Jester Darrak

Nah, was about getting whacked by a Strela. :D

Ok, what ist this light no the right side for, just above the "TEST" text? I had it coming up last night multiple times without knowing what this is. Also, I had a beeping sound the same time around this light came up, might be coincidential, but could be not. Version is latest OB.

Be advised that the Training Mission for start up procedure, the corresponding youtube video AND the flight manual do not show those steps.

It does make sense. With flaps out during takeoff and landing roll you don't want to steer off the runway by just touching the pedals when gain is accidently set to high.

Launching a missile needs you to have the button, key or keystroke to be pressed for at least a second.

Please, don't. If every aircraft starts with full fuel the depots will get drained even faster. The casual player will take off with 3 bags, fly 60NM, die, repeat twice and then disconnect. I would grab 20% fuel, fly to a nearby airfield that has pleeeenty of fuel and get my stuff there. Now tell me what is better for fuel economy and thus better for the team?

I, and many others, see the 51st as the premier flanker-only squadron, probably the finest of the finest. But then we must read this what turns out to be your best-of of 'I hate the F-15 for what it is and everything on my Flanker is garbage' whine. You have EOS, DL (with EWR only though, but still, you have DL), sneaky IR missiles with longer range than AIM-9 or MagicII, SRMs that turn on a dime and off-boresight capability and you're better in a turn fight. (did I just mention everything that favors close range engagements?) Eagle drivers have the better radar and radar warning receiver, that's it. Oh, and talking about flares: lol...

Yeah, airquakers don't like flying 100NM+ from Tbilisi to the front. Wouldn't be a problem when they would've started thinking about fuel management from the beginning. When I was GCI I ordered/asked people to fly with minimum fuel to another airfield when their starting point was low on gas and their way to the front was 60NM+.

Ok, everything but your last sentence didn't make sense at all. When your one or two up against 8 or more, what do you expect those poor souls to do? Momentarily I see the following issues: ABRIS giving RED the opportunity to relay safe routes to chopper pilots or mark thread areas for everyone on their team. Lack of resistance (here: missing AI interceptors) makes it way too easy for everyone to take over anything. Ciribob told me already they won't happen anytime soon due to massive bugs coming along with their spawn. Team stacking has always been a problem since I started flying Blueflag in round 5. Time zones once where a factor but at the moment it looks like during US prime time there are more RED pilots on (traitors!). Only around 0600 GMT BLUE seems to get a few hours of relief where they can actually try and get something back. Greatest problem for BLUE at the moment is dedication and seriousness. All too often I see BLUE pilots attacking a target when there is no chopper around to capture it, wasting prescious fuel, time and manpower. When an airfiel is low on fuel I only grab a few pounds and hop to the nearest airfield that has more fuel and get all my stuff there. Everyone else is just filling up to the max where they start, burn towards a target and die. Oh, before I forget: We need A-10s at PAK6.

Words of the Gazelle being way too weak as an attack chopper compared to the Blackshark are around since it's introduction. And that's neither a rant or a 'whine', it is what it is. But blue flag also was all about balance, a fair chance for both teams to win. As we have seen before, a highly skilled Blackshark pilot might tip the odds towards his team. But as there was no persistance, the ABRIS's crystal ball-like ability didn't have that much of an impact. We're not talking about imbalance here anymore, it's a matter of unfairness. I see some people often enough lingering in GCI, then switching to KA50 and after a few more minutes sitting in a Hip or a Warthog. Now that explains it.

Seriously? I have no experience in the KA50 at all so I wouldn't know that but THAT is indeed unfair beyound all else. RED places IR SAMs close to places they capture (espescially right in the approach paths) and BLUE has absolutely no capabilities to effectively remove them. But if BLUE does the same thing you just go shopping with a KA50 and it shows them all? I consider this a wallhack then. But maybe one can show me a ABRIS-picture taken during blueflag. I'm not against that tactic at all, it's legit in a war. But if ABRIS shows enemy units on a map that's absolutely not ok.

With the actual mission there seems to be a problem with Sochi. We were able to bring it down to 8% and then nothing else was to be killed. We used JTAC to spot enemies, nothing. Looks like there is a unit hidden inside a building or maybe warped far away. We had this issue twice today and it all started after you updated the mission. Edit: And right after restart it went back to 100%.

