As one of the first third party modules available on DCS World, the Fishbed set the bar for quality with its release back in 2014. It was developed by Leatherneck Simulations, the company that housed many of the developers that would later become part of Heatblur Simulations after the split that resulted in both Heatblur and Magnitude 3/Leatherneck becoming separate studios. The Fishbed has proven to be an aircraft that, despite its age and system limitations, still holds a very important role in the DCS arena as one of the only high fidelity Redfor aircraft currently in the sim, JF-17 aside. The older brothers of the Fishbed, the MiG-15 Fagot and the MiG-19 Farmer, are also available but neither of them have the multirole capabilities of this manned missile. In this review I will tackle all areas which I personally look at before buying a module so that you, the reader, can make an informed decision as to if this Soviet era workhorse is for you. These areas are the following: External and internal 3D models Visual effects and sound design Flight modeling Mission capability Armament Ease of use and learning curve Bugs and Magnitude 3's plan Is this aircraft for you? Thanks go to my friend Hueman for his assistance on this review. Minor revision and screenshot update: 9/14/2022 EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL 3D MODELS This module has got to have one of the most beautiful 3D modeling assets in DCS. Even more when you consider that, despite being updated somewhat recently on the Phase 1 update, this module is 8 years old! Every nook and cranny, every bolt and rivet has been masterfully represented on the external model, making it either a pleasure or a displeasure to look at depending on what you think of this aircraft's design features. Its long hump and tubular design make it instantly recognizable, to which Leatherneck went far and beyond to make it accurate. BEAUTIFULLY UGLY To the right there is a small gallery of what I consider to be some of the details that make this module's 3D artwork masterful. From the antennas and the pitot tube, to the spectacular texture work on the bare metal skins and complex meshes of the Tumansky R-25 engine. This is just a feast for the eyes to those that know this craft. There is one exception to this beauty and that is that some of the liveries have certain mistakes on the roughmets. This is specifically noticeable as some of the painted liveries, such as the Slovakian-1998 livery, still have remnants of the Russian warning markings which are not on the skins as these countries have eliminated them and replaced them with their own language. An example of this can be found below on the Bugs section of this review. Now, cockpit-wise, this aircraft has some of the best 3D artwork out there but it is one that is, in certain aspects, not completely to current DCS standards. It doesn't look new but rather heavily used. Textures still hold up wonderfully and instrument lighting, which has seen changes as DCS improves its lighting engine, looks stunning. I'll stop talking and I will let you take a look for yourself with the following gallery: VISUAL EFFECTS AND SOUND DESIGN External effects such as over-wing vapor, which is not the best I have seen in DCS, and a very unique afterburner, are present in this module. The afterburner effect was changed as part of the Phase 1 update, which made it much more distinct. Aside from that, the Fishbed lacks any kind of vapor vortexes like the ones present on the Harrier, Tomcat, Hornet and Viper. Although, none of the videos that I have watched of the Fishbed flying show vortexes forming on the wings, so it seems to be accurate to a certain degree. Sound-wise, this module will either be your favorite or you will hate it. This was one of the first aircraft in DCS which exaggerates the engine sounds in the cockpit for the sake of pilot feedback. This is, in my honest opinion, one of the best things a module can do as it increases the pilot's awareness of what their engine is doing at any point of its RPM range. Be it idle, military or full afterburner, you will know. The sound of the switches is pretty snappy, and varies depending on what you are clicking, but not that much. One complaint that I have with the sound is the way that the engine sound transitions from military power to full afterburner. In my opinion, it is way too sudden and sounds artificial. It is not terrible by any means, just something where I thought this module would have done better. The only other complaint I have is with the external sound and the way that it handles the throttle changes at a distance. From a mile and a half away you can clearly hear what RPM range the engine is, which is not something that should happen. Here are the examples taken with maximum volume and no post processing: Engine while on the ground: (Idle-->Full Afterburner-->Idle) Listen to those breaks too! Engine while in-flight: (Idle-->Full Afterburner-->Idle) Fly-by at 510 knots, full afterburner: (Volume warning) Notice the sound of throttle movements at the end! FLIGHT MODELING This is, once again, an area in which I have to clarify that I have neither flown fighters or have been involved with military aircraft in real life. Most of my experience is derived from simulators and from theoretical knowledge about aerodynamics and flight dynamic simulation. That being said, I am kind of divided on its flight model. On one hand it does not seem to have scripted behavior on stalls or high angles of attack. On the other, it does seem to have some very weird behavior when both at low speed and high angles of attack. If I were to overly-simplify this, I'd say that it simulates 95% of the flight regime to a very high degree but the other 5% feels a bit strange. Here is an example of that strange behavior I have noticed. Aerodynamically, neither I or a very dear friend of mine that's an aeronautical engineer undergrad (Hueman) can not make sense of what is happening here. The movements could be generated by a yaw instability at high AoA, a characteristic that Fishbed does possess and the reason why they have a ventral fin. To be honest, this is a minor gripe; but it does not remove the fact that the event feels artificial in nature. That is just my subjective opinion, mind you. Aside from this, the flight model does not have any other major "flaws". Landings are tricky at first due to the way the aircraft behaves while on glide slope but you will get used to them. To me it is, generally, a pleasure to fly not because it is easy but because it is an aircraft that requires your attention. Additionally, I have not seen a real Fishbed pilot complain about the accuracy of this flight model, but the ones I see complaining are other players such as myself. MISSION CAPABILITY This little bird can do most of what you ask of it. From interceptions/air to air, at which it excels since it is what this aircraft was mostly used for despite its awful radar, to air to ground attack and recon. Due to the way the soviets treated this aircraft, being a frontline fighter, it can carry a variety of weaponry of different shapes, sizes and capabilities. Your main limitations will be both range and precision capability. You lack any kind of laser or TV guided bombs/missiles