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http://tailspinstales.blogspot.com/2010/01/slowest-blackbird.html Great story about a scary low speed pass over some troops. I'd be pooping myself if I was in that back seat!

Really handsome approach!

The manual is a great resource but if you try reading the whole thing before you have any flight time (or have questions about it), it's unlikely that you'll retain much of it. I recommend reading the quick start guide before even thinking about the actual manual. It covers a lot of material in an easily digestible way just to get your brain juices flowing, then go and tackle the tutorials afterwards. As you start to develop questions about the tutorials, write them down then reference to the manual and read the relevant section. Others might disagree on this, but the DCS manual reads like a reference book and I feel that treating it as such and not reading it like a novel is the best way to learn it it. Eventually you'll end up reading all of it but depending on what kind of learner you are, you might end up spending a lot of wasted time trying to decipher the CDU or other systems through text when you really aren't ready to absorb the info.

Beautiful 2011 F15 HD Footage. ACM Training plus lots of eye candy. They overlaid music on this but you can easily hear the radio chatter over it. [VV] [/VV] http://theaviationist.com/2012/04/25/best-f-15-video-ever/

Exciting stuff!

70 F15s! http://theaviationist.com/2012/04/16/sj-elephant-walk/

2/2

http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-3477.html 1/2

It's going to be extremely hard to visually pick up a tank from 10k+ feet, even with using the zoom so don't expect to suddenly develop eagle eye vision! For starters, you really want to avoid overflying your target. Make sure you're scanning at stand off range (as far away as you can manage, maybe 10nm?) and from at least 12k agl. Give yourself plenty of space and time to find the target before you're ever in danger of being shot at or overshooting. Once you know where you're looking, the only thing left to do is start a patient and methodical search for your targets. It'll help to find a landmark in the general vicinity (such as a road or building) then use it as a reference point to scan left/right while progressively working your way up and down. It might also help to cycle from WHOT to BHOT frequently to help snag any low contrast vehicles. Scanning in a set pattern like this will help be sure that you're completely covering the area you’re supposed to search and makes sure you aren’t overlooking anything. Once you finally locate a target, don’t forget that he probably has friends in a formation around him. It’s unlikely that you’ll stumble across a random vehicle just sitting by itself (unless it’s a zeus or SAM or something), so take your time and whack the rest of his buddies too.

I'm pretty sure the F/A-18 symbology is the opposite of the F-16s. There was an article floating around about an F-18 pilot who converted over to an F-16 and he noted that as one of the first differences that jumped right out at him.

I'm going to third Vipers in the Storm--you can't beat it. I highly recommend, A Lonely Kind of War: Forward Air Controller, Vietnam (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004H8GCQM/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title) This book really blew my mind and it really showed me what the term "situational awareness" actually means. Another great book is, When Thunder Rolled: An F-105 Pilot over North Vietnam (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004ZZM3GK/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title). The author goes into great detail about his 100 missions over N Vietnam flying a Thunderchief. This one is really fills in the gaps about how packages work together in a hostile environment. The sequel is worth checking out too.

Fixed. Thanks

The Laser needs to be on when designating the SPI because of the way the Targeting Pod sees (or doesn't see) things. When you attempt to designate a tgt with the targeting pod it's important to remember that it doesn't actually see buildings or vehicles, the only thing it can recognize are coordinates on a preloaded map. This isn't a huge deal if you're 90 degrees above your target because the spot right underneath that tank is plenty good enough to blow it straight to hell. It might be an issue though if you're going to designate at a really low slant angle (say 5-10 degrees) because even though the cursor is right on that tank's turret from your current perspective, the targeting pod is actually seeing through that turret into the ground behind it. You'll notice how this works if you designate a markpoint from a suitably low angle without using the Laser and then fly 90 degrees around to its beam -- your markpoint probably wont be exactly where you thought it was. You get around this by firing the Laser as you designate your SPI because it allows you to verify the actual range to the target, not just some point behind it. Once you've set up your SPI, you can turn off the laser, you don't need it to actually fire the weapon. ExcessiveHeadspace has a great video on how all this works on youtube, it's definitely work a look.

Thats a nice step by step guide but adding markpoints into the mix isn't always necessary. Setting up the mrkpts as the above poster suggests means you're essentially preplanning your targets and it allows you to dump your mavericks down range slightly faster -- at the expense of a slightly longer setup time. If you come across a target of opportunity however, it might be more efficient to do this: 1. Find target with targeting pod 2. Laser on (you'll need to hold the NWS button down unless you've turned on the latch feature) 3. TMS Up twice to make your Target the SPI 4. Make the HUD your SOI (Coolie Hat Up) then DMS left until you've selected your Maverick profile 5. Select Mav mode on your MFCD using the OSB or Coolie Hat 6. China hat forward Long to slave your maverick to the SPI 7. TMS Up until you lock your mav. 8. Fire

You might get a 'mission success' message in the corner of the screen, but it won't take you out of the game. You have the option to hit escape and exit the mission or to fly back to a base and land "properly".