That's the "Battle E" you will see it on aircraft and ships, there's also an "S" for Safety. Every year a squadron in "Type" is awarded a Battle E for scoring highest on AIRPAC/AIRLANT inspections and events. It's the same for Ship types too. It's a big deal to get the Battle E, there is also a ribbon you can wear for it too.



Mine has 3 E's on it, I got one with VA-94, one from USS Enterprise and one from USS Abraham Lincoln.

Subsequent awards will have a hash mark below it on the aircraft or ship

E
\


My ride in AG-51....

Lovely photos purgatorio, please tell us more about your campaign over at the new Mission Builders HQ, where we have begun to collate items specific to new campaigns. I would be interested to know more about your setup, whether you have steam cats on the Valley Forge and Boxer along with good stable AI helos and SAR cover. Between A&A and AG51 We have solved all of these issues and are working on a fully functional KTO from a number of angles right now.

RDDR: notice how the Panthers are being towed forward up to the cat? To me this indicates that it would be perfectly legitimate even for hardcore DBW pilots to use AP to set up on the cat then dis-engage for a manual launch. You don't have to try and drive the damn thing all over a pitching deck!

They aren't being towed to the cats you silly goose....................... they are being towed forward of the arresting gear for re-spot of the flight deck. A Naval Aviator wouldn't be caught dead being towed to the cats.....................

They prolly just launched a strike, now they are moving the planes forward of the barricade for landing ops more than likely....

The guy in the cockpit is the plane captain (enlisted guy), he's there to ride the brakes if need be.

Being towed to the cats............... geeeeazzzzzz...... land lubbers....

Aaaw hell, you mean I gotta learn to drive that mad over-powered jet tricycle around on a narrow pitching wet and slippery deck?

Then ride the steam-cat as it throws the airplane out just a few feet over the sea before lift is achieved, go fly a combat strike then find my way back to the boat and land a jetplane on something that looks like a postage stamp from 1000feet?

You are one hard task-master!


Can't wait...

I've take a break from playing Il-2 for the last weeks and spent my time on the The Art of Flight LINK thread. You might have noticed that I've enjoyed that immensely

The campaign and skins that I'm working on are just for a little update for Nixer's The Forgotten War: An F9F Panther Campaign LINK. The Panther is one of my favourites and so I decided to make the campaign DBW ready and now try to explore the new possibilities that DBW and new mods like C&C3 offer. Fitting KTO skins are part of this little project, too:

tech from the template, the rest is more ore less my work:



quickly adjusted for 1950 schemes:





I'm always interested in the history behind a scenario and in this case my research was rewarded. I found original documents digitalized in the US Navy archive:
Korean Combat Action Reports for Valley Forge (CV/CVA 45) LINK


I've permission from Nixer to adapt his work as I like and release it. Nevertheless for the moment I enjoy fooling around and possibly will only start polishing as soon as we know more about the future of IL-2 modding. I would like to gain from the 4.11 features...

S!