with your only guided air to ground missile being the beam-riding Grom missile. You will have to rely on the good ol' Mk.1 eyeball to land most of your air to ground shots. But even with that said, operational range will be your major hindrance seeing as the Fishbed has short legs. No air-to-air refueling either, so you better plan your missions with a fuel stop or two. You can also do STOL operations thanks to your RATO pods. Have a look: Now, onto the armament! ARMAMENT GsH-23 CANNON Your internal cannon, even with its limited ammunition, it is more than capable of dealing with aerial and lightly armored ground targets. You will learn how to love this thing! UPK-23-250 GUNPODS AIR TO AIR MISSILES Your main line of defense/offense against air targets, you have four types to choose from. They are not the most modern line-up but they get the job done. Do not underestimate them. R-60 and R-60M (As modern as you will get) R-13 (The soviet equivalent of an AIM-9P, they are good but not as good as an R-60M) R-3S and R-3R (IR and Radar guided respectively, these are the oldest ones in your inventory) UNGUIDED BOMBS From cluster munitions to your typical soviet line-up, these are as effective as your aim is. The Fishbed does not have a CCIP indicator, so aside of some computer assistance with the pipper, you will be the one calculating your drops so make them count! FAB-100, FAB-250/FAB-250 TU and FAB-500 M62 (your high-explosive munitions) RBK-250 PTAB-2.5M (Cluster Bomb) SAB-100 (Illumination bomb) BetAB-500 (Bunker buster) BL755 (Cluster bomb) RBK-500 PTAB-10-5 (Cluster bomb) UNGUIDED ROCKETS These are what I use for most of my ground attack missions as they allow me more time on station. You have a small variety to choose from, almost the same as any other soviet fighter. S-5 Rockets on pods of 16 (UB-16UM) or 32 (UB-32) per pod. S-24 Rockets Kh-66 "GROM" MISSILE A radar guided/beam riding missile. This is your only guided ground munition, and quite the good one. Point your pipper, press lock and fire away; as simple as that. This missile also has quite a large warhead so you will be able to engage smaller ships and armored target. RN-24 AND RN-28 NUCLEAR BOMBS This is the only aircraft in DCS that is capable of carrying tactical nuclear bombs. They do not have any special effect and their effectiveness is disappointingly low, but they are there! When deployed on multiplayer servers, if they are not banned, then please mind the explosive radius as it can kill air, including allied ones, units as far as 15 nautical miles. RP-22SMA "SAPFIR" RADAR This piece of soviet engineering has got to be one of the worse, if not the worst, air intercept radars I have ever had the displeasure of using. It is clunky and gets easily confused by both cloud and ground clutter as well as jamming. You aim it by aiming the entire aircraft, no TDC here. Oh, and did I forget that it is cooled by alcohol which gives it a run time of 20 minutes? I love it and the way it is implemented, but it is not pleasant to use. DEFENSIVE EQUIPMENT You will inevitably be shot at some point. But don't fret as you do have your trusty SPS-141-100 Electronic Warfare pod/Chaff and Flares pod and your AS0-2 Dispensers. These will give you a bit more chance to evade missiles, as long as they have ammo. Don't forget your SPO-10 "Sirena-3" RWR, which should give you an idea of where and when you are getting shot at/locked. EASE OF USE AND LEARNING CURVE I'll be honest. This is not a beginner friendly aircraft. From its very soviet way of taxiing to its illogical system locations (by western standards), this aircraft has a steeper curve than other DCS modules. For reference: the F-5E, which many consider to be the western analog to the Fishbed, has a much more friendly learning curve due to its logical cockpit layout. Tasks which are easier on the Tiger, such as bombing, become a bit more tedious on the Fishbed but not by much. You will have to put more time into learning the quirks and features of this fighter, primarily the positions of all the switches for each weapon employment. Once you get over those difficulties, I assure you that the Fishbed is well worth your time as it offers a very different experience that no other fighter can offer in DCS as of the time of writing. SOME BUGS AND MAGNITUDE 3'S PLAN This is one of those modules on which I have found the weirdest of bugs. Not weird because of their obscurity but weird because of how easy they are to find. Here are three of the what I would consider "hard to miss bugs": 1- (ABOVE) Nosewheel tire clips through the ground when break is applied while taxiing at close to MTOW (Maximum Take-Off Weight). This causes the geometry on the nose wheel strut to hit the ground and causes sparks to come out. EDIT 9/14/2022: This bug has been solved at the time of writing this edit. 2- (ABOVE) Problem light animation hovers if problem light is lit and pressed. 3. (ABOVE) Liveries utilize incorrect roughmets that do not correspond to their skin. This is evident on skins such as "Slovakia-1998", which has Russian text still present on the roughmets that does not correspond to the text on the skin. This leaves a "ghost image" of the Russian text when light reflects on the aircraft. Now, these are only three of the bugs I felt like they were worth mentioning. They are not game-breaking nor do they make the Fishbed a bad module; but since the developers paid so much attention to detail in so many different areas, it feels odd to see these bugs are still a thing. Leatherneck, now Magnitude 3, are still rolling out changes to the external assets of the Fishbed in two phases. Phase one was rolled out late last year, as I previously mentioned at the start of the review. Let's hope that some or all of these issues will be fixed with that patch. EDIT (9/14/2022): As of time of writing this edit, I managed to find another bug that kind of concerned me. The RATO cans do not work, period. The effect seems to detach from the can itself when it then proceeds to tumble and it the ground below the aircraft, which causes damage to it. (PICTURED ABOVE) IS THIS AIRCRAFT FOR YOU? If what you want in a module is: A challenging learning experience that requires your attention. A third-generation multirole aircraft. The feeling of being strapped to a missile. A good dogfighter with poor visibility so that you can feel better when you shoot something down. If you don't mind: The very soviet design and way of operation. Not having screens of any type to do modern jet stuff. The limited guided air-to-ground capability. The feeling of being strapped to a missile. The quirks of a very, very old design. If all or some of the above is what you want, then Magnitude 3's MiG-21 Bis is for you About the writer: Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos Longtime aviation fanatic with particular preference towards military aviation and its history. Said interests date back to the early 2000's leading into his livelong dive into civil and combat flight simulators. He has been involved in a few communities but only started being active around the mid 2010's. Joined as a Spanish to English translator in 2017, he has been active as the co-founder, writer and content manager ever since. Twitter | Discord: Cubeboy #9034

