Hello everyone, First of all we wanted to thank everyone for their support throughout this year of operations. It has been truly amazing to see the reception that some of our articles have had. We are just over a week away from our one year anniversary. It’s an important date for us for various reasons. As a part of our celebration, we are formally announcing our first giveaway of 2021. And it’s a big one at that! The giveaway This time around we wanted to focus our giveaway on one of the simulators that has propelled us forward, DCS World. The following prizes can be for users on either the standalone launcher or Steam versions of DCS World, so don’t worry about which version you are playing. There will be a total of four (4) winners. The prizes will be as follows: Two winners will win one (1) campaign of their choice (each) from the following list: Raven One, Resolve 79', Horrido!, Blue Nosed B., Serpent's Head, Sky Warrior, Zone 5, Red Flag 21-1, Agg. BFM, Enemy Within. One winner will win a medium prize consisting of a DCS map of their choosing. One winner will win the grand prize: an aircraft module of their choosing with a custom livery of their choosing, made by Cubeboy, our content director. How to enter From March 15th to March 23rd, 2021, any of our viewers that follow us on Twitter and like this Tweet will be eligible to win one of four possible prizes related to Digital Combat Simulator World. The tweet below is the Tweet we are referring to: Winners On March 24th, 2021, the day of our anniversary, the four (4) winners will be selected randomly from this Tweet and their Twitter names will be announced on both social media and our website. Each winner will be contacted via direct message from our official @SkywardFM account to then discuss prizes and how to deliver their prize to them. We hope that you have enjoyed this year of Skyward, there is plenty more to come. Let’s keep flying skywards and enjoying our hobbies the best we can.

Thank you for visiting us as we celebrate one year of operations! Though our roots can be traced back many years, this day marks the first full year we've been in operation as Skyward Flight Media. Our love of aviation anywhere it can be found drove us not only to become who we are today but also to diversify the content we've been creating. It is because of the support we receive from all of you that we've been able to continue forward. Whether it's social media interaction, viewing our content or even contributing to our Ko-fi - we appreciate it all! With one solid year behind us, we continue skyward into our second year with more confidence than we've ever had before. Giveaway Winners The highlight of our first anniversary is without a doubt our first giveaway. 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 Twitter handles of the winners: @chamchullo - 1st Campaign Winner @QuiquagMC - 2nd Campaign Winner @mwd222 - DCS Map @SS2Maximilian - DCS Module with Custom Livery These people will be contacted via Twitter direct message 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! DCS F/A-18C Skyward Livery Available for Download As seen in some of our reviews, Tweets and website banners, Skyward has a growing number of DCS World skins that we use for promotional purposes. This year we plan on releasing them for public use. The first of the liveries made available is for the DCS: F/A-18C Hornet. This skin was made by Cubeboy, our Content Director. Download it and future skins from our new DCSWorld Liveries page in our downloads section. Information about the upcoming DCS skins for release and other downloads will be announced ahead of time. Media and Official Accounts Starting in April 2021 we'll be posting more video, screenshots and gifs using our accounts on the following platforms: Twitter, YouTube, and Imgur. We also have a Facebook account on standby but it is not active at this time. Our front page and contact page will be updated to reflect these and begin showing updates from these accounts soon. Future Giveaways and Other Feedback In the next few weeks we'll be putting up some polls and gathering feedback on a variety of things, including giveaways, the type of content viewers would like to see and more. 1st Anniversary Social Media Banners For posterity, here are the banners we used on our Twitter page during the lead up to this day. And finally, thanks once again for all the support we receive. Here's to another year!

