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More What If

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F8U-1 from VMF-122 Crusaders over West Germany in the late '50's.


Ain't she purty?

The F8U-1 was yet another free download from Combat Ace.  I've sort of been hitting them hard of late, but there's some serious talent giving it away and I don't thing they're getting any recognition.

Delta Dart

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I even had a model of this very aircraft in 1/48 scale.


My new favorite air-to-air weapon: the AIR-2A Genie.  Unguided but the game does a good job of simulating the MA-1 fire control so it ends up where the bomber formation is.  Since the warhead is a 1.5 kton nuke, getting close is enough.

Edit to add:



The Six is just a wee bit bigger than the more famous delta-wing fighter, the Mirage III.

While Strike Fighters 2 is just a game, it's got some amazing simulations of reality.  The MG-3 and MA-1 fire control are modeled well and the Falcon fired from a deuce or six will hit more often than one fired from a Phantom.

Speaking of the deuce...


The F-102A for Strike Fighters 2 is a pay-ware item from a third party.  As such it's got some better features than the freebie F-106A...


Like hitting the "open bomb bay" button and the missile rails extend.

I have all of the major century series planes flyable in the game now; in several versions each in some cases.

F-100A, F-100A with 1958 upgrades, F-100C, F-100C with "High Wire" upgrades, F-100D, F-100D with "High Wire" upgrades, F-100D with APR-25 RWR, F-101A, RF-101A, F-101B, F-101B with "Bold Journey" upgrades, CF-101B, RF-101B, F-101C, RF-101C, RF-101G, F-102A, F-102A "Case X wing", F-102A "Case XX wing", F-104A, F-104C, F-104C with "Grindstone" upgrades, F-104C with "Pronto" upgrades, CF-104, CF-104 with "Grindstone" equivalent upgrades, CF-104 with "Pronto" equivalent upgrades, F-104G, F-105D, F-105D with APR-25 RWR, F-106A, F-111A, RF-111A, F-111B, F-111K (aka Merlin GR.1), F-111C, F-111C with Pave Tack, F-111D, F-111E, F-111F, EF-111A, FB-111A, and F-111G.

Firing Sequence

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Firing an AIM-4G.

First you get tracking indications with the IRST.



Then you fire.

The bay doors open.


Then the missile fires!


There's a substantial delay between pulling the trigger and the missile flying.

Notice that I'm out of position on this MiG-19S and the firing sequence is running.


Sneaky Underhanded And Downright UnBritish

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The "last" of the century series...

F-117A Nighthawk



To be super complete I'd include a picture of an F-4C and call it an F-110A Spectre...


By the way, have I ever mentioned my F-117A conspiracy theory?

It dawned on me when I saw the cockpit arrangement of the plane the Smithsonian was going to hang from the ceiling.  The instrument layout wasn't early '80's; it was mid-'70's.  Very similar to what was stylish when the F-111A and F-14A were coming off the line.

Couple this with a rumor that the F-111A fleet sent to Vietnam only flew at night and managed to drop more ordnance than hard-points and the anachronistic designation of the Nighthawk...

The F-117A's first combat use was over Vietnam!  They only revealed it because the aviation press was getting too close to the far superior F-19A, which is still secret.  Obligatory "through the looking glass" mention!

Aardvark Amusement

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I learned today that the side-by-seating and the escape capsule on the F-111 are legacies of the Navy's involvement with the program.

I find that fascinating.


What?

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http://www.guns.com/2014/10/04/ruger-sues-1022-component-maker-for-trademark-violation/

So mentioning what your aftermarket parts fit is now a violation of trademark?

What's next?  Edelbrock sells an intake for your car?

Kidd has been reduced to saying .22 LR Rifle.

I should order some parts then complain that they don't fit my Remington 341.  Kidd claims they make parts for "the .22LR" and my Remington certainly is a .22LR.

I objected to this line of trademarking when H&K sued a company for making a .22 that looked like an MP5.

