Best Military Aircraft for FSX? (Steam)

[martin88]

Hello,

I am looking for a really good Military Jet for FSX. At the moment I often use Dino´s lovely freeware stuff. It is absolutely great but I want MOOREE :a1310:
Last week I bought the F16 form Aerosoft. Plane it self is ok, but it is noticeable that it was made some years ago. And it was a fight to get it work on steam.
Altough I bought it there it nearly ruined my FSX. I had to work for 2 hours to get it work properly.

So I am looking for another nice Jet for the game. I know the F18 Superbug but it has some problems with steam (thats what I read)

So what can you guys recommend? A nice russian Bird would be nice, perhaps a Suchoi. Or the F104 from SIM SKUNK WORKS?

If it would be freeware, even better.


Greetings

[IanHenry]

Hi Martin,
There are some really great military aircraft available (I'm assuming you mean jets), and I'm pretty sure your going to get a variety of suggestions. Some of my favourites are:

Vertical Reality F18 Superbug (with Tackpac) and there are no problems the current version in Steam
JustFlight Canberra PR9
JustFlight Tornado GR1
Milviz F15
Aerosoft Tomcat
Razbam Harrier (although the flight dynamics are a little "challenging" if you want to hover)
Milviz Phantom

I hope this gives you some food for thought.

Ian

[Daube]

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EDIT: I wrote too fast and didn't notice the "Steam" part of your title. I would like to insist on the fact that I do NOT know if the planes mentioned below work in FSX Steam at all.
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Well, it depends which kind of period you're looking for. WWII ? Modern ?
It also depends on what "best" means for you.
For me, the quality of a plane includes the embedded systems, the flight model and the graphics. But some people don't care for the systems and care only for the graphics...

Currently the "best" modern military planes are payware, unfortunately.
But, even if they are not the "best", some of the freeware planes are at extremely high level of quality.

Let's start with the freeware planes:
- the jets made by Dino are the obvious choices. His Tomcat and T-45 are just awesome. Of course, the features of his Tomcat are not as complete as the Aerosoft one, but the price is not the same either ;)
- the freeware F-104 from SimSkunkWorks, if you manage to find it, is for me one of the most satisfying birds to pilot in FSX/P3D. It's really pleasant and challenging. No weapons and the instrumentation is quite basic (I mean, an F-104 does not have the instruments of a F-15, right ?...), but it's simply a must-have for me.
- The various French jets from Restauravia and the RFN, including the Mirage III (single and two-seaters), the Mystere and the Etendard, are also to be considered as little jems.
- there are others that are not in my mind right now, and I'm willingly excluding the FS9 port-overs because they don't work in P3D.

For the payware, the best (most realistic and most complete) military planes are the ones which are compatible with TacPack from VRS. The current top-three are the following:
- the VRS F-18 SuperHornet, which is for the moment the most complete military jet ever created
- the Metal2Mesh Mirage 2000, which has not only an excellent level of realism, but also an incredible graphic level (superior to the F-18)
- the Aerosoft F-14 Tomcat

Additionally, some recent addons may change that top-three, but I don't know them enough yet. These include the Phantom by Milviz and the Tornado by Justflight. Both of them are supposed to include some TacPack features in the near future.

The other military planes I know about are not compatible with TacPack, which means they don't have functional weapons and related systems. Excepted for a few of them which are using some specific weapon systems. For example, the SimSkunkWorks planes or the MilViz Strike Eagle. But I don't know these ones very well (I don't have any of the SimSkunkWorks payware planes, and the MilViz F-15 gave me too much trouble so I ended up uninstalling it).

[Dumonceau]

If freeware is an option, I would try out The Hunters by Dave Garwood (payware quality!) and everything by Tim "Piglet" Conrad.

Piglet's aircraft can be found here and Dave's Hunters can be found www.cbfsim.co.uk.

That should keep you busy for a while! ;)

Johan

[martin88]

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EDIT: I wrote too fast and didn't notice the "Steam" part of your title. I would like to insist on the fact that I do NOT know if the planes mentioned below work in FSX Steam at all.
-------------------------------------------

Well, it depends which kind of period you're looking for. WWII ? Modern ?
It also depends on what "best" means for you.
For me, the quality of a plane includes the embedded systems, the flight model and the graphics. But some people don't care for the systems and care only for the graphics...
For me same things are important as for you and I am looking more for modern Stuff (F104 Period included) :encouragement:



- the freeware F-104 from SimSkunkWorks, if you manage to find it, is for me one of the most satisfying birds to pilot in FSX/P3D. It's really pleasant and challenging. No weapons and the instrumentation is quite basic (I mean, an F-104 does not have the instruments of a F-15, right ?...), but it's simply a must-have for me.

