Indiafoxtrotecho and HeatBlur bringing F-16A Fighting Falcon to MSFS

Screenshot for those who may have trouble with the Facebook link:

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Exciting news! Understandable that they’d take this approach with a simpler version. Exciting to see the work with HeatBlur continue. I’m sure people will be asking if the F-4 is in the pipeline too as a result.
Here’s hoping we’ll maybe see this one in mid to late 2025!

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Great news! A real classic for the hangar. Insta-buy.

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This is really great!

It seems somewhat funny to be flying military aircraft that cannot shoot their guns or drop bombs, just saying…FWIW!

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Think of it as an airshow plane. They don’t strafe the crowd or drop bombs on the parking lot.

There was a wishlist item a while ago for a ā€˜laser tag’ option, which I think would be great. But I think Microsoft doesn’t even want simulated air combat in this sim.

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What do you think that was worth?

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I live not far from Joint Base Andrews, where there are military aircraft coming and going all the time, and I’ve yet to see one strafing or dropping bombs on the Washington DC suburbs.

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That’s what MOAs are for.

My point is that military aircraft do many things that don’t involve weapons. So ā€œwhy should I fly a military aircraft if I can’t shoot things?ā€ never made sense to me.

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disregard please

I totally get the desire to be able to have functioning weapons. It’s not going to happen. So, I do everything real pilots do, minus live weapons.

I’ll say it again, though… I see no valid reason not to have ā€˜laser tag’ and dummy bombs implemented.

Almost as funny as flying virtual aircraft on a computer that don’t get you anywhere, even though aircraft are first and foremost a mode of transportation. :wink:

Ask an airforce pilot how often they fire weapons as a percentage of all their flights.

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For instance, at the International Seaplane Fly-in at Moosehead Lake in Maine, one of the contests they do is grapefruit (I’ve also heard water balloon) bombing a target in the lake…

I could totally see this being a thing in the sim.

But, like a lot of others, I don’t mind that there’s no guns or bombs in the game, but there are similar actions that don’t have to involve destruction, as noted above.

(P.S. I created a scenery for Moosehead lake available at flightsim.to with both of the seaplane bases on the south shore, and a whole lot more scenery for the area.)

If I remember correctly there was a bombing mission in FSX where you would try and hit a target with a flour bomb from an ultralight.

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I also fly in DCS. I seldom drop bombs or fire my guns BUT I do have a lot of fun flying military aircraft that are ā€œarmed to the teethā€. FWIW

MS did make a combat flight sim, called Combat Flight Simulator, but all 3 were WWII based.

I remember them well!

There are very good updated versions of them - actually revised into entirely new sims. Look up Wings Over Flanders Fields 2 and Wings Over The Reich.

Very much worth a look.

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Oh yes! That challenge was a blast to fly. The different sized targets, the fact that they moved as the flour bombs hit them, the time pressure…I had hours of fun with that! The ripple release of flour sacks was hilarious. Good times.

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Any news ??