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LanceCriminal86

ED Closed Beta Testers Team
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Posts posted by LanceCriminal86

  1. It's been stated more than once that they are not going down the road of attempting to add all the random weapons and systems foreign users grafted onto their Phantoms, just the same as the random weapons that have been hung on Tomcats over the decades.

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  2. 35 minutes ago, Nodak said:

    Any way the flight suit can be made to select for orange and dark blue in addition to the sage green and sand?  Iran pre-revolutionary wore the orange, also Japan wore it, and it was issued to test squadrons and ADC units in the USAF, of which Iceland was one.  The dark blue was special issue to the Thunderbird team.

    USAF_Thunderbirds_pilot_with_F-4E_in_1973.jpg

    10760388526_110fb59ea8_o.jpg

    We're way ahead of you

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  3. 18 minutes ago, Zabuzard said:

    Coming with the good news, I guess. We have added the flares recently. See the manual:
    https://f4.manuals.heatblur.se/stores/air_to_ground/bombs/conventional_bombs.html#suu-25-target-marker-flares

    emoji106.png

    As for NVG, our SMEs confirmed that, at least for the timeframe our Phantom represents, they were not a thing yet. To my understanding, only very late Phantoms would have ever seen NVGs.

    That's been my research as well, unlike the Navy the AF wasn't working with NV in the 80s, at least not in any way that made it to F-4 squadrons. NVGs would only apply to the Terminator or AUP Phantoms as I don't even think Japan or the ROKAF have been seen with NVGs.

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  4. 19 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

    @LanceCriminal86 this dude seems to be wearing a VTAS helmet at around 2:09. Can you confirm or deny?

     

    Yes, that looks like a VTAS II based on the visor housing and protrusions. There have been accounts of limited use of it into the early 80s but by then it was an individual choice for the most part, and depending on if the system was up. Most chose not to use it and wore a standard APH-6 or HGU-33 helmet.

    The video is at least from their '81-'82 cruise, as they had F-4Ns during their previous cruise through '80. It appears the VTAS system was "abandoned" around '79 so squadrons or pilots holding onto it for a few years longer makes sense until it was removed from inventory wholesale. There were apparently some commanders that insisted on the system being up, and pilots that preferred to use it when it was operable so seeing it here and there into the early 80s isn't out of place.

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  5. 1 hour ago, Bremspropeller said:

    No worries, I wasn't directing anything into your direction. I just wanted to give some additional perspective as the topic's called "carrier version", when the carrier capable versions also did many ops from shore bases. Both in theater as well as on deployment at fwd bases in Japan or on det elsewhere in the Pacific.

    And of course the Reserves operating theirs from Miramar and NAS Dallas with carrier quals/drill.

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  6. Really the boarding ladder should only be down if the crew is boarding, or the ground crew are working on the jet or prepping it. Typical static jet on the deck or tarmac I wouldn't expect to see the ladder deployed. If you're setting a static jet however to have the canopy up then ladder down makes sense.

    Logically (and may be done eventually) the boarding ladder should be handled under the ground crew comms with the chocks, air supply, and ground power. During startup the ladder should be stowed going off a number of clips such as this from VF-211 at Oceana:

     

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  7. Not a pedantic question at all! It's pretty common across any interest where a military adopts a new thing, and then rolls it out into use. You kind of have to mix official documents/statements, accounts from end-users, and photos together to build a good idea.

    It's hard to find specific dates for squadrons or numbers, but if we're comparing to say the TCS rollout you'd expect the first batches of missiles after weapon tests to get to squadrons that are about to go on deployment, possibly in time for them to do a MISSILEX before their cruise with the new missile.  Apparently VF-2 may have taken the C on it's first cruise, trying to find the dates but '87 potentially. Operational testing and eval was going on in '84-'86 timeframe so '87 rollout to first fleet squadrons makes sense, putting decent numbers of them in place by Desert Shield/Storm. And there are photos of Cs being painted white, so before the Navy switched missiles to the tactical paint schemes. You can at least see on Ranger's 1987 cruise there is a photo of a 54C in white:

    image.png

    On the second part, basically the stocks of As were used for live fires and expended until they were either gone or the motors were unsafe to use. During the transition photos have been spotted where there were 54Cs with white motor/fin sections and grey seekers for example.

