------------------------------------------------------------------- Me 263A v1.0 by Chuck Geary

Introduction:

When I first got SWOTL, I was just itching to take up the Me 163B Komet. "Wow," I thought. "600 miles per hour! I'll be unstoppable!!!"

Of course, after a few sorties, I realized just how "stoppable" the Me 163B is. Only six or eight minutes of flight time. No R4M rocket batteries, just that silly "Jadgfaust" or however you spell it. And of course, who can forget "The Incredible Exploding Fuel Tank!"

Willy Messerschmitt (spelling?) must have also gotten fed up with these shortcomings, so he designed the upgrade: the Me 263.


Improvements:

Using the SWOTL Plane Manager v4.0 for Windows by Glenn Price (Gekkosoft), I did my best to recreate the Me 263. From what little I've read and remembered, the major improvements of the Me 263 -- designed and tested but too late to be used in combat -- were:

* Flight duration of more than an hour.

* Even greater speed (about 620 mph, but because I don't know how to increase top speed with   SPM, I left this one out).

* Retractable landing gear (However, due to a limitation in SWOTL, you cannot have a   rocket-powered plane with real landing gear, so for game purposes, I changed the engine type to jet (even though the Me 263 was a rocket)).

Besides the aforementioned historical improvements, I've taken some liberties of my own. Maybe not historically accurate, but fun nonetheless:

* Heavier armament (two MG 151 20-mm. cannon in addition to two MK 103 cannon).

* A battery of 24 R4M rockets.

* A 551-lb. aerial bomb.

* Two fuel tanks instead of one, with more armor protection.

Now THIS is an awesome plane. Really smegging powerful. As far as I've seen from my (limited) testing, if you're flying the Me 263, you might as well be flying a MiG. Of course, if you use this file, you may have to face the Me 263 when you fly American.


Installation:

First, make a backup of your 'me163b.spc' file (located in 'SWOTL\AC'), then delete the original. Next, copy the 'me263a.exp' file into 'SWOTL\AC' and rename it 'me163b.spc.'


Bugs:

Always a possibility. I'm still trying to see if the rockets are powerful enough.


Comments & Kudos:

* Obviously, I couldn't have done this without Glenn Price's SPM. Thanks.

* WHERE is the SWOTL Mission Manager by Anthony Shimizu which everyone keeps raving about? I can't find it anywhere, and I want it bad!!! If anyone has it, PLEASE upload it to the Apogee BBS, at (508) 365-2359.
