VMFT-401 was commissioned in 1986 and in 1987 received the IAI Kfir (designated F-21A) under lease from the Israeli government. The "Snipers" flew the Kfir until 1989, when it transitioned to the F-5E Tiger II. This skin is inspired by the 1987-89 timeframe in which USN and USMC flew the Kfir, a delta-wing aircraft of French origin.
The Kfir was built by IAI based on the Mirage V airframe. The closest flyable substitute to the Kfir in DCS is the M-200C, so this is a fictional skin that paints the M-2000C as a USMC adversary. This skin pack uses the traditional Israeli Air Force desert pattern that was used on some of the VMFT-401 adversary aircraft, as well as the Flogger and Ghost patterns also used by VMFT-401. Since the original aircraft were leased and kept much of their original markings, so is the case with the M-2000C skins.
For Compact Installations - A Note About Autoexec.cfg:
Rather than copying texture files to their respective livery folders, I prefer to use a series of common texture folders along with unique filenames. This allows a single instance of many of my common textures, and keeps the hard drive footprint to a minimum (especially nice if you run a SSD for your system drive).
The installer will add a series of folders to the DCS Texture path; if you do not have these folders created, then it is no problem. The autoexec.cfg included will automatically point to the Texture folder in your Saved Games\DCS folder, and regardless of whether you run the Release, Open Beta, or Legacy version of DCS, the path will always point to your Saved Games\DCS\Texture folder. Again, this saves space on your hard drive.
If you use your own Autoexec.cfg, then when prompted to overwrite you can click "no". This will create a file called autoexec.new, and you can manually make the updates as you like. Just don't modify the top line with the file date; this is used by the installer for version control. However, feel free to include it in your existing autoexec.cfg, so you don't get prompted to overwrite until there's another update to the autoexec.cfg.
If you inadvertently overwrite your autoexec.cfg, it is actually backed up as autoexec.old. Just open it and copy the appropriate information to the new file.
For Traditional Installations or JSGME Compatible Extractions:
If you don't wish to use the shared texture folder and custom autoexec.cfg, you have a couple of other options available. Selecting the Traditional Install copies all textures to each livery folder, then copies each livery to each version of DCS detected (up to three versions, including release, legacy 1.5, and open beta). As a result, the listed hard disk space requirement assumes all three DCS versions are installled. Each skin is independent and portable.
If you wish to install to a location other than your Saved Games folder, you must select the Single JSGME Extraction, or else the installation will fail for not detecting existing Saved Games\DCS folders. Selecting this option will create a JSGME compatible install that can be dropped directly into your JSGME _MODS folder for installation. Each skin is independent and portable.
Note: The JSGME extraction is not compatible with DCS 1.5.8 Legacy.
For either of these installation options, if there is an issue with textures not displaying, then it is likely a problem with the installer. Please let me know what textures are missing so that I can troubleshoot the issue.
Change Log:
1.0 Initial Release
2.0 Improvements to IAF skin
Added Flogger and Ghost patterns
2.01 Updated Pilots for DCS 1.5.8/2.2.0
2.02 Updated installer for DCS 2.5.0 and DCS 1.5 Legacy
2.10 Updated pilot textures for DCS 2.5.3+
Updated installer to maintain DCS 1.5 compatiblity with old pilot textures
If you have any squadron requests, please PM me. If possible, provide top and profile views of the aircraft, preferably line art (much easier to extract color), and for CAG/CO birds, a close up of the tail fin is greatly appreciated.
You are free to use any of these skins in other projects as long as proper credit is provided in the readme file.
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