As part of the Steam Game Festival: Summer Edition event going on right now, tons of upcoming games have released demos so that people can check them out. I happened to stumble upon Balsa Model Flight Simulator and decided to see how it played. So what is Balsa Model Flight Simulator? From the game's Steam page: "Balsa is a detailed Model Flight Simulator with a powerful editor where you can design, build, fly, and battle with model aircraft. Developed by the creator of Kerbal Space Program, Balsa is a virtual flight experience like no other." So, think Kerbal Space Program, but instead of building your very own aerospace vehicles, you are building and flying your very own model RC planes. The Workshop The workshop is where you go to build your plane. I have not played Kerbal Space Program, but I have played SimplePlanes, and the building mechanics are similar. You have a library of parts organized by categories like fuselages, cockpits, engines, etc. and they’re drag and drop. “Nodes” on the parts automatically align with each other so they can snap on easily, and various options for symmetry and angle snapping are also available at the top of the screen to make your life easier. Positional fine-tuning is also available with the offset and rotate tools. And once everything is finished, you can paint your plane with a variety of solid colors. There are only a limited amount of parts available in the demo version, but parts like some fuselages and wings are customizable, so you can adjust the parameters for these by right-clicking them. However, the parameters are displayed as percentage values from a scale of 0 to 100 so the amount that you can modify them is pretty limited. Additionally, it makes it difficult to determine or specify certain design parameters, so if you want a specific wing sweep or span, you can only really do it by moving the camera around and checking to see if it looks right with relation to the rest of the plane. This would be problematic if you were recreating a real aircraft since there are no rulers or protractors to check if the dimensions are correct. Personally, I think they should have a system where you can input exact values instead of using percent values. It’s a little hard to see here, but I had to use two wing sections to create what I needed, and lining them up was pretty tedious. To enable powered flight, you have to select a motor, propeller, and a battery. Placing these items inside the plane is enabled by toggling the internal view switch. Having built a few RC planes in the past, I knew the importance of placing components in the right place so that the center of mass (CoM) was forward of the center of lift so that the plane has positive stability. The workshop actually has three tools that show you the CoM, center of thrust, and pitch stability. Since there is no indicator for center of lift, the CoM tool isn’t all that helpful, but the pitch stability tool is really nice once you understand how to use it. This tool shows up as a curved ruler in front of the plane and shows the restorative forces at different angles of attack, and you can check how these forces change with speed as well. Generally, you want there to be a blue profile on the forward part of the ruler that curves gradually towards the middle. This will give you a stable airplane, and I used this to fine-tune the position of my wings, control surfaces, and internals. This is a great tool, and I hope they add more things like this for the roll and yaw as well. Overall, it’s a solid builder with some quirks here and there. Sometimes I would have trouble moving parts exactly where I wanted them to go, but the offset and rotate tools solved those issues. There were some occasions where my mouse and buttons stopped working and I couldn’t manipulate anything, but leaving the workshop and coming back solved those. Since the game is in early access, it’s understandable for bugs to exist, and I expect these to be fixed when the game actually releases. Some features that I would love to see added are values for engine power and weight of parts/whole aircraft since there is no way to determine the power to weight ratio at the moment other than flying and seeing how it performs. Flight Model and Physics Once you have a plane built, or you just want to test how it flies, you can hit the green “Go!” button. You have to manually turn on the engine, pick up the plane, and throw it by increasing throttle and releasing. However, the default control scheme has you using the A/D buttons as yaw and Q/E buttons for roll, which was counter intuitive for me, so I had to change the bindings in the settings. While we’re on the topic of controls, the game seems to support most controllers with Xinput. There was an option to bind controls to an Xbox controller, and I tested out my Thrustmaster T.16000 joystick with no problems. I have also been told that other people that have RC transmitters with USB connections used those to control their planes, so that’s pretty neat as well. For controlling the plane, you get the option of a third-person chase view with the option to move the camera around, or a first-person view from the ground with the transmitter in your hands. The flight model seems to be very much a work in progress. Pitch behavior seems to be fine, but the plane behaves weirdly in the roll and yaw directions in my experience. The planes I created were low-wing