Military AI Works

Excuse my ignorance, but are any of these aircraft still flying or are they all retro? Thanks in advance.

Alan Robertson wrote:Excuse my ignorance, but are any of these aircraft still flying or are they all retro? Thanks in advance.

I believe Mirage III's are still operated by Pakistan and Argentina, Mirage V's still used by Egypt, Lebanon, Pakistan, Peru and Argentina I think. The Kfir is still in use with Colombia, Ecuador and Sri Lanka. The rest would be retro if i've remembered that correctly

I just PM'ed Alan regarding this, but this is the extract of my response, it's pretty close to Dan's:

Argentina still uses Mirage IIIEA, Mirage 5, and the Dagger (ex- Israeli Nesher); these are mostly combat-veteran aircraft from the Falklands.

Sri Lanka, Ecuador, and Colombia all still use the Kfir.

Chile uses a modified Mirage 50 (called the Pantera).

South Africa uses a modified Mirage IIIC and IIIBE (called the Cheetah)

Colombia, Venezuela, Peru all still use some variant of the Mirage 5 or Mirage 50 (basically a Mirage 5 brought up to F.1 standard).

Pakistan is becoming the world's holder for used Mirages; they currently operate at least nine variants, and have over a hundred in service. They have some of their own, and some former aircraft from France, Lebanon, and Australia. If your thing is to fly RAF tanker missions out of the Gulf region, you would see these aircraft frequently on ATC; patrolling the Pakistan coast, as well as Iranian, Indian, and Afghan borders.

There may be one or two other (African or South American) current operators I can't remember off-hand.

Hope the community has as much fun being enlightened as much as I had fun researching all of this stuff..... my brain still hurts a little....

MP

Thanks for the info - I try to keep my sim populated only with current aircraft so this goes a long way to helping me out.

Great answers gents, about to ask as I attempt to add these outstanding models to South America and every country flying some form of Mirage.

Here is the weekly fix of Mirages, a three-for-one package. This is the Belgian Air Force, with the Mirage 5BA, 5BD and 5BR variants. 14 models and 54 repaints. Have fun with it, and the Mirage M5M (MirSIP, Elkan) will follow later in this project.

MP

Long have I waited to fill this particular gap in my retro AI.
Many many thanks Mike.

Chris

ruggerfan wrote:Half the guys at our old payware site Frank, remember them?

-Larry

Sure do. My skin is no thicker despite the years.

mikeblaze wrote:Here is the weekly fix of Mirages, a three-for-one package. This is the Belgian Air Force, with the Mirage 5BA, 5BD and 5BR variants. 14 models and 54 repaints.

Much appreciated, Mike. I - and apparently many of my countrymen - have been looking forward to this one.

I so hate to do this because I know how much effort goes into these things, but the Belgian flag on the left side of the tail should be inverted (when looking at that image you posted. I haven't seen the actual paints yet). Black should always be closest to the nose of the aircraft.

To Everybody,

It is time to do a little across-the-board update package, figured that this would be needed every dozen packages or so. I will fix the things I mentioned in an earlier post, plus this whole run of backwards-flagged Belgian aircraft. This will be a copy-in-and-overwrite update, so it will be pretty easy to use for whichever aircraft you have installed. I will include a couple of bonus upgrade things as a consolation, like extra loadout models and a few extra paints; so I will call this an official 'service pack' rather than a 'hotfix', lol. I'll give details when I release the file.

MP

Awesome. Thanks, Mike.

I just uploaded 60MB of updates, in two files, for all of the Mirage IIIE, Mirage 5, and IIIB/BE packages released thus far. The biggest thing was a precautionary update of all of the IIIE-series models released thus far, because of some weird compilation problems I had during final production. The original models didn't seem to have any issues in beta-test as far as rendering or function, but I am making sure that these models are really 'right' and won't cause a crash-to-desktop.

I also fixed the stated issues from the forum; such as aircraft visible in the UI (user interface), some armament changes for authenticity (IIIEE with AIM-9, IIIS with RB26 radar-guided Falcons), the IIIBE tail, and a re-run of the entire Belgian contingent to fix that God-awful error I made with the flag (sorry about that....). To sweeten the deal, I added two new models and four paints the IIIE French package, so this service pack is a must-have just for the new material.

So now that all of the core models are released, and all of the models are at one standard now of air files, authenticity, and such; hopefully there will be little need for further service packs of this magnitude.

Thanks for being patient.

MP

Thanks Mike! Off to get the updates.

Here's that other Mirage I teased with a month or so ago..... close to finished alpha state, just need to finish up the back end and do the internal stuff; then cut out all the gear doors and such. As usual, each model has some new thing I pick up, this one has four-sided polygonal texturing of the rear fuselage, so all of those top and belly panels don't distort, looks much cleaner than my previous work. Not sure if I am going to do the intake auxilary air doors on this one, first it's a larger aircraft, and second, there are six of these doors per side, a lot of extra polygons to model them in smoothly into the engine. I'll see what the near-LOD polygon count is with all of the internals modeled, and decide then.

MP

You could always model dummy parts that are black and look like aux intakes, make them appear based on some specific conditions with xml.

I'm not a big fan of dummy parts, because sometimes the xml events which activate them are a little too fake-looking. The big issue, other than this is a bigger aircraft, is that I try to keep the LOD_400 model (near LOD) under 3,000 polygons, as kind of a recipe from studying Nick Black models It is a two-seater, so that means duplicate cockpit parts and pilots, always a culprit in driving up poly counts. Another polygon thief is the ground ladders. I might have to violate the 3,000 polygon rule, and just see what happens. The advantage I have is that there were only 40-odd aircraft manufactured, and squadron strength was four per squadron (9 bomber squadrons total at height of operational use), so there might not be more than eight or ten aircraft in a single scene, totally manageable. I haven't done any research on the IVP recce version yet, but I suspect it probably was operated in similar small numbers. What I mean is that I don't see all forty of these loading up a single air base, ever; so a higher poly count could be tolerated. Anyways, there are five aux air doors on either side of the intake....

MP

WoW again!!!
Everyday, I'm dreaming in front of one of this beauty, now used as a "gate-guardian". It will really be great to make it fly again in the sim

Many thanks for your work and those teasers

Fred

Higher poly counts are not the problem they used to be 4 or 5 years ago. Most people are using machines that far outpace what FS9 was ever designed to run on. Besides, it's not the polys that slow things down, it's the textures.

If that's the case, then damn the polygons and full speed ahead.....

*hehehe*

It is true what Mike says, especially when you take into account that it has to be impossible to get 40 models all showing at LOD1.