FMBluecher

Makes sense, I thought I was flying the pattern, but must not have been flying the heading precisely enough. I only ended up 17 nm away (on speed and on altitude) because I just kept hoping it would eventually trigger!

What exactly do you mean? Campaign designers are limited by what the DCS AI is capable of; they can only do so much. There are two types of AI wingmen: 1) The standard DCS AI wingman that you can control. Campaign designers can do very little with these. There are some things campaign designers can do to make them slightly more effective, but this is mostly impactful in A-G, not A-A, which is what you seem to be asking about. The best way to make these AI wingmen more effective is to learn how to get the most out of the AI from issuing the right commands to them at the right times. 2) Custom AI wingmen that you control through the F10 menu (or that operate completely independently, only by scripting). Only a couple campaign designers use these (Baltic Dragon, Ground Pounder, and Reflected are the ones I'm aware of), and the campaign designers are already pushing the limits of what the DCS AI can do with these. Which type are you talking about, and what specific problem are you having? Describe a precise situation where you wish the AI wingmen would have done something different.

After absolutely struggling through the rest of the syllabus, got my first Above Average on Mission 5! However, once we got to the strafing, it seemed like it took forever for both me and Paco to call "off safe." At one point, I was flying in circles, 17 nm away from the target, with time acceleration on waiting for Slick to call "off safe." I assume I did something wrong (even though one of these was where I got my Above Average), but I'm not sure what it was! OTOH, it didn't seem like Paco was any faster. For clarity, this isn't a mission-breaker, I was still able to finish it, but it was a bit of an immersion breaker! Edit: On another note, you may want to double-check the briefing pdf--it lists different altitudes for some of the setups than what Paco says in-game.

And IRL, wouldn't pilots already have a ton of formation flying under their belts at this point from previous training squadrons (just not in the Tomcat)? Not to say that I have no experience--I've done a fair bit before now, I just never tried flying such a tight formation on anything aside from an S-3! Truly terrifying, and that's just in the daylight!

Using my actual first attempts? I like to call this "World Record Speed & Angels Any% Glitchless Speedrun"

Hey, feel free! I'm glad I'm not the only one getting something out of it.

Yup, I think the issue I had is that I'm so inured to DCS missions where the trainer says "OK, that's 360 degrees, now level off" and I didn't even think about the possibility that I might actually know that I've done a 360-degree turn!

Sure--but the difference with the wingover is that for every other maneuver, once I've done it, I see why I did it. I understand how the other maneuvers apply to flying the Tomcat well. What I don't get about the wingover is what I'm supposed to get out of it. Like, what other flying conditions does it either replicate or help me to do well? It seems artificial and weird, whereas the others have clear analogues to other flying situations, and I understand how they help me to become a better pilot. Note that this isn't a criticism. I'm sure there's a reason they taught this in the Tomcat RAG, I just don't see what it is. And maybe the fact that I still don't really understand how to execute it properly is preventing me from understanding what I'm supposed to learn from doing it!

So, if we encounter this issue, can we just RTB with no negative consequences?

Ended with an Average on the second attempt, and also felt like it was hard work to get it! Still don't really understand what I'm supposed to do during a wingover (even after watching Spud do it 3 times), or, frankly, what the point of a wingover is, but hey. This time, no issues with the half-Cuban. Guess I must have jumped the gun on the first attempt after all, because this time everything worked properly. This time I ended up with 2000 lbs more fuel! The only two things I did differently were a) actually just ending the flat turn at 360 degrees and not just keeping going waiting for Paco to tell me to stop and b) modulating the throttle a little to just maintain M1.3 during the mach run. Wouldn't have thought that would have made such a huge difference, but it sure did!

Thanks for the quick response! 1) Ah, makes sense. Is this in the docs somewhere? I thought I read them fairly thoroughly and didn't see anything but I might have missed it. 2) So I'm maintaining the pull throughout? That's probably what I was doing wrong. Might watch Spud's video just to be sure. I usually avoid watching other people play your campaigns because they're so good I know I'm going to buy them anyway, and I don't want spoilers! 3) Huh. I could have sworn I waited until I got the instructions to start, but maybe I jumped the gun a little. 4) My guess is that for this one, it was the thing I pointed to in my edit, plus the fact that I screwed something up in the Mach run and probably had to stay in blower too long. Thanks again!

Yeah, it's just the details on that one. It just comes as such a contrast--all the other maneuvers are very clearly explained, and if I screw up, I know what I'm doing wrong. The wingover, though, I just don't understand exactly what I'm trying to do, so I don't know what I'm screwing up!