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  8. 8 minutes ago, Bremspropeller said:

    I can offer you a non-slatted pre-Midas IV TISEO bird. Didn't even know they existed until a couple of weeks ago, since I was under the presumption TISEO was a post-slat thing.

    eff6fd1d9252de18b452e9c2bf57085c4975d5ae.jpeg

     

    I ran across a comment somewhere that TISEO may have been retrofitted on a limited number of airframes around Rivet Haste, and looking at the serial of that jet, it would have to be. It's either 66-0317, 67-0317, or 68-0317. There were no higher XX-0317s produced so it's not like it was a 71- Rivet Haste new-production rushed to SEA jet.

    It's probably 68-0317, which was shown as assigned to 421 TFS in 1972, who had the LC tailcode. Looks like it's the one, has Hey Jude nose art:

    0302-10-2-3.jpg

     

    There really isn't any concrete info out there on this jet having the TISEO added, because later photos it's not there. It very well looks like either TISEO kits were rushed out there to the 421 TFS, or a few jets were modified and sent out there (can see one in the background there) separate from the Rivet Haste jets that were 71- and had slats, and sent to the 555th.

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  9. 1 minute ago, Nealius said:

    Well that seems to explain why I typically only see photos of the same 4~6 BuNos being launched/airborne when I peruse seaforces.org. 

    So with TARPS, there were dedicated TARPS birds that could NOT take LANTIRN, and the LANTIRN birds could NOT take TARPS?

    Only certain jets came from Grumman wired for TARPS originally. When LANTIRN came along those were not selected for the mod. Apparently LANTIRN and TARPS shared the same panel areas in the A and B so you would be unable to operate both pods anyways.

    B Upgrade and the digital BUS may have allowed for more B models being TARPS capable, seems to be conflicting info there. On the D they could all carry TARPS and I believe LANTIRN as well. Some Ds even carried TARPS and LANTIRN at the same time, though I don't know how they operated both if TARPS needed dedicated space also used by the LANTIRN control panel.

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  10. 31 minutes ago, Nealius said:

    During combat (OIF, OEF) were LANTIRNS available for every jet or were they parted out to only a handful per squadron?

    I don't believe so, later in life as the squadrons transitioned there were probably more pods to go around, like the PTIDs finally making their way into F-14Ds. But some of the commentary around stated something like 6 pods for a squadron, so if a jet went down they'd have to move the pod around and ideally take the PTID with it. At that kind of rate my guess is that a pair of Tomcats would have 1 of the jets with the pod to lase for both.

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  11. 19 hours ago, Quid said:

    For question 1, they would have had PTIDs installed.  The F-14A and pre-upgrade B couldn't "talk" to LANTIRN without it (lacked the databus, had to be wired for LANTIRN separately, and interacted with the pod and other systems using the PTID).[1]   

    For question 2, those CBUs don't appear to have any laser package installed, so I'm guessing the LANTIRN is there for buddy-lasing, but will defer to someone with better knowledge.

    Sources:

    1. Lake, Tony (ed.), F-14 BOMBCAT, The US Navy's Ultimate Precision Bomber, Air Forces Magazine, 1 Jan 2015, 32-33.

    Untrue. VF-154 deployed with LANTIRN pods and no PTIDs in '96-'98 timeframe, with PTIDs starting to show up to their squadron around '98. The F-14As needed the PTID more because their TIDs were mostly burned out and difficult to read during the day. Source, from VF-154 crew and maintainers via the Tomcat Assn. Also photos from Dave Parsons during the testing with VF-103 of LANTIRN on a regular TID. LANTIRN was being done separately from the PTID project which was out at Pt Mugu as part of the MCAP. They just happened to be working in parallel and PTID was shown to greatly benefit the use of LANTIRN. So those screens were prioritized for As with LANTIRN and Bs with LANTIRN, but not the D as theirs was digital and didn't have the burn issues.

    As far as the LANTIRN pod, it was more difficult to remove/reinstall so it was typically left on the jet. It would also allow for ID/Observation but wouldn't be part of designating or use in the drop itself.

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  12. 32 minutes ago, Blaze1 said:

    By the AN/ALR-67 being "...exclusively an F/A-18 RWR", I assume you mean it's the only RWR the Hornet ever used, rather than no other jet using it?

