Mission 01 complete!

[Dentedend10]

Hi,

I went into this mission ready to suck, and to refly later. Studied the materials, but haven't flown the F4 in a while let alone drop a bomb on target.

I was so immersed and focused, got a 100% on first try. As Reflected was saying, getting ToT right IS very satisfying.

On the way back I didn't have enough fuel left to get home, so decided to tank. As the tanker was getting close very slowly, I was looking at my fuel tanks deplete by the hundreds. Again, I hadn't done refueling in a while, and I knew that I wouldn't have a chance to mess around, have to plug. I managed to plug quickly luckily with a couple hundred pounds of fuel left, only disconnected once, and in the end survived the flight and made it home with enough fuel.

Proud of the score, and I know I'll be a much much better virtual pilot by the end of this campaign

Thanks for making such immersive and satisfying campaigns, we can tell how much effort went into it!

[Reflected]

Wow, congrats on the 100% Plugging with a few hundred lbs left is a real pucker factor! Mission 2 will be more difficult, because you'll be leading the flight, ToT will be entirely up to you

[Klunker]

I'm jealous! Flown it three times and keep getting worse.

  Got by the Sams on the first run, but later realized I bombed the wrong target, even missed that target to boot.  Got bagged by Sams on the next two, and had to divert to Tonopah both times for low fuel.  Can't figure out why I feel like I'm flying with my dumps on (may be related to the Wheels light/hyd pressure situation, but am guessing/or maybe hoping).I'm also thinking of dropping the ECM pod and getting an extra centerline tank because the ECM pod isn't helping me with the Smoky Sams.

Also haven't been able to get Jester to give me a radar lock on the DT mode during the mission on two different occasions.. I thought I must be doing something wrong, but then it worked just as advertised on a practice bombing mission except, not always because sometimes I get a constant message from Jester he's got a lock and it keeps on repeating that while flying the pattern. When DT didn't work during the Red Flag mission, Jester didn't respond at all (I also had a Wheels warning light which may be a contributing factor)

I'm thinking rebooting the game may fix the F4 bug because it did seem to fix it when I did that. The F4 does seem to be more temperamental than the other planes and may get out of alignment just as its INS does.

.  

[Dentedend10]

I got lucky with Smokey SAMs for sure, probably due to the randomization. I used Direct mode as directed by Jester, and put some numbers into the bombing table. Told Jester to recognize them, although I’m not sure he did. But it worked out for me

[Yott]

On 4/26/2025 at 4:17 AM, Reflected said:

Wow, congrats on the 100% Plugging with a few hundred lbs left is a real pucker factor! Mission 2 will be more difficult, because you'll be leading the flight, ToT will be entirely up to you

@Reflected Hi! I also had an issue with DT mode in this mission: bombs didn't drop.

Tell us please is there any restrictions to use DT in this mission? Should we use only Direct in this run?

[Reflected]

Nope, no restrictions. But for training purposes I recommend using direct. You’ll have a DT mission later. 

[Jack Chief]

Mission 1 first attempt. The T-junction is IP where I should >>>>start< climbing to 15000 ft?  If so, how suprised I was that there was AAA right at the IP shooting at me, being 300 ft AGL. 

Or maybe I got the attack run plan wrong? Turned out I missed the IP, looking on YT videos I should start climbing earlier on the hills line, waited too long and got hit by AAA.   Second thing, the next WPTin nav comp was egress, I thinkt 30 nm not the target. First I was hit by AAA ("Ranger 1-3 you're dead" :() then got confused about target location, I noticed some smoke from already hit target dropped 4 cbu in direct mode, hit some SA-3 lunchers and other stuff. (not sure if that was my target, I havent notices any runway. 

Started coming back, and noticed F-5 on my 3 o'clock, how suprised I was I have only guns (wtf :() - I understand I shoudl rely on the F-15C ...well, got hit at least twice in the tail... 

At Mount Irisih I waited for Rocket 1-1, Rocket-1-2. Tried to figure out from kneeboard which tanker I should hit. So I looked on the AAR plan. How suppose I should guess which one to hit? Then suddenly radio chat started about refulleing, - ok grat I want to refuel -> "Push Texaco 61" Which one is Texaco 61?!?!?! no info about it on AAR map. 

I cheated and looked on F10 map...got there with almost no fuel, then script automatically gave me radio control (dont need that, I heard couple of times, I need to take control, when I want to talk. When i was looking for radio channel for Texaco in kneebaord - going through all this pages, emergency procedures, approach, departure, coordinates (too many pages really) I found radio coms table and ONLY here there is a link between AAR plan names and "dcs names" for tankers. Tried to connect, failed twice, run out of fuel, tanker said good by. by the way he is hard to catch up, too fast imho. 

I will try again with this mission, a bit disappointed, you need to fail, learn how this all works to succeed. What I love though is the immersion. Busy in the sky, busy on the radio, busy on the ramp. All the time something is going. Definetly it is not boring. 

Edited May 25 by Jack Chief

[Reflected]

Okay, so you probably messed up the navigation, because there is no AAA gun at the IP T junction. You were somewhere else.

what runway did you want to hit? Your target was the SA-3. More specifics in the briefing  

Yes, the OCA guys almost always take care of the bandits....almost. It's slightly randomized, be prepared to defend yourself, or run. It’s the point of training  

There is only 1 track and  1 tanker with boom, and the tacan is on the kneeboard card if you want to make sure you hit the right one - the other one has baskets.
 

The radio control is never given to you automatically. I’d really need to see a playthrough video to know to figure out what you missed.

Edited May 25 by Reflected

[Jack Chief]

Yes, correct.  I watched someones YT video on mission 01. He started pop over the hills, i definetly passed the hills and saw some road junction / buildings on next waypoint, then right before the point AAA started shooting. So I edited my comment above. Everything works fine, mission one is great, no bugs. it is challenging as it should be!