paulca

I pretty much figured this was the case, thanks guys. What is it with game designers? It's like one team programmes the game paying attention to the details of the simulation and realism, then another team of monkeys creates the content to be as realistic as an ashtray on a motorbike? The Su25T was the same! I like the CBU-97 as the tanks typically come in groups of 3. If you drop the CBU97 on the middle tank you have about a 99% change of killing it a 60% of killing 2 or them and a 30% of getting lucky and killing all 3. It saves 2 mavericks. The CBU97 works well from high alt dropped CCRP on a TGP target or dropped CCIP from a dive pinned on the TDC. Anyway, at least the A10C has SEAD flights you can call in while getting on station and scoping stuff out. In the Su25 you can't scope stuff out until you are on top of it and there are very seldom any SEAD cover flights and usually when there are they spend 2 minutes, in and out and leave most of the AAA and SAM threat behind. I have completed about 50% of the single missions to date and am switching between training flights (either navigation for fun, dumb bomb practice or general weapons practice), single missions and the campaign. Once I'm done with that I might go for the Enemy Within or the Flight qualification campaign, assuming it goes back on sale. Then I'm undecided if I should go for the Ka-50 or Combined arms. Plenty ahead of me anyway. Is there anyway to refuel and rearm your wingman?

So I feel I am starting to learn how the campaign missions work in the A10C. However, the default load outs are a bit rubbish. 2xD 2xH Mavericks, 2 Mk82Air, 2 CBU87. So, while the missions do have a few truck parks with the odd APC in them they aren't really a priority target. The tank groups are. Now I took out 4 of 6 lead tanks with the mavericks and my wingman got another. For the final tank in that group I dropped 2xCBU87 on his head, seen good effect, followed up by dropping the Mk82As are close as I could (less than 30 yards) and followed by emptying my cannon straight on him in two passes. ... he still drove off without so much as a scratch. So what is the point of the CBU87? And surely 1000+ rounds of CM straight down on a MTB tank from under 1nm should kill or at least make it smoke! As I keep forgetting to change my load out I had to RTB to refuel and rearm with 4xCBU97s and 6 D Mavericks. Then the fun actually started as the CBU97s have a chance to kill 2, 3, or 4 tanks with one bomb! Are CBU87's only really of use against un-armoured targets or are they broken? If the CBU87s and the Mk82A are provided for hitting the truck parks etc. Then the mission will be very, very difficult without going to re-arm a few times. Also... Are the NATO tanks made out of wet cardboard? I ran out of weapons and there was one single russian tank awaiting my 2 advancing columns of 3 units each. That one soviet tank killed all 6. It doesn't feel very realistic if I have to kill everything for them and they get taken completely out by one single tank! In frustration I used my final weapon, the plane itself and hit him square in the face with my A10. He STILL drove off without a scratch!

