LanceCriminal86

VSN does have an EA-6B you can use for AI already. Lots of work already happening with the paint templates.

From everything I've heard including folks that tested VTAS with VX-4 in the Phantom and Tomcat, there's a reason it went away for another 40 years before coming back in the JHMCS/AIM-9X pairing. VTAS helmets were heavy and cumbersome, and under Gs extremely straining to keep ones head up and tracking the target. And, the Sidewinder itself just wasn't ready for it. Just saying if VTAS were suddenly presented don't expect it to be like the Hornet with 9Xs.

The A's folder name should be F-14A-135-GR

@joojooThis is the thread you seek, Admiral189 has a US supply ship in the pipe along with lots of other goodies and cold war stuff!

Considering how much Tomcat documentation has been shredded, forgotten, etc. I think the Phantom will come down to "whichever variant has the most documentation", no matter the developer. While the E does offer opportunities to use export variants the amounts of modifications made by each of the big export users would be staggering to try and model as one jet. I mean there has to be a point at which some extrapolations are made to fill in gaps, but I know the study sim crowd hate to think of it. Sadly, that means most of what we want will be truly inaccessible at this level of simulation. Case in point the whole PTID situation, our era cats SHOULD have it. But, there just isn't enough out there to backfill all the symbology, sub menus, etc. because they're either in manuals that are not released to the public, they were shredded as Grumman or whoever did the integrations and digital bus stuff closed up shop, or the stuff that is around only covers a small portion of it. I wish we could get to a point where starting from what is available and "filling the blanks" with personal accounts or at least with similar systems could be accepted by developers and consumers until better documents arrive. Hell make it an "unofficial" addon with a big honking disclaimer that it's not up to HB's standards yet. At this point it's no less historical than late 90s Bs and As with lantirns and old fishbowls. But I digress. At the LEAST, hopefully one of these folks who keep teasing Phantom mods can get some AI F-4B or F-4J models in that can be painted up as N/S, to help fill out the 80s feel. Maybe if the A-4E community team starts to release code and documents for their EFM mods can start using that to give flight models with some more feel to them.

@Victory205 Would that be VMFA-112 Cowboys? They were at Carswell JRB in Hornets when I was in high school but I believe they were at NAS Dallas before?

I think if specific eras actually start to solidify in DCS that would help decide which versions to do for USN. The B did much of the VN workload but the J was there as well later, and extended into the Cold War. From there you have the N and S upgrades of the B and J respectively, it makes sense to do a B/N or J/S pairing due to them being reworks/upgrades of the respective airframes adding leading edge slats and making some engine changes, plus electronics/EWAR. If we actually started to see VN being a thing then the B would be the ubiquitous choice, though the N upgrade I think lasted the shortest amount of time as they were retired to retain the S, which in turn left Navy service by 1986 when even the reserves finally moved to Tomcats. What it would come down to, like the Tomcat and the A-6E, is documentation. How many systems can Heatblur get enough manuals and docs for, how many RIOs, pilots, avionics techs can they find and can they remember everything that's needed. It may be that one variant has better documentation than another. I'd be happy with the B and S even though they are from different base airframes. One was peak Vietnam, the other got us through the Cold War on the older carriers like Midway, Coral Sea, etc. that couldn't hold Tomcats. But, HB may want to come back to something Swedish, Euro, or totally different when the Tomcat and Intruder are "done". Perhaps Leatherneck/M3 would tackle Phantoms since they were also USMC jets. We'll have to see how the Crusader turns out.

The Forrestal will be available to all, kind of like the KC-130 that shipped with the Harrier. The AI A-6E will be as well. Cold War ships will always be appreciated. I wish I could shoulder surf the workflow involved in getting a ship model or AI aircraft in-game because I'd love to do it. We all have different interests and won't always want the same things others will.

@Victory205 I'd heard that the F-4s were more forgiving in the carrier landing pattern due to the whole boundary layer thing, did you have time in both F-4s and F-14s? Also, I talked to "P2" from 201 last night on the phone for a while and am expecting a call from "Rug", not sure if they were there when you were. "P2" mentioned he was dual qual'd as RIO on the Phantom and the Tomcat, and apparently "Rug" let him taxi their last VF-201 Tomcat at Davis-Monthan from I guess the transient parking are over to its spot by "the museum" as he called it. He and "Goose" have been filling me in on lots of details about their last year of Tomcats there in 1998.

Something of note, I've found tons of photos as well as 2-3 personal examples of helmets where the strobe is on the pilot's right. So for the OCD maybe shift the velcro patch to that side, and if you want variety shift it around. It's a pain but if you do it right you could have 3-4 different spots and then a set of roughmets/normals for each and just random them up between pilot/RIO And I'll drop this in here again, an EXCELLENT resource for helmets: http://www.salimbeti.com/aviation/helmets3.htm

I think you spelled HGU-55 wrong.... But Forrestal is cool too and Viggen guys deserve the love!

VSN has been dropping a lot of good stuff lately. As more work is done on EFM for the Community A-4E I bet we will see more mods using EFM and having some more features and feeling to them.

Definitely interested in any template upgrades. I'm a sucker for big sexy textures. I keep meaning to do some Prowler skins but Grumman's big sexy cat keeps eating up all my time.

I did some snooping today, there are models out there for the Long Beach, Virginia, and Texas CGNs that would be pretty neat, but they were either cheap and mdeiocre, or very expensive and had 600k polys. There's a USS Midway though and it's really tempting to look at. Not megacheap but, maybe when I get a few flight gear things knocked out, I might be tempted to grab. It would have to be rigged and animated, probably some additional texture work, add PBR ie Roughmet, normals, etc. but there is experience on the boards with animating a carrier to have elevators, blast and blast shields. It would be even neater if there was a way to give it supercarrier hook-ins if you have the module but unlikely.

