Let's see your grade sheets!

[Reflected]

Once you've finished the RAG, I'd love to see your grade sheets. It's ok to repeat a task if you're not happy with the result, but if you're hardcore, you enter the grade of your first try. Your choice

Here's my grade sheet, first tries only:

3.23 - Average

 

Speed & Angels - Grade Sheet_Reflected.xlsx

Edited January 26, 2023 by Reflected

[UN9249]

Title - Mr Paco was so mad at me that he didn't even give a grade.

Just to let you understand who am i, and why i did what i did. 
Let me itroduce myself. I am UN9249 and am a simmer since 1998.  Am not an native english speaker (so sorry for my mistakes i learn your language from MTV, movies and flight manuals with paper dictionary cause that time i think google was just a garage start up) and I flew simultors since f-117 on dos.
I flew F-22 raptor \ Mig-29 Fulcrum (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0T-zyo9MIM). Israel and usaf air force from Janes.
Than i was playing European Air war, IL-2 Sturmovik and even DCS (but that time it was Flanker\Lock on)  One day i understand i wanted more and become an airline pilot for more than a decade.
I learn 737-200 to 800. 747-2to800 (yes i knew INS before Mirages XD),767-787. MD11, Tu-154 (flight enginier 3 engines\mechanical doppler navigation\no Lnav-Vnav autopilot - still only in MSFS (later in X-plane))/Il62-86 and a lot of others i can't even remember. 
I was thinkin am kinda expirienced pilot, but Mr Paco didn't.

As he said on a briefing we're not going to learn how fly f-14. i forget exact word maybe - switchology. - Ok. 
(I allready fought F-14 in black sea in other Reflected campaign. That squadron with skull on vertical tail. It was fun and great.)
Long story short i thaught i knew how to fly this.  I was wrong.
Upon take off everything was standart. Checklist, ATC communication. I was relaxed doing what i used to for a long time.
But i never actually fly this procedures from a military plane. From that airport. (They didnt gave me VISA XD joking) Ok. Pretty easy departure. Straight than to left. Yes i was presumptuous.
I started worry when he said: - don't fly more than 350? knots. (350? - isnt limit 250 under FL100). Is he checkin me? trying to catch on something?
Than ATC says - over truck stop turn left 350, clmb 170. At that time i was overflying something looked like a truck stop, so i immediately turned left. And than mr Paco said that the truck stop is our WP1, i was violating SID. I allready climbed at FL100  in a wrong direction when should fly FL035 for next 10 nm.

UFFF...sorry, mr Paco. it was your fault too. Who uses truck stops as a landmark? - Yes, i know i should put right frequency in TCN. But i thaught you're a navigator today!!! ok. Forget it. Hope owners of that mall get used to newbies on that airbase. Am so sorry.

Than we fly to a training area. And than it started. 
(everyone knows americans has buildin compass? Agree?
You know when JTAC says - north of the city, "Three quarter" of a mile from us and you open your map, calculating qarter means 25% and 3*25% this is a 75% of a mile (which mile? nautical? ok.  Lets imagine nautical. it's smt like 75% of a 1800 meters which is smt like...ammm...1300 meters.
OK...1300 meters from JTAC to north of the city....am...we got a lot of buildings...Am sorry joking again XD
So the americans has no only built inn compass. They also has a built inn g-meter and a pitch meter. If no, i don't understan how i should maintain 30 degrees pitch, turning left or right with 4G and not loosing altitude. (VSI on the left, Pitch in front and a g-meter far below left right).
How this even possible mr PACO????
And than he wanted more and more. Loop with 40 degrees down keepin 350 knots at FL150. Split-S, Immelman...Why just don't say half up or down loop as everyone used to.
Do this do that. Fly below 250 feet and than climb up with full afterburner.
Right turn at 350 knots. Hurry up. What you waiting for? - Am gaining 350 from almost stall speed. - i was almost crying.