Why Can't I Use A Calculator

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The reason you should learn to do math on your own rather than rely on a calculator in one simple example.

Oooops

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All my modding in Strike Fighters 2 has created a bit of a problem.

Several of the stock planes have been given weaponry they never actually carried.

The F-4C Phantom never carried the AIM-4 in any variety, for example.

On the plus side this also added a Mk28 (B28EX) nuclear device to the list, which is jolly good fun.

Sinister Controls

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The slide stop on the Browning Hi-Power has that spoon shaped part in front of the pivot point.

I'd often wondered why.

Playing around with left handed drills I discovered it's handy for locking the slide to the rear by pushing down on the front part with your index finger.  I now wonder if that's why it's the way it is.

Traveller Mores

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GM'ing Traveller made me think about some things harder than I would have otherwise.

An Aslan is a person, a Vargr is a person, a Hiver is a person, a Droyne is a person, even a K'Kree is a person!

Once something is a person, it's got all the rights, privileges, duties and obligations that being a person carries.

Notice that it's not all rights?

That's because I latched onto that whole no rights = no responsibilities thing.

It changes your worldview somewhat compared to your fellows in rural Iowa in the late '80's.

Suddenly it's no longer fags, niggers or spicks (thanks for your prejudices Dad!).

It's gay PEOPLE, black PEOPLE, hispanic PEOPLE.  Once they're people it's much harder to de-individualize them.  It's much easier to see their behavior on an individual level too.

Once they're people they have rights.  But rights come with responsibilities, no?

What I am seeing of late with minorities is an utter lack of responsibility.

No responsibilities means no rights...  No rights means not a person...

Denying their individual responsibility is in effect dehumanizing!

Dehumanization is to make the other and the other is easily victimized.

Please don't get me wrong, they are people and they are due their rights; but the rest of us are due their responsibilities.  By refusing to shoulder their burden and accept the obligations of being people they are, in effect, demanding to be dehumanized and surrendering the rights they'd be due as people.

I am baffled that they'd WANT this treatment.

Something that's somewhat related...

Once a group is recognized as people, I think it's time to stop talking about it and just behave as if they're people from then on.

Black Box

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My uncle had an article clipped from some military aviation magazine framed over his desk.

It was about the increasing cost and complexity of black boxes in military aircraft.

Included was a cartoon with a plane on fire and the black box is ejecting.  The pilot is looking at it and his thought bubble is, "That can't be good."

The plane-guard flying for the X-47B reminded me of that cartoon.

Research

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I almost feel sorry for the poor bastard.

I complained that AIM-4's were showing up in the loadout of the F-4C...

A relatively prominent member of the forum blasted me for doing no research on the Falcon or Phantom.

He's now got a fully cited work on the development of the AIM-4D and its integration into the F-4C fleet and how not a single AIM-4D was carried on an F-4C outside of testing and how the modifications made by Project Dancing Falcon were reversed almost as fast as they were applied.

The USAF wanted to use the AIM-4 across the board on all of its fighters.

The AIM-4D was to be the Phantom specific model.

The Air Force took delivery of their first Phantom, an F-4C in mid-1963.  In November 1964 they amended their requirements to include the AIM-4D.  But they didn't actually add the capability until mid 1968!  In April of 1969, the capability was removed and the AIM-9 restored to being the short ranged missile.

The F-4D and F-4E left St Louis with the capability to carry the Falcon. 

Victory!

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I've been having odd loadout problems with SF2 since I started making modifications.

I figured a lot of it out now!

First things first, I finally got the dunderheads who thought they were explaining things to actually explain things.

The weapons bay on the F-106A is now manually actuated.  In the real world, they are automatic, but the lack of opening was bothering me when firing the radar guided weapons.

On the forward stations, GAR-3A (aka AIM-4F); on the rear stations, GAR-4A (aka AIM-4G) and up in the center, MB-1 (aka AIR-2A).

