Just "finished" the first mission after a quite a few attempts. Okay so I didn't quite make it home (I had to eject after running out of fuel). I did dogfight with the Mig-15s for quite a while (probably too long considering I ran out of fuel) without spinning into the mountains (like so many times before) so that is something (although there were no casualties on either side, I did fire an Atoll and some cannon rounds to little avail). I also reached the abort point for the recon. So technically, slightly, just, a mission complete!