Has there been discussion around adding different helmet options? The current one is spot on for late 80s/90s Aggressor use, but something more like an APH-6 or perhaps an HGU-33 would be a closer fit for the general timeframe of the A-4E. APH-6 Single Visor: APH-6 Dual Visor, aka the Ram's Horn: HGU-33, as seen in the Heatblur Tomcat and in Top Gun. Primary Navy fixed-wing helmet 70s to late 80s & early 90s: This one possibly from a USMC A-4 Agressor squadron https://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/275108-bought-this-hgu-33-what-squadronaircraft/ The HGU-55 or rather converted HGU-33 style presently in the mod came about in the very late 1980s and into the 90s to present. http://www.salimbeti.com/aviation/images/helmets/hgu34-13.jpg One option may be, like the F/A-18, use an animation argument to add on the visor housing model, then control it through the livery file. Alternately set the whole helmet up in animation argument and swap out the pilot helmet or whole head maybe.

There's a decent chance this is my helmet, either during or after the guy traded it in for a new one: More on topic though, I'm starting to work on fixing up my F-14B template with the needed changes/deletions and am going to update my old VF-32 CoNA skins.

When you start nerding out on Tomcats and flight gear for skins, it leads you to the same places. Then it turns into collecting and you bank account suffers. I could easily have had a Virpil stick, extension, and pedals but instead there's this: Now I have 7 helmets and shells and none of them are "complete".... But hey, one has been identified as being part of VTAS testing at Pt Mugu in Tomcats and Phantoms, and the same or similar helmet seems to be in a few photos I've found.

81 looks to be the last cruise with the blue helmets, there may have been some all blue done in 82 but by the time of their cruise book, they were white tape base.

I know whose that is, I will try and ask if he knows when the last cruise was for the full blue helmets. If you're doing 1981 and they still had them, then totally do it. VF-84, 114, and 213 stuck with the fancy painted helmets a bit longer I think than some other squadrons, but by 82 for sure it looks like they were using the taped base helmets in white, as the Navy made it mandatory fleet wide.

First note, that helmet in the photo is a rare 70s transitional helmet as the HGU-33 came online. You can see it's an APH-6 Custom with the Swingaline mask bayonets. If you're not in the Tomcat Association FB page, get there. There's a good photo of a 1982-1983 cruise helmet, but so far nothing detailed showing 1981 or before. It's hard to pick out from the 1981 cruise, might be the blue helmets still but none of the pics are clear enough here: https://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/cv66-81/576.htm Photos from VF-114 did show they still had their Black with Orange helmets, so maybe they hadn't been hit with the Navy order for all white base taping. By 1982, they had white helmets, taped. You can see it in the 1982 cruise book here: https://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/cvn65-82/386.htm https://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/cvn65-82/390.htm https://www.navysite.de/cruisebooks/cvn65-82/396.htm Need to build yourself some non-taped base textures. I took the original from the VF-74 Adversary skin and used a lot of clone/blur tool to eliminate the tape lines. Then used a lot of blur tool to blend in the background to create a "base" un-taped helmet. Once you get a plain base you can start building layers and groups with some masks, and go wild. Then you need to basically do the same in the Roughmets and the Normals, eliminate the tape lines. Ideally you also should relocate the Velcro to pilot's right. It's where most of the IR strobe patches have been in lots of Tomcats and USN helmets I've seen. Then move the velcro roughmet/normal portions over. After all that, you can tweak the blue and green layers of the roughmet to give the helmet some shine. Can't really do the metallic flake but maybe use heavy noise on the metallic layer to have brighter/shiny points all around.

Have you guys come across any models for Korea era carriers or perhaps the later converted Essex? USS Midway, Hornet, or Lexington would be a great find since they were used actively or as training carriers (Lex) all the way into the 80s or 90s I believe.

It didn't make the cut, but still working on the VF-201 1998 CAG jet and now some line jet skins. I found the RIO of the jet from the below photo, and have been working on AF112 to represent her in the last year of VF-201's Tomcat era. Waiting to hear about stencils and such, but got info that she had red striped tails. Apparently 201 had a smattering of different tails that last year. Making changes to the TPS paint colors, notably turning off some adjustment layers in the template. This seems to get really close to later photos of VF-31's cats with modern cameras, fresh paint samples, and when you mess with lighting and account for paint fade as well as camera film from the 90s, seems to replicate the general colors of TPS IMO a bit more accurately. In bright light it washes the contrast out almost, and in the shade you get a striking contrast. This is before I got the corrections from the RIO. A lineup of VF-201's cats in 1998, their final year. After I got the info that they had the older style red tail stripes on 112

Got it added to a tracker I've been running. Stumbled across a couple model issues again last night, going to see if I can get those submitted as well.

I blew away the old folders entirely before trying the 2x beta, but I did install the beta 2 release and then the "dev" build on top of that. It sounds to me like a looping sound conflict of some kind, so I'll just blow the folder away and try the Dev build only.

No, this is outside idling the jet, in flight, etc. and is not the slats. And was only when behind the jet. I may delete the folder and only drop the dev build in, see if that's it. This sounded like a looped sound as it was consistent and timed and was not based on flight. On the radio side, I haven't gotten any comms from the ground, carrier, etc. Yes I can launch the jet on the carrier. Perhaps I've missed something? I can't remember what radio settings I have as far as easy comms etc. but doing the same I normally do in a full fidelity module I'm not getting comms with ATC or Supercarrier.