monoplanes, so naturally I gave them dihedral so that the plane would roll back to a neutral state automatically. In Balsa however, if I roll 10 degrees, the plane remains glued at 10 degrees until I roll the plane manually. On the other hand, giving any yaw input resulted in the plane shaking side to side and yawing a tiny bit while rolling in that direction. It was almost like the plane had a rubber band tied down its length, and would resist moving in the direction you wanted it to go. The Steam page for the game boasts a “physics-based flight model,” so I really hope they fix these in the final game. One thing that seems to be working realistically is the damage model. Clipping or crashing into the buildings/the ground will result in the propeller snapping off, control surfaces flying off, etc. Hit things hard enough and your entire fuselage might break apart! Fortunately, you can easily recover the plane and try again, or go back into the workshop to make changes. However, crashing too hard causes some bugs like your wreckage bouncing up and down uncontrollably or going under the map. Again, they are likely working on fixing these bugs and I hope the physics engine is modified so that the plane performs more realistically. Final Thoughts Balsa Model Flight Simulator has a lot of things to work on, but I believe it has great potential. Even as an early access demo with some bugs and graphical issues, there are solid mechanics for building and testing planes, and I can’t wait to see the other features listed on their site such as modding support, a single-player career mode, and online paintball dogfights, just to name a few. I definitely will be keeping an eye on this, and since it will be coming to Steam Early Access sometime this summer, I recommend checking out their demo while you still can during the Steam Game Festival. Check out their Steam page here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/977920/Balsa_Model_Flight_Simulator/

2 months ago, I got to try out the demo for Balsa Model Flight Simulator and had a pretty fun time. (check out the first impressions piece for the demo here!) This time, I got to play around with the more feature-rich beta. Here are my thoughts on the content and some things I would like to see going forward. NEW CONTENT One thing that immediately caught my eye was the addition of 3 more maps to fly around in: Glider's Cay is a small island with a large hill that's perfect for testing glider designs; Wirraway Bay was in the demo, and has a nice urban port surrounded by some mountains; Weatherfall Islands is a wide-open arctic map with some neat icebergs; and Rovin Harbor is a large city which allows for some challenging urban flying. I personally liked Weatherfall Islands since it feels vast and some of the icebergs have natural arches/holes to fly through and do stunts around. I appreciated the variety in the landscapes and scenery in these maps and hope to see more in the future. Another new feature was the addition of action figures. I think these are meant to be collectibles that are unlocked in the Career Mode, but they are available for any scenario. Though they look really cartoon-ish, you can add them to your plane (as long as you added seats) to give a sense of scale for your plane and really bring your creations to life. I think the best feature of these action figures is that they allow you to fly your plane in first person view. Since there are small cameras and FPV goggle kits that people add to their RC planes in real life, I think this is a really neat feature, and is especially useful for dogfighting. Also as a nice touch, the player model sports FPV goggles whenever an action figure is added to the plane. Speaking of dogfighting, there beta officially added parts for weapons. Well, they're paintball guns, but they're pretty satisfying to fire. There are two types of guns so far, the hard-hitting "Thud" cannon and the fast-firing "Hailstorm" that deals less damage. Each pod has 58 and 240 rounds respectively, and though the "Hailstorm" is technically weaker, I prefer it over the "Thud" since that fast fire rate allows for more hits against nimble RC planes. Learn to aim it well and it can deal critical damage to enemies. Just be aware that these pods are pretty heavy, and will affect the center of mass and performance of your plane. The game also allows you to create weapon groups, so in case your plane can carry both kinds of guns, you could map your keys in a way that allows you to fire the different gun pods separately or together. Interestingly enough, you can place these pods so that they're entirely hidden inside your aircraft and still be able to shoot paintballs, almost as if they phase through your airplane. Not sure if this is a bug, but it's something that I personally think the game should keep as is, since it allows your aircraft to look cleaner. Now, if there were some targets to shoot at... Thankfully, there are some new "Scenarios" added in addition to the free flight mode for each map, and these are "Free for All," "PvE Combat," and "Team PvP Combat." In these modes, the map is populated by AI planes that you can use as target practice. For the combat modes, you choose a team and attempt to shoot down enemy planes. If the enemy crashes or gets shot down, they lose a point, and vice versa. The team that reaches zero first is then defeated. Since I couldn't find people