Observed AI Mirage F1 behaviour

[cailean_556]

I'm developing a mission. Player follows an AI Mirage F1BE from Akrotiri to Rene Mouawad, via Beirut.

The AI is set to climb in two stages to F250 and, at that altitude, maintain Mach 0.8 from just outside of Akrotiri to the Lebanese coast. The BE's loadout is two wing tanks and two 9JULIs on the wing tips.

The AI doesn't make F250, staying around F230 or lower and is going around 170 kts - so slow that to remain in a stable formation I (as the player) have to drop flaps. I'm constantly having to throttle forward and back to maintain speed and stay in formation. Prior to Beirut, the AI is ordered to drop to 6,000 feet and accelerate to Mach 0.85 (it does this and is certainly going faster at lower altitude, which is to be expected in IAS).

I initially thought it was a fuel-conservation procedure by the AI however I attempted to match my directed flight profile (pretty sure I exceeded it at basically all times) and still had well over 3000L of fuel by the time I was wheel's down - which included an afterburner high speed pass over the Beiruit international airport 'just because'.

Increasing speeds between waypoints doesn't seem to do a whole lot... Is the BE's fuel load *that* much less than the CEs so my flight profile is too risky, or is the AI being over-cautious or...?

I'm still playing with it, to see if I can find a happy medium in there somewhere but interested to hear theories about why this behaviour is happening.