We're happy to announce that starting today Skyward Flight Media has a pair of important releases related to Flight of Nova. INTERVIEW On July 8th, 2022 we are posting our interview with Aerovery Labs, the developer of Flight of Nova. This interview was originally planned as a pre-early access release, but with the impending release of the game on May 31st, 2022, the decision to move it back until after the release of the game. Though, in the interm, Skyward Flight Media received pre-release copies of the game for a first impression review. We'll be giving away the rest of these copies as a part of a giveaway ahead of the interview. GIVEAWAY We have two (2) copies of Flight of Nova to give away from July 4th to July 8th, 2022, the giveaway will be active. These are the ways you can enter the giveaway: Follow SkywardFM on Twitter and like our pinned tweet about the giveaway. Retweeting is not required, but helping spread the word is appreciated. For those that do not have a Twitter account, they can fill out the Contact form on our website. Please include your Name and/or Screen Name, email address and that you are entering the Flight of Nova giveaway. The winners of the giveaway will be announced before the interview begins. Winners will be contacted via direct message or email to receive their prize on July 8th, 2022. Thanks for your continued support of our operations. Good luck on winning! Sincerely, Skyward Flight Media Staff

AVAILABLE IN TWO WEEKS Ｐｌａｃｅｈｏｌｄｅｒ Ｔｅｘｔ [ April Fools Day 2021. It is just a joke! ] See all of our actual Digital Combat Simulator content here: https://www.skywardfm.com/digital-combat-simulator About this Memelord Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza A guy that tried playing simulators when he was too young to understand them but liked flying just as much as the crashing. Fell in love with aviation shortly before watching Top Gun for the first time at an impressionable age (tragic). May or may not have solidified his lifetime interest in flight sims with Battlehawks 1942 on a computer older than he is. Former Ace Combat Stan turned I'll-fly-everywhere-phile. Probably doomed to spend more money on button boxes than flight hours. Twitter | Discord: RibbonBlue#8870 |

