Starlight

I'm just a bit curious to know if the article contains some technical insight about that thing...

found this, if somebody managed to translate it: :D http://www.tomcat-sunset.org/forums/index.php?topic=929.msg8567#msg8567

ok, that was how I lost my early teenage years... FalconAT, Strike Eagle II... no please, stop it!!! :D

painting the Flanker with Tomcat's camo schemes makes one realize why one of the earliest nicknames of the Su-27 (given by US aircrews) was Tomcatskji... it can look very very similar from certain angles. Not to start a flame about similar (or cloned) aircraft, BTW, the Flanker wasn't certainly copied from the Tomcat...

I made the opposite skin, the flancat, that is a flanker-style camo for the Tomcat, like an aggressor which flew IRL some time ago :D

that's a good one, man ;)

"crash and burn commander"! ;)

just added 3 really short vids of the aircraft they're just a few seconds of footage http://digilander.libero.it/matt_mm/movies/DSCF8579.avi http://digilander.libero.it/matt_mm/movies/DSCF8634.avi http://digilander.libero.it/matt_mm/movies/DSCF8654.avi

no, sorry :( we just got access to a base tour, I saw the radar room, the control tower, one static F-16 and some takeoffs and landing...

hi, last week I took part to a base tour at Aviano AB, Italy activity was pretty intense, with at least 8 landings and 16 takeoffs from 9 AM to 1 PM. All 4 ship flights for training purposes here are some pics that I took... more are comin' up

me too, these are duplicates ;) I still keep the whole collection ;)

anyone interested? I could make 8-9 euros x issue for you lockoneers :)

I live in Italy, I'd like to get 10.00 euros x issue, but I could make some discounts if you want more than one issue.

***************** UPDATE ****************** currently selling issues 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-9-10-11-13-14-15-16-17-18-20-21-22-24-27-30-32-33-36-37-38-39-41 all in excellent shape, some mint condition for issues content info look here

holy sh*t, 1.23 MW??????? I wouldn't like to live in the outskirts of Moscow close to that S-300 sites belt... I bet you can fry chips without even turning on the oven....

The design was planned in the mid-70s... Test flights were conducted in late 70's and early 80's, they were mission-ready in 1983. That's later than any other fighter aircraft in the USAF inventory, except for the F-22. And about the same timeframe of the B-1 which is considered a modern aircraft. The B-2 itself, which is considered one of the ultimate weapons, made its maiden flight a few years after the nighthawk.... Given that they also received an improvement program in the mid 90s, they're quite modern aircraft... Well you're right, but the early employment tactics for the nighthawks called for very small detachments for covert ops. Very small, stealth, limited actions. In the interview published in "F-117 in action" pilot Steve Paulson says: "USAF originally wanted 18 for a special squadron to do Delta Force type special projects where one or two aircraft would take out high valued target without anybody knowing it. Congress decided they wanted a wing. They were the ones who made the AF buy 59 aircraft. The AF never wanted that many. None of us even thought there was a use for two squadrons. It is really no good in a general war scenarios, and that was too many aircraft to use in a limited clandestine operation. They probably bought more than they needed" that interview was before Operation Desert Storm, which proved that theory wrong. Anyway, AFAIK, the Nighthawks were first employed in operation Just Cause in Panama, 1989, but they were within minutes for employment in some more circumstances... in 1983 during the invasion of Grenada, in 1986 to strike Lybian targets and maybe also in Lebanon, 1983...

yeah, military a/c have little memory and computing power compared to our PCs. But, as Tom Clancy explains very well in his Fighter Wing book... The B-1 has a 512K memory for its computer but it can withstand the electromagnetic effects of a nuclear explosion nearby. Try to do the same trick to your PC or Mac...

anyway, apart from technical subjects, it's a shame that the Nighthawks are being retired. It was one of the most revolutionary and efficient designs in the history of aviation. It had a stunning success rate and an incredible survivability. And it also provided some of the most fascinating stories of military aviation. I was just amazed by the first-hand accounts of "the program" which went on for years at Tonopah in absolute secrecy. I'm not really convinced that the Pentagon today has an aircraft able to do what the Nighthawk already does. But as I learned with the Tomcat, there are many reasons for an aircraft to be phased out, even without the presence of an equivalent or superior substitute.