    I don't think the fuzzbuster story is just a legend, but I should have been clearer in my post.  There was an article with the vice-president/former vice-president of the Whistler company that manufactured the fuzzbusters, in this case the Whistler Q1000.  The Navy bought a whole bunch of them for an absolute bargain, made some small modifications (which surprised the Whistler engineers), most notably drilling a hole precisely in the correct spot to disable the K-band antenna, because the Navy were interested in the X-band spectrum.

    The VP didn't really want to get involved, because there was far too much bureaucracy and time involved with the Navy for such a small order.  A funny anecdote, the Navy wanted the items shipped in plain boxes rather than the standard, Whistler multicoloured design, but the President refused and said the best they could do was stencil "No Step" on the box to make it milspec.😂  The Navy also sent them a ton of paperwork to fill and they just sent it all back as the whole ordeal was such a headache for a small order.

    Regarding the A-6 fuzzbuster, it wasn't really, at least the one I'm talking about.  It was an urgent interim upgrade to detect CW emissions, most notably from the Hawk system.  There were two pairs of lights on the glareshield, one for the pilot, the other for the B/N, but they were identical.  Each indicator had a green and a yellow light, which alerted the crew to a CW emission from the left or right side of the jet.

     

    We've got pics around of the F-14 implementation, which I believe they borrowed/got from the A-6 community at Whidbey. I'd assume it was a similar or same model, granted I have no idea what actual model of radar detector they used. My understanding as well is they hit the PCB with a soldering iron to make it only work on the radar band or bands they wanted based on some of the anecdotes I read. Sounds like they just bought them from Radio Shack and wired/mounted them up, and when the SWIP Intruders came in they didn't need them anymore as the new RWR could properly detect the bands SA-6s, Hawks, etc. used.

    41500620_1947759961910831_89418867651075

     

    Oh hey, you can just see one here, looks like the same model in an Intruder, look directly left of the pilot's visor. Connie's 88/89 cruise:

    393351432_2548136642020708_2476997187112

     

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  13. On 11/8/2023 at 7:52 AM, Squidly said:

    HB_F14_EXT_04.psd on the google drive seems to be missing several critical layers for the texture.  @ensamvarg

     

    I have again redownloaded ext04, and everything is exactly as it should be. All folders, liveries, etc. are present and it opens correctly in Adobe CC 2023 and 2024.

    What version of photoshop are you using? Are you downloading the PSD individually or the full template .rar?

  14. It's one of those things best done in a tool that does it all at once, namely the whole Substance 3D suite, as you can "paint" with PBR materials and then layer in the weathering, scratches, scuffs, stains, etc. There's been some comments around that something like that *could* happen, but it will be time intensive and not a quickly delivered thing. As I understand the F-14's cockpit (or really its whole model/texturing) was done differently than the upcoming F-4, where the F-14 took the photo scans and then cleaned them up by hand, the F-4 was all done by hand. With Substance you can dynamically create various levels of wear and tear as desired, without losing that base "depth" and feel of the painted metal panels.

    And yes, they had validated in the past that the existing cockpit was not just straight up scanned from a museum jet and dropped in, it was cleaned up significantly and adjusted to SME input of what a jet typically looked like on cruise.

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  15. 17 hours ago, Katsu said:

    Just to clarify, Today's phoenix performance is based on these test values, correct? 

     

    Those are not test values, NASA never fired a Phoenix in the hypersonic tests. They were projections and were based around a modified Phoenix missile, being launched at Mach 2 at 48,000 feet. The information was reviewed but the core performance values were taken from other sources and the performance in-sim was compared against some documented test shots with an extremely close match. Unfortunately missile guidance has been problematic and encountered a number of hangups that have hampered the missile's performance.

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  16. It's not an issue of "block", the foreign nations modified their jets for different capabilities. They went out and purchased or pulled hardware together, wired it into the jets, and used it. Where's the docs on how it was done? How it was controlled? What did the panels look like? For any of these export Phantoms you need to have the docs about HOW it was done for it to be implemented in some way, which then starts to beg the questions of "if you added X, what about Y from country Z"? Then they're down the rabbit hole of which exported jets to try and pursue, with everyone hurt that their particular jet wasn't done. At this point they've already said they are not rushing to do any other variants, there's already a lot on the plate.

