Jimi, et al.
I like to submit the following changes to the bird taken into consideration for the next release, if possible:
1) Smokesystem: Trying to correct an issue I had with the smokesystem that was caused by the CS version, I went through all the smoke effects and found a few issues within the xml effects 'smoke enable:xx' function calling the wrong line numbers. I have corrected them to the best of my knowledge (they all seem to work as expected now) and have changed the position of the Flare_Cutoff effect from line 5 to 9 as it was causing the issue with the CS version. In order to make the smokesystem compatible with the FSX and CS versions, please see if you can keep the new order.
2) Lights: When I was checking the lights at night, I noticed that the main light illuminating the runway is present for the MAV version only, and also cannot be turned off. Can this be fixed and implemented for the A-A, GBU, Zuni, Clean, and BA versions too? Also when turning the lights off, the position lights seemed to remain on, changed color from light green to light brown. Maybe there is a formation_lights file missing for the night, or something else?
3) Textures: The afterburner textures have been flipped upside down and caused the AB effect (of the model file, not the xml effect) to be inverted. Corrected files are included below. Adjusted weapons textures for MAV and Zuni included, too.
4) VC cockpit mirror: I have slightly changed the color of the VC cockpit mirrors to make the look a bit more realistic. See screenshots. One with the sun up in the back, and one with the sun from up front.
5) VC and HUD: In order to make the general VC cockpit view more realistic I have slightly moved and resized the HUD and adjusted eyepoint and FA18_HUD variables. See screenshots. For general flying I find it more appropriate, for a carrier or landing approach zooming in works fine.
6) panel.cfg: FCS!Carrier_Takeoff_Trim and FCS!G_Limiter seem to be obsolete, can they be removed?
7) hi_alpha_on_roll/yaw: Doing a few stall maneuvers at different altitudes I realized these could trigger the bird spinning around the yaw axis being unrecoverable without barely loosing altitude (rotating around a horizontal axis, not a vertial one as one might expect). This looked funny but was not very realistic so in order to avoid it, I slightly reduced the yaw momentum, and increased the roll momentum a bit.
8) p_factor_on_yaw/torque_on_roll: as I discovered later, these are valid for airplanes with rotating propellers only, so they can be removed safely.
9) wing_pos_apex_lon/vert: as these seem to have no bearing on flight dynamics and resembling entries (1515) in the .air file are marked obsolete, they seem just to be used for MAC calculation and visual positioning, so I have adjusted them for the vapour effects on the wing tips to match much better, now.
All the corrected textures, effects and values can be found in the file below, please recheck them in case I have made some mistakes.
Best regards, Peter
P.S. I could not find out how to trigger the cannon and flare effects manually. Key 'i' seems to trigger all effects in the smokesystem at once. Please elaborate.