Jayhawk1971

Just a guess from the trailer(s) and behind the scenes footage (on YouTube).

Your flaps should be fully retracted before you reach 225 KIAS, and gear before you reach 280 KIAS. Use them depending on your takeoff weight and runway length.

IIRC, the instructor in that training mission says something like "we are light today, so maneuver flaps will be sufficient" (paraphrasing). I do not recall him to specifically point out that you never use full flaps for land takeoffs.

I quite liked the ending, it kinda reminded me of one mission from "Operation Flashpoint" (long before it became ARMA). Possible spoiler (= educated guess) not directly related to the campaign, but to upcoming "flying film", so double spoiler warning:

Finished it! What a ride! Great campaign, and together with Zone 5 the best campaigns in DCS that I have played so far (IMHO). Here follow spoilers, so don't read if you haven't at least finished mission 11: Thinking about playing Zone 5 and Fear the Bones back to back and treat it as one story.

I think once you get the "mission accomplished" message you can progress to the next one, regardless of what you do afterwards.

Nevermind. Failed to read the whole conversation.

Weird. In Mission 10, my Phoenixes worked flawlessly. Whatever the reason, I still immensely enjoy this campaign. Great mix of missions so far, with some surprises, great voice acting...just a lot of fun!

Ideally, somewhere down the line, HB could teach Jester to automatically pick the most appropriate aspect setting for a given tactical situation. "Aspect auto" if you will. I'd rather like to focus on flying that thing than micromanage Jester some more.

I somehow made it through mission 7 despite the faulty (sabotaged by Russian sleeper agents in the Hughes factory?!) AIM-54's (I did jump into Jester's seat and set the aspect switch to "nose").

Seems like the Phoenix got wonky again post-patch. Others in the HB subforum are reporting having similar problems with the -54's.

This is exactly what I was missing the most in DCS: a good story. A reason to learn all those systems. So I am very happy that you, and Baltic Dragon, and a couple of other very talented mission designers are putting in so much effort to give those of us who prefer SP some fun entertainment (while still maintaining realism).

Going to bump this with the additional observation that when calling the ball in the F-14A, the pilot voice says "Hornet, ball" instead of "Tomcat, ball". No biggie, but immersion breaking nonetheless.

That was intense. My question would be: is this mission "hardcoded" to have one single outcome, or are there "branching options"?

The A. That explains it, because "Fear the Bones" is the first time ever that I use the A around the boat. Thanks!

Hi, since the latest update I noticed that when I'm "calling the ball", the pilot says "Hornet Ball" (I'm in the F-14 ofc). Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but if I am not gravely mistaken this is a step back from him actually saying "Tomcat Ball" pre-patch? I am using VoiceAttack/VAICOM Pro (which also received some updates), so maybe some of the commands got mixed up? Could someone who does not use VAICOM Pro do me a favor and test this with the "vanilla comms" to see if this is something on my end, or if that ball () is in ED's court. Otherwise, burble is a little unnerving, but manageable (lots of one-wires, though)

Hi Greg, I was just playing mission 4 ("First Blood") and I couldn't hear Focus. I normally use the ARC-159 for preset 1 (flight) and have Jester push the respective preset buttons for each mission asset (to keep my "head down" time to a minimum). Now in this mission, it turned out that the preset button 2 on the ARC-182 doesn't seem to work. After several prompts to inform Focus on passing waypoints with no reaction, I switched to preset 2 on "my" radio and told jester to switch to the fighter frequency, and suddenly I could hear Focus (too late, as I was already at WP 3). Is this by design (=on purpose), or a mission bug? Other than that, great campaign so far! I'm really enjoying the 80's vibe (having been a teenager during the 80's myself). Edit: I just flew the mission again and checked the kneeboard card. ARC-159 preset 2 (251.000) corresponds with ARC-182 preset 3 (251.000). In the briefing, preset 3 is the tanker, Arco IIRC.

Hi, I thought to pass the time until the next big patch/update, you'd enjoy listening to this podcast: https://youtu.be/wLySFC6c2Qo

If you listen to it at ten times speed, you can hear it's not a seismic anomaly...but a magnetohydrodynamic drive.

I found another small booboo in mission 6 (SC version) in 2.7 (the "Bombcat" mission): All works fine, but on return to the carrier I found an AI F-14 had parked smack in the middle of the landing area on the flight deck, right on top of the wires: shut down, wings swept, canopy open. On the "Stennis" (Truman). I have found the culprit: it was the wingman from the F-14 flight that attacked Senaki. What a jerk!

I checked again, the mission works fine on my end in 2.7 SC. Do you get all the triggers up until when the intercept is supposed to happen?

I find it quite challenging to get behind the F-15C in the F-14A. Going once-circle and shooting it in the face after the first or second pass, on the other hand, works quite well.

Can't wait. Hopefully ED doesn't sit on it for too long. I need fresh Tomcat content!

F-15C guns only with no head-on shots allowed, or SU-33 with off-boresight IR missiles? Oh, and you should fly in the F-14A, of course. And another edit: for the ultimate challenge, don't exceed 6.5G