Hacking F-117A
github.com
github.com
If you want to fly a "modern" jet without needing to read a manual or learn very complex radar systems, this is the game for you.
Both profiles are well worth a scroll through if you have any interest in sim-lite games. Really like the breakdowns on old school simlite games and what really made them fun (since it wasn't strictly a matter of realism = better).
MicroProse's F-19 is the flightsim I played and enjoyed the most, and it wasn't realistic.
MicroProse F-19 hit that awesome spot of some realism (laughable today, but it wasn't meant to be an arcade game back then), with a really easy flight model and cool missions and scenarios you could really complete. And besides knowing the keyboard mappings, you really didn't need a manual. It was thrilling to play mission after mission, getting all those medals, and having your character be promoted in rank. I spent a lot of time with that game -- probably flew as many missions as an actual combat pilot!
The only other flightsim I found almost as engrossing was Gunship 2000, with its "dynamic" campaign system, but it was way more difficult.
I find Tiny Combat Arena captures some of this thrilling but simple gameplay, but it currently lacks content (more campaigns, more maps, more things to do).
If you download DCS World directly from the site instead of getting it through steam, you can get a 2 week trial of each module every 6 months.
Flaming Cliffs 3 is the name of the less realistic module. It comes with several planes or you can buy them individually. As I said before, you can try them all for free for 2 weeks each and it resets every 6 months.
Actually they have an iOS version, which isn't bad, except the lack of joystick support.
If you used to love GraphSim's F-18, definitely do check out Tiny Combat Arena. It has the same vibe!
dcs may seem very complicate, because there' a ot of buttons to memorize, and it indeed is for more modern planes that can switch between ground/air mode, weapon targeting modes, datalink modes etc
but
simplified planes with non interactive cockpit just have a few step to memorize and once you're going, you're going.
like, once you watch and execute the f-15 cold startup tutorial, it's always the same sequence in the same order and sets your plane exactly in the same mode ready for combat.
(nav light management etc is there, but it's kinda optional and not required to learn from the start)
then you get three button for radar mode you actually need (close combat, flood/boresight, beyond visual range), two button to switch weapon, and the rest is the slightly more complicate part, which is radar management
you get a set of buttons to look up/down/left/right, a set of button to move the pip close/far/left/right, a button to toggle scan mode, and a button to lock/unlock a target - it's a lot to set up, but it's quite easy as it has immediate feedback on what you're doing
the rest comes down to actually positon yourself in a way to maximize kill probability and defending from retailiation.
The complexity of the game hits a sweet spot for me. To get into the air you have to go through some startup steps (maybe 8, most of which involve hitting "power" buttons). There is some light air traffic control simulation that you can interact with (or just take off yolo style). Mission design is diverse and there are a decent number of fan made missions.
The initial tutorial missions do a good job getting you up in the air, after that you benefit from watching some youtube tutorials because each weapon system and aircraft have their own unique features.
Random fact - the artwork was by Tom Ashton - previously the guitarist for The March Violets, also performed with The Sisters of Mercy, and went on to Clan of Xymox.
Also, this was the project I worked on before BRender - covered in another thread here.
688 attack sub. LHX. MIG-29 Fulcrum. F15 Strike Eagle. Jetfighter 2 (included the YF-23).
The Los Angeles class was one of the playable subs
I recommend this site[0] for all those who want to go down memory lane. Just look at this[1] or that of TFA[2].
[0] https://www.gamesdatabase.org/all_manuals
[1] https://www.gamesdatabase.org/Media/SYSTEM/Commodore_64//Man...
[2] https://www.gamesdatabase.org/Media/SYSTEM/Microsoft_DOS//Ma...
My favorite was SimEarth (200+ pages and spiral bound as I recall!) but TIE Fighter was great too, since the manual was in the form of a novella.
I'd also go to the local library and look up the latest Jane's publications.
I loved my Amiga 500, and spent many hours on F-19/F-117, but crikey 7.little MHz was not a lot to play with (although quite enough for the super-fast, fun but otherwise inscrutable ArmourGeddon...).
Also, I remember seeing a model kit in the window of a model shop in North London, well before the plane was announced to the public. Must have been in the 80s.
Oh, and another memory has surfaced from the compost heap that passes for my brain these days - my then girlfriend bought me a little friction-drive toy of one of them - also 1980s.
Wikipedia: "First flight June 18, 1981; 40 years ago"
"The existence of the aircraft was officially acknowledged in 1988" – https://www.britannica.com/technology/F-117
Certainly, the precursor to the above game, F-19, was released in 1988, with the assumption that the plane looked something alike that on the box-art.
> Also, I remember seeing a model kit in the window of a model shop in North London, well before the plane was announced to the public. Must have been in the 80s.
Note "well before the plane was announced to the public"
This would have been far before 1988.
In regards to the model and the time, I suspect you're mistaken, but .. meh.