online, I didn't really play the PvP mode that much, but it seemed identical to the PvE mode except that actual players can join the enemy team. I didn't play long enough to see what the ultimate result screen looks like, but you can have some good fun and learn how to aim the guns. In terms of on-screen information, a reticle is displayed in front of your plane in third person view if you have guns installed, but for first person, you'll need to equip the gun reticle part in the cockpit. Enemies also have brackets around them that makes spotting easier, and the plane name and their distance away from you are displayed as well. All in all, these are some pretty fun, laid-back modes. NEW MODES There were two new modes added to the beta: Career mode Online mode. The online mode allows players to host lobbies for up to 16 people, though you can limit the maximum amount of players when setting up a room. The game also allows you to name and add descriptions to rooms so people know what to expect. I would've liked to test for any connection issues, but sadly no one was on when I was playing around. The career mode will be the bread and butter of the single player aspect of the game, and also serves as a tutorial. You start off in Glider's Cay and learn how to move around, pick up your glider, and throw it. As you get more used to the controls, the various events and missions ramp up in difficulty as you learn to pilot powered planes and practice taking off and landing on a runway. Each event also has optional objectives that allow you to get higher ranks. This nets you more "funds" which are used as in-game currency to buy planes, action figures, and unlock new maps which will let you fly in more events. This cycle of flying, getting funds, creating/buying more capable planes, and flying in even more challenging missions is really fun, and the sense of progression you get is pretty satisfying. I wasn't able to progress too far the career mode, but I'm excited to see what they will add in the future. One thing that I think would be a cool addition is monthly limited-time events or challenges when the game goes live to keep players coming back. I hear a race mode will be added down the line, so I'm excited for that. One thing to note, all parts are available for you to use when creating planes in the workshop and making the planes themselves are free. However, in order to be able to fly them, you will need to purchase the aircraft. Be aware the more complicated/more parts your plane has, the more funds you will need to be able to buy it. Each part has an associated cost that is listed when you're building, so keep your eye on that. You can go back and edit vehicles that you have already purchased, but be aware that if you add more parts, the cost will increase. WORKSHOP Now let's see if there were any changes to the other core aspects of the game. The one thing I really wanted from the demo was improved aerodynamic stability tools, and the beta did a great job of implementing them. You now have indicators for both the center of mass and center of lift, which gives you a much better idea on the stability of the plane you're building. When used with the stability graph at different airspeeds, you can determine the overall pitch behavior of the aircraft without leaving the workshop to flight test it. Here, you can see how the center of lift changes vectors at different airspeeds, along with how unstable the design is with the stability graph. The orange indicates that the plane wants to diverge from the direction of flight, which in this case is desirable since the X-02S Strike Wyvern is supposed to be highly maneuverable at lower speeds. Along with all of these changes, the mass of certain parts seemed to have been reworked as well, since the position of the batteries affect the center of mass MUCH more than they did in the demo. Since batteries tend to be one of the more heavier items in an RC plane, I'm really glad they fixed this. Speaking of batteries, the beta also added a "Connect" tool that visualizes and how the electrical/power components are hooked up and allows you to edit these connections. This was also a nice addition since a major part of RC plane building is determining the optimal way to connect all of your components. Of course, it's much more complex in real life, with having to acquire the right connectors, using batteries with the correct voltage, etc. but it's still nice that there is a tool that emulates this. The workshop tool automatically connects the parts together, but you have the option of changing this if you desire. For example, my X-02S has the batteries and motors connected in serial, but I can choose to have one battery powering each motor separately. After all of this tinkering, it would be nice if you could give your plane a fancy paint job... Oh, the beta added decals? Nice! The workshop now features a "Decals" tab, and at least in my testing, seems to let you add as many decals as you want. Combined with the "Paint" tab, you can create some really flashy liveries. There are numbers, letters, and various icons that you can rotate, scale, and change color however you see fit and lets your creativity run wild. The decals also don't seem to affect the cost of your airplane, so that's a nice feature. One thing I would like to see is some sort of text box editor, since at the moment you have to move and place each letter