Freeshooter92 said
I know I can't have the best plane but i'd at least like something respectable, otherwise we'd just be flying Fishbeds or something. Lord knows I ain't flying no fishbed.
Please re-read the opening again, especially the paragraph underneath the aircraft list:
Hey, Blade! Where's My F-22/Flanker/T-50/JSF/etc?!
While they are all very cool aircraft, I'm deliberately avoiding allowing players to use any of the most modern aircraft - only the aircraft from the OP on the OOC thread are available for beginning players. You may well get the chance to upgrade to something more modern down the line, but it's part of the storyline and background that more modern aircraft are currently out of reach, and older aircraft with modifications to make them more competitive are where we're starting out.
I mainly did this to avoid the 'same old aircraft' being picked - when I've tried to run other games like this, I've just ended up with a handful of F-22's, Flanker variants, and a couple of reluctant F-15 or -16 pilots, rather than anything imaginative, different or exciting (and then inevitable tremendous flame-wars about which is 'better' the F-22 or the T-50 or Flanker family).
I was kind of hoping to inspire a bit of interest in something different, rather than just seeing the same things wheeled out again and again, and to make people consider and look at some of the 'older' generations of aircraft with a new eye for appreciation of what they could do, given a bit of modern technology injected into them.
That completely aside as well, your character shouldn't be based completely around the kind of aircraft they fly, and if you really like the idea and joining in as much as you say, then the choice of aircraft shouldn't be something that holds you back
that badly.
Also none of the aircraft in that list will be 'stock' in any way, as they'll all have been upgraded to the balls. I think almost all of our aircraft have vectored thrust engines, digital cockpits, helmet-mounted sights and numerous other modifications that are common to more modern aircraft. Most of them have also be re-engined as well.
Like Park says, there are literally dozens of aircraft to choose from in the list I've provided. All of them are great at something, and some of them exceptionally so. If you were interested in the F-16, try the F-20 Tigershark - it was designed to do the same job, and was pretty damn good at it, but was shittily marketed by Northrop Grumman, and never got a contract. The Viggen is a spectacular piece of aerospace engineering as well, and is an amazingly capable fighter, as well as a solid multi-role airframe. THe Tomcat is on the list, and the projected Super Tomcat 21 was set to make the Tomcat tremendously powerful, and I have nothing against applying those modifications to it.
It sounds to me like all you know about any of these aircraft is what you've seen or heard in movies and games. If you look into what they're
actually capable of, then it might be more impressive to you.
Also, fyi, some of us really like 'zooming in and blowing everything up' more than dogfighting. Just sayin' ^^