It's 80 F today in Los Angeles so I am not so jealous of your address at the moment.

First, it was necessary to make a Launch and a Recovery carrier to provide the right image to the player at the right times.



The trick now is to make getting you to the right version easy enough that you won't notice the trick. Later, there will be the natural confusion of task forces near each other.



Each mission has its own trick. Here are some we use:

-autopilot
-following your leader



-looking at the map view and watching the airplanes.
-radar images
-a radio call from another airplane that you locate with Shift-R
-following the tanker



-but always, the Recovery ship is closer to shore, nearest your feet wet point.

QKF: autopilot takes you there.
BB: The A-4 tanker will take you to your ship. There are two Zebra and Tampa. I think both get around to finding the Ticonderoga.

As you accumulate carriers, the number of ships and USN strike missions increases. We will not always make it easy to find the carrier. We will just try to make it hard to find the wrong one. In Hong Gai Raid, you have no autopilot and must fly in formation there and, if necessary, by heading home. You can follow the radar images of the picket ships until you see the big return or until you see the big ship.



While we do not wish to make YAP2 a career for you, the idea of holding your concentration from start to finish is important to making you feel like you are there. You know even with TACAN, GCI/GCA, and INS back then there were moments when an aviator got the feeling he wasn't going to find the ship.

Remember, the Air Force has 10000 foot runways that show up on map view!

Stormy


Tchepone


Welcome to Yankee Air Pirate. We didn't say it was going to be easy...just real.

We had 82F (28c) here today.
Love this mission. Fascinating stuff with a learning curve. Finding the right carrier is challenging. Landing on a lump of steel, floating/moving at sea, with a restricted landing zone is a frightening experience. Glad I never had to do it for real.