LanceCriminal86

It's always fulfilling to get that, I'm glad it didn't take you over a year like it did for me to figure out the lettering on a stencil for a reserve squadron right before they retired their Tomcats.

I think that should be ALQ-126 for the ECM no?

Man, I was kind of counting on Aviano having some. Good to know! Do we know if any AF F-4E squadrons in the 70s/80s ever did some joint stuff out of Israel? Even there for exercises or training?

I think we've got a pretty good base of US skins recommended now, at least for a good start on Marianas. So for the Marianas, the mentioned squadrons from Japan, Korea, and Clark AFB, potentially plus the QRF from the Carolinas (I'll try to update the initial posts soon). How about for the Mediterranean? Syria/PG, what squadrons might have been the closest to operate in those zones? How about Caucuses? My thoughts there were forward bases in Italy or maybe Germany?

The J actually had more overlap and cruises around the Tomcat's service than either the N or S. N and S basically means the Midway and Coral Sea, that's about it, and only up through like '86. Timewise the J is almost a no-brainer at this point. And it sounds like the details needed to do an S may be a lot tougher to get hands on.

They don't stay that way when fired. The ultimate solution is additional model/variant on ED's core side with changing livery. If they never converted 54As to be white then it might all be moot and we just need white As.

Prototype, 7983 on the tail so it's 157983. 60 started with 158612. If the AIM-54As didn't get repainted gray then that might simplify the situation. With a separate AIM-54A model ED could add a switch in the LUA, ideally one that could be activated within the F-14 livery itself would work best. And the existing 54C can also be given a white skin alternate as there were some around.

The bottom line is in reality they were based on date. Block 95s and higher were still around into the late 90s, there were As without the ECM upgrades introduced at the end of Block 110 on OEF/OIF cruises. And those same "early" jets obviously were flying around in the Gulf War with the gray missiles, the 2nd Sidra incident was during the transitional period and it looks like their Sparrows were already gray at the time. I'd rather push for a more accurate and logical way to manage it than arbitrarily lock what you see as "early" jets to having a specific missile.

The in-flight missiles are on the ED side as I understand. You can skin a missile within a livery to be white but on launch, it reverts to the world/environment skin within ED's side of the sim. Apparently ED had started to work a framework in for weapon liveries as implemented on some of the bombs with Navy ablative coatings, but it would require that to be done on the ED side as far as I know. Also from there, how do you control when the missiles change color? It's not based on variant, it should be based on dates. Old Tomcats were flying well into the 90s with gray Phoenix, and during the changeover periods in the late 80s mixes were seen of gray and white. If ED can have a livery display based on the mission editor date that would be ideal.

Were ECS failures in flight an issue?

USN: - E-2C Hawkeye - SH-3 Sea King - EA-6B NATO: - Lockheed Tristar tanker with drogue

The reality of the IRST on the Phantom and Tomcat A seems to consistently be that it was useless. Completely.

You're not the only long range shooter on the block. The ballistic coefficient of the bullet itself plays a large part in how that energy is retained, and not all previously "popular" long range bullets actually have that great of a BC. Case in point, the .50 BMG for a while was somewhat pressganged into being a long range sniper round, yet for most things it's easily outclassed by the .338 LM. Longer, skinnier bullets have less drag and tend to be more stable. The .338 LM is a longer and narrower bullet than the typical .50 BMG ball or even match bullet, has less weight, and yet is a more stable and accurate round with excellent BC. There are other bullets in .224 that easily do 1k plus yards, and some 6.5mm bullets do better than others. Length, diameter, and bullet shape are all part of it. And if you haven't looked at the back of the Phoenix it's a straight body from behind the nosecone to the end, it doesn't have a boat-tail like a bullet. That reduces the missile's drag coefficient as well, which has been illustrated in the discussions about the plume effect while the motor is burning reducing drag. No burning motor, more drag. The NASA data shows that the Phoenix is a big missile with not a great "ballistic coefficient", and once the motor is down that drag catches back up.

So, full MIL thrust @450 or so? Did you shut off the ECS to verify as well?

Yeah Naval Phantom probably will be sometime after the A-6E, which is currently last in line. I wouldn't totally rule the Draken out either, we already know it gets @IronMikehot and bothered. And the F-4E release surprised even people that work with HB on a daily basis. Hell I sorta knew it was happening and supplied some reference pics, and had zero idea that trailer was about to drop, or that it was happening this year.

Between talking to a couple of RIOs and reading some NATO AAR docs, the probe light isn't intended to be like a headlight on a car. The tanker itself has lighting (with the layout depending on the AC), and the probe light generally helped out to about ~20 feet from what I was told. Ambient light and lighting from the tanker obviously would +/- that, but it sounded like the visibility is somewhere in-between where it is now (practically in the basket) and what some folks want to see (totally illuminating out to precontact). So, aircraft like the S-3 and future KA-6, it's going to remain a challenge, but the probe light should help some there since you have to be in pretty close anyways tanking off of those jets. With KC-10s, British Tristars, KC-135s, and I believe KC-130s, some had illumination actually in the basket, while others had ambient lighting and spotlights underneath the aircraft to provide illumination of the basket and hose between the tanker and tankee. I don't know if we currently have it but depending on dates, some tanking baskets should have illumination, either illuminated strips like formation lights, or actual lights behind the basket that would make it "glow" a little.