Black Aces May 2022 2v2 Dogfight Tournament Sponsored by Skyward Flight Media In a first for VRChat aviation, Skyward Flight Media is sponsoring a event hosted by the VRC Black Aces; the largest VRC aviation community known for their airshows and tournaments. On May 21st and May 28th, 2022 starting at 9:00 PM CST each day, the Black Aces are hosting a guns only 2v2 Dogfight Tournament featuring the F/A-18F Block III Super Hornet. Skyward Flight Media is sponsoring the event, providing a total prize pool of 170.00 USD. The prize pool is being split in the following manner: 100.00 USD for the winning team. 50.00USD for second place. 20.00 USD for third place. For follow on information, signing up to participate, and eventual links to livestreams, see the VRC Black Aces official Discord or Twitter page. While none of the Skyward Flight Media staff will be competing in the tournament, three of them will be flying as a part of the airshow after the first day of the tournament is over. This will be the third airshow they have flown as pilots for. Website Updates Various website updates are being done. Some of the more notable updates include: Downloads in Blog: For the sake of easier access and having items appear in the search bar, existing downloads have been added to the general content area with appropriate tags applied. Updating Translation Webpages: With Ace Combat: Ikaros in the Sky translations being re-introduced, other existing translation web pages will begin receiving basic updates in May 2022. Where possible, some of them will be converted to blog post if they do not require specialized formatting. Content Tags: we have been actively deleting and combining tags in an effort to simply things and make out tag cloud more manageable. All content on the website has also gradually been receiving tag updates. Because of the volume of articles available, this has been an on going process for weeks. Please excuse any unusual tagging that remains, as it is most likely a work in progress. Mobile Version: Changes to menus in the mobile version of the website is in progress. Certain links may be deleted or replaced with a more effective option. Topic Specific Webpages: Certain popular topics on our website are to receive standalone webpages. Similar to how Flight Arcade and Flight Simulation have webpages of their own. Banners for those pages will begin to appear on the front page and other locations in the near future. Skyward Staff Updates We are making changes and additions to our content creation staff in May 2022. Some of these are already starting to appear on our About page. The two most notable changes are the addition of two staff members who have always flown with us and assisted us in some way, so this is more of a formal acknowledgement: RaptorDad86 Life long aviation and aviation gaming enthusiast. Joined Active Duty Air Force in 2009 as an Aircraft Maintenance Officer. Separated in 2015 and decided to become a Reservist in 2020. Participated in the GGL Ace Combat 6 Tournament winning the Military side and placing 3rd in the Battle Royal. Started playing DCS in 2020 and made the jump to competition in late 2021 flying for the 18th Sparrows and now the Bushido Fighter Group. As of 2022, he is a photographer for Skyward who provides screenshots and video. Instagram | Twitter | Twitch KOSMOS 1 A friend of some of Skyward's staff going back to 2009. Since Skyward was founded in 2020, he has flown in support of its operations in multiple games and simulators as a member of our flight team. Whether it's part of research projects, combat missions, photo ops or even airshows, he's ready to fly. We would like to thank everyone for their continued support of our operations. Regards, Skyward Flight Media Staff

Two free to download Skyward themed liveries for the F-14B Tomcat in Digital Combat Simulator. F-14B Skyward CAG Designer : Cubeboy Release Date : 1/2/2022 F-14B Skyward Low-vis Designer : Cubeboy Release Date : 1/2/2022