Once it was over i was very angry at myself. That never happened before. If its in a task, you can do it. You got malfunction not the plane. 
Than happened strange. 
We was on final. I was cleared to land. Allready? Mr Paco said keepin 350 knots. 3 nm till runway?! Cleared to land. I did all my best to loose speed making S before runway. (Hope no one will take off from 3R). 
- Gears down, flaps down. Ready to land.
Than Mr PACo said - smt like go around, and wanted me to turn right from middle of a runway. 
At that moment i wasn care of anything. - gears up, flaps up, toga thrust. Climbing runway direction 3500 (i remember its a pattern altitude for this airfield).
Than right hand turn.
He was saying smth, but i allready didnt understand any. I mechanically flew plane (blah blah blah aircraft carier ...navy...700...i barely understand some of his words.) 
I land exactly on runway marks with a kiss, like used on 737. 
mr Paco didnt say anything. I feel his mad behind me.
I rolled till the end of runway and parked next to closest f-14 on a free parking spot.
Mr Paco was so mad at me that he didn't even give a grade and remained silent.
I quit the mission.

Thank you Reflected for giving me that noob feel. I cant even imagine how taught work you made to simulate all this to me. To give me that feeling of a newby. This atmosphere is amasing. I am so sad and so happy that theres a lot of new things to study.
Hope soon i won't let mr Paco lose consciousness and he give me an A+

All above is my pure emotions and jokes from 1st mission of that wonderfull campaign. Don't be so seriouse 

XD

 

Edited January 27, 2023 by UN9249

[Indianajon]

After two hops my grade average is 3.2 but I get the distinct feeling it's going to go rapidly downhill when we reach the air to ground syllabus! 

[Viking 1-1]

First run in the fam flight:

Unsat.

 

Second run in the fam flight:

Ran out of gas ...

 

Oh boy, lot of works ahead

 

@UN9249350kts on approach is correct since you bleed energy using the "carrier break". That's the "break right at the middle of the runway". There you go wings spread, gears and flaps down etc... But I feel your pain, it's tough

[Reflected]

@UN9249 you need to fly a proper carrier break, and then you get a grade after landing. Overhead at 2700 feet, 350 KIAS. Break right over the middle of the runway, fly downwind, report abeam, then turn on final. You need to listen to Paco

[UN9249]

3 minutes ago, Reflected said:

@UN9249 you need to fly a proper carrier break, and then you get a grade after landing. Overhead at 2700 feet, 350 KIAS. Break right over the middle of the runway, fly downwind, report abeam, then turn on final. You need to listen to Paco

i was so shocked, so frustrated, that all his words was white noise to me at this point XD

[MAXsenna]

@UN9249
ROTFL!!! Fantastic read, pretty sure I won't be graded as well when I have time.

Cheers!

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

[Indianajon]

Another couple of hops down and my grade average has dropped to 3.17 and while I'm mainly getting average and a couple above I have two belows which were well deserved. The first from in place turns where I struggled with the bank angle but have seen the solution on here. The second was on the second BVR intercept where, all keyed up I broke for the notch when the rwr picked Paco up rather than waiting for when he locked me up. I turned back in, got locked up and successfully put him in the notch but by now all the distances etc were screwed and while I got the kill it took way longer than it should. 

I have never worked as hard or concentrated as much playing this game! I'm loving it! Tomorrow is air to ground and after low level this evening I'm feeling more confident, so fingers crossed. 

[Reflected]

Nice, if you’re above 3, that’s really good!

[JupiterJoe]

I realised quickly that I needed more practice before even attempting the Fam. Flight.  I used Paco's Whiteboards from the Mission Brief doc. to practice the manoeuvres on my own at Nellis.  Much to my delight I have been making my way through the missions without disgracing myself.  I think I have an average score so far.  Obviously in the future I'll play through this incredible campaign again and again, to hone my skills.  Thanks for all your hard work Greg.  There's so much wonderful detail.  You, Meagan and Paco etc have really help make DCS come alive.  It has made me respect and admire what people like Meagan went through in the real world.  What a wonderful companion this campaign is to the amazing Speed & Angels documentary.

 

P.S.  As you suggest, increasing gamma on the night missions is a necessity.  It makes night time look far more realistic.  DCS needs to make the gamma range more dynamic.  Two separate settings for day and night perhaps.  I would set mine to 2.2 for day and 2.9 for night.

Edited January 29, 2023 by JupiterJoe

[Nealius]

After the second hop I'm at a nice round 3. I'm curious about the real RAG, how many "above averages"/>3pts are expected of real pilots?