The problem is many stations are defined by the type of weapon carried, such as an IRM for heat-seekers.  In 1966 that opens up a LOT of missiles.  I solved the bulk of it by making the AIM-4 stations on the F-102 and F-106 AIM-4 specific and changing the weapons ini so that AIM-4A-C and E-G can only be carried on a station so designated.

The AIM-4D is an odd duck and could be carried the same place as a Sidewinder on the F-4D and F-4E.

Next I did much the same trick to get the F-111B to recognize that it carried the AIM-54A.


Including the weapon bay...


The next challenge will be lifting the AWG-9 avionics out of the F-14A and incorporating them into the Seavark.

OC

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A principle problem with open carry is that people aren't accustomed to seeing their fellow citizens running around armed.

This problem is exacerbated by the simple fact that one cannot become used to seeing something until one is seeing something!

It's the swimming problem.  You cannot learn to swim until you're in the water.

The antics of Open Carry Texas are often cited as how not to do it.  Rarely have I seen it reported that the goal of OCT is open carry of handguns but since that's illegal, the only legal means to carry openly is with a long arm.  It's deliberately ridiculous to make the point that if handgun carry was legal it'd be more sensible.

Rather than look at that, the pro-gun forces join with the anti-gun to demand there be no open carry.

Who sounds the bugle call to rally and condemn the open carrying of guns?  Pro-gun bloggers.  If you don't read the anti-gun organizations propaganda sites you're only going to read about open carrying at pro-gun web pages.

Think about that.  Think about who that helps.

Bolster

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Adding fuel to the fire for my F-117A conspiracy theory...

In March of 1962 the USAF painted a Q-2 drone with radar absorbing material and failed to detect and intercept it.

The interest in stealth is a lot older than many people think.

Follow Up

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I see that I said it wrong, again.

I don't necessarily think that OCT is doing it right.

I tend to think that rule one is: Don't freak the mundanes.

Carrying an EBR into Target is freaking the mundanes.

What I am trying to say is I understand why they are doing what they are doing the way they are doing it.

I think people on the pro-gun side are discounting the desperation that lots of pro-gunners on the outlying issues of gun-rights feel.  The reason they feel that way is because they feel ignored by the mainstream gun rights folks.

The condemnation of their desperate tactics serves to convince them they were correct, that they were being deliberately discounted and ignored.

And it feels so familiar.  Like when nobody cared about assault weapons until they banned them.  (Which is almost certainly a misremembering of the situation, but you know, feewings.)

I empathize with them because I feel like NFA is another red-headed step child of the pro-gun movement.

Of course, I don't carry my SBR into Target...

Blood Moon

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I have a flimsy tripod, the garbage men doing their collection really shakes the camera.



Caught a plane with my 15 second exposure!  It's kind of remarkable how far the heavens move in a quarter minute, look at how streaked the stars are!

I Dream Of Genie

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AIR-2A Launch
Detonation
Tetsuo?
Splash six!

Adventures In INI Editing

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SF2 defines nearly everything with .ini files.

It makes changing things easy, but you have to know the syntax...

My rush of downloading free planes from Combat Ace came with the weaponry peculiar to the planes.

A "generic" weapon is defined by its type and what nation made it.  So a Sidewinder would be IRM and USN,USAF (the Air Force and Navy are separate nations in SF2).

A weapon station is likewise defined generically.

So if you add a new missile that's USAF and IRM it will appear in the loadout of every plane with stations marked USAF and IRM.  Sometimes in inappropriate ways, such as an AIM-4F showing up in the Sparrow recesses of an F-4C.

What you can do to end this is to edit the weapons and stations to be station specific.  Thus you add a line that says that station can carry AIM-4 and a line to the weapon saying that it can only be carried by a station so marked.

Luckily, the list of planes that carried the AIM-4 and AIM-26 is short.

But it becomes a problem with the F-101B.  The internal side of the flip door can carry both Falcons and Genies.  Making the stations weapon specific means it's an either/or deal.

Still working this one out.


The way you solve the problem is to make a whole new system identical to the system that contains the stations set aside for the Genie.

