Last weekend’s flight in the Harrier. Over 70 ground units destroyed, 11 aircraft (6 helicopters, 5 fixed wing). Pictured returning from probing past Gali after the SA-11 site had been taken care of. The JASDF skins were apparently taken down due to the author being displeased with them. I’m not sure why because they look awesome to me!
Last evening, F-14 with 4xMk83. My game crashed after these shots so I took the opportunity to try the F-14 pilot LANTIRN mod.
No pics unfortunately from the next session, so have a wall o’ text:
I focused on air-ground in the F-14 afterward, trying to fiddle around with how the LANTIRN works and potentially run as FAC(A). I mostly bored holes in the sky while waiting for cloud cover over Gali to clear, which made it difficult to spot targets and lase them. Wes ended up doing most of the lasing in an A-10C, staying below the cloud deck and passing coordinates. Frog went out with GBU-12 and did his best at getting bombs on target, so I mostly just tested LANTIRN out, not having much success. We went away to hit the tanker, then came back and got back to work. I did a dive over the target and scored, but at some point I found out my starboard wing got hit by something. Shortly after, we got fighters so I vectored over to launch an AIM-54 which missed. Frog’s 120 went true and I went after another Fulcrum going for Wes, managing to dispatch him for a Sidewinder. From this point we went back to the boat and I had to do a lengthy repair and INS realign. We had fighters by the time I was ready to go again, but it looked like the F-15 CAP had it taken care of, so I went back again with minimal air-air of a AIM-54 and a pair of AIM-9. Naturally, by the time I was ready to make a run, we got more fighters inbound and the F-15s got knocked out by SA-11.
This time around we had two Flankers and two Fulcrums. I opted to try and dispatch one Flanker with a AIM-54, which fortunately hit but got the attention of the remainder. I kicked into burner and began flying away, which gave Frog an opportunity to come around and splash a Fulcrum. I pulled vertical and came around for what I thought was a Flanker going for Wes, locked him with a Sidewinder, and fired. Russian delta wood flares of course ensured my Sidewinder went stupid, so I fired a second missile… Which also went stupid! Frog is coming around by this point and I see a missile launch, so immediately break. I had control of chaff at this point (due to figuring the SA-11s were a greater threat earlier, I opted to command chaff) which were ineffective as he launched a IR missile at me. I thought it was all over but my engines were still good and other than a thumping sound and Chester being almost silent, I was still flying. Frog clipped my aggressor with a Sidewinder and I bent around to look for the last one when Wes bagged him.
Now that the immediate threat is gone, I start doing a damage assessment: comp hydraulics toast, wings stuck at 55 degrees, leaking some very smoky stuff out of the starboard, AN/ARC-159 fried, intercom effed, AWG-9 turned into a gov’t surplus microwave, one or more gyros turned to paperweights, HUD that displays useless information (and by that I mean more useless than usual), half my instruments out (barometric alt and standby compass only working ones), and every now and again I get a big thump and my engines surge. So I did what any sensible person would do, find a divert runway and eject I tell Chester “hold my beer and watch this $&@#!!!” and aim for the boat, using Frog to help direct where I need to go. I crank the admiral’s doorbell over the water and with wings at 55 degrees back I’m hauling butt at 20,000ft, which isn’t where I want to be. My fuel is good at 8500lbs so I cautiously throttle back and get a few bumps and surges, but still doing good. I drop down to about 15,000ft and do a stall test, seeing how controllable I can be at an accelerated landing speed. Kinda-sorta, so I tell Frog I’ll try a couple passes and then crank the chicken switch if it doesn’t look good.
No airbrakes so have to spend a bit of time losing some speed and altitude and work myself into a pattern, opting for a long approach. Both the hook and gear took the emergency release settings to drop and I have Frog check and make sure they’re down, to which he gives me three down and hook. Perfect! Time to put it into the spud locker! I get into the approach and things don’t look good when I start getting real slow at high AOA; the nose is wandering all over, so I kill the pitch and yaw SAS to reduce that a little bit, but I’m still tap dancing on the rudder pedals. I’m doing 160kts and dropping at 2,000ft/min with 17-18 units of AOA… Not good. I increase the throttles and get a bit more speed, but manage to bring AOA down to 16 units and descent to 800ft/min. By now I’m trying to get things right in the windshield, bouncing around on the elevators and pedals, getting the throttles just right. Unfortunately I pass over the boat too high and bolter past the wires, but I got energy to go around. I ask Frog if he’s good on gas and he is, so I come around and make another approach, this time a bit quicker. I’m more focused now, watching my rudder movements and coordinating controls, knowing where I need to be to get this just right. I wasn’t even watching my speedometer, though I’m sure it was saying “you’re going too fast, jackwagon!” Right before I hit the deck, I throttle back a bit and pull back on the stick, bleeding off some speed and getting me into the 2 wire! 6900lbs of fuel to spare and the only hydraulics that work are in the tail feathers, so I can’t get out of the way – no nose wheel steering and brakes are shot.
Since hydraulic fluids aren’t refilled when repairing inside a mission for the F-14, there was no way to recover any more than I already had, so consigned myself to clearing the deck by reflying. Had this been the real world, I think they would’ve had the net out, but they probably would’ve also highly recommended I just eject anyways. I don’t know if a Flanker or a Fulcrum hit me, as I think it was more likely a Aphid hit rather than an Archer which probably would’ve blown me up, but I didn’t get a real good look at my aggressor once my missiles both went stupid. All in all, I had the worst sortie of us all last night, with only two trucks destroyed, a Flanker, and a Fulcrum, with a F-14 turned into NMC (Non-Mission Capable) status. On the plus side, bringing the aircraft back to the boat has to count for something, even if it was foolhardy!
