DmitriKozlowsky Posted March 17 Posted March 17 Mixed type flight There is nothing improper with having any other type of aircraft being a wingman or section lead. Player F-18C with F-16C wingman. AH-64D player with wingman 1 AH-64D and OH-58D as wingman #2. One reason for this request is that player cannot communicate with escort. 1
scommander2 Posted March 17 Posted March 17 Similar one? Spoiler Dell XPS 9730, i9-13900H, DDR5 64GB, Discrete GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, 1+2TB M.2 SSD | Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS + TPR | TKIR5/TrackClipPro | Total Controls Multi-Function Button Box | Win 11 Pro
DmitriKozlowsky Posted March 18 Author Posted March 18 9 minutes ago, scommander2 said: Similar one? Yes. In US Armed Forces those are called Composite Squadrons. Ratchet up one level and its an Expeditionary Wing. Air Task Force sometimes. At Flight of 4 aircraft, lead by a senior captain or major (for heavier types) its called Mixed Flight. 1
scommander2 Posted March 18 Posted March 18 39 minutes ago, DmitriKozlowsky said: Yes. In US Armed Forces those are called Composite Squadrons. Ratchet up one level and its an Expeditionary Wing. Air Task Force sometimes. At Flight of 4 aircraft, lead by a senior captain or major (for heavier types) its called Mixed Flight. Cool, good to know... Thanks!! Spoiler Dell XPS 9730, i9-13900H, DDR5 64GB, Discrete GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, 1+2TB M.2 SSD | Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS + TPR | TKIR5/TrackClipPro | Total Controls Multi-Function Button Box | Win 11 Pro
DmitriKozlowsky Posted March 18 Author Posted March 18 23 minutes ago, scommander2 said: Cool, good to know... Thanks!! There is also special element called a cell. Applies to tankers. Tankers operate in a cell of two ships. During strategic airborne patrol, KC cell would refuel B-52 or B-1B or earlier B-47. With SR-71 and U-2R(or earlier) two tanker cells were used. Both SR-71 and U-2 used special fuel, for each, that was not compatible with normal JP4 used by 'normal' USAF jets. So one tanker would refuel the other. With one tanker carrying special fuel , the other normal JP4. Navy jets use naval formulation of JP4, not normally used by Air Force. So again one tanker would carry Navy JP4B, and itself be refueled from its buddy carrying USAF JP4. USAF SAC, TAC, MATS, and Navy worked together back in 1950's to develop doctrine and tactics for in-flight refueling. Its a science in itself. According to Col. Rich Graham (USAF Ret.) former CO of 9th Recon Wing and 9th Recon. Sqd. who flew both SR-71A and U-2R, in-flight refueling was #1 issue that washed candidates out of either SR-71 or U-2 program. Getting the rendezvous, contact, and staying on tanker, was really taxing. Especially at night and bad weather. To make it worse. There would be double tanker cells. SR-71 would take 1/2 load from one, then connect to other for rest. Then that tanker cell, itself would refuel from adjoining cell just to refuel the tankers. They needed to keep SR-71 tankers light, so the refueling could be done at faster airspeed and at higher altitude. SR-71 had trouble staying on tanker at normal tanking speeds. U-2R was opposite. It needed to fuel at higher altitude and lower speeds. So the U-2 tankers had to climb to the altitude. Heavy pregnant tanker full of gas could not do that. Mission planning must have been a bitch. It was one of the items that made SR-71 and U-2R so costly to operate. A mission could burn through same amount of fuel as whole F-4D squadron in week over Vietnam. Thank G*d for satellites. 1
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