separately, and could get time consuming. FLIGHT MODEL I wasn't too impressed with the flight model in the demo, and it doesn't seem to have changed much in this beta since I'm still seeing some stiff yaw and roll movements as well as some violent shaking on occasion. The X-02S I made isn't the most stable thing, I get that, but I don't think the plane should be moving like this when all I'm doing is pitching up at an angle: Even in more stable aircraft, there is a weird wobbling going on, especially at higher speeds. I know the aerodynamic forces and physics on RC planes are vastly different than on full-scale aircraft, but it's not quite right yet. Really hope they adjust the flight model or physics of the game so things don't feel so shaky. It doesn't have to be perfect, but as long as the stiff yaw and roll reactions are fixed, I'll be happy. Other than that, the flight model is fine. CONCLUSION All in all, I had an really enjoyable time with the Balsa beta. The new additions like the career mode and workshop tools worked well for me and and made me excited for the full game. There are still some kinks in the flight model and physics that I would like to see fixed, and some other changes like replacing percentage sliders with actual measurements in the workshop, but I'm sure those will be addressed. I'm definitely excited to see how this game evolves! If you're interested in this game and want to support it, I recommend wishlisting on Steam since it's supposed to be released as early access soon. Writer: TaskForce23

Today at Flight Sim Expo 2021, Nicki Repenning, CEO and Founder of Honeycomb Aeronautical, announced a couple of new pieces of hardware. Aside from their standard civilian-focused gear, some of these announcements are in a completely different side of flight simulation and represent their entry into different markets. Civilian Focused Hardware A new series of hardware named Alpha-Bravo-Charlie (ABC) which consists of three separate pieces of gear that go together, these are: Alpha Flight Controls XPC: Center Console for Bravo Throttle Quadrant: Charlie Rudder Pedals: And lastly, a civilian focused HOTAS system: Tango Foxtrot XPC. Sigma Tau: First Entry into Military Simulation But there was one announcement which were extremely important for Honeycomb Aeronautical, which is the announcement of their entry into military flight simulation with the Sigma Tau HOTAS. This system was only teased but some of their expectations for the product and believed that it "would have incredible functionality that has never been done. Technology used that has never been done on flight sticks, military or civilian[...]" . Honeycomb expects that the stick would be ready by Q1 2022 and the Throttle quadrant by Q2 2022, so keep an eye out for those. More information on this product will be available later this weekend. Force Feedback Inquiry Late in the presentation, Aaron “Ribbon-Blue” Mendoza of Skyward Flight Media asked if, “future Honeycomb military flight sim hardware products will have force feedback to provide tactile information to the pilot?” According to Nicki Repenning, the company is working on force feedback products. However, Honeycomb’s philosophy is that everything has to be affordable. Currently the cheapest force feedback yoke on the market is around $1300 USD. Honeycomb is working to get a force feedback product into the market below $500 USD, but it is very difficult. Precision Flight Controls, now a development partner with Honeycomb Aeronautical, are leading experts in this field. Precision Flight Controls is far along and Nicki Repenning hopes that Honeycomb can announce a product “before Christmas” with a timeline for production. Xbox Hub: Expanding Hardware Compatibility to Xbox Game Consoles Though this blurry picture from the Alpha Flight Control XPC slide doesn't seem impressive, its maximum potential more than makes up for it. The second most interesting announcement from today's presentation was the development of an "Xbox Hub". It is described as a hub that enables players and pilots to use non-Xbox certified products on Xbox game consoles. Examples of supported products mentioned are Honeycomb Aeronautical's Bravo throttle quadrant and soon to be released Charlie rudder pedals. Furthermore, a partnership with Logitech will also allow their USB throttle quadrants and USB rudder pedals to be compatible through the Xbox Hub and through the Alpha flight controls XPC which will then be recognizable by the game console. Nicki Repenning explains that this partnership between the two companies was forged to bring more affordable solutions and different price levels that people can afford into the market. The result is more choices for flight simmers on game consoles as well. Thanks for reading our coverage of Flight Sim Expo 2021 Day 1. More to come. Article written by Aaron "Ribbon-Blue" Mendoza and Santiago "Cubeboy" Cuberos