JTAC is probably the best asset available in final stages of taking a position. Once it finds no more targets you know there is nothing left. Until then it constantly lases targets where A-10C, F-5E and Mirage can just drop a GBU-12 in, although I'd rather take a 10 with me to get them all in one single pickle. And the A-10 can also use it's LSS to find the exact position and deploy whatever suits the situation best. I'm even able to take out the infantry squad with an F-15. I have approx. 10 kills on infantry with AIM-9 and AIM-7 until now, guns not counting. :D

Blue Flag is still a thing? With Round 10 in testing for what feels like a year now it just got boring. To me it was a campaing that ran for up to 20 days where you need to stay sharp from the beginning to the end and give everything you got in your playbook. Then there was a time of calm and recreation when all the heat settled down so we can look at each other again without scratching and biting each other. Now it just became another form of air quake. One side got defeated? Wait a day or two and it's back to square one. Or: "Let's make a speed run, I wanna finish them within three days!". Round 6 was the best round. There where almost no restrictions and with more long range engagements it got more tactical where you could win if you were outnumbered 2:1 but impossible with only short range weapons like 27R and AIM-7 we are forced to use since round 7. And this coming from a guy that never goes out without 2 sparrows even when 120s are allowed.

Wrong thread, buddy. ;)

You absolutely don't need TS. On blue we have 264 as GCI frequency where most of the traffic is handled. I connect to the server, dial in on 264 on the primary for GCI and 231.4 on my secondary radio for all CAP that's in my AO willing to join up. You can also see on the real time map who is connected to the server and on what frequency they are. But if you rely on TS where there is almost no one you just gave it away. Despite a few people killing our ears from time to time, comms on blue are just awesome. You got GCI calling the shots and most of our segments use their secondaries for their communication within their flight. Wanna ask the chopper on it's ETA? Call him on 264. Need a buddy to clear your six? Call 264. Bored and lonely? Call 264.

Until someone drives it 60 miles to the next airfield and shoots down aricraft that are taking off. At least those units should be taken out of the "what's left to close the place" check.

Why would they do that? So everyone can hide their ground assets in the trees where it's nearly impossible to find them?

Jester Lonewolf Germany F-15C

What about restriction of drop tanks? It shouldn't be normal to drop your bags everytime you enter a fight. That would make much more sense since we can think of the deployment of weapons being simulated by the siderwinder look-a-like pod (although we still launch our weapons, no boom, no fun. :P ). I for example like to keep my bags on, wether they're full or not. I only drop them if I'm in deep trouble.

Congratulations to all the winners. Kudos to all striker pilots, you really made the difference that day.

A total chaos might have been a little over the top since I only saw a small portion, sure. Just as a recap - the rounds before we all started our engines on command and took off around the same time so I thought it'd be the same this time. During taxiing a Mirage rear-ended another Mirage and the following explosion took out my 2 wingmen. That delayed us furthermore with the INS of the Mirages also being not aligned (I know, 2.0 issue). Before I was even in the air we lost 4 or 5 planes along with Flame. I'm not mad at anyone, just a little frustrated that things didn't work out for me and also disappointed about myself for showing up late and thus missing most of the briefing. It just all came together but the Hogs did a great job on the short window they had. The CAP side of things might not have been that well executed but Strike Package was so perfectly orchestrated they killed around 90% of the targets with the first pass. But hey, if the majority had their share of fun I'm totally fine with it. It's not that I have to wait another 6 months or even more to show I can do better. ;) And again, thank you for doing this, I love Red Flag.

Event was fun, but total chaos as I witnessed it. There are some things I'd like to have changed or added: - Clear goals (and schedules) for both sides. Red needs to kill all groundpounders while Blue needs to take out certain numbers if not all of the ground targets. Red gets 2 minutes head start.[example] - Commanders Once you are tumbleweed (on the deck with zero SA) you are 99.9% dead. A commander can assign a guard or send reinforcements in real-time. - Referees They overlook participants of both sides to following the rules, keeping the scores. Also supporting the broadcaster by calling upcoming engagements. - Challenger Dedicated Flight Leads Still working on this one.

No more SA points? What happened to that?

Jester Lonewolf Germany F-15C Too bad I won't be flying for aggressors. :/