He actually had done part of the summer down at Pensacola so he had water survival and ejection seat qual done. One of the big reasons he got to even have his name in the hat. He's won exactly two raffles in his life. The first was at Pensacola and got an extra T-2 flight and stick time, and the second being the Phantom hop, on which he actually took Bill Lindner's flight that day because his pilot was an Air Force exchange pilot and per Bill that's who he was usually paired with. He originally was wanting to go aviation then got hit with our family eyesight genes. Away went the distance vision and 20/20. Same happened to me at almost exactly the same age. One day I realized while driving that I couldn't read the road signs on I-95.

My dad got a ride in an F-4B with VF-14 in '72 off the Kennedy, and to this day it's the most exhilarating thing he ever did. Growing up he always told me about Phantoms, and even though had he been on the Kennedy only 3 years later he could have had a Tomcat ride, he said he'd never change a thing. When they showed up at the Naval Academy for a tour in '69, their bus parked next to a Phantom that was on display. He always remembered that the Phantom was larger than a Greyhound Bus and it always stuck with him how ridiculous it was that a plane that big was that fast. I'm just hoping a "J" comes out in time for me to give him a "ride" soon enough, but I know it will probably be well after the Tomcat wraps, the Eurofighter is released, Intruder, and then a few years after that probably.

Desert Storm and any of the incidents where a cruise got extended like that for months are definitely examples where you'd see a lot of the CC, boot grime by the canopy, and the paint fading.

Oh I have, I have some of those very photos I was looking at. But not all of them were THAT extensive in coverage as 212. It would make sense that extended cruises would also result in more CC being potentially necessary. There's also instances where it appears some jets received more thorough repaints or touchups of their TPS potentially during the cruise, or as shown other colors were used for the CC. That VF-84 pic being a pretty clear and extreme example. In the Gull Gray era the CC paint probably matched the base coat more closely, perhaps they were using up existing stocks of paint for CC through the 80s, leading to the more extreme example of 212 that seems to have every other panel and panel line painted. But other cruises, other squadrons, and even through the 90s and 00s I haven't seen many examples that thoroughly covered with corrosion control. What I'm trying to say is that everything has *context*. Heavy "weathering", corrosion control, stencils painted over, all the kinds of things some guys like to see are a progressive thing over the span of a cruise.

Even just on its own, the F-4J covers a lot of territory. Mid-1960s all the way up to the early 80s, applicable not only to all 4 of the Forrestal class but any of the other conventional US carriers, the Enterprise, and even the Nimitz. As interesting as the S would be, it wasn't a major player on the Navy side outside of the Midway. But if Heatblur were to offer another "twofer" it would potentially offer less additional development than the F-4N, which similarly had a short lifespan in frontline Navy use as the S.

The F-4J and S fit that timeline for late Vietnam and then through the 80s, and the S was an upgrade of the Js so they're a logical pair. The B and N pairing would be a possibility but without as much "longevity", if only by a few years. It looks like the N joined the fleet in '73 and the last were retired from Navy use in '84. '83 was the last active duty cruise. In contrast the J started being delivered in '66 and the S first hit the fleet in '79, the last reserve Navy use being '86 (and last Phantom traps and cat shots. Marines used them until '92 in the reserves. If Vietnam ever actually happens, then it would make sense someday to revisit and do a B and C/D possibly, though even the B and C may have enough divergence in systems and visuals to make that a challenge. As for the carriers: Forrestal had Js from '74 (VF-11 and 31) until a single cruise in '82 with S (VF-74 and 103 aboard, probably the last before their conversion to Tomcats) before her SLEP and 11/31 returned with Tomcats in '86. Saratoga had Js from '70 until they got Tomcats in the '84 cruise (after 2-3 year SLEP overhaul, probably included changes to catapults) with VF-103 and VF-74. Ranger had Js from '68-'79 (VF-21 and VF-154) until VF-1 and 2 came aboard for the '80 cruise. Looks like her SLEP was after the '76 cruise, with one more F-4J cruise in '79 after it so I guess they did retain the ability to launch bridled or with the launch bar. Which makes sense as even with Tomcats and other launch bar jets the old A-3s and A-5s were still operating. And of course Independence had Js from '68 through '80, a ~2 year SLEP, then Tomcats aboard for the '82 cruise. To have more historical carrier use of the F-4S you'd almost have to have the Midway and/or Coral Sea. None of the Kitty Hawks or Kennedy had any cruises with them, nor Enterprise, or any of the Nimitz class. Which kind of stinks, but they were in use by the Marines so you can always include them from land bases or fudge them in a fictional scenario or deployment. Who knows, Leatherneck is including a nice Essex with the Corsair, I suppose it shouldn't be totally out of the question that Midway, Coral Sea, or Franklin could maybe be considered with it. At this time I do not believe HB has any plans outside of completing the Forrestal class.

I provided Cobra photos of Col Olds' helmet (on request) from the USAF Museum and in use (courtesy @hoglan83 on IG) with no context provided for its use. So yes, it is Col Olds' HGU-2 helmet. And I don't believe that was necessarily the upcoming external model or pilot model. But the pilot model will be of that pattern, USAF flight gear with HGU-2 helmet and original straight visor housing, with MBU-5 mask as that's accurate for the late VN and into the 70s. It may be that the models themselves are simply not ready for a sizzle reel but per Cobra's own commentary they decided it was time to lift the sheet because it probably would have been hard to keep it a secret much longer. Who knows, maybe it partly is the external model and pilot gear.

There's some pics of AA-212 looking a lot like that, but for other folks I wouldn't call that typical. I've already got a 1986 skin of them mostly done but was going to hold the Sluggers until I can get VF-74 done up to go with them, and would like to have them come out if/when Saratoga happens.

Have you ever been a pilot with a RIO/WSO in the back?