JP (and co)'s Alphasim/Virtavia F-4 Revival for FSX/P3D

[Priller]

Just a short note as I am a Phantom maniac myself...

I think the F-4Fs, at least initially did not have the capacity to carry and fire the Sparrow as their radars were more simplified compared with the F-4E. Not sure if it was added later.

A total of 110 F-4F's were upgraded. This involved the APG-65 radar and AIM-120 AMRAAM as the main elements, along with many minor upgrades. The original plan was to upgrade 75 F-4Fs, but the number was increased to 110 in the late 1980s. Initially, the ICE upgrades were intended only for the interceptor wings, but more were upgraded due to delays in the Eurofighter Typhoon program. (from Wikipedia)

Priller

 

[PhantomTweak]

I can't speak to the individual models, but...

I worked on Phantom radar from my first day in active squadrons. After all the schooling. The radar I first learned was the one the Phantom had from it's origin. The Aero-1A, from Westinghouse. It was designed to guide the Sparrow during a long-range. high-altitude intercept. When it worked, it worked quite well at it's designed function. Had a lot of trouble with low-level air combat, though. It had a great deal of trouble picking out aircraft against ground clutter. Water included. It also was beginning, 10-15 years after it had first entered service, to suffer from reliability issues. Electronics that complex only last so long, after all, especially under the severe conditions they faced in aircraft.
The Sparrow missiles had a lot of trouble on their own, too. The heat, and humidity in South Viet Nam really screwed with the on-board electronics, and the ground crews didn't follow proper maintenance and storage procedures.

Then came the wonderful improvement to the Phantoms radar. The AWG-10A. It WAS an improvement, too. It had the capability to pick targets out against ground clutter pretty well. The real problem it had was reliability. We had a constant flow of Expeditious Repair items. Items they needed at the squadron to make a plane flyable. They were holding planes down for these items. We had to come in nearly every weekend and holiday to work, to try and get some of this stuff out. In other words, no time off at all. Hard on marriages, believe me. The main difficulty was with Westinghouse not being able to supply parts as fast as they failed.

Ok, a few years pass, and LO! Out came the AWG-10B. Basically, they redesigned the parts with the highest failure rates. It was nice to get some time off, finally!
They also redesigned the radar's computer system, so it worked even better against ground clutter. Essentially, software updates. They worked quite well too, although by now, Viet Nam was a thing of the past. From what I heard from the pilots and RIO's, they had upgraded, and improved, the Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles as well. They also trained the ground crews much better in maintaining and storing the missiles.

Westinghouse came out with AWG-10C as the final upgrade. By the time it was truly obsolete, they were focusing on transitioning to the F/A-18, and it has a hugely more modern, and reliable, radar system.
The Phantom, and it's radar, were out of Marine Corps service. So was I. I am a parts-level electronics tech, and the Hornet's entire trouble-shooting procedure consists of letting a computer tell us what board was bad, then replacing it. Anything more, that we formerly did, was now Depot level.

Have fun, everyone!
Pat☺

 

[Penz]

 

[Essex]

Phantastic

 

[Priller]

Wow JP, just WOW!!!

Priller

 

[gray eagle]

I can't speak to the individual models, but...

I worked on Phantom radar from my first day in active squadrons. After all the schooling. The radar I first learned was the one the Phantom had from it's origin. The Aero-1A, from Westinghouse. It was designed to guide the Sparrow during a long-range. high-altitude intercept. When it worked, it worked quite well at it's designed function. Had a lot of trouble with low-level air combat, though. It had a great deal of trouble picking out aircraft against ground clutter. Water included. It also was beginning, 10-15 years after it had first entered service, to suffer from reliability issues. Electronics that complex only last so long, after all, especially under the severe conditions they faced in aircraft.
The Sparrow missiles had a lot of trouble on their own, too. The heat, and humidity in South Viet Nam really screwed with the on-board electronics, and the ground crews didn't follow proper maintenance and storage procedures.