Probably my longest set of posts in years, but I'm a bit bored :) Here is a real Civi arrival chart for Batumi. (Note not an approach chart). [ame]http://www.aopa.org.il/userfiles/files/AIP/cd/2010-06-03-AIRAC/graphics/UGSB-STAR-13-0210.pdf[/ame] It's an interesting one. First off, the TACAN is not there and there is no civi equivalent VOR either. They only have an NDB. Does DCS even do ADF receivers? Anyway, you can just use the TACAN with the same bearings and have the added bonus of directional tracking. If you want to simulate an ADF approach in an A10, just ignore the TACAN course and set it to something random, or cage it if you can. Also ignore the distance! Using the steerpoint needle might work better if it hides the HSI distance. The next thing of note are the references with arrows in the form: R228* D 53.3 113.6 KTS That is NOT 113.6 knots. It's referring to the KTS VOR on 113.6MHz. It is 'off the chart' (been waiting to say that when it's not a pun!), somewhere to the north east.... 53.3 miles away in fact :) R228* D 53.3 means 53.3 nm on radial 228 FROM the VOR. Obviously range and bearing don't need explanation here, just that in radio navigation you will have multiple "bullseyes" those being radio navigation installations. There are a few different arrivals shown. From SOSED, NEDEK and SARPI. All of which are basic waypoints. They will usually be defined as both an LL point and usually as a point where two VOR/NDB radials cross. Hence their other name "intersections". For completeness sake as airliner would be following defined airways (You can see the area here: https://skyvector.com/?ll=41.610177778,41.599438889&chart=302&zoom=3 ). They will be on the B147, the J11 or the G67/N37. They will then pick up the arrival route at SOSED, NEDEK or SARPI. Thus the arrival chart defines the standard way ATC would like airliners to get off the airways and approach to land. Enroute (Airways)->Arrival (STAR)->Approach (IAC) Routes typically have a bearing and distance with an arrow along them. They have names usually their starting waypoint and a 'version' such as 1B or 4C. Often they also have outward arrows with the name and radial from a navaid on them suggesting you can "track the radial with the VOR or ADF" So... if your CDU is up you could enter SOSED et al's coordinates and make them waypoints, but that's boring. So where the hell is SOSED then? Well if you look at the SOSED 1B line running south east, straight in on Batumi, it shows the bearing 133* and the distance (in the white arrow) 41. So SOSED is 41nm from Batumi on radial 313* (reciprocal of 133*). That's "Bearing 313 for 41" in USAF speak. ;) The chart even has a cross check with KTS so it's "313 for 41 LU 262 for 65 KTS" There is one more hurdle though. While you can fly around in a circle until the ADF needle points to 133*, how do you know your distance from 'LU' (the ndb at batumi) it provides no distance, just bearing. Here you are kinda stuffed without RNAV (GPS, INS, EGI) or at least a DME for distance (you 'can' use the ILS for distance if it's in range, but I reckon it's inaccurate and taboo). But all is not lost if your CDU is down and you are trying to pretend we don't have a TACAN. You can look at your bearing FROM KTS. If you are somewhere on the 133* inbound to 'LU' and your bearing FROM KTS is greater than 262, you are greater than 41nm out. If it is less than 262* (further south) you are inside of 41nm. You should start to see how you can fix your location relative to not just one nav aid with bearing and distance, but multiple navaids with just bearing. (Note: NDBs often have reliable ranges under 30nm and ILS even less, so YMMV!) You can even fix your position with nothing more than distances to 2 known points (for another time!). You can also get your distance from an NDB, by turning to put it 90* abeam, fly for one minute and note the deviation in the angle. Do some sums with your speed and some trig and you can work your distance based on triangulation. This is not something an ATC controller will expect you to do on a busy arrival route though. If I was trying this arrival out I would just use the TACAN signal for distance, or enter SOSED, NEDEK and SARPI as mission waypoints, then fly to the NDB. Note that the 1B routes fly to the radio beacon. The 2B routes do not. It will become clear why in a minute. The 2B routes are short cuts to the top of the ILS 'direct in approaches'. However. They are not flyable accurately without RNAV; area navigation system such as GPS, INS or EGI. In most cases you could probably get away with just flying a wind corrected heading from SOSED or NEDEK and hoping to intercept the 126* inbound to LU for approach or the ILS. You will also see holds at each arrival point or overhead the beacon. It works like this. You do NOT proceed past the arrival point hold until cleared to do so. In an airliner your flight plan will have a hold pre-programmed that you will need to cancel or skip once clearance has been received. If you go for coffee or to chat up the air stewardesses and get carried away the plane will enter the hold while