done NE VS-38/VAW-116 skins!

Yet the results aren't really representative of anything are they? Whereas for instance we can play out scenarios from the 80's that never happened (Everything we simulate never happened, you can't actually "play" a simulation of history) because we largely have the assets and areas to do so. Whereas modern assets are far from being anything more than just visually represented (apart from the F-16/18 which are still both nearly two decades old, quite some distance from any 'Modern' scenario). This is why I love and support the work that Admiral is doing with all of these Cold War ships, because they were never used as they were designed to fight, thus we can do let them in DCS, while still being ground to all the unclassified stuff we know about them. Future weapons cannot have the same said for them sadly.