Beatties, I think. I used to pop in there on my way home from Touche Ross, accountants, where I had a mangement gig - I used to think "If only I had back then compared to what I do now ..." - and had grand designs for an N-guage railway setup - girlfriend vetoed it. Never bought anything. Ooh, but wait, I do seem to remember buying my little nephew an R/C car there!
Regarding the F177, the shop was in Southgate, North London, cannot remember the name, oposite tube station, but I am right :-)
Or if you are more conspiracy minded a deliberate misinformation campaign to further obscure what the nighthawk was and was not. this conspiracy is reinforced by the f-117 designation itself. They used a century-series number(this series of numbers had been phased out for quite some time at this point) and an F(fighter) designation for something that is effectively a light bomber.
That being said, I wonder what the actual f-19 was? The missing numbers always interest me. f-17? f-19? f-20(tigershark?) f-21? f-24:24? (i think I read somewhere the last gap was marketing sigh)
In Tom Clancy's book Red Storm Rising, about a hypothetical Third World War in Europe, he conceives of it as something like the F-35 ended up becoming -- a stealthy multirole aircraft (fighter-bomber). They called it the "F-19 Frisbee". The 19 comes from the fact that the previous fighter designation was for the F-18 Hornet.
[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminate-and-stay-resident_...
Just like the article on the B-29 superfortress [0] mentions and links to the article about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki [1].
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-29_Superfortress
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima...
> killed at least 408 civilians
vs
> The two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people
Maybe it's a sad state of affairs that 400 civilian deaths isn't that remarkable, but this is the world we live in. More than that died in the Mariupol theatre airstrike, but we don't need to link that from every airplane and munition article.
Sorry. I wish this shit was less common too.
This is what makes the bombing event essential for B-29's article.
The Amiriyah bombing doesn't really have such connotation with the plane.
That's simply not true.
Round surfaces scatter in all directions, flat surface scatter only in 1 direction of your choosing. For low RCS (Radar Cross Section) paneled surfaces are infinitely better, regardless of computer simulation capabilities.
Of course it's true. Modern stealth aircraft have curves a plenty. This is an extremely confident reply given that's it's to somebody who's referencing the book by the guy who built the thing.
But with the low-poly approach you end up with sharp edges which diffract the waves in all direction…
The fact that no more recent stealth plane have the same shape should be a good indication that this was in fact due to the technical limitation of the time (And btw, who are you to contradict the actual designer of the plane on that topic ?!)
On the other hand consider a flat mirror (at a long distance) or a faceted object with a small number of facets and sharp edges: it's unlikely that any of the facets is correctly aligned to reflect the light to your eyes.
A shape with fewer angles ("low-poly") has a lower probability of giving a visible reflection.
Modern stealth appears to work the same way: surfaces and edges are aligned along a minimal number of angles to reduce the effective number of "facets". See the shape of the B-2 for example, the leading and trailing edges are at the same angles.
It's like saying that 3d graphics lighting can only be done by rasterized rendering. Of course, now that we have enough GPU processing power, we can also use ray tracing.
In time, all light calculations/shadow calculations will be done with ray tracing, but for now, that's unimaginable because ray tracing runs slowly on current hardware.
"Ufimtsev has shown us how to create computer software to accurately calculate the radar cross section of a given configuration, as long as it's in two dimensions," Denys told me. "We can break down an airplane into thousands of flat triangular shapes, add up their individual radar signatures, and get a precise total of the radar cross section."
Why only two dimensions and why only flat plates? Simply because, as Denys later noted, it was 1975 and computers weren't yet sufficiently powerful in storage and memory capacity to allow for three-dimensional designs, or rounded shapes, which demanded enormous numbers of additional calculations. The new gneeration of supercomputers, which can compute a billion bits of information in a second is the reason why the B-2 bomber, with it's rounded surfaces, was designed entirely by computer computations.
Denys's idea was to compute the radar cross section of an airplane by dividiing it into a series of flat triangles. Each triangle had three separate points and required individual calculations for each point by utilizing Ufimtsev's calculations. The result was called "faceting"--creating a three-dimensional airplane design out of a collection of flat sheets or panels, similar to cutting a diamond into sharp-edged slices.
Yes quite?
Your text completely supports GP's statement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_F-117A_shootdown
And how the Chinese reversed engineered it and the Americans bombed their embassy in revenge ...
Here is an article from AP written ten years later, essentially saying that the Chinese based their J-20 stealth fighter on the pieces of the F-117 laying on the ground in Serbia:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jan/23/china-stealth-...
Chinese stealth fighter jet may use US technology
China may have bought parts of US F-117 Nighthawk shot down over Serbia in 1999, say experts
https://archive.org/details/ufintsev-method-of-edge-waves-in...
Wiki link about 117 development that mentions the work by Pyotr Ufimtsev.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-117_Nighthawk#Devel...
Oh and it's not like that was the only time poor recon resulted in bombs dropped in another place during the intervention. The execution of it is certainly not a high in NATO's history.