I have a chunk of code already started for this (wasn’t too complicated). Just have to get back to it. Have spent the last several days putting things in there (to include more audio - by far the most tedious part), esp. adding more variety.
I can pretty much have the entire map populated (groups, statics, ship, etc) without affecting the performance too much which is cool…but I still have to put the things in there ! Even with some automation it is a chore. But, I’m a bachelor for the next 2 weeks so I’ll be living on coffee and junk food, while hunched over my keyboard; productivity will be at a peak me thinks.
I’m thinking I’m gonna find the limit to how much DCS can digest in one sitting. My test bed is the Nevada map (using that entire half! of the map that is unused) by sprinkling stuff along the Sidewinder low-level route. DCS puked on me once, something along the lines of, “…miz file too big!”. Huh, but it only gave me this once - yet it did run the next time, with no performance issues (I limit it to ~ 100 objects in view at any one time - there’s a setting DCSGrok you can use to decrease/increase this). We shall see.
Trim feels a lot better for me this patch. Less squirrelly. Getting better performance as well.
Using Dive Toss with Snakeeyes is a treat too, even without faffing with that Jester bombing table thing. Ad-hoc pop to 10~15 degree dive, get Jester to capture ASAP, pickle. Hard part is adjusting for wind.
Hmm. Now I wonder if a team of a Phantom and an F1 would be practical… the F1 doesn’t have a toss mode in the bombing computer though does it? Maybe the A-4 does? I think it did in real life?
Here is some '72 mission audio from a Ubon Phantom. It has the both radio and intercom, so you can hear things like setting up the WRCS prior to an A/G attack. Really good. I didn’t think there’d be any bridges left up in this area. Ho, ho, ho, fat Al is away. Direct hit. Splash one bridge. Sounds pretty much like LGBs to me.
Pop’s has confirmed… thinks Capt. Chris Bauer is the Pilot of #2 but still trying to figure out who’s the WSO in #2 that made the tape. It’s not Pop, and he doesn’t recognize the voice, but he’ll pass the link to a bud that was in the 35th FS Wolfpack in Kunsan that might know. He’s our info guy with all kinds of contacts and a lot of these guys were interconnected through there.
Most likely, based on the date of this sortie, my Dad is probably on his way back to NC or at least very shortly thereafter.*
Very cool… I love this stuff!
*Dad confirmed he had flown a mission on 12/7/1972, which was his next to last, with final mission flight coming on 12/10/1972. He was headed back to NC on 12/14/1972.
In an almost identical scenario they lost another one the next day. Turns out that WSO was supposed to depart home (was with the 336th I believe) but got pulled into a “milk run” for one more flight because a Pilot has lost his WSO… and ended up a POW. Turns out he lives about 30 minutes from me and I tracked him down years ago. I need to try to connect with him again (hoping he’s still around) but I did see a news article from 2022 so fingers crossed.
Good stuff Phantom13. I’m visiting mom today and played the video for her. She definitely remembered Tolbert and Hostetler from our time with the 335th. Squadrons are like big families at times.
So much to be gleaned from the tape (video) for virtual Phantom flight crews. Man, that FAC was chill, wasn’t he?
I’m definitely going to need to listen about a 100 more times and have dad decipher a few things. I’ve got a good chunk of it while listening to it with my youngest boy trying to help him understand what was taking place.
I played the mission clip edit for him of the 09/11/1972 mission that the 335th lost 69-0288 flying as PALM 4 with Brian Ratzlaff (Pilot) and Jerome Heeren (WSO) as apparently he hadn’t heard it before. Still a bit surreal listening to your father’s voice (or grandfather’s in his case) on tape as a member of his own flight gets shot down. Dad was the one that confirmed they were hit, “on fire” and saw both eject with “two good chutes”.
Looking around at F-4E usage in Vietnam style conflicts, I got curious about chaff/flare usage during the war, since some DCS AI seem to dispense chaff/flares even when not equipped with the pods, and I see a lot of YouTube videos with people diong “Vietnam” scenarios with the ALE-40 buckets, despite no period footage showing any flare usage.
I managed to find dates for the ALE-40:
Design started 1974
Flares integrated in 1977
So for Vietnam the F-4E had zero chaff/flare capability, it seems. Anyone know when the MiG-21 got its chaff/flare dispensers?