Then came the wonderful improvement to the Phantoms radar. The AWG-10A. It WAS an improvement, too. It had the capability to pick targets out against ground clutter pretty well. The real problem it had was reliability. We had a constant flow of Expeditious Repair items. Items they needed at the squadron to make a plane flyable. They were holding planes down for these items. We had to come in nearly every weekend and holiday to work, to try and get some of this stuff out. In other words, no time off at all. Hard on marriages, believe me. The main difficulty was with Westinghouse not being able to supply parts as fast as they failed.

Ok, a few years pass, and LO! Out came the AWG-10B. Basically, they redesigned the parts with the highest failure rates. It was nice to get some time off, finally!
They also redesigned the radar's computer system, so it worked even better against ground clutter. Essentially, software updates. They worked quite well too, although by now, Viet Nam was a thing of the past. From what I heard from the pilots and RIO's, they had upgraded, and improved, the Sparrow and Sidewinder missiles as well. They also trained the ground crews much better in maintaining and storing the missiles.

Westinghouse came out with AWG-10C as the final upgrade. By the time it was truly obsolete, they were focusing on transitioning to the F/A-18, and it has a hugely more modern, and reliable, radar system.
The Phantom, and it's radar, were out of Marine Corps service. So was I. I am a parts-level electronics tech, and the Hornet's entire trouble-shooting procedure consists of letting a computer tell us what board was bad, then replacing it. Anything more, that we formerly did, was now Depot level.

Have fun, everyone!
Pat☺

One time when I was at Miramar, I noticed in my squadrons AQ (Fire Control) shop a poster similar to this one of a HAWG-10 radar system
This one I did from memory, Couldn't find one like what I saw then. You may of seen one similar to this eh Pat?

 

[oldmsgt]

And then there was...

For a truly crappy unreliable radar you need look no further than this POS! Reviled and despised not only by maintenance personnel but aircrews as well! Not even suitable for a decent boat anchor! Shown below, the doctor attempts to find a pulse while a priest administers last rites. I offer up the venerable Texas Instruments APQ-99 on the RF-4C:
The Old MSgt

 

[rcbarend]

Oops …
Very interresting thread …. LoL
Not sure why I missed it up to now …..

JP, see our private conversation on FS-developer (not just on AB, but also my suggestion on weapons loadout drag).

And nice to see so many other flightsim contributors participating in this thread, that I had Email conversations with in the past, on various other projects (Ed, Ulrich, Pat, etc etc)

Cheers,

Rob Barendregt

 

[kdl]

Problems with German Airforce repaints

I installed the "German_Phantoms_Livery" package into the Virtavia_Phantom_Reloaded_V1 package.
Following problem occur:
- the texture.cfg of all models are looking for a certain texture folder (texture.metallic):

[fltsim]

fallback.1=..\texture.VC
fallback.2=..\texture.metallic

which is not available in the Virtavia_Phantom_Reloaded_V1 package.

-Where/how can I get this texture folder, please??

 

[rohan]

another small problem with the German livery pack is that there are no thumbnail (thumbnail.jpg) files in there - presumably because most of the original paints were for FS9 . . .

 

[klnowak]

I installed the "German_Phantoms_Livery" package into the Virtavia_Phantom_Reloaded_V1 package.
Following problem occur:
- the texture.cfg of all models are looking for a certain texture folder (texture.metallic):

[fltsim]

fallback.1=..\texture.VC
fallback.2=..\texture.metallic

which is not available in the Virtavia_Phantom_Reloaded_V1 package.

-Where/how can I get this texture folder, please??

Bag your pardon... thats from the version i use because i use another cockpit for the phantom (merge)

Change texture.cfg to :

fallback.1=..\texture
fallback.2=..\..\..\..\Scenery\Global\texture
fallback.3=..\..\..\..\..\..\Scenery\Global\texture

You don`t need thumbnails in P3D

Thats all.

Greetings
Klaus

 

[noddy]

Firstly, thanks to Klaus for the update skins.

Quick question, I am using P3D V5 but when I choose one of the new skins I do not get the texture for weapons?

All seems fine in the other pack.

Cheers

 

[delta_lima]

Firstly, thanks to Klaus for the update skins.

Quick question, I am using P3D V5 but when I choose one of the new skins I do not get the texture for weapons?

All seems fine in the other pack.

Cheers

Looks like the texture.cfg doesn’t include a fallback call to the main “textures” folder in the F-4 aircraft folder where those weapons’ textures live.

