Kira

That's the best "not-a-swastika" I've ever seen. Beats a diamond, and it really beats a cross!

Hellz yeah! Beware the Russians' propensity to put controls in illogical places as AP and I discovered after three hours of searching the other night. (Thanks again for the help, AP!) Might be very little flight going on for want of control searching. But... We must coordinate paint schemes. Stinks when you have an interesting one but no one else can see it as it's not on their PC. By the way, two words: Force Trim. That is all. Makes life a hell of a lot easier. Basically a mini-autopilot-ish. It remembers your control positions, so that you can return your controls to neutral, while it maintains the inputs of where they where when you hit the Force Trim button on the stick. The toggle switch to turn Force Trim on/off (why in the world would you turn it off???) is on the center console, extreme forward, due north of the caution lights panel.

Got the Sabre during the sale, too. I can see why it was considered one of the best "pilot's airplane's" of all time. Assuming that simulation is anywhere near accurate. Ever heard the old joke about Polish pilots? Pilot: That's the shortest runway I've ever seen! CoPilot: And the widest. I actually did this on my first landing with the F-86. Saw a nice light strip that was obviously an airport. Lined up, landed and rolled out... right across the runway. By the time I'd realized what I'd done, I was about five seconds away from a collapsed nose wheel and a rapidly approaching perimeter fence. Missed hitting the fence by something less than 50 and probably closer to 20 feet. Had the nose wheel not collapsed, I'm certain I would've been through it.

Takeoff: Fair enough. Transitional flight in ground effect: Okay, if a bit wandery. "Level" fight: Good, more wandering. Landing: You mean we gotta get this thing back down again? How many Hueys would you like to donate to the cause, sir? Any landing you can walk away from, and forget about the "in one piece" bit! Over all impression: Wonderful! Exactly what I've been waiting for since I started flight sims years ago.

Beautiful models, by the way guys. I'd show you some of mine, but I'd have to dig through several feet of dust first...

Amen to that! Same goes for simulated rifle shooting. Not so good, for some reason.

Keep in mind with the OP, it's no "ordinary" airplane. This is a high performance (wayyy high performance by the legal definition) aerobatic aircraft, with "just enough wing to get the engine off the ground" so to speak. Point is, it's all engine. Of course you can hang it on its prop with that many horses under the hood. It's managing the torque that's the trick. A bit of debunking. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvBep7-gi5s#t=86

"Lets Eat Grandma" "Lets Eat, Grandma" Punctuation saves lives.

I just remembered and was going to mention thinning. Remembering back to my days of futile attempts at modeling, I didn't get the whole thinning idea, and attempted to put the paint on full thickness right out of the bottle with a brush (young and not experienced at-all! Especially in the process of "patience, it's the process that's half the fun"). Hate to mention it, knowing that masking at that level can be a cast iron bitch, but maybe the whole "remask for each application" still stands? I would think that the thinner the paint, the less likely it would be to lift. That's how it is with the stuff I do anyway, it's the thick sectors that like to lift with the mask.

I have mine "free floating" shall we say. On the rare occasion when I want to fly, it swaps places with my mouse, both to the right of my monitor. Keyboard center, and throttle taped down on the left, but only because it wanted to walk and was being annoying. Rudder pedals stay below the desk. Works for me.

Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious here. 1. Mask it, paint it, and remove the tape *immediately*, while the paint's still wet and before the tape has a chance to really stick, as that will minimize glue being left behind when the tape is removed. 2. I find that it helps to pull the tape back along itself, kinda back on top of itself, yet also at around a 45 degree angle towards the paint. Keep in mind that the painting I do is not scale model, but rather full scale. Good luck!

With the December 7, 1941 attack on the U.S., the government needed a way to protect the president from possible assassination attempts. Due to regulations at the time, no car could be armoured as it would cost far more that the maximum allowed. Time constraints were also a factor, and the end result was that the government needed a car *right now this instant*, not "in the near future". Solution: Take Capone's confiscated armoured 1928 Cadillac until another way could be found. The car was overhauled over night, and the president rode in it the next day to deliver the "Day of Infamy" speech. http://voices.yahoo.com/al-capones-armored-1928-cadillac-was-used-president-365026.html

Woah! Something that's actually based on the weapon systems themselves without the usual "shoot people" (other than silhouette targets)! Me likey!

Nice!

Not to play devil's advocate, but whatever happened to "find another airport" under those conditions?

Will do Jabo... when I find the time. Time seems to be at a premium what with the additional job and all. Thanks!

"are if you are on XP" check "they will show a 'Out of Memory error'" check Yup. Those are the issues, but the sim seems to run okay anyway. Is this a major issue?

Well, seems it's worked, despite a few errors it said it had. Did as stated "run repeatedly until errors are fixed", and it worked for some, but appears not others. However... It's running okay. I guess I'll just have to wait until I can hop on when someone who can host is on to see if it really is okay for MP. Thanks all!

Awesomenessness. 18%. Might be good to go by late flying time. We'll see.

Good point. I've tried that in the past (pre-crash). Trying it again. Right now it says just HSFX 7. I guess I'll recheck for 7.0.2 later...

HSFX 7 How long does this blankity blank install take??? I've been at it for twelve solid hours (not joking), and instead of counting down, the silly "Time Remaining" counts up! It's up to 69073 minutes and 30 seconds. Unless there's another way, I will most definitely not be joining you guys in the virtual skies until another halfway reasonable form arrives!!! Notes: Installing from scratch over clean disk install of IL2 (4.07) upgraded by increments to 4.12.2. Since the external HD crash, I've not much space and none of my backups...

There is one other largely unknown example of an airliner disappearing. This one was a good condition ex American Airlines jet that was chartered to central Africa. The pilot and mechanic was then "persuaded" to stay on for quite some time (months), rather than immediately return as was the plan, flying the plane for the new operators. Of course, it was allowed to deteriorate ridiculously. Then, after sitting on a ramp collecting dust (and weeds), someone, they aren't sure who, came along and started getting it back to flyable (note I did not say "legally airworthy") condition. One day, it fired up its engines, taxied to the end of the runway, took off without clearance, and disappeared to the west over the South Atlantic. A search of the pilot's movements turned him up missing, with little if any evidence that he was at all involved in the disappearance of the aircraft. The original charter owner (in the southern US as I recall) claimed (and I believe got) the insurance for the aircraft, and that was that. It hasn't been seen since. The restructuring of the aircraft as a "tanker" with massive internal fuel bladders that were, as I recall fed into the fuel system, mean that the thing had a ridiculous range, at least in theory. That meant that despite being a short range 727 in theory, in practice, it could fly the Atlantic in one go, something that troubled the US, thinking it could be used in another attack. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N844AA