Just finished the fam flight and had a couple of thoughts to share: 1. Is going into mil during the controls wipeout correct? Even with the wheel brakes jammed down, those big F-14B engines were still accelerating me! 2. I wanted a lot more clarification from Paco on what I was supposed to be doing during the wingover. I almost posted here before flying it, because even after reading the briefing pdf, rereading it, and attempting the maneuver multiple times on my own before flying the mission, I still felt confused as to what I was supposed to be doing. I flew the mission anyway, assuming that Paco would probably explain it more during the mission, but that wasn't the case. Am I supposed to be maintaining 2-3 Gs during the turn? Am I not pulling at all and just letting the bank of the aircraft do all of the turning? Where should my throttles be; am I attempting to maintain a certain airspeed, or a certain AoA, or something else? Am I attempting to keep my nose at 45 degrees up for as long as I can, or just initially and then letting the nose fall as I begin the turn? Am I only supposed to let the nose fall at the 90? Am I supposed to be 45 degrees nose-down during the descent? Again, where are my throttles during the descent (or is that just a "manage your speed so that you come out at 350 kts" situation)? 3. The Half-Cuban was bugged on my playthrough. He told me I screwed it up and to try it again while I was still in the middle of attempting the maneuver (I think I was rolling over after achieving 45 degrees nose down), and then, once I got back to 350 kts at 15K feet to retry it, he said, "Nicely done" and moved on with the training. Possibly related, my end-of-mission score breakdown said that I had "sloppy loops" even though I performed the actual loops well. 4. [ORIGINAL, SEE EDIT] How exactly are we supposed to avoid an unsat for fuel management? I was down to only 600 lbs at the end even though I had been trying extremely hard to conserve fuel. I had read here that others had trouble with fuel management during this mission, and I was determined to not let that happen, but it sure happened anyway! [EDIT] After thinking about it a bit more, I do realize that I did make a couple of mistakes that might have contributed to the fuel management situation--the big one being that I didn't realize that I had to end the level turn maneuver on my own (I was waiting for Paco to tell me I was done). Since it's the very first maneuver you do, it might be worth putting a note somewhere saying "end the turn when you're done, Paco will not tell you when to end it" or something to that effect.

@Karonthanks, this is very helpful!

What sort of launch parameters are you using with these launches? 40-50% is significantly higher than my current Pk, so I'd love to know what I'm doing wrong. Is it mostly just that I need to be at really high altitude? Edit: just saw that you have a youtube video about it, I'll check that out!

Just chiming in to say that I also experienced the above problems.

To second (third?) what rob10 and zildac said, the WarBRD base *seems* like it should be wobbly with the Warthog stick, and it does wobble--but only when I'm not actually flying with it. It's the weirdest thing. It seems like it should be a problem, but I've literally never noticed it while flying.

I tried to clean up the stickiness in my Warthog stick, failed, and broke the base. Got a WARBRD base (as Hobel recommended) and wished I'd just done that in the first place. It is *vastly* superior to the Warthog base.

Agreed with The_Tau. The weird notching behavior, especially when combined with the 100% AI SA, makes it almost impossible to do anything effective with the Phoenix in its current state against the AI. I mostly find myself using it to set myself up for a more advantageous Sparrow shot now, because that's all it can do with any reliability.

I'm not Reflected (obviously!), but I can't think of how a scenario designer could do something that would cause you to be unable to fire your weapons. My guess is this is either user error or a DCS bug. Is the HOT TRIG (or HOT TRIGGER, I can't remember) caution light illuminated when you try to fire?

It's really, really fun. Feels totally different from flying most other aircraft (as it should!). The workflow for fighting it in A-G is a bit complicated, but once you get good at it the Harrier is really good at it.

Because none of the DLC campaigns are playable in multiplayer (that I'm aware of). Mirage 2000C Red Flag campaign is designed to be played in single-player only.

As others have said, manual and Chuck's guide are your friends. As for what I wish I had known as a brand-new Mirage pilot? The main thing is to have realistic expectations for what the plane can accomplish. It's a very good DCS module by this point, but it hasn't had the sorts of weapons and sensor upgrades of the DCS F/A-18 or F-16 (just like the IRL Mirage 2000C hasn't had these sorts of upgrades). You're limited to only four A-A missiles, and only SARH and IR missiles with average ranges. As for ground ordnance, you have only unguided munitions except for LGBs that need a different platform to lase for you. Quite simply, it's not as capable as the F-16 or F/A-18 (or JF-17), but as long as you remember that, work within its limitations, and don't try to make it do things it can't do, you'll have a lot of fun. It's a great airplane to fly, and when you pull off difficult tasks in it, it feels very rewarding.

Also, honestly, even in BFM I generally want Jester to prioritize calling out airspeed over bandit location anyway. So this would be good to have overall!

And, if you're short on time, there's another option for Speed & Angels. Wouldn't necessarily recommend it, but if you're super crunched on time, you can skip a good chunk of the documentary where they're talking about the main subjects' families and their relationships with their hometowns. Again, wouldn't necessarily recommend it, because it helps you to get to know them a lot better and they're cool people, but if you just want to watch the flying/flying-related sections it is *an* option.