Lesson from a clown and what not to do

[Indianajon]

After finishing sortie 5 and receiving my first unsatisfactory grade I thought I'd spend five minutes explaining how I got here and how maybe you can avoid my same mistakes.

It goes without saying the Reflected and Paco have created a unique and phenomenal experience for DCS. Unlike anything that has come before. I have never concentrated or worked so hard simply to fly in formation and Nellis has never felt so alive.

Ever since watching the preview mission by Red kite I have been dreading the air 2 ground syllabus.  I even created a target range to try and practice low pops in anticipation,  but last night the time came and i was all in.

Now, my mentality going into this was that the LGB element was where I shine. Unlike manual drops I have hundreds of laser guided drops under my belt. As such, while I read the brief for the other elements three times in detail before flying I skimmed the LGB part. I did a quick check on height and speed and yadda yadda the rest.... you can see what's coming can't you....

Fast forward to over the range. Paco calls abeam and I start my climbing turn. For some reason I realise I'm 1,000ft too low, i'm slow and my circuit is too close. OK, no worries,  a little extra power and straighten up. No, wait I turned too far and didn't climb, now I'm too far away, still too low and now I'm too fast.... bugger, bugger bugger, yep, no, I'm fine I can still make this.

Paco called 'hot' and now my brain is swimming. Is he is in hot? Is he saying I need to turn in hot? Time seems to be speeding up. Wait, no! Stop!!! Crap now I'm at the wrong altitude, speed, distance. Everything is unravelling unravelling and unravelling fast, do something! Anything! I'm really behind the aircraft now but let's do something. Its a 50/50 so lets assume he is calling me in, I can still do this. Let's roll in!

Oh crap! Now I'm approaching the target at a really poor angle, about 60 degrees off from the agreed, why did i turn so soon? My RIO is trying to talk me on and only 10 seconds to drop. Ok, get lined up and just focus on getting the bomb on target. Somehow through all of this i have dropped in the turn and am now below the agreed release height but at least I'm lined up so while I'm fast, low, lined up wrong and completely out of position.......pickle.

The pull off went fine, so at least that went ok and the bomb hit the target. Time is starting to slow back to normal and  back with the aircraft.

Can you see where I went wrong? Unsurprisingly I was scored unsatisfactory. I reflew it immediately with an understanding of what i was meant to do and got an average. Given the circumstances i'll happily take it! More importantly I have learnt an obvious lesson and hopefully you can learn from it and not make the same mistakes I did. 

So using Bio's debrief system what are the good and others?

In the good column I hit the target, didn't die and it was a good teaching opportunity. 

In the others column I was unsafe, potentially put people on the ground at risk. I was unable to hit the numbers and became task saturated, screwed up the wagon wheel and put my wingman at risk. All in all I crapped out.

The lessons I have learnt are.

1, always read the brief. Even for the bits you think you know inside out. Just because you have done something in dcs countless times doesn't mean you know how to do it properly. Make sure you know what you are doing before you do it.  Don't wing it. 

2, task saturation sneaks up really quickly and it's amazing how quickly a couple of small things can build up and how it affects your ability to listen and make decisions. Knowing what you have to do before you start helps you with this. Be more aggressive on hitting the numbers early to give yourself time to ease into the rest.

3, know when your behind. It's really hard to catch back up when it starts going wrong, but it's dead easy to make it worse.

Thanks again to Reflected and Paco! Now comes air to air and something tells me that despite flying the Zone 5 campaign multiple times I'm going to take this hop and the associated brief a little more seriously.

[Reflected]

Great post, and the 3 lessons are well said. It's something that all players need to realize in order to successfully go through the training.

[Jayhawk1971]

vor 6 Stunden schrieb Indianajon:

Be more aggressive on hitting the numbers early to give yourself time to ease into the rest.

Yep, S&A has definitely taught me to fly  more aggressively and "proactive". Before, I tended to treat the Tomcat too much like an Airbus sometimes (the Hornet as well; incidentally not the Viper for some weird reason, and the A-10 I right out abuse  ...it can take it.). Precise, but somewhat "stolid".

Edited January 31, 2023 by Jayhawk1971

[Indianajon]

Yes I know what you mean @Jayhawk1971 I have traditionally been overly gentle in the B model as I've been worried about high alpha situations.  I have flown the A more aggressively in the past but this campaign is helping me push the B.