New lore material was released along with the 1:144 scale ADFX-10F model kit by Kotobukiya on March 26, 2020. What new information did Project Aces include about the enemy we fight in Mission 10 of Ace Combat 7? Let's find out. The ADFX-10F is a large fighter that served as a test platform for the Gründer I.G. “ADF-11F Raven.” Its nickname is “Prototype Raven.” The EASA (Erusean Air and Space Administration) defined the concept of “ultimate survivability” for the new aircraft in the ADF series which would be categorized as seventh generation fighters, and planned for the simultaneous development of an autonomous unmanned model as well as a manned model. These aircraft were developed at an EASA test site in eastern Usea as a testbed for evaluating weapons that could be used by the unmanned aircraft as well as the attachment/detachment mechanism with the large wing unit (RAW-F). Only a small number of them were built. The ADFX-10 refers to the nose unit itself, and is structured in a way that by equipping the F-type wing unit (RAW-F), it becomes a fighter. This system, which allows for the selection and installation of different types of wing units that correspond to the operation, is designed to give the aircraft multi-purpose capabilities on the battlefield. Additionally, the nose unit has a mechanism that allows it to become a small fighter that can fly independently by extending the strakes and using them as wings in an emergency. This feature was devised so that if the aircraft took considerable damage, the wing unit could be detached and [the nose unit] could fly away to safer areas at the back [of the combat zone] to prevent the loss of the combat AI’s accumulated experience. For this reason, [the nose unit] only has simple skids for the landing gear. This aircraft was specialized as an autonomous unmanned craft, and in order to demonstrate its ability to use weapons in conditions where it is maneuvering rapidly, the nose unit had an autocannon as fixed armament and highly maneuverable missiles were installed in the internal weapon bays and underwing pylons on the wing unit. The nose is equipped with a radar and infrared searching equipment for the fire control system, and the entire airframe is given a smart skin. The objective for this aircraft was to obtain data about its maneuverability and its flight controls when separating [from the wing unit], so it does not have features like the exterior composite optical sensors, high power tactical laser, and pulse laser system present on its evolution, the ADF-11F. Nevertheless, in a simulated air battle, it shot down 10 MQ-99 combat drones in 2 minutes by itself, showing that a new generation of drones had arrived. “Z.O.E.,” an artificial intelligence development program created by Gründer I.G. was utilized for this aircraft, and emphasis was placed on the implementation of a learning-type control AI. This is a self-growth program that uses deep learning mainly on actual flight/combat data collected from human pilots to formulate aircraft controls and actions that are more suited for drones. As a result, it possesses exceptional maneuverability and outstanding capabilities for executing operations autonomously. From a security point of view, the accumulated combat data is not transmitted via normal tactical data links, and is only transmitted to specific milli-wave antennas installed at air and communications bases. In August 2019, some aircraft that were conducting test flights at the EASA test site crashed and were lost due to an Osean Air Defense Force reconnaissance attack in the skies above Borgo dell'Est in eastern Usea. About the Translator TaskForce 23 Japanese Translator with Skyard Flight Media and fan of all things aviation. #PurdueEngineering alum. Shares birthday with AWACS SkyEye. 日本人ですが英語の方が楽です。無言フォロー失礼します。| Twitter |

On March 26th, 2020, Famtisu aired the Ace Combat 25th Anniversary livestream featuring Kazutoki Kono the (brand director of the Ace Combat Series) and Manabu Shimomoto (Producer for Ace Combat 7). Kazutoki Kono is now infamous for the slides he brings with him to these kinds of livestreams, which include inside jokes and memes. Since Kono makes these himself and no one at Project Aces reviews these prior to being shown, it provides quite the entertainment for all involved. This time was no different. Let’s take a deeper look at what he created this time. Here’s just a generic Bandai Namco logo, but Kono begins by saying the all-too familiar phrase heard in Japanese television: “This program has been brought to you by the following sponsor(s),” and introduces Bandai Namco Entertainment. Here he congratulates the team on their coming 25th anniversary by showing the Project Aces logo. This image was actually tweeted by him when he wished everyone a happy new year. This Mizuhiki style of decoration is often used for celebrations. Pretty wholesome so far. And the fun begins. Kono starts talking about their “brand,” but shows this slide real quick before moving on to the Ace Combat slide. This is probably just a personal joke by Kono, but this is a mosquito repellant called “Earth Nomat.” In Japanese it sounds more like “Ahce no-matto,” and is basically a terrible pun for “Ace Combat.” The Ace Combat series, which has a history spanning 25 years. In 1995, the household game software “Ace Combat (or Air Combat)” was released, which would become the first in the series. With the arrival of the newest work “Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown” in 2019, a total of 13 games were/are being circulated worldwide. Nothing too crazy here. Although I do find it funny that Assault Horizon is included. The “Weight” of 25 years Here, Kono expressed that he wanted the fans and people to understand the “weight” of 25 years, and what that means. Getting pretty philosophical now. Kono calls the aircraft in the first slide here the XF-2, since that’s one of the liveries of the F-2 prototypes. He says, “what 25 years means is that this boy....turns into this, it grows up into this” and shows the production F-2. Shimomoto interrupts, saying “most of your point isn’t getting across...” since a lot of people don’t know the development history/timeline of this plane. However, Kono pushes on and we see Wiseman saying, “not bad” before moving rapidly to the next slide. Here, Kono explains that this is a spreadsheet that sums the total amount of seconds since the launch of the first Ace Combat and up to the date of the 25th anniversary, and how he made Shimomoto put this together the previous night. Classic Kono, bullying poor Shimomoto again. 