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  17. 4 minutes ago, Harlikwin said:

    Yeah the history of LANTIRN is pretty well known. The other stuff less so. Especially nite hawk, which is sorta a sad story since it mostly suffered from the company being sold/re-orged etc. I've seen dates for Nitehawk in the early 80's on 18A's which I very much doubt, aside from testing possibly. Seems like it would have been late 80's like most of the other systems. And then there were the various updates to it, as it initially lacked a self lasing capability.

    The PVS-5 stuff does date back to the 70's for helos, hueys/transport stuff mostly, I'm not aware of anyone that trialed it in fast movers. ANVIS was mid 80's, the first Gen3 tubes IIRC were built in 82-3 at the whopping 1 million each price tag. Plus their lifespan back then was absolutely terrible. 

    PVS-5's were used in the Falkland's by helo crews with basically no training that led to a regrettable and largely preventable accident, though it was ascribed to a middle of the night bird strike rather than the much more likely spatial distortion/loss of SA. 

     

    I mentioned because I started finding some Air Force stuff on DTIC talking about the differences of ANVIS vs the 5A, which may have some ideas as to what it was tested with and who. 

  18. 5 minutes ago, Harlikwin said:

    Yeah in general USAF development for NVG's was in the testing phases in the later 80's. Mostly because they saw the issues with the earlier Gen2 stuff that the Army was doing with helos, terrible resolution (28lp/mm or worse lol), bad MTF's, bad spectral response etc. By the time the first gen3 tubes came around you had alot of that fixed, but it also applied alot to the Gen2 tubes as well, aside from the spectral response and gain. I actually have several PVS-5 sets that were modded for night flying over the years and at least the very late ones don't compare too badly resolution/MTF wise to early gen3 tubes, but again, in the very dark dark there is no question. In a sense it looks like the navy was pushing stuff out of testing earlier than the USAF tho, but with inferior tubes and systems. It would be interesting to see stuff like accident rates for those units back then. The helo rates were so bad they basically developed an entire sylabus for when it was just permitted to fly with them, and even when you did you had to employ pink lights. 

    Plus the USAF was all about thermal and especially stuff like hud presented thermal etc. As was the navy and marines. And you obviously see that in the early 80's in the early forms with the LANA pods, and then nite-hawk, and the Harrier navflir. Or for the USAF with the LANTIRN development. 

     

     

    I'm getting some more info coming in, start looking at AN/PVS-SA or 5A, seems it's either they're the same thing or text scans think they are. Seeing papers referencing tests of ANVIS vs PVS-5A back to 83-84, and more testing may have been occurring even back to '75. Hoping to eventually start finding what airframes they tested with first and if any did more exploratory OT&E in the F-4 at all.

  19. Still searching for more about when the Air Force really started to push for NVGs in the cockpit but coming up empty. For as much as Desert Storm is described as the war where we owned the night and how NVGs changed night warfare, I'm not finding a lot. But the Marines have been referenced as using the aforementioned MXU-810 in their Harriers at the time and the Harrier Night Attack and Night Attack Hornets existed at the time, the first NA F/A-18D rolled off the McD factory and was delivered to the Marines in '89.

    I'm going to guess the F-117s didn't immediately need the NVGs with their FLIR but I'd really have thought there would be more coverage of NVG usage during the Gulf War. We know ANVIS was in the works and new aircraft were being designed as NV compatible, but I guess folks really didn't want to take photos of the ones in use. The search continues.

    Also got further validation regarding Cat's Eyes being very tightly controlled, which is why you don't see them much outside in collections. NSWC Crane had a very tight line on them for issuing/maintenance and all the sets were to go back to them. Got that verified through someone else later in the mid-90s who used them in other Navy aircraft, eventually at least 700 of the roughly 800 sets Crane had issued out were returned last they had heard as it was phased out.

    Obligatory Cat's Eyes photo from VX-5 in '90

    http://www.chinalakealumni.org/1990/Rktr-900831-01.jpg

     

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  20.  

    34 minutes ago, upyr1 said:

    Actually, it might not be as fictional as you think If you take a look at this map showing the nations that used the STARM

    AGM-78_Standard_ARM_Users.png

     

    There are 3 countries in blue. The US was the only nation to use the F-4G however all the nations used the F-4E. So did they fire STARMs from the E? If so what variants and how much do they differ from ours? 

     

    They differed in that the Israelis jerry-rigged their jets to work with them, just like they also later modified their jets to work with the Popeye missile. STARM requires hardware and panels to interface with the missile which the US E lacks, and which the G had.

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