Deep Simulations F/A-18 A-D Skins
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Next up are the F/A-18D skins.
While the U.S. Navy made use of the F/A-18D as a trainer with flight controls installed in the back seat, the U.S. Marine Corps used the “D” model as an all weather night attack fighter, removing the back seat flight controls and replacing them with systems for a Weapons and Sensors Officer, thereby sharing pilot workload, enhancing the jet’s abilities in night attack, reconnaissance and in the Forward Air Controller (Airborne) FAC(A) role. I understand that sixty of the USMC “D” models were also outfitted with the ATARS electro-optical sensor package.
I really like the F/A-18D Night Attack Hornet. I like to crank up the inclement weather, wind and turbulence, reduce the visibility, and fly and fight almost entirely on instruments in these jets, then struggle to get home to short, dispersed, improvised highway “airstrips” with zero runway lighting, no ILS or TACAN and usually surrounded by forests and mountains. It all adds a lot of challenge to your landing and makes you innovate with combinations of NVGs, ATFLIR pod and ground mapping radar to get home and land safely.
Here they are:
3665 - F/A-18D - VMFA(AW)-242 “Bats”
-3665 - F/A-18D - VMFA(AW)-332 “Moonlighters” (Alternative option for 3665.dds file)
3667 - F/A-18D - VMFA(AW)-224 “Fighting Bengals”
-3667 - F/A-18D - VMFA(AW)-533 “Hawks” (Alternative option for 3667.dds file)
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Tomorrow I’ll show the F/A-18C VFA-86 “Sidewinders” I finished today, as well as the CF-18.
Cheers.
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Below we have the CF-188A, more commonly referred to as simply the CF-18. These F/A-18A airframes have gone through extensive upgrading over the decades, with the most recent upgrade regime including the AIM-9X air to air missiles, the AESA radar system used on the Supor Hornets, wide-band RADOMEs and more. A feature on many CF-18s is the night identification light on the port side of the fuselage behind the nose. It is used to illuminate blacked out intercepted aircraft for visual identification. The night identification light graphic on this skin is taken from a photo of an actual CF-18 light. No squadron markings have been added to this skin as yet.
Also below is an F/A-18C skin for VFA-86 “Sidewinders”.
Cheers.
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Hi,
Sorry for the short absence. Real life preparations for summer took took away my BMS time.
Here we have the final skins for the first series of 11 F/A-18A-D skins. These are for the F/A-18A’s 3653.dds file.
The first is the F/A-18A for VFA-147 “Argonauts”.
The second is an alternative F/A-18A 3653.dds file for VFA-192 “World Famous Golden Dragons”.
A few close ups on this shows some of the detail for standard markings that all the skins have.
This will complete this series. I’ll be packaging them up with credits, install instructions, etc. and handing them off to @drtbkj at the Other Fighters Mafia for distribution.
Hope you enjoy. For me, it’s time to get out of the paint shop and back into the cockpit.
Cheers.
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Quick correction. I mentioned 11 total skins above. That is 11 skins for the U.S Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. Adding the RCAF CF-188A skin, makes 12 in total for the package. The complete list is as follows:
CF-188A(Clean - No squadron markings) CF-188A
VFA-147 “Argonauts” F/A-18A 3653.dds
VFA-192 “World Famous Golden Dragons” F/A-18A alternative 3653.dds
VMFA-321 “Hell’s Angels” F/A-18B 3655.dds
VFA-25 “Fist of the Fleet” F/A-18C 3657.dds
VFA-86 “Sidewinders” F/A-18C 3659.dds
VFA-151 “Vigilantes” F/A-18C 3661.dds
VMFA-314 “Black Knights” F/A-18C 3663.dds
VMFA(AW)-242 “Bats” F/A-18D 3665.dds
VMFA(AW)-332 “Moonlighters” F/A-18D alternative 3665.dds
VMFA(AW)-224 “Fighting Bengals” F/A-18D 3667.dds
VMFA(AW)-533 “Hawks” F/A-18D alternative 3667.ddsCheers.
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Just a suggestion but you may want to scale up the Tail Code VW a tad.
FYI: VW was used when the the Knights were stationed at *Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) El Toro. (I was not with the squadron at the time.)
When the squadron moved to MCAS Miramar, it was also assigned to Carrier Air Wing Nine, Tail Code NG, aboard USS Nimitz, just as you have for VF-151.
Reference:https://forum.falcon-bms.com/topic/25328/my-time-in-the-corps-some-pics/9?
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Very, VERY nice. As before, if you want to share, zap them to us and we’ll include them in our releases
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@Crassus - Thanks for the suggestion on the VW. I went back and checked my reference photos for that skin and sure enough, the VW was about half the height of the tail formation light (the reference size I used for tail art). On my skin it’s only about 30% the height. I’ll make that change.
As for the NG tail code, I like that the NG is in a non-standard font. I think I’ll whip up an alternative Black Knights skin for the package, tail coded with NG and with the low viz squadron emblem elements. I’ll have to manually create the NG font (I had to do this for VMFA-321 also). The Black Knights are actually among my favorite squadrons (maybe dating back to my flying the 1995 PC/DOS flight sim Black Knight: Marine Strike Fighter), and I have a BMS flight/music video dedicated to the squadron coming up for release (it uses an earlier prototype of my VW skin). I’ll tag you when I post it in the video section. Thanks again for pointing that out.
Question for you if I may: the jousting lance and helmet on the dorsal fuselage in many photos are color (red, black/gold respectively) and in other photos are in low viz grey. Was there a guideline on this, or it just depended on era, etc.? I get the impression the color lance and helmet was not reserved for squadron leaders, but rather was used on many of the squadron’s jets.
@drtbkj - Give me about a week to package these up with the altered VW skin and the new NG skin and the package documentation, and I’ll get them to you.
Cheers.
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From what I remember from my time in Corrosion Control – we were the schleps responsible for painting all of the squadron’s birds – the colored bird was painted with the Group/ Wing commander name on it (in this case the commander of Carrier Air Wing 9). I don’t recall if both his and the Squadron CO’s name was on it as well, or if his name was on A/C 201.
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Thanks for the info. I think I have these two jets dialed in a bit better now.