ATC howler at you. In the real world changes are, if there is radar approach ATC they will give arrivals a heading off SOSED or NEDEK with descent clearance and merge the two flows on to the ILS with vectors. Some thing along the lines of "Hawg 1-1, leave SOSED on track 135 degrees, descend altitude 7,000 QNH 1013, expect ILS runway 13". Here is the second page that has the english directions to follow. If you have trouble tracing the routes, try using the text page, it's often on a separate page or in little boxes on the chart: [ame]http://www.aopa.org.il/userfiles/files/AIP/cd/2010-06-03-AIRAC/graphics/UGSB-RSTAR-13-0110.pdf[/ame] The approach chart: [ame]http://www.aopa.org.il/userfiles/files/AIP/cd/2010-06-03-AIRAC/graphics/UGSB-IAC-13-ILS-0210.pdf[/ame] This is pretty much as per the the OP's awesome mission. First thing to look for is the continuation point from the arrival. There were two. Either overhead the beacon if using pure radio nav or AKAKI IAF (Initial Approach Fix) if coming in on the 2B arrivals. So you use the arrival chart to get to one of those points and then the approach chart for the rest of the way in. Some airports, such as Heathrow, have intermediate charts. The very top panel is title information, frequencies and overall notes and cautions. The main panel is the horizontal chart. The bottom panel is the vertical / descent chart. If you arrived at AKAKI you can just join the ILS, flick the autopilot on and go browse the internet on your iPad. Oh wait, the A10C doesn't have an ILS approach hold, sorry, it's a needle chasing fest instead :) If you are here for the challenge you can fly to the beacon and ... begin as the original mission did. The two race tracks are for different category of planes. These can be googled, but basically A and B are prop aircraft, C and D are performance jets and airliners. It makes assumptions about speed basically. The A10C probably fits into the C category. If you drop the flaps you could pass it off as a B, maybe, it wouldn't be practical though. You can also see the "Missed approach procedure." In this case it's very important! A heavy KC135 or 747 CANNOT overfly the runway on a missed approach as it will be heading directly into high ground, never able to climb fast enough to turn back out. It MUST break off the approach to the left early. Being in mountains is fine. Being in cloud is fine. Being in mountains in cloud is NOT fine! Note .. referencing my other post about making these procedures up, the "MSA" boxes in multiple locations. This is "Minimum safe altitude" for that general area. If you want to get lower you need to find a specific route from the approach chart with lower altitudes... effectively on these charts that will only be the approach path. So if you are not established on the approach, do not descend below the MSA. If you have no idea where you are, it's night and a heavy thick cloud base, climb above the highest MSA for the area. 15,700ft! Also note there is NO IFR approach for runway 31. Most likely due to the 15,000ft mountains that direction. What if you NEED to land on runway 31, say due to high westerly winds and it's cloudy? Typically this is called a "Circle to land" approach. You fly the IFR approach for any runway, the one that is most convenient or the one ATC assign you. You fly to the Missed approach point and if you are visual enough with the airport once under the cloud, continue with a visual approach, and fly a normal pattern saying close in so as not to loose visual. You will note the "OCA / H" heights 'Overhead circling altitude or height' for the different classes A,B,C,D at the bottom on the chart. You will also note the descent profile, the estimated descent rates for different classes/speeds. The descent profile has both an outbound from the beacon; 7,000ft down to 3,500ft on heading 306* and the inbound descent on the ILS. Without the glideslope working you can use the table in the lower right. This is the same as the descent planning in my earlier post. If there were obstacles or high ground they would be shown under the descent profile. These are all the things I said you could make up and if you browse enough of these charts you will start to see the logic behind them and how they are created. Being able to do this allows you to fly a safe IFR approach into any airfield (within reason) without a chart in 100% overcast or low vis / night time conditions. My final point is a sad one. This style of navigation is dying out. The latest airliners don't even have "VOR HOLD" mode autopilots. The NAV radio tuning has been hidden in 'MISC' pages of flight management systems and charts are appearing that don't use radio navigation references at all. The Batumi one is getting close to this. Everything is going GPS, INS, Area navigation and LL points. The only planes that can't really do this are typically older planes and general aviation which nobody really care about. NDBs, VORs and DMEs are being decomissioned and removed from service at a fair ole rate. So when the USA switches off GPS we are all kinda screwed, left with INS and the sextant.

