Smokey SAM Evasion

[rmcclo]

Great campaign, as always. I'm really enjoying it.

Does anyone have a go-to tactic to evade the SA-18s?  I've only evaded points off when the randomized placement worked in my favor, so far.

Out of burner, breaking and dumping the flares hasn't been working for me, even when I saw one go off immediately and had maximum time and space to maneuver.

[Reflected]

Up to about a year ago, manpads were easy to evade ,then ED changed something. Now it's much harder, even in a Viper. It should be taken to ED with tracks and data so they can have a look at it.

[rmcclo]

Sounds good! For all I know, modern MANPADs could be that lethal.

As a campaign mechanic, it gives some appreciation for the number of things aircrews have to juggle while keeping on the numbers. I keep looking down, realizing I've slowed down or I'm almost on the hard deck, then looking up and seeing the MANPAD plume!

[OmasRachE]

In my campaign run I got struck by those smokey sams several times and normal evasive maneuvers didn´t work for me too. The solution I found was to fly level with high speed and then suddenly pull the stick as hard as I can while flaring, just half a second or so before impact. This worked only if I flew low, were tally on the missile and it came either from the side or front. Many ifs but then it worked every time and the missiles flew through under my jet.

Edited July 31 by OmasRachE

[Czar66]

Against IR missiles also consider cutting the throttle while pulling Gs and dumping flares.