If you can tell me where to find this, I would be very happy. I looked for hours on the internet. Could not find it anymore. Only thing I found was a limited demo version. It worked for 5 minutes, but in this 5 Minutes it looked great. I aksed the guys form SimSkunkWorks where to find the freeware version but no answer. This tells everything to me^^

TacPack is not important for me. This one is some years old but still looks nice and I love the Black Widow. Anyone here who knows this plane?
http://www.fsd-international.com/Hangar/YF23/Index.htm

Or this Suchoi from Flight1. http://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=su30mk Looks nice, too

@Dumonceau (http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/member.php?114384-Dumonceau): TY I will try it out

[Navy Chief]

Razbam's A-6 Intruder, although an older model by current standards, is a favorite of mine to do carrier ops with. Virtavia's (Alphasim) is ok too.

Controlling the approach speed to the carrier deck (for me at least) is made easier, using the wingtip spoilers.

I also have a fondness of sorts for the A-7 Corsair II by Razbam.

I agree with Ian's assessment about the VRS Superbug. It is an amazing model! :encouragement:NC

[Katoun]

Hi,

We are the ones who made the YF-23 with FSD. We will be remaking this one sometime in the (near) future.

Thank you.

Kat.

[DaveWG]

I think the VRS Superbug & TacPack only work on Steam if that is the only version of FSX installed. If you have FSX-MS installed as well, it will only work with that, not FSX-Steam.

[Stefano Zibell]

Some not-that-obvious freeware:

1. Saab 105 - http://www.tigerstaffel.at/de/SaabSim_FSX.htm

2. Saab Draken - https://simulations.bookmark.se/ (need to register)

3. Bjoern's L-39C - https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6K_xiE2GqmMNElNWHpEOTE1UE0/view?usp=sharing

The RFN étendard is a must have.

And here's another awaiting a revival of the freeware F-104 by SimSkunkWorks.

[Boomer]

My preference is Naval aviation. To that end I would recommend the following for carrier ops in no particular order.

Aerosoft F14
VRS F-18 Superbug
Razbam A7 Corsair
Virtavia A4 Skyhawk
Milviz F4 Phantom

[Navy Chief]

My preference is Naval aviation. To that end I would recommend the following for carrier ops in no particular order.

Aerosoft F14
VRS F-18 Superbug
Razbam A7 Corsair
Virtavia A4 Skyhawk
Milviz F4 Phantom

Forgot about the Virtavia Skyhawk. I do have that one. Great model!

Would also like to have the Aerosoft Tomcat and the Milviz Phantom, but neither are affordable to me right now. NC

[odourboy]

Let us not forget;

SSW F-84F Thunderstreak
Milviz F-86F Sabre
Milviz T-38A Talon
Lotissim L-39

All great birds and very frame rate friendly!

[Bjoern]

Rob Richardson's F-106, Ivan Jurcaga's MiG-21MF...hey, let's just link the lists here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1evs2QG5wtUJCEXw6MH_wMoYQxPKXY6lb5q1X8xgdRvU/edit?pli=1#gid=0
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qW689ZZIps3HFFXOrEFpPzzQP-y5NeO9it_PSu61IwY/edit?pli=1#gid=0

[martin88]

Thank you all for your feedback. I will try some of the planes out.

Funny that nobody says the Aerosoft F16 is one of his favorites :P

[Ferry_vO]

The Aerosoft F-16 still is a great aircraft, and requires only a minor tweak to get it working in FsX:SE. (Can't remember what it was right now though...)

The VRS F/A-18 Super Hornet is great, but only works in FsX:SE if you also buy Tac pac from the same developer.

[ryanbatc]

Lotissim L-39

All great birds and very frame rate friendly!

Oh man that plane is fantastic...hand flies like a dream.... the pioneer of landing lights/strobe lighting effects in FSX.

[dhazelgrove]

Wot no Aerosoft Lightnings?
M2M Mirage 2000C?

Dave

[Dumonceau]

Wot no Aerosoft Lightnings?
M2M Mirage 2000C?

Dave

Daube did mention the M2M Mirage!

J.

[griphos]

In terms of the total package, i.e. system depth, graphics, flight modeling, realism, the Milviz F-86 is near the top of the list, and although a much older model, the L-39 as well. Two excellent aircraft.

[martin88]

I bought the F16 from Aerosoft over steam last week. It messed up my scenery.cfg so bad that I was sitting their for hours to fix it. Very poor!!
The only stuff I never had any problems with was the Level-D 767 or the PMDG planes in FS9.