So, I'm probably being blonde here, but... The download page says: But then goes on to say: and finally... The files download as MIZ files, but are apparently EXEs? There are no install instructions in this thread or in the downloads/download page. If I rename them EXE and run them they ask for a license key. I install the license manager and try again, but this time it says I need a valid mission key. So... is it FREE, not FREE, FREE but you need to apply for a key? Yours, Confused.

To look at an example. You are coming back from a mission to an airfield in DCS. While you have been in the target area the weather has closed in at your home plate. They have a 500ft cloud deck and it's overcast up to 3000ft. You note the wind is strong and the direction of runway that requires has no ILS. You have no charts for this airport. How do you get down safely? 1. First. Look at the map. If there is any terrain within a 10nm radius around the airport, add 2,000ft to the highest peak and pick that as your holding alt. Now look for terrain up your approach and note any height restrictions. Example: Hill at 12nm height 4,000ft. Hill at 8nm, peak height 1,800ft. Hill at 6nm, peak height 1,000ft. Add a safety margin to these of 1000ft and they will mandate your safe descent altitudes. "I have to stay above 5,000ft until I am established inbound and inside of 12nm", or, "I cannot descend below 2,000ft until I am within 6nm." Use a notepad and pen, really! 2. Now tune the TACAN in and home on the needle to get straight to the beacon. 3. Hold at the beacon at the atltitude you choose as your MSA (Minimum safe altitude) for the entire area. You can just do a standard orbit, but if you like the challenge try looking up "Holding on a VOR" on how to fly a proper hold and proper hold entry procedures. If you wish you can do the scoping out of the approach terrain while holding here. 4. Lets say our runway heading is 274* inbound. Set the TACAN course to 94* and fly away from the beacon on heading 94* 5. Track in on the TACAN radial and watch the distance. Stay at your holding altitude. 6. When you are 8nm outbound make a 60* right hand turn. A 30* bank level turn will do. 7. Hack your clock or some other way start a timer for 1 minute. 8. When that minute is up, start a left hand 180* turn. 9. Start a descent in the turn, noting your distance and your terrain notes! Based on the terrain above I would aim to descend no lower than 5,000ft. 10. Swing your TACAN course around to the runway heading, 274* 11. As you come round to complete the 180* turn you should see the TACAN lateral bars are offset to the right and you are intercepting by about 60*. Note the direction needle and as it closes on the runway heading turn that last 60* to intercept and track the inbound course. 12. As the distance drops below 12nm, begin a descent while keeping aware of the other restrictions. As to how quickly you should descend, you can work it out based on speed and distance, so typical A10 numbers assuming a 180kt approach with 7* flaps (cause it's easy to work out)... you need to descend 5,000ft in about 12nm at 180kts. 12nm at 180kts = 4 minutes. 5,000ft divided by 4 minutes = 1,250fpm. Which is actually extremely quick, but hey. If you bring the speed back to 140kts it will improve :) 13. Continue a gradual and stable a descent as you can, keeping above your restrictions, even if it means descending in steps. 14. Level off when you get to your minimum descent height of about 400-500AGL, use the radar alt if you can or be very good at calculating with QNH and Airfield height or get the QFE. 15. Look for the runway. If you spot it, go visual and land. If you don't and you get within 1nm of the airport, pull up into a 1,500fpm climb on runway heading until reaching 3,000ft then do a 180 and fly back to the beacon climbing back up to holding alt to try again. Note: The runway may be off to one side. The TACAN station is often offset from the runway by a few hundred feet. I'm not sure if you can see them on the F10 view, but what usually happens is you offset the inbound course 3 or 4 degrees so that the TACAN inbound course intercepts the runway centre line at about 2nm. Ideally you will be visual by that stage and make the small dog leg correction to line up. It can often be easier than tracking in parallel to the runway by 200ft. DO NOT pass the missed approach point/distance as you will be flying straight for the terminal building in a lot of cases. You could try this with the above mission, just don't tune the ILS. However, the visibility is way, way too low. A VOR approach with a visual landing usually requires a cloud base above minimum descent altitude and visibility under the cloud of at least 2nm. (I'm sure there are genuine/official figures out there in the CAT specifications but I'm not looking them up!). You could do the approach portion from above and switch to ILS of course. If you want a real challenge, try making an approach onto runway 30 at Batumi. Terrain scoping will be important :)