Sorry, since English is not my mother-tongue, I probably made a mistake explaining the issue. IK caught it, bombs, when dropped close to supersonic speed (and above) tend to be pushed towards the launching aircraft. This issue happened several times IRL. Beeing blown out of the sky by your own bomb is not the best option for a bomber pilot, definitely. Another problem is that bombs can't even be carried at speed greater to that because the % of malfunction rises sharply. This is not something I'm just inventing now, I read several stories about that issue, and it is also covered by "Air Power" boardgame series rules, which were written by J.D. Webster, a USN A-7 pilot. I think he knew that subject. Now, that applied to GP bombs, that is Mk-XX series, but also usual GBU and JDAMs are just GP bombs modified with kits. I don't know if now they managed somehow to get the bombs dropped at supersonic speed. Internal bomb bays solve the issue of carrying them at hi-speed, but not the issue of the launch. I think the problem concerns the fact that around Mach1 the air around the aircraft is compressed in uneven waves, it's not a smooth airflow as in normal flight. Being the bombs ballistic they could be badly influenced at the moment of release, so maybe they behave in an unpredictable way.

No. You can't takeoff without a well-planned flightplan, with any aircraft. Even Wild Weasel missions, which were in some cases "seek&destroy" type, were made with accurate flight plans. You can't build your own flight plan while airborne just evaluating some sensor reports. That is because a flight plan involves many things to be calculated, one of the main being fuel... and you can't change your plan of 200 miles just to avoid a new radar station, because you're likely to hit bingo before getting to the target. Most of JDAMs coordinates are pre-planned. They are inserted before the flight. That is because buildings (which were nighthawks' primary targets) are unlikely to flee away during the sortie... Instead "dynamic" JDAM coordinates (i.e. those inserted in-flight) are used on CAS missions, but neither the nighthawk nor the raptor are CAS aircraft :) I don't think the raptor is ever going to use the radar to designate ground targets for JDAMs. I'm not saying it's not possible, maybe it is, but IMHO is quite unlikely from the operational point of view Where did you get this report? I knew that bombs dropped above speed of sound used to bounce in unpredictable ways, that means also against the firing aircraft... Bombs carried or dropped at or even close to supersonic speed often malfunctioned. Given that JDAMs are basically GP bombs with GPS guidance attached, I see no reason why they should be better than previous bombs, from this point of view....

very good vehicles but in this pic I find there is a huge contrast between the detail of the truck and that of the surrounding world. The terrain looks too much low-res, and the trees look cartoonish. That is, if they wanna make a detailed ground sim, it has to be detailed in many aspects, not just the 3D shapes of the vehicles. Even if I appreciate each and every addon to this sim, if I was the developer I'd tell modellers to focus more on flying objects, because, whether you're flying a fixed wing ac or a helo, ground objects are mostly dots for pilots, they shouldn't get close enough to appreciate the details.

every aircraft can have its own "weapons", they should be used according to that aspect. The F-111 and Tornado are designed to fly low and fast, not to get entangled in dogfights. The Eagle is a good multirole ac, but from what I've read is not the aircraft you'd love to fly into a gusty valley with. The Tornado is a good aircraft. From the monography that I read some time ago, I learned that it has some limitations because it was built as a tradeoff for many different requests it had to satisfy for different countries.... and it also had to be politically correct, meaning that it was called a "fighter-bomber", because some political parties back when it was developed, didn't agree to fund a "tactical/nuclear bomber", which is the role it was designed for...

TFR and overall navigation/attack system looked better in the Tornado, AFAIK. operational service proved a bit of this too. during operation El Dorado Canyon, many F-111 turned back just because of system malfunctions. The Varks that made it to Lybia didn't have an exceptional performance record (even if the tactical situation was very critical) and many bombs missed their intended targets.

don't find it much interesting, given that it looks like mere integration of 3rd party items. a video showing some new feats would be better appreciated imho.

Hi, glad to see you're back! I think your work will be really appreciated by the LockOn community! sorry you lost some of your work, if you want I could send you back the templates you sent me some time ago ;) hope to hear you again mate! hehe :D here it is, Liger_Zero's work: http://digilander.libero.it/airsuperiority/F-18C_Template.rar