Followed the instructions and think I correctly installed HCDB-150928 (1980-2015 era).

 

Not being especially expert I just looked into the Air Platforms within game. Expected to see the F-35 there as it has been declared operational as of the past summer, not there.

 

Also, the 'whatsnew.rft' states: Extensive re-engineering to track platform changes over the years. For instance, many aircraft carriers will have 5 or more variations over their service lives.

 

Looked at the US carriers and see no such variation.

 

What might I have done wrong?

 

UPDATE

Just found the added aircraft but it seems the new updates are Battleset specific, ie not in some BS but present in others. How can I know where they appear and might they be moved to a different BS? For example, the F-35 is not present in at least one of the older BS, but what if I wanted a more modern created scenario in the North Atlantic, how might I include more modern platforms into a North Atlantic map?

A lot of this is explained in the FAQ.

 

The HCDB (the official database of HCE/HUCE) is for the EC2003 and later battlesets.

 

Rest assured the platforms you mention ARE in fact present in the HCDB.

 

If you want to build a scenario for an EC2003 or later battleset, there is no barrier to doing so.

The F-35 are present from many years ago and listed by country as INTL (International), not as US, I think because that you don't "find" it (separate variants UK F-35B and Israeli F-35I are listed in UK and Israel).

 

The US carrier modifications by year are included, but can be a little confuse: as example Forrestal-class (by memory), originally only a early Forrestal-class as mid 1990s modification was included (entry 2219, more or less dated 1983-1998, i.e., ideally at least one of these ships was in service to 1998 with this that configuration, with the four nameships included), some years later Brad adds individual nameships of the class members with their modifications (as example, you can see the individual "Forrestal (1977)" in entry 3199, added years later, with configuration 1977-1983, and entry 3200 "Forrestal (1985)" with configuration 1985-1992).