Cool mission. Got it first time. It had me on the edge of my seat wondering just how low the visibility was going to be and if I would ever actually see the runway or just feel the bump. I did cheat though. Not that I modified the mission or used F10, but that I have 10 years of IFR Flight Sim practice in Civi land. VOR/DME, VOR, ADF, Circle to Land approaches all under my belt. Including the Innsbruck approach in heavy cloud and snow. It's notorius as you have to make a 180 turn between two mountains, though you are meant to be visual and under the clouds by that stage, it's fun to try it when you aren't. For those asking for IFR charts for individual airports, the real ones are often available on line, though in Civi format. Search for flight sim virtual airline sites for the area, they usually link to charts. In the UK there is AIS, in Europe there is EAD an online database that allows hobbyist registration and in the states there is AirNav.com. If I understand it correctly a TACAN is similar to a VOR, so you can pick civi charts for VOR/DME approachs or ILS approaches. Note, often they are split into two sections. The VOR/DME approach and a separate ILS approach. You basically join the two together. The VOR/DME gets you inbound on a fairly accurate heading and you pick up the ILS approach at the FAP (Final approach fix). The reason for the long winded-ness of VOR approaches has more to do with ATC and traffic sequencing than the navigational requirement to "Join overhead the beacon". They are often used at airports with no radar control when conditions means a VFR pattern can't work. So pilots hold overhead the beacon and the controller uses a notepad (or spreadsheet) to note where aircraft check in to and out of. When a pilot arrives and reports holding on the beacon at 7,000ft, the next guy reporting inbound can be told there is an aircraft on the beacon at 7,000ft and he will probably select to hold at 8,000ft or probably 9,000ft. The controller in this case cannot see the aircraft, he has to trust their position reports. He clears them into the approach from the beacon and they report "Outbound". They will be requested to report turning inbound or be requested to extend the outbound for traffic. There are also tight restrictions on altitude and when and where the stepped descents are to keep inbound and outbound traffic separate. The controller can have one outbound and one inbound and a number in the hold. This isn't that common though as it's not often you find a non-radar controller airport with enough traffic to design an approach to support concurrent traffic. For this reason the descent out of the holding level is usually down to say, 4,000ft and a descending turn back inbound drops you to 2,500ft giving 1,500ft separation between the inbound and outbound aircraft. As pilots report different stages such as "Outbound", "10nm outbound, turning inbound", "At the FAP", "On the glide" and so forth the controller can create a picture of where everyone is until he can finally see the landing aircraft and clear them to land. You don't need charts either. 90% of the charts I have seen all gravitate into one of 2 or 3 types of approach, so you can make up your own pretty easily. The one in this mission is actually a fairly uncommon one. It's a race track outbound. The issue with these is that outbound leg is non-precision. It does not use any reference for the outbound course and as such it can drift due to wind or a heading off by 1 or 2 degrees. If there is high terrain around approaches can require fairly high accuracy. Glasgow International airport has one of these approaches for the ILS 26 approach. It runs outbound for 12nm before turning inbound directly over a hill which can set off the "TERRAIN! TERRAIN!" alarm. Very disconcerting. "Am I really where I think I am?" Another two more common types are the "tear drop base leg" and "Procedural turn" approaches. The tear drop base leg approach takes you outbound on a VOR/TACAN radial, so using the TACAN for guidance it's a precision leg and you can correct easily for wind drift. At a fixed distance (DME) you do a 180* turn and pick up a different inbound radial for the runway, then go ILS. Often there are multiple outbound headings. A Cessna doing 100kts might only need a 10* heading offset, where as a 747 at 200kts might take a 20* offset. Probably the most common is the procedural turn. Sometimes called the ILS back-course approach. 1. Set the TACAN to the reciprocal runway heading, so if runway heading is 274* set the tacan course to 94*. 2. Leave the beacon on a heading of 94*. 3. Be patient and around 2nm from the beacon start intercepting the radial outbound (Tacan lateral deviation needle aligned and vertical). 4. Descend when appropriate from the chart. These approaches do not allow for concurrent in bound and outbound traffic very well, so often it's descend to FAP height at your discretion after you leave the beacon. 5. At a set distance, around 8nm-12nm, usually concurrent with the FAP position makes a 45* or 60* right or left turn. 6. Hold this heading for 1 minute and then do a 180* turn in the opposite direction. 7. If you did trig in school you should work out that you will be intercepting the runway heading by 45* or 60* in just under a minute. 8. Set the TACAN back round for the runway heading and intercept that heading. 9. Switch over to ILS once readings are good. The approach looks a bit like a hockey (or hurling) stick. Straight out and back with a slanted teardrop turn around. You 'can' fly the back-course off the ILS (more correctly the localizer), ie. fly back up the beam. However this was never the intended use of an ILS and the precision gets worse and worse the further out you go. It also gets confusing. This ILS back-course approach has been so frowned on that they are almost entirely gone these days. Some civilian aircraft even cage the ILS indications to stop you doing it. The autopilot modes for holding a back-course are also gone from modern planes. You will find all sorts of variations. For example it is common (and in DCS) that an airport only has an ILS on it's main runway and only in the direction it is most used. Having to land the other way due to wind means you have no ILS. How do you do an IFR approach in low cloud? These are VOR/DME approaches without an ILS at the end. You just keep tracking on the inbound heading, descending at a calculated rate and levelling off at your minimum descent height. This is usually around 400-600ft AGL. If by the time you cross the MAP (Missed approach point), usually 1-2nm from the threshold, you haven't spotted the runway, you go around. In the real world pilots tend to favour getting down early, with obvious knowledge of any obstacles or restrictions, so they get plenty of time to spot the runway. Other variations are partial VOR approaches, which are common in the USA. In particular JFK in New York uses a VOR approach for easterly winds to steer pilots to a turn in point for the runway as they cannot come in straight over Manhattan. The radar controller sequences them into one of more lines and merges them onto a VOR radial which is about 90* on to the runway heading. The pilots track the VOR to a certain distance and make a sharp right hand turn to line up with the runway. They have to be visual when they turn, but if they don't get visual, they continue straight on to the North away from harm and go around again on vectors.