[Reflected]

8 hours ago, Nealius said:

After the second hop I'm at a nice round 3. I'm curious about the real RAG, how many "above averages"/>3pts are expected of real pilots?

IIRC Bio wrote in his book that he had 3-4 of those with a few Below averages, the rest was average

[FMBluecher]

Using my actual first attempts? I like to call this "World Record Speed & Angels Any% Glitchless Speedrun"

[Nealius]

Discharged from the Navy entirely? Ouch. They could have at least given you a C-2 slot 

[Jayhawk1971]

vor 4 Minuten schrieb Nealius:

Discharged from the Navy entirely? Ouch. They could have at least given you a C-2 slot 

...or transfer to JAG corps.  

[Reflected]

8 hours ago, FMBluecher said:

Using my actual first attempts? I like to call this "World Record Speed & Angels Any% Glitchless Speedrun"

Has the format c : enter script been initiated too?
 

don’t worry, this is what the ‘retry’ option is for. IRL these tasks were repeated several times, it was a 10 week training, not 10 missions. 

[FMBluecher]

1 hour ago, Reflected said:

don’t worry, this is what the ‘retry’ option is for. IRL these tasks were repeated several times, it was a 10 week training, not 10 missions. 

And IRL, wouldn't pilots already have a ton of formation flying under their belts at this point from previous training squadrons (just not in the Tomcat)?

Not to say that I have no experience--I've done a fair bit before now, I just never tried flying such a tight formation on anything aside from an S-3! Truly terrifying, and that's just in the daylight!

[Dentedend10]

I’ve got my third UNSAT on the LATT mission and my RIO said he wouldn’t fly again with me  

going to take the next 10 weeks (or more likely months) to get good at these mission. Very motivating campaign!!

[Nealius]

2 hours ago, FMBluecher said:

And IRL, wouldn't pilots already have a ton of formation flying under their belts at this point from previous training squadrons (just not in the Tomcat)?

That's my assumption as well. They would have gone through some kind of primary training in the T-6 and T-45. I don't know how it was in the early 2000s, but current CNATRA manuals show form and tac turns both in T-6 training and in T-45 training. Then you get some BFM and surface attack in T-45s as well, so once they get to Tomcats it's definitely not their first rodeo. 

[1Batz]

Haven't had time to do the last night cq, but I have to say this was the most fun and challenging campaign I have ever flown in DCS, really looking forward for more! I actually start Naval pilot training soon, and hopefully my grade sheets in Pensacola look as good or better. Regardless, from my research and understanding of military aviation these missions were pretty damn close to the real thing! 

[Reflected]

1 minute ago, 1Batz said:

Haven't had time to do the last night cq, but I have to say this was the most fun and challenging campaign I have ever flown in DCS, really looking forward for more! I actually start Naval pilot training soon, and hopefully my grade sheets in Pensacola look as good or better. Regardless, from my research and understanding of military aviation these missions were pretty damn close to the real thing! 

 

HOLY SMOKES!!!!

That is beyond impressive. My hat's off to you! 

PS: if you pass the night CQ, the campaign is not over, you're going on deployment

 

Gentlemen, the bar is set HIGH!

[Nealius]

Yeah I'm gonna need video of those parade form sessions because I simply cannot react fast enough to the AI's sudden turns 

[sam_]

Main issue for me is that keeping track of an object abreast is very difficult. I need to be pretty zoomed in outside parade formation to see clearly which way he is turning, which means I have to zoom out if I want to check gauges for speed, alt, G or whatever. Doing this back and forth is disorienting to say the least. 

[Indianajon]

Well, sortie 7 under my belt and desperately clinging on to a 3.03 grade average but it's definitely getting crazy hard! Something tells me I won't be getting any above's in the 4v4, but if I can squeak through on average then I'll be more than happy! Certainly no where near the top of the class! i think it's safe to say @1Batz has to be the golden child and gets the trophy! But if I graduate I'll be happy!

[Indianajon]

OK, I'm done and here we go. I feel slightly robbed by the below in run 2 of the 4v4 as I was launching a fox 1 on the merge that connected but didn't count. Then took a while to get a second shot in and penalised for it. That said I understand the system and overall I'm really chuffed. The only sortie I flew twice was the unsat to get a regrade. This has been amazing and my flying style and skills have definitely improved in the process. Now to see if I can survive the cruise!