LanceCriminal86

We're supposed to get the bullet fairing for the TCS, that I believe is locked on and had been said more than once. To me it seemed a no-brainer that if they were already in there adding the bullet fairing variant, doing the completely TCS-less version would make sense and tie all 3 to a custom animation argument. But, we will have to see what they end up deciding. Maybe down the road it could be done as bigger things are completed. As random model innacuracies are pointed out, and maybe as ED keeps introducing/changing model features they will take another look at it later on. Also I believe the deal with the Iranian F-14s was that they would have been compatible with the AIM-7Fs and AIM-9Ls that US Tomcats had, but the shipments were halted due to the revolution and never arrived. Thus, the Iranians had older AIM-7E and AIM-9J stocks that simply weren't compatible with the WCS they received, if the Iranian Colonel's interview is accurate. So during the Iran-Iraq War they only had Phoenix and the gun, and used a few Hawk missiles late in the war. I think it would be cool and somewhat hilarious to implement the Hawk using some basis of the AIM-7's guidance system. I'm not sure if we can properly mod it in because you'd have to make sure the Hawk had the right reference points to sit on the Tomcat's wing glove hardpoints. Likely very low on the priorities to make it happen but would be interesting to see. The original Hawk missiles had a 16 mile engagement range and later B variants are listed at 22 miles, but those figures are probably for a ground firing. An aircraft at speed and altitude could probably extend that range significantly. Peak velocity is listed as 1,600 fps, which again at higher altitudes and launch speeds might be even greater.

Why not the old O-1 Bird dogs? Not quite full-on bush plane in the big swampy tires and 6 inch landing distance, but is both historical for a few eras represented and a pretty short take off plane. I'm sure the Russians had something similar, the AN-2 Colt is quite a bit bigger, and for WW2 the Germans had the Storch.

You know what's funny, is I'm pretty sure I put all of those things in my post because these are the FAQs. And just like the repeat threads that are the reason to create a FAQ, folks skipped right past it and wrote the same things instead of checking to see if anyone already listed it.

Things we see a lot: 1.) What eras are represented in the B and upcoming A model, ex: "The B represents a B model of the mid-late 1990s, prior to GPS integration and the B UPGRADE which included RIO MFD and JDAMS". - Under that, a quick A vs B capability comparison, like armament, power/handling, cockpit, RWR, etc. 2.) What Jester will be able to do, and/or won't be able to do. Options you plan to add on his interactions, like chatty cathy vs pertinent only, aka the really boring people that are too cool for his jokes apparently. 3.) Status of some intended (or at least soft "we'd like that") features such as: - Custom cockpit skins, for those wanting fresh cockpits or VR optimized ones. - Dynamic MODEX (ED keeps changing them on the Hornet and Viper, but curious what the thoughts are to represent at least a few common "line" bird locations and fonts. - TARPS pod : What you'd like it to do, what it definitely won't be doing. - Wing glove vanes : Blurb of why they will not be modeled, rather modeled as bolted shut as later on was common. - Option to remove fuel tank pylon and run slick, maybe even with AIM-9 wing glove pylons. 4.) And a big fat one: Why you guys aren't doing the D model, what documentation is missing, what's still under wraps, etc. We see them every other thread, every other week. 5.) How the Iranian Cats will be configured, visual model difference plus weapons and any avionics changes. 6.) Post A-Model release, where will resources be directed aside from obvious bug fixing? Forrestal then A-6 AI, A-6 AI then Forrestal after? TARPS? Sound? 7.) Status of Supercarrier compatibility. - Does ICLS show the right glideslope in HUD - Does Airboss and meatball show right glideslope, right AOA, etc. - Any planned SC specific extras or integration 8.) As big stuff gets knocked down, can we make some requests depending on availability of modeler and texture guy resources? - Worth asking, could you guys manage to just do the proper TCS-less setup with just the little bump? I mentioned elsewhere but custom arguments in models allow for swapping parts around, if the TCS could be done that way you could have one model for the A and just have all 3 modeled, using an argument to swap between TCS, bullet fairing, and then just the nub. - If you DID do this, adding the D model TCS/IRST housing would at least allow for a usable D model AI aircraft. Food for thought. - Throw in HGU-68 helmets in addition to planned HGU-55 - Optional removed IFR probe covers. Commonly seen here and there through the time period being represented, and also on the Iranian A models. As mentioned again, maybe as a custom argument in the skin LUA files? - Fixing the extra NACA duct on right engine nacelle that I wasn't able to find present on any Tomcat models, A, B, or D. I assume that the left side of the plane was referenced and then it was mirrored over. One last one, for the Viggen guys because I feel for them: What's going on with the AI Drakken they were supposedly getting? I don't own the module but can certainly see why the Viggen guys might be upset.