25 years = 791,510,400 seconds The total is shown here which amounts to a massive 791.5 million seconds. Kono then takes this number and puts it into the mission timer of Ace Combat 7’s Pipeline Destruction, and we see that this is equivalent to 13191838 hours. Interesting to see how much time can be set for these missions. When asked how he did this, Kono said he “borrowed” the company’s assets and laughed. He also hypothesizes that the “very easy mode” for upcoming Ace Combat games would look something like this. Maybe newcomers won’t be too pressured by the almost lack of a time limit? Who knows. Your hypothesis is trash Just Alex bashing Kono’s hypothesis. Very appropriate and hilarious. “Jpeg Dog” makes a quick appearance here for no reason, but who doesn’t like a good boy? The doggo shows up later in the slide show as well. The “Weight” of 25 years We come back to this slide as Kono tries to get serious again and get back on topic on the weight of 25 years and how he wants to properly convey that to us. He mentions that he created a diagram to show how long 25 years is as well. The magnificence of Ace Combat’s continuation during these 25 years, in other words, a “quarter of a century” By rephrasing 25 years to “a quarter of a century,” the incredible scale and history of the franchise can be felt. It’s kind of crazy to think about, and gives us a neat perspective here. And the jokes return in this timeline. At the top we see Kono’s supposed lifespan, reaching 100 years in age, followed by a darker arrow labeled “sublimation” extending way into the future (AC3 fans rejoice!). The big dark red arrow says “25 years” and shows the time between the first Ace Combat and 7. What’s utterly hilarious is the inclusion of the arrow extending into the future with “Ace Combat 14: Galaxy Sky” slated for release in 2045 and “Ace Combat 21: The Cheating Ace that Saves an Alternate World Has to be a Novice!” coming in 2071. Honestly sounds like a light novel I would read. But c’mon people, that’s 7 numbered Ace Combat games every 25 years! There could even be more like X or something for the Switch! Anyway, incredible memeing from Kono. But the fun continues. Below the big arrows is Shimomoto’s lifespan, where Kono explains that in 2~3 years, Shimomoto will get digitized and will be used for sublimation experiments. However, apparently those experiments fail and he does not get to live as long as everyone else, while the technology for sublimation improves and Kono reaps the benefits. Does Kono have something against Shimomoto? Either way, this is really funny. The last one is of an “Ace Combat Girl” named Koma-chan born in 1995, and is the same age as the franchise. I couldn’t hear exactly what Kono said, but the whole point of this timeline is to show how long 25 years is in an amusing way. Don’t you see Kono just showing off the Line stickers at this point and memeing with them gloriously. Don’t you see? The power of 25 years! The “Weight” of 25 years / The magnificence of Ace Combat’s continuation during these 25 years, in other words, a “quarter of a century” And after another round of joking and admitting that we probably don’t understand what he’s getting at, Kono says he has another diagram prepared. Oh god, what could it be? This one’s quite a doozy. Basically it outlines major events such as when Project Aces was established (Between 04 & 5), when core members like Kono, Kanno (Art Director), Itomi (Narrative Director), Shimomoto, Katabuchi etc. joined the team, what projects they were involved in and so on. There are however, some interesting anecdotes hidden here. For AC2 (in red), we see a “Kono & Kanno Loop Hell” where Kono wanted one thing, but Kanno went ahead and changed stuff on his own resulting in a constant cycle of fighting and lead to a development nightmare. This seems to be a constant theme for any Ace Combat game. For AC5’s development (in green) we see something similar with “Katabuchi & Kono Loop Hell” where the constant back-and-forth between the two were well known when creating 5’s story and missions. The one in orange is intriguing to me because Masahide Kito, who headed the plot of the AC7 DLC missions is listed in a “100 [air]craft incident.” Kito himself said he would explain on twitter later, so I’m going to keep an eye on that. This portion takes the cake for me. Listed here are Ace Combat Advance (for the GameBoy Advanced), Ace Combat Xi: Skies of Incursion (iOS), and Ace Combat Northern Wings (mobile) which Project Aces didn’t have a hand in at all. Kono marked them “what is this incident 1~3,” comments “what?” for Advance and Northern Wings, and his comment on Xi seems to indicate only one person was involved in making it. I know some people who like these