Spectacular shots!
There is something about the F1. I think its just FM or eff Majic! 
. Love that bird!
3 Likes
Watching Masters of the Air inspired me to revisit Reflected’s Blue Nosed Bastards campaign. I flew mission 3 last night, a Ramrod to La Havre leading Blue flight. Resistance was minimal. I poked a few holes in a Focke Wulf, but broke off when he dove for the deck. Not in my best interest to fight him low. Unfortunately, we lost at least one Fort to flak. I didn’t see any parachutes, the poor devils. They did beat up the target pretty well. (Note: one of Blue flight called “Ejecting” and crashed on final. I noticed that they didn’t jettison their tanks, even after I gave them orders to engage bandits. There needs to be a coms menu item ordering your flight to drop stores, IMHO).
16 Likes
I was going to do this but got distracted by flying the A-8 instead. It was awesome. The guns have been fixed to cause major destruction as they should. You can still get abused by the .50s so you got to be quick. Well worth a try. LOVED IT. Tomorow, Mustangs!
2 Likes
I think he might have a leak 
3 Likes
Just a flesh wound lol. It was quite the thrill going in on target, tracers whizzing by my aircraft. My bombs failed to release. Pilot error, be sure
5 Likes
The P-51 is fairly simple in that regard. Set the weapon selector to both bombs (down left), the arming switches down (to “bomb”) and that’s basically it. You don’t even need to turn on the gunsight.
7 Likes
That last one would be a great screen saver
3 Likes
Note: I’ve lightened these photos about 60% from the actual mission, much of which is in IMC at night.
Although I had begun flying the refreshed Blue Nosed Bastards (above), in Masters of the Air (book), there is a good section on the 4th Fighter Group and the operations around the D-Day invasion. This matched up better with Reflected’s latest Mustang campaign, Debden Eagles. After “flying” the introduction and reviewing the usual excellent docs, including the official Army Air Forces Pilot Training Manual For The Mustang, I jumped into Mission 1.
Let me say this, if you don’t have an instrument rating, or at least have lots of hood or simulated instrument time, you are going to find this mission extremely challenging. Your 6 pack chops better be tight, because you are going to be on them for all of the mission except for the Channel crossing. I tried following my lead right after takeoff, but quickly realized that was futile. I climbed out on runway heading, then circled back to the airfield once I was out of the clouds.
I couldn’t find the group, so took up the first leg heading, until I spotted them.
I initially saddled up on a flight of three, but realized that it was the 335th Sq (WD), and I was looking for 334th (QP) ships. I spotted another 3 ship on the far side of the formation, moved over there and found my flight lead. All just barely able to see the other black Mustang silhouettes.
The Channel crossing was uneventful, save finding out that my left drop tank was inoperative (someone else reported this as well in the ED forum). I had already run my fuselage tank down to about 20 gallons and we were well into Normandy when I got rid of my babies, so plenty of fuel left in the main tanks. At some point, the call was made to start down through the clouds. Everyone switched on their nav lights and I moved in a little tighter on lead. This was thrilling and tense at the same time, because pulling back power enough to stay in formation had the throttle horn sounding. I eventually added one notch of flaps and that worked well.
When we leveled out, it was another case of I seriously can’t see sh–t. We are cruising along in the dark at a few hundred feet off the deck, in and out of the crud, trying to stay glued to lead, but keep that panel scan too. Note to the reader, do not be lazy and set your altimeter to runway altitude.
We patrol for a while, then the flight gets excited because they spot a train and begin attacking it. I reluctantly follow, which is spectacular with tracers flying everywhere and secondaries going off. But I can’t see the other flight members in the dark unless they are shooting and 2 passes is all my heart can take. I begin climbing a bit while pointing my nose at England, again in IMC and pitch black. A little while later lead calls, “Knock it off. Nice job fellas.”
I think great, happy that I’ve survived this long. Crossing the Channel again, I am surprised that I run into my flight, because I’m more or less cutting the corner off of one of the original route’s egress points. I join up until we are nearing Debden and of course it has what looks like a 1000 foot broken ceiling. The AI is happily landing. I circle overhead trying to get a feel for the runway. You’d think that there would be some smudge pots or something else to define the runway, but no. I make 3 approaches before I finally decide one looks survivable. I’m high, but at least I’m fast. The only thing the saves my hide and reputation is how little runway the Mustang needs with full flaps. Mission time is about 1:30 and I am exhausted.
I forgot to add that in his usual way, Reflected has a bunch of atmospheric things going on throughout the mission. At one point during the Channel crossing, you are prompted to tune into listen to a radio message. I don’t care how many times you have heard Eisenhower’s message to the troops on D-Day. Given that these missions are historical, it doesn’t take a lot of effort for you to imagine that there is a massive armada below, that there are airborne troops already on the ground fighting, and that you are part of something much larger than this flight of Mustangs. It had the hair standing up on the back of the neck, as they say.
13 Likes
Nice one. I usually up my gamma quite a bit for night missions in warbirds because everything else is torture and DCS doesn’t really simulate how the eyes adjust to the dark (you have the moon out with broken clouds, it’s probably bright enough to see a few things).
1 Like
I should have said that I had the gamma turned up to the max, but I don’t know if it’s because I was in VR, but it still seemed really dark.
2 Likes
Yes it really varies by headset. The Odyssey (and Pico too IIRC) were nice and dark, but the Reverb doesn’t go beyond a foggy light grey
2 Likes
I was quite ready to replace my G2 but then three things happened: the pimax turned out to have shite ergonomics, the varjo went out of production, and I got hit by an almost 3k tax hit for Q4.
5 Likes