@smokinhole and me leaving the field.
Hot pursuit!
Up in formation over the fleet.
A more tactical spread as we start on our actual patrol.
Feet dry, but no sign of any actual contacts yet. Turning back towards the fleet.
On our second overland pass Smoke spots something and dives in.
Fox-one!
It’s a Hog! And they’re so damn slow even this missile overestimated its speed.
The proximity fuse didn’t notice anything either. But what is that streak in the clouds?
One of the hogs is trying to return the favor.
Smoke’s streak of bad luck seems to be unending as the Sidewinder tracks him through the thick of the clouds.
Meanwhile I’m pretty much tumbleweed. I saw the launch trails, AWACS is drawing the bandit via Datalink, but I just can’t seem to find him.
Oh right, there he is.
Got in a shooting position and attempting to exact vengeance with a fox-one. I need to conclude this fight pretty soon, as not only am I fighting hogs, I’m also fighting the fuel gauge and I’m a long ways off from the carrier.
Unfortunatly that R-27ER came off the rail dumb. Having closed the distance somewhat to 6km and being near perfect on the 6’o clock I hoped he might not see a fox-two coming.
Well I guess he eventually did see it coming, but it was already to late. Poor fellow must have been in the wrong CMS program as well, as I didn’t see flares coming off.
Meanwhile, smoke has just departed.
Turning in paralel to the carrier’s vector with just 300kg to spare.
Don’t let mr. Putin see this, or he’ll have my head. I’ve been practicing trapping extensively lately. But I’m not ready to try and trap with an asymmetric loadout (An ER and an ET gone from my left wing). Especially since I believe I’m only going to get one shot at this. Creeping up parallel to the carriers vector of travel, almost ready to turn in on the runway.
102, 3/4 mile, Clara.
Ended up being a little short of where I had hoped to be. I was aiming to touch down between the 2nd and 3rd wire, but I still have a kind of a hard time judging the floatiness of the Flanker-D. To me, it almost feels as if ground effects kicks in, pretty hard, at 67m RADALT.
I do manage to snag the first cable though.
Meanwhile Smoke is up there, getting gas and chasing off bandits who decide to land in the presence of the mighty Flanker-D. I take-off and rejoin with Smoke, who decides to head back for the carrier.
Smoke touching down while I provide local security. The fact that all 4 cables seem tense is just a bug
I decide to come back in for a landing as well. But I underestimate just how heavy I am.
Wave-off! Having set up the autothrottle to my typical landing speed just leads to a stall now. I smack the throttles into full-AB and engage the WEP to escape. Looking down however, I am greeted by a friendly little green light, indicating the autothrottle is on, and the throttle doing some micro-adjustments to keep me perfectly in the stall.
Touched down perfectly between the 3rd and 4th wires
Once the yellow vests summon me a new plane from the well deck we take off and head back to the action.
Hitting up the tanker together.
Meanwhile, @Maclean joins up as well, with Smoke overseeing him taking in gas.
I rejoin the group with Smoke making some space so I can hook up as well.
And that’s when the night came to an end
maybe ED will hire me 