 

[noddy]

Figured it out

 

[Manschy]

Noddy, how did you figure it out, please? Everything I tried failed, even if I try to use the new texture.cfg entries - I always get white tanks. You guys did such a great job and I am too stupid to figure it out

 

[expat]

 

[noddy]

Noddy, how did you figure it out, please? Everything I tried failed, even if I try to use the new texture.cfg entries - I always get white tanks. You guys did such a great job and I am too stupid to figure it out

Manfred,

for the Pack 32 in the Aircraft .cfg for the skins from Klaus make sure you add the RR to the entries, otherwise I found that they crashed the sim.

[fltsim.5]
title=McDonnell Douglas RF4E Phantom II GAF 35+62
sim=RR_Phantom II
model=RF4E
panel=
sound=
texture=ag52_3562
kb_checklists=RAF_Phantom_check
ui_createdby=Virtavia
ui_manufacturer=McDonnell Douglas
ui_type=F-4 Phantom II
ui_variation=German Air Force 35+62 of AG52
atc_id=3562
atc_heavy=0
atc_airline=Air Force
atc_flight_number=
description=RF-4F '35+62' of AG52 in Norm72 colours. Repaint by Markus Hellwig.
atc_id_font=Verdana,-11,1,600,0
visual_damage=1
atc_parking_types=MIL_COMBAT

Also for the Texture .cfg in the skin folder leave as
[fltsim]
fallback.1=..\texture.VC
fallback.2=..\texture.metallic

As for the Pack 12, there were a couple entries in the Aircraft .cfg which had no skins in the pack from Klaus. Unfortunately I cannot remember what they were but think one was Tigermeet.

As for the Aircraft .cfg I changed the following parts to show in the P3D menu correctly but that was it.

[fltsim.18]
title=McDonnell Douglas F-4F Phantom GAF 37+86 JG71 Richtofen 40th anniversary
sim=Phantom II
model=F
panel=
sound=
texture=reddev
kb_checklists=Phantom_check
kb_reference=
ui_createdby=Virtavia
ui_manufacturer=McDonnell Douglas
ui_type=F-4 Phantom II
ui_variation=8. F-4F JG 71 "Richthofen" 1999
description=© ALPHA Simulations 2005\n\nThe truly venerable F-4 Phantom is one of the most prolific jet aircraft of the 20th century. A total of 5,195 of the type were built, 127 by Mitsubishi, when production completely ceased in 1979. The prototype was first flown on May 27, 1958 and held great promise in a variety of roles. The aircraft was so appealing that the USAF signed up for the type as well. Phantoms set many world records during their prime, and many remain in service throughout the world.
atc_id_color=0x00000000
visual_damage=0
atc_heavy=0
atc_id=
atc_airline=
atc_flight_number=00
atc_id_font=Verdana,-11,1,600,0

Again for the Texture .cg leave as

[fltsim]
fallback.1=..\texture.VC
fallback.2=..\texture.metallic

That should then work correctly for the skins from Klaus and his new tanks for those.

Hopefully you can get them to work.

 

[Manschy]

Noddy, thank you very much for effort.

Unfortunately, I can't get the wing tanks show up properly. The white tanks are really, really stubborn....
That might for sure an issue sitting in front of my PC, not in your help! I will have some more focused look into the lines, because I guess it is simply a careless mistake I did.

Weird:
When I used Klaus' texture.cfg lines

<<
Change texture.cfg to :

fallback.1=..\texture
fallback.2=..\..\..\..\Scenery\Global\texture
fallback.3=..\..\..\..\..\..\Scenery\Global\textur e
>>

...I can see the tanks in correct colors, but PBR and shiny skins are missing that way. Only a dark surface appears like the aircraft is standing in a real dark shadow.

 

[noddy]

Manfred,

For the cfg in the various textures from the pack use this instead and the tanks showed up together with the weapons. I also used the suggested change but that did not work.

[fltsim]
fallback.1=..\texture.VC
fallback.2=..\texture.metallic

 

[Manschy]

Thank you, Noddy.

Will check this on Sunday again - otherwise I will do a complete new installation, this did help many times and I always didn't understand why