Skey

What altitude are you flying when you pickle? I dropped rockeyes in AUTO mode from around 10k and had no trouble with the AAA.

Also getting the crash, though at this point I've tried the mission 8 times. Same exact situation. Red gets hit, then when flying over the mountains back to the coast the sim crashes. Attaching the logfile below. Maybe someone can make better sense of it than me. This campaign is *chef's kiss*. dcs.20210609-221521.crash

You'll have to refuel on mission 1, and tankers are available for the remaining missions I've played, but have not had to use them. You should try and get comfortable with it just the same if you aren't!

I've tried this, though maybe I wasn't slow enough. I've also tried both waist cats and circling overhead before and after passing 2.5.

This mission is straight-up bugged for me. After launch, Blade just goes off to the southeast on his own no matter what I do. I've only ever gotten to rejoin at WP1 once, and then I ran into the same issue OP did.