This will get you grounded for a while...

[F-16Viper]

Two edits here. They're both basically the same - one thing different on the last one. Comments or suggestions are appriciated.

On his way back from attacking some thing, the pakistani pilot has an unfortunate encounter with hostile AA.





PS. How does everyone get their things to look so crystal clear and realistic?

[Demo]

It's a good first shot on the smoke!  What I am going to sugest is use a much larger brush size with lower opacity and go over it several times to get the thicker opacity in the center strip of the smoke, if that makes any sense.  Keep working with man!  It took me a while too.  ;D