Neat! I've been playing with the revised shaders Mustang released as well as reshade to try and get some good general use and "photo" style filters in game. Using letterbox and the old filmic pass setting in Reshade makes for a really nice Top Gun look when you put the F4 camera in the locations they used for filming.

October works well for me, I have a massive amount of school to get done before 31 October anyways. That will help set that distraction to the side. My goal is to get some good VF-201 skins released and tweaked for the A model, at least the line birds while I continue to revise the final CAG bird.

Ooooooh, settings please. I see film grain but need to know what you did with the color and light/dark balance there.

Id start using Imgur for your hosting if stuff is getting deleted. I use it for tons of forums, here included. Also, that armed boat could be great as a standin for the SWCC boats the SEALs use in missions, either for protecting them or providing CAS to allow for an extraction.

Understood, I had thought one of the discussions or biographies mentioned Top Gun. I've taken the whole thing as a sobering reminder that flying Tomcats, and Naval Aviation in general, was a dangerous business. I remember how cool it was listening to "Bug" Roach talk that A-6 in on a Youtube video, immediately going out to find info about this apparently legendary LSO and pilot, and finding out what happened to him. And like I said, it is my goal that The Jim Bob Express will ride again, at least digitally. I won't be able to replicate all the crew signatures but maybe I can at least get in the ones we have photos of, maybe folks can remember names from their teams/departments there at least. I'm doing the jet as it was for ~1998- Jan 1999 when the changeover happened. Right now the pain in the ass is the stencils, getting the lettering and alignments right, and the intake warning stencils. And when I'm happy with 201, 202 will follow for certain. And if I could find more photos, I'd really like to do some more of those reserve A-4 adversary jets as I believe it was either VA-203 or 204, but I've found photos from VA-203 and VFA-203 very hard to come by from a digital jet painting perspective. EDIT: not the squadrons I thought, but I found the plane(s). I guess there were 4 of them assigned to NAS Dallas. One of them is actually at the JRB in Fort Worth and apparently was the A-4M from the incident.

As I understand it, he was the RIO on a BFM hop against one of the other reserve squadrons out of NAS Dallas, maybe VA-203 Blue Dolphins? The pilot overdid a maneuver and the jet entered an unrecoverable spin. Unfortunately LCDR Segars did not make it out of the jet. It sounded like the ejection seat did fire but something went wrong. Basically, a certain scene from Top Gun which I have not been able to see the same way again. I do believe LCDR Segars was a Top Gun graduate himself, so I'd assume he was in the back giving instruction or pointers, maybe Victory can correct me on that.

And were it not for the DCS Tomcat I would have never gone looking to join the VF-201 Facebook page, and never learned about LCDR Segars. Reading about the folks that responded to the scene still having a hard time with the memories, I decided it best not to paint up that AF101 he was in, rather I am skipping over it. I may not release that shiny new AF104 since it was the same airframe. I know most of the folks from the squadron are probably not doing DCS but it just didn't seem appropriate to me. Whenever I can get the JimBob Express as complete as I can, probably minus all of the signatures, I want to make sure its posted with a biography of some kind for LCDR Segars. So dont be surprised if you see DCS screens over in the 201 FB page whenever Im done.

Yes, that top one was one of the last As produced, as was one or two of 202s. They got the last of the Block 140 A models and the rest of theirs were early As that were rebuilt to 140 standards. In fact the bird in the pic and above was the first serious Tomcat skin I made, AF104 and then AF103 from 1986 or 1987 before they were swapped to AF101 and AF100 respectively. It was later I found out that 104 was the airframe LCDR Segars was lost in 1993, and found out there was an internal squadron award named after him thereafter. And, after reading about him Im hoping to be able to do The JimBob Express as best justice as I can: 201 has become one of my favorite squadrons after I got to do ground school in their hangar at Carswell in around 2001 or so. They already had transitioned to Hornets by then but Dave Baraneks F-14 from VF-211 was out in the grass behind the flight line. When the Heatblur Tomcat came about that particular plane popped into my head and I began digging again to try and identify it, which led me to VF-201s Facebook page, and ultimately to Bio after they told me she was actually a VF-211 bird. But after that point I became focused on making sure VF-201, and then 202 as well, get proper representation in DCS. Ive downlaoded every single photograph I can find and have been in contact with a few guys from the page who were in charge of paint. In fact, one of them told me about the high-vis scheme he had wanted to do for the 101 somewhere in the early 90s but ultimately they chose a more subdued scheme. Its hearkens to VF-114 a bit but I had a ton of fun bringing it to DCS:

Something else Ive noticed: air bag colors. The B models we see here all seem to have a nice, dark black airbag, but a lot of the A models I see have a more gray colored one: Fresh off the showroom VF-201: VF-202, whose birds mostly went to VF-201 after they disbanded. And VF-201 A models seemed to retain the light grayish bags all the way through 1998 when they transitioned.

I thought only the upgraded D models had the 40k laser, from some GWOT stuff I recall reading.

I reported almost the same thing as a bug a while back, never got hydraulics back following a repair.

After the week I've had I'm hunting me a bottle of Glengoyne 15 year.

@Victory205 Well you cant leave us at that and not tell us what kind of scotch... Also, Im fine with the late 90s A model, as the squadron Im most interested in painting, replicating, and flying only ever had the A models and their last flight was 1998 before transitioning to the lame ass hornet in 1999.

I just doublechecked, that should be the correct LUA entry: {"HB_F14_EXT_DROPTANKS", 0 ,"HB_F14_EXT_DROPTANK",false}; Can you get snipping tool and post a screenshot of your livery folder with the drop tank filename visible? Double-double check your filename is HB_F14_EXT_DROPTANK.dds in the livery folder, and make sure you actually saved your DDS. I use BC7 compression, have not had issues.

I was thinking perhaps you guys needed to do it that way to get around some hard-coded restrictions, maybe to get the animated elevators working or something so I didn't assume it was an oversight. Again, thank you for bringing these to DCS. I've become much more interested in the French side of naval aviation, and seeing as France are the only other ones anymore doing real CATOBAR operations (not ski jumps or VSTOL) it gives us neat opportunities to have scenarios with US and French naval aircraft flying together. We actually have a tradition of "cross decking" where French pilots come land on our carriers, and we go and land on theirs. But, in the past I think it was only Hornets and other light attack or fighters that could due to Clem/Foch/CdG lower launch and catapult limits. Even with the recent upgrades that allow us to cross-deck Super Hornets the Tomcat still would have been too heavy.

You don't even have to watch that far, first 20 seconds you can see details pop in and out. May have to do with settings to be fair, but same mechanics.

In my mission editor it shows up with the "CC" icon instead of the CV/Carrier icon, and ICLS didn't seem to be operational, even though I had it set to channel 1 in the mission editor and linked to the ship. On the flipside, the Clemenceau that's out there does show up as a Carrier, but he hadn't added working arrestor cables at the version I have. ICLS was working on that mod. The reason I mention that, is that when attempting to land a Tomcat on the Clemenceau, obviously I don't trap, but Jester the RIO stays with me. Attempt to land on the CdG, and at the last minute Jester ejects because apparently in his eyes, he thinks we are landing on a cruiser or something. I've tried a few different approaches as far as speed, AOA, decent rate, etc. I have to disable him to get him to stay in the jet. I know you guys probably had no intentions of having a 60k+ pound jet on your mod, but if it has a deck and wires naturally I had to try! I also saw that the CdG took a percent of damage when I landed. Oh, and when I tried to turn the jet around to park, as I went over the elevator that's just to the rear of the island, my rear landing gear "fell through" the elevator and broke the jet. Hard to see here but around the yellow/black caution striping is where it fell through.

It is, you have to resize your altered textures and paste them on the appropriate slots. They should be 512x512, if you use a grid snap then they should be pretty easy to accurately place.

Is there a reason the CdG is classed as a Cruiser and not a Carrier?

We could use a replenishment ship, so why not do the fastest one that ever was? Served from Vietnam all the way through 2004, she was faster than any other US east or west coast replenishment ship and had battleship engines and screws, and could maintain 30+ knots. I remember her being in Jane's US Navy Fighters '97, it would be neat to see the old girl in DCS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Sacramento_(AOE-1)

There's also an extra NACA duct on the right side of the aircraft that doesn't belong there. It should only be on the left side behind the main gear along the nacelle.