Anyone else been given non-F-16s to fly in Falcon 4.0 AF?

[Safe-Keeper]

OK, so I loaded up Falcon 4.0 Allied Force today to give it a run, and set up a Tactical Engagement with F-16s, an AWACS, and three F-15s. When my Sead Strike mission loaded, I was surprised not only by the fact that it suddenly said 'ATA 0.65 Flaps 0 Left 0 Right' or something in the top-left corner, but also by the change in engine sound of my F-16. I switched to external view, and was greeted by a view of an AWACS plane. Imagine my surprise, especially as I had done nothing to the game and don't even have mods installed.

I quit fairly early on as it was a sluggish old bastard that didn't give me much to do (its radar was quite efficient, though), and re-entering the mission, I was handed an F-16. I quit the mission after the enemy airfield was in ruins and its SEAD network attrited, but then decided to re-enter after some time compression to land one of the planes, and got my surprise number 2 - now I was flying an F-15. Which, by the way, was an awesome experience - the thing is damned fast and agile, and has so much more engine power than the F-16. My Fuel Flow meter went all the way up to 9900+, as opposed to the F-16's 5000 or something, and that thing could make knots. Pity there wasn't anything to fight that I could find.

This reminds me of going into the shiplist.txt file in XWA and changing every entry from NonFlyable to Flyable, letting you fly everything from Corvettes to Shuttles to Containers. The cockpit is the same, but the weapons and handling and such are new. I really, really, really have nothing against this new change in the game's selection of flyable planes, and I think I'll experiment with another Tactical Engagement to see if I can get the game to give me an A-10. Or maybe I can try to land a big tanker. Or maybe it doesn't work anymore. Anyways, has this happened to anyone else here?

Edit: Fired the game up again and I'm only assigned F-16s. The label up in the corner is gone, too. Oh well. There has to be some way to re-enable this, right?

[flintlock]

/deleted

[TteFAboB]

I don't know how to do it in Tactical Engagements, but to fly anything in any of the campaigns rename the ValidAC.bin file present in each campaign folder.

For instance, to fly A-10s in Korea, go to ...\Lead Pursuit\Battlefield Operations\Campaign\Korea and rename the ValidAC.bin file to anything else, like ValicAC1.bin or ValicACnot.bin, or inValidAC.bin, or allyourbasearebelongtoValidAC.bin. You get the idea.

[Safe-Keeper]

Thanks a lot. And yes, the changes are theatre-wide - they work for tactical engagements as well as for the dynamic campaign.

Second question, is there a way to start a mission in a helicopter without the loading screen freezing at the second picture? Would be really fun to load an Apache with missiles and bring it to bear against an enemy tank coloumn.

[TteFAboB]

I wish! But as far as I'm aware, choppers are out.

EDIT: I just remembered something important: Always rename the ValidAC.bin files back to the original name, that is, ValidAC.bin, before patching or the game won't patch at all.

[Safe-Keeper]

I wish! But as far as I'm aware, choppers are out.

Ground vehicles, too, I assume? Or can you somehow add them to the list of air units and load games with them? I remember the joys of drving a tank in Combat Flight Simulator 3:p.

Thanks for all help.