Virtavia A-4 Skyhawk available

Nice Nicely A4Man :cool: Lotta fun adjusting and tweaking with A2As AccuFeel <input id="gwProxy" type="hidden"><input jscode="leoInternalChangeDone()" onclick="if(typeof(jsCall)=='function'){jsCall();}else{setTimeout('jsCall()',500);}" id="jsProxy" type="hidden">
 
VA-22 I won't do because of the fuselage ban......when they did the textures they did some stretching and its right where the band goes. VA-55 will be done, as will 2 more VA-164 jets, and also the VA-213 I think you have a shot of.
 
Hey guys,

New here on the boards. At least I think I'm new. I could have sworn that I had an account at one time. LOL!

Anyway, I don't have this jet yet for FSX but I have a notion about the climb issue that someone had mentioned earlier.

I flew a few light attack jets back in the dark ages. On one of my early cross country flights as a nugget, I was climbing out as wingman with a set of wing tanks and nothing else. This config made me heavyish, but not really heavy. In any case, my jet was a bit of a dog and I was having a hard time climbing with my lead. Not thinking too much about it, I traded a little airspeed for altitude to get back up to him. Bad idea. What I found was that not only had my climb rate stagnated, but I was also unable to regain my airspeed, even at mil power. In the end, the only way I could resume my climb was to ask for a block altitude, descend slightly until I could get my climb airspeed back and then reset my climb attitude.

It's only natural to think you can climb out like a rocket in a tactical aircraft, especially in FS where you don't generally get punished too badly for such transgressions. In the actual aircraft, a heavy load will really put a dent in your climb capability. And if you don't hawk your climb airspeed fairly closely, you can easily prematurely stifle your climb by getting behind the power curve.

I can't say with any certainty that is what is happening here, but it definitely sounds like a good representation of a heavily loaded aircraft that was allowed to get slow on climb out. I'd be curious to see if the time to climb/distance to climb charts yielded accurate numbers when flown on the proper climb schedule.



Skyhawka4m, can I ask what your association was with VMA-131 and 211? I was stashed with the former (and got my first Skyhawk ride) when I was waiting for flight school and the latter was my first fleet squadron. I was surprised to see you do both skins as your first effort!

Deacon
 
TA4G Heavy Weight T/o Hot Windless Short R/W

'Deacon211' thanks for your heavy climb explanation. You may be interested in the A4G PDFs / Videos at the URLs in my signature.

'Not enough power/airspeed' with heavy weight (close to maximum allowed) takeoff on R/W 08 at NAS Nowra with a TA4G follows:

The most extreme take off was with a TA4G with three 2,000 pound full fuel tanks (centre being buddy tank) doing the ‘ski jump’ on Runway 08 on a hot windless summer day, contemplating where the aircraft should be pointed, IF, during the ‘interminable’ take off roll things did not go as advertised according to the TA4G NATOPS Take Off Performance Charts (thankfully just making all the benchmarks perfectly) as it trundled down towards that magic drop off into the gully off the end of RW 08; but NOT BEFORE bouncing up & down on that long nose oleo – going nowhere performance-wise – on that last few hundred feet uphill (the jump-de-ski effect).

Yep, veer/turn right – eject. But then the wheels left the tarmac & aircraft dropped into the gully, slowly accelerating ‘downhill’. No performance in TA4G with that 6,000lb extra load/drag with full internal fuel of 4,800lbs on that ‘hot’ day. [A long field arrest was perhaps possible – but not certain.]
 
Wow, that's a pretty hair-raising story!

Great links. I only flew the TA-4J in Flight School, but I loved that plane!

Deacon
 
Deacon211 said:
Skyhawka4m, can I ask what your association was with VMA-131 and 211? I was stashed with the former (and got my first Skyhawk ride) when I was waiting for flight school and the latter was my first fleet squadron. I was surprised to see you do both skins as your first effort!

Deacon
Click to expand...


Well long story short....I grew up near and wound up stationed at NAS Willow Grove in Pa. I grew up with VMA-131 in my life until they were gone. I made a few frieends there and even helped to pait the final A-4M in MARINE service. Didn't do anything major but it was nice to be part of it. As to VMA-211.....no attachement to them other than I love A-4's and just happened to pic that unit to do first. I also did one for VMAT-102. I will also be doing A-4E 151046 in the TOMCATTERS scheme aas it appeared in Vietnam era. I have plans to do at least one sccheme from every MARINE unit and numerous NAVY units also. If you have one in mind let me knnow and I'll see wht I can do for you. Heck I could even add your name to a certain plane if you ever had that done.
 
Hairy? This is hairy! :)

Deacon211 said:
Wow, that's a pretty hair-raising story!

Great links. I only flew the TA-4J in Flight School, but I loved that plane!

Deacon
Click to expand...

My Basic / Advanced Flying training then (and it is more or less the same today in the helo only RAN FAA) was done in the RAAF with fifteen months of ground school and flying training then returning to the RAN Fleet Air Arm at NAS Nowra. It took awhile before I was able to do my first carrier landing ever in the A4G - not aboard HMAS Melbourne which was just coming out of refit - on HMS Eagle which happened to be visiting our East Coast at the time. Being a newbie (sprog) I was only allowed to do touch and goes, later becoming carqual on MELBOURNE. If you like hairy stories then my second 'night deck landing' (hook up) during carqual was at least that - hairy! :) SkyDrive and GoogleDrive have this PDF. On SkyDrive look in the 'Documents Various' folder for:

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=cbcd...#cid=CBCD63D6340707E6&id=CBCD63D6340707E6!116

Ramp-Strike-01-Sept-71-no8.pdf (7.5Mb)