So you end up with:

(Original)
SystemName[018]=GenieBay

(New)
SystemName[018]=GenieBay
SystemName[019]=GenieBay2

in the fuselage section and:

(Original)
[GenieBay]
SystemType=WEAPON_STATION
StationID=7
StationGroupID=3
StationType=INTERNAL
NumWeapons=2
AttachmentPosition001=-0.26,3.32,0.02
AttachmentPosition002= 0.26,3.32,0.02
AttachmentAngles=0.0,-1.2,180.0
LoadLimit=800
AllowedWeaponClass=AHM,IRM,SAHM
SpecificStationCode=AIR2
DiameterLimit=0.5
LengthLimit=3.0
BombBayAnimationID=9
BombBayOpenTime=1.0
BombBayCloseTime=1.0
AttachmentType=USAF
ModelNodeName=Genie_Hi
MovingPylon=TRUE
RotatingPylon=TRUE
AutomaticDoors=FALSE
PylonMass=10
PylonDragArea=0.06

(New)
[GenieBay]
SystemType=WEAPON_STATION
StationID=7
StationGroupID=3
StationType=INTERNAL
NumWeapons=2
AttachmentPosition001=-0.26,3.32,0.02
AttachmentPosition002= 0.26,3.32,0.02
AttachmentAngles=0.0,-1.2,180.0
LoadLimit=800
AllowedWeaponClass=AHM,IRM,SAHM
SpecificStationCode=AIR2
DiameterLimit=0.5
LengthLimit=3.0
BombBayAnimationID=9
BombBayOpenTime=1.0
BombBayCloseTime=1.0
AttachmentType=USAF
ModelNodeName=Genie_Hi
MovingPylon=TRUE
RotatingPylon=TRUE
AutomaticDoors=FALSE
PylonMass=10
PylonDragArea=0.06

[GenieBay2]
SystemType=WEAPON_STATION
StationID=8
StationGroupID=3
StationType=INTERNAL
NumWeapons=2
AttachmentPosition001=-0.26,3.32,0.02
AttachmentPosition002= 0.26,3.32,0.02
AttachmentAngles=0.0,-1.2,180.0
LoadLimit=800
AllowedWeaponClass=AHM,IRM,SAHM
SpecificStationCode=AIM4
DiameterLimit=0.5
LengthLimit=3.0
BombBayAnimationID=9
BombBayOpenTime=1.0
BombBayCloseTime=1.0
AttachmentType=USAF
ModelNodeName=Genie_Hi
MovingPylon=TRUE
RotatingPylon=TRUE
AutomaticDoors=FALSE
PylonMass=10
PylonDragArea=0.06

The important thing to making this work is to make sure the StationGroupID is the same between them, that forces the game to load either station 7 or station 8 and not both.

Too Close

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The USAF developed two air to air weapons with nuclear warheads.

The AIR-2A Genie and AIM-26A Falcon.

The use of a nuke makes sense when it was assumed they'd be firing at massed formations of bombers.

What is a gut check is the ranges.

The Genie's max firing range is about nine nautical miles.  The Falcon is about six.

Admittedly they are teeny nukes.  The Genie is a 1.5 kT and the Falcon a mere 0.25 kT.

Still, considering they are fired in a head on shot at very high closure rates...  You're much closer than those maximum ranges at detonation.

Even more fun is you have to keep the radar, and thus the nose, pointed at the bombers until detonation with the AIM-26A.  That's kind of the reason it's got a smaller warhead, the greater accuracy makes it as effective as the Genie when they detonate.

We'd planned on using them over northern Canada against Soviet bombers coming over the north pole; but someone finally asked, "what happens if you fired one of these things over a population center?"

That ended a lot of development of AtA nukes.

But we'd made a LOT of Genies and the associated W25 warheads since it began service from the F-89J in 1957, so it stayed service with the USAF until the last F-106A was pulled from service in 1988 and with Canada until they retired their CF-101Bs in 1984.

The AIM-26A had a much shorter life, entering service in 1961 and being retired in 1972.
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