Português translation re-hosted, other languages to come. After receiving multiple requests from our viewers in emails and direct messages over the past few months, Skyward Flight Media has restarted the transfer of existing translations of Ace Combat: Ikaros in the Sky to our website. The complete Português language translation of the novel is now available. Small changes were also made to the webpage for the English translation with groundwork laid to quickly bring the other available translations to our website. About Ikaros in the Sky Ace Combat: Ikaros in the Sky was published on March 28th, 2012 by ASCII Media Works. This book is a 228-page Japanese only release authored by Heijiro Yamamoto with illustrations by Yūsuke Kozaki. The story within this book takes place in the same version of Earth seen in Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. Ensign Kei Nagase of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is chosen to become a test pilot with the Advanced Support Fighter-X Project Team flying a prototype aircraft code name "Shinden II". However, political intrigue, industrial competition and other dangerous elements​ complicate the testing and development of this aircraft in ways no one was prepared for. ​ 2017 - 2018 Translation Project ​In December 2017, Project: Lighthouse, an Ace Combat focused fan website, started early attempts to create an unofficial, but highly accurate translation of this novel. In April 2018 an offer to continue the project as a collaborative effort was proposed by Ace Combat Fan, a well known video content creator with a focus on the Ace Combat series. This collaboration gathered new members to translate the book in multiple languages, including the pivotal Japanese to English translation by TaskForce 23 which opened the project up for translations to other languages. On January 2nd, 2019, full translations in English, Español and Português were made available with partial translations available in other languages. ​ 2020 Skyward Maintaining Translations Following the closure of Project: Lighthouse, the translations of Ace Combat: Ikaros in the Sky were to be hosted on the Skyward Flight Media website. Only the English translation was brought over early on with no other actions taken since then. Due to multiple requests throughout the past few months, Skyward is now restarting our efforts to re-host the other existing translations on our website. We would like to formally thank those that sent in messages about this translation for their continued interest, even in our older projects. -Skyward Flight Media Staff

The story within this book takes place in the same version of Earth seen in Ace Combat: Assault Horizon. Ensign Kei Nagase of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is chosen to become a test pilot with the Advanced Support Fighter-X Project Team flying a prototype aircraft code name "Shinden II". ​​Project: Lighthouse began this fan translation project as an English only venture in December 2017. [Read More] Skyward Flight Media does not claim ownership of copyright of the source material used to create these translations.

Scans of four unique illustrations from the Japanese Ace Combat 2: Namco Official Guide Book. Images are scanned in extremely high resolution and available for download. File Size: 122MB

It has now been officially 2 years ever since we started operations here at Skyward Flight Media! We would like to thank everyone for their support and for visiting us consistently. The growth that we have seen these past two years has far surpassed our expectations and we could not be more thankful for it. This last year we also had several opportunities to work directly with game developers working on flight-related titles, which has been an honor. These opportunities and our growth as a platform has motivated us to continue pursuing this project of ours. Aaron, Santiago and the rest of our contributors would like to extend our gratitude as we look forward to our third year of operations. Here's to many more! Giveaway Winners For our second anniversary we decided to give away prizes to two (2) randomly selected winners! For those that are interested, we used the Google Random Number Generator to select the winners for this giveaway. For example: if number 12 was selected by the generation we then opened the list of likes on the giveaway post, counted 12 names from the top downwards and the 12th person received the prize. Here are the handles of the winners: @labourgriffin on Twitter @JavisUpdate on Twitter These people will be contacted via Twitter direct message or email to begin the process of selecting and delivering their prizes to them. Though our first giveaway is focused on Digital Combat Simulator World, our future giveaways will most likely be more diverse. Look forward to them! THE FUTURE We have no intention of stopping our creative efforts. That means that you can look forward to a myriad of articles and even videos. We plan on expanding our team and, slowly but steadily, getting more content our for you to enjoy. So stay tuned. We appreciate your viewership so thanks for accompanying us on this journey.

Three free to download Skyward Flight Media themed liveries for the F-16C Viper in Digital Combat Simulator World. F-16C Skyward Airshow Designer: Cubeboy Engine Textures: Mach3DS Release Date: 14/12/2021 Update: 2/1/2022 F-16C Skyward High-Vis Designer: Cubeboy Engine Textures: Mach3DS Release Date: 14/12/2021 Update: 2/1/2022 F-16C Skyward Low-Vis Designer: Cubeboy Engine Textures: Mach3DS Release Date: 14/12/2021 Update: 2/1/2022