Most PDFs about the A4G combined have info on the very bumpy up and down Runway 08/26 at NAS Nowra. From the approach end of RW 26 there is a downdraft warning for westerly winds over 7 knots due to a deep gully along the approach path. This downdraft with stronger winds claimed many an aircraft and some lives over the years but not in the A4G era (good waveoff characteristics).
 
skyhawka4m said:
Well long story short....I grew up near and wound up stationed at NAS Willow Grove in Pa. I grew up with VMA-131 in my life until they were gone. I made a few frieends there and even helped to pait the final A-4M in MARINE service. Didn't do anything major but it was nice to be part of it. As to VMA-211.....no attachement to them other than I love A-4's and just happened to pic that unit to do first. I also did one for VMAT-102. I will also be doing A-4E 151046 in the TOMCATTERS scheme aas it appeared in Vietnam era. I have plans to do at least one sccheme from every MARINE unit and numerous NAVY units also. If you have one in mind let me knnow and I'll see wht I can do for you. Heck I could even add your name to a certain plane if you ever had that done.
Click to expand...


Very cool. I had a great time at Willow Grove. I'm from Jersey, so getting back to the North East for a few months was great. I still remember my first A-4 rides...strapping in...the smell of the LOX...the strange way our wingman just seemed to sit there as we gave him a form warmup at dusk, like it was yesterday. I still have my 131 patch somewhere.

As for paints, it just so happens that you did my two favorites right off the bat! I'm waiting for a few weeks before I get the A-4 though. I went a little crazy with the payware after a long respite from FSX and need to throttle myself back a bit! :-D
 
SpazSinbad said:
My Basic / Advanced Flying training then (and it is more or less the same today in the helo only RAN FAA) was done in the RAAF with fifteen months of ground school and flying training then returning to the RAN Fleet Air Arm at NAS Nowra. It took awhile before I was able to do my first carrier landing ever in the A4G - not aboard HMAS Melbourne which was just coming out of refit - on HMS Eagle which happened to be visiting our East Coast at the time. Being a newbie (sprog) I was only allowed to do touch and goes, later becoming carqual on MELBOURNE. If you like hairy stories then my second 'night deck landing' (hook up) during carqual was at least that - hairy! :) SkyDrive and GoogleDrive have this PDF. On SkyDrive look in the 'Documents Various' folder for:

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=cbcd...#cid=CBCD63D6340707E6&id=CBCD63D6340707E6!116

Ramp-Strike-01-Sept-71-no8.pdf (7.5Mb)

Most PDFs about the A4G combined have info on the very bumpy up and down Runway 08/26 at NAS Nowra. From the approach end of RW 26 there is a downdraft warning for westerly winds over 7 knots due to a deep gully along the approach path. This downdraft with stronger winds claimed many an aircraft and some lives over the years but not in the A4G era (good waveoff characteristics).
Click to expand...


Wow, another great story!

I was only a member of the Six Trap Club before moving on to something more...vertical. ;-)

Deacon
 
In those years c.1966-7, just as I joined the Basic Aircrew Training, some large groups of RAN FAA pilots were trained at NAS Pensacola, with traps on the LEXINGTON with the T-28C, before going to Helo Training and then return to NAS Nowra for Wessex 31 conversion. Later some went to Vietnam via Iroquois training. and then to EMU unit in South Vietnam. It was a time when the RAN FAA was regenerating fixed wing again; but also increasing overall helo numbers for the new role with the new [fixed wing] USN aircraft. After Vietnam service some Iroquois/Wessex pilots, who had trained in USofA, went on to A4G [& S-2E/G] flying. Earlier in the early to mid 1960s the RAN FAA had been winding down - getting rid of fixed wing, to being what it is today - a helo only force. The Oz trained certainly envied the T-28C trained at the time. Later RAN A4G pilots exchanged with VT squadrons along with LSO training etc.
 
Deacon211 said:
Very cool. I had a great time at Willow Grove. I'm from Jersey, so getting back to the North East for a few months was great. I still remember my first A-4 rides...strapping in...the smell of the LOX...the strange way our wingman just seemed to sit there as we gave him a form warmup at dusk, like it was yesterday. I still have my 131 patch somewhere.

As for paints, it just so happens that you did my two favorites right off the bat! I'm waiting for a few weeks before I get the A-4 though. I went a little crazy with the payware after a long respite from FSX and need to throttle myself back a bit! :-D
Click to expand...


Were you in 131 and if so when? Do you know Ed Miranda?
 
Ok...so I have decided to do a complete overal repaint of my own instead of using anothers to do my layers on. Still a ways to go and once the basic paint is done markings scheme's should go pretty quickly. Numerous MARINE reseerve aircraft to be done along with a couple VC-12 anad VC-13 aircraft. Along with the repaints I will be supplying a seperate folder for optin fuel tank variations, and alternate bomb color textures. Aloowing the sim pilot to choose what they want their loadout to look like. Anyone having any suggestions please feel free to ask....I will see what I can do.


View attachment 78766
 
:cool:Looking good A4man , we are getting further interest with the Skyhawk and suspect some ex-RNZAF boys having a looking to buy ...
 
I am hoping and praying for a TA-4 from Virtavia myself. I may end up doing a couple NZ birds also.....love the three tone scheme myself.
 
skyhawka4m said:
Were you in 131 and if so when? Do you know Ed Miranda?
Click to expand...

That name sounds familiar, but I can't quite place it.

Technically, I was assigned to MAG-49 from May '90 to September '90. I had just finished TBS and had a six month wait for flight school to start. I had a great time in PA. In fact, I got married last year at the Black Bass Inn, north of New Hope just because of how much I have always loved that area.

Deacon
 
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