games maybe even unironically, so that’s a nice addition. Well done Some kind words from Wiseman as Kono self-congratulates himself for creating that masterpiece of a timeline. So here’s a question Nice to see some more characters in the Line sticker lineup. How was Ace Combat able to continue during these 25 years, or “quarter of a century” Kono seems to return to the topic asking the members in the stream, “what do you think is the reason this series has lasted this long.” Shimomoto answers, “well of course of all the people who have supported us along the way,” and Kono nods, but... Control Tower Ah yes, Kono’s satirical self-flattery strikes again. The supreme leader who controls everything! Oh wait, oops! Quick, get JPEG Dog out! Ah yes, just a good boi here, nothing to see How was Ace Combat able to continue during these 25 years, or “quarter of a century” Back on track, things get serious and wholesome as of course, the real reason Ace Combat has made it this far is the unwavering support of all the fans. Here we see some familiar faces like Acepedia and Ace Combat Fan! It was because of all of the fans’ continued support Thank you for all that you have done! We’re really grateful! And some more nice gestures from Kono. You can tell he made this one because of the flankers. Kono really loves his Sukhois. Come on damn it! Oh hello. Kono called this a “reward” because he liked it and felt others would too. I mean, he’s not wrong... And now, this spring, Riku, thank you very much! We appreciate what you did! Another nice gesture by Kono. Riku Suzuki had been supporting the team with promoting the games from before the release of Ace Combat 7, but “graduated” in March and will be leaving the team. Therefore, Kono prepared some slides of gratitude. Riku was also in the studio at the time so it really was wholesome. Adios, you damn fool Mission complete, RTB And finally he showed off some more Line stickers appropriate for the setting. Man I’m really thinking about buying these but I don’t have anyone on Line that would understand them. :( Thus, another one of Kono’s presentations comes to an end. That did make for a good slide show. During the stream, Kono mentioned that he has more things that he would like to announce when the time is right and that he would like to come back to do more live streams with Famitsu, so hopefully we’ll see another entertaining set of slides in the future.

Scale Aviation is a visual bimonthly magazine for scale aircraft modelers. Volume 127, released in May 2019, features interviews centered around the virtual reality mode of Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown and details concerning the creation of its vehicle models. Those interviewed by Scale Aviation are Shōji Kawamori (anime creator, mecha designer, producer, screenwriter and visual artist), Masato Kanno (Ace Combat 7 art director) and Masanori Ninomiya (Ace Combat 7 lead mechanic artist). [Read More] Skyward Flight Media does not claim ownership of copyright of the source material used to create these translations.

The reoccurring series is getting a big push! Following the positive reception of the Creator Highlight series with our articles about the Flight Sim Historian and Requiem's Air Combat Tutorial Library, we have thought about what to do with this series. In January 2022, we are having our first ever Creator Highlight Month (CHM) to kick off a more consistent effort to write about aviation-focused content creators next year. During CHM we will have articles and interviews with a diverse group of people about their content creation efforts: RedKite: DCS focused content creator known for highly detailed tutorials. Sacchan: Lead developer of the VRChat aviation phenomenon. Shadé: Long-time machinima creator and complex aircraft designer in Besiege. Solutus Eversol: Ace Combat expert guiding viewers through its intricate lore. Spudknocker: DCS content creator producing tutorials, historical videos, large-scale community missions and more. Wolfpack345: Known for dogfights in the air and sea on IL-2, DCS and Silent Hunter 4 on Twitch and YouTube As we get closer to 2022, the date of our first CHM release will be announced. We would like to thank everyone we contacted for participating in our upcoming Creator Highlight Month!

The next addition to our expanding catalog of Skyward themed Digital Combat Simulator liveries is here! Our first two liveries for the F-14B Tomcat are now available! Our Tomcat liveries were created by Cubeboy. Our new Tomcat CAG bird includes original nose art made in collaboration by Cubeboy and Hueman, a member of our group. Furthermore, an update to the three existing F-16C 'Viper' liveries is also available. They now feature wonderful PW F100-220 engine textures by Mach3DS. Cubeboy did modify the inner part of the feathers to make them more weathered and made the textures a bit gold-ish to better reflect the look he wanted from the textures. We would like to extend our sincere thanks to Mach3DS for allowing us to use their excellent textures. Lastly, the F-16C liveries received a minor fix to its roughmets. This solved some reflection issues with the rescue decals and accompanying text. Skyward F-14B CAG Skyward F-14B Low-Vis Skyward F-16C Airshow (v2) Skyward F-16C High-Vis (v2) Skyward F-16C Low-Vis (v2) As always, our liveries are free to download. Click the red button below to see our livery downloads page.