There are some shots from one mission in the new set. We are really happy with the way it came out. I will leave off the history and let the pictures do the talking as sort of a "how to be a Snake driver in YAP".

Mission opens here. Full thrust vector and throttle for a vertical take off.


Up and over.


Y-Y-Y locks you onto Cobra #3.


You are Cobra #4 so fall into trail.


See that tiny dot? It's your first T-54 to shoot.


The trick is to keep shooting the lead tank...or let the rest of the flight.


The flight model is a lot of fun down low.


Shoot them even if they are under cover. There are 16 of them.


See that blue building? That's HQ and you have saved it.


Then, of course, there is this to avoid.


(you're not avoiding them.)


(you're still not avoiding them.)


Then head south and look for a yellow smoke.


Set up your approach


And land. Maybe one of these guys has a beer.


Okay. So this one is a little more like an arcade game. It's still pretty close to the tale we were told. Read the briefing. It's an amazing story.

Wow, very nice screens! I really looking forward to be a Snake driver in YAP. How many mission will you create with the Cobra?

There is only one mission in this set. The next set has one from Iron Mike. I have one from Cambodia to tell and another near Plei Djering. We will try to do RT Kansas which has one. And, luckily, we have a Snake driver on staff who flew in Vietnam. If we cannot squeeze them in, we can always make them Bonus Missions.

Wow these are Great hope this set is ready soon??

All done. Testers are combing them for unpainted planes, misspellings in the briefings and aircraft without bombs. Also trucks in the water, ships sailing on dry land and other things. When the screenshot contest winner is announced, the set will be released.

One of challenges of this flight model....the most accurate rocket delivery profile, which was absolutely essential when engaging point targets like tanks (this was before TOW missiles were mounted on cobras) was the steep dive. Because the airframe was "clean" we would rapidly increase airspeed in a steep dive, giving us minimum reticle tracking time. To compensate, we started at high altitude (around 3000 ft) and dropped the airspeed down to around 60-70 kias (that varied depending upon METT [mission, enemy, terrain, target]). The bad thing about doing this...that altitude put us in the heart of the SA-7 Strella envelop. Blue Max paid the price for this accuracy (Capt. Mike Brown had his tail boom knocked off by an SA-7). Those of us who flew in Northern I Corps abandoned the high altitude delivery, never flying above about 10-50 feet, as fast as we could go. We did not take on tanks though.

The challenge in this flight model is to replicate that profile. You either roll in at 130 or so kias and it remains at 130, or, as I tried, beep the airspeed to about 90 kias, but it remains at 90. Not sure how to correct that…probably a bridge too far.