My stock response for this view on Wikipedia is... if you find something wrong, fix it. That is what makes Wikipedia better than any physical encyclopaedia. A physical encyclopaedia is correct to the best of the producers knowledge at the time of printing. If it's wrong, it stays wrong forever. When it's out of date, it's out of date forever, no matter how many people are still learning from it and how many copies are still in schools 30 years later.

Remember the job of a SAM site is to **** you off first and foremost. Actually killing you is an optional bonus. They want to: Cause you to break off your target run in. Make you dump your stores and run. Scatter your formation. Cause confusion and chaos. Inflict damage that puts the plane in the hangar for weeks etc. etc. Scare and deter you and others. Actually hitting and killing you is a bonus. SAM success rates are far, far higher than their kill rates which are often tiny. Enemy troops could do well using fireworks to scare CAS aircraft as a pilot seeing a trail of white smoke coming out of a tree line at him will break and have to come off his attack run.

I have noticed that the higher the threat of the target area you are firing into the longer the Maverick will take to lock on. :) Consider the single mission "River Raider" where there are 6 bunkers, each one in turn is better defended. If you decide to waste MAV on the first 3 bunkers they lock on instantly at 5-6nm. However when you come to the final bunker the MAV will just not lock on. I ended up diving straight into the target and the MAV did not lock at <2nm. At that point I took some small arms straight in the face and AAA from all sides. I realise the bunker in question must be in an odd orrientation making it hard to lock, but other times I have found the MAV always takes it's time locking on when the target is a grave threat and locks instantly for unarmed, low threat targets. Just sods/murphies law I suppose.

When you are driving and hear a police siren your thumb automatically hunts for CMS forward.

This is the way I consider it. Not what they cost, but how many are available. I'm sure that at the start of any large campaign there are 1000s of Maverick available being shipping in via logistics, but when they start to run low the 100,000 mk82s in stock piles start to become more common place. I believe this is why they retro fit Mk82a (and probably Mk84s) with GBU units. I would expect that the campaign commanders are also aware of this and hope that the stand off capabilities should become less and less a priority if the campaign is going well and the AA stuff is thinning out. Consider going back 40 years when a large amount of bombing missions in Vietnam were done at night with the likes of the F4 and A6. They were totally blind drops, dropped on a steerpoint. A steerpoint being pin pointed by 1950s drum computers and clunky gyros. So 10s of thousands of bombs fell in empty jungle 100s of yards away from their suspected truck parks or whatever.

When transitioning to other air craft do not confuse speed brakes with spoilers. You will have a bad day!

Just a quick Q, but why would you drop a laser guided munition in CCIP mode? I figure CCIP mode is only really of use if you must do a dive approach such as hooking inverted over some terrain into a hot target Top Gun style.... or if you don't want to have to lock stuff up as SPI. However in the first instance there won't be time for the laser guidance to do much and in the later you don't have a SPI to fire the laser on.

Hi guys (gals?), I originally bought the V1 Ka50 Black Shark and enjoyed it. I later bought the A10C Warthog, but didn't really play it as long involved learning curve was not what I was after at the time. Steam then installed DCS World on my account and moved my A10 over, not sure the order this happened in but I recently decided to start playing again and thought I'd start with the Su25T. Out of interest I don't know what happened to my original Ka50 but I don't think it appears in my Steam library and I certainly didn't get the new Ka50. Not to worry. So I'm having fun in the training missions for the Su25T and have found the 10 part YouTube tutorials for it. My trouble comes when I try the combat missions where people shoot back. I had similar trouble with the Ka50 but at least with that I could pick an appropriate hill and hide while I sorted stuff out, pop up, acquire my target and launch before hiding again. With the fast movers this tactic doesn't really work, though I can obviously still use terrain. I have come far enough to know that running in without a clear plan will almost certainly result in instant death. But I'm having trouble with some of the tactical basics. At the moment, I have trouble finding and identifying targets at any range, so I use labels, even then at 400kts by the time I find any target I'm usually getting way too close and it's just a random target not the one I probably should be aiming for. Invariably by the time I get a weapon ready to fire and off the rails they start shooting at me and I have multiple SAMs as well as AAA fire on me and it ends in a firey mess. Can anyone direct me to some useful tactical tutorials that might be geared towards the Su25T missions or the campaign? Also, I'm not sure what version I have and I can only seem to find old Su25T forums. Is the su25T deprecated or just an unsupported freebee? Do you think I should move on to the A10C or is the Su25t okay to relearn my combat craft in?