Another AI flight for me. Again, attacking the Armor with AGM 65D around Split, this time taking off from Gino Lisa Airbase.

Kills were tanks.

Results are here.



Not sure what happened to the wingman, he was with me on approach - perhaps something happened once I'd exited as he hadn't landed yet. (bug?)

Yet another plug for TacView. No more of this "what happened" questions as you can see exactly what transpired during the flight

And another AI, this time on a AAA battalion east of Split, taking of from Gino Lisa Airbase. Took CBU87 for a change and ended up delivering by CCIP.

Wingman crashed on landing, again... tower told him to make left turn onto runway heading but that was the last comms from/to him and debrief shows he crashed shortly after. Starting to think they're a waste of an airframe...

Landed with 400lbs of fuel (maybe wingman ran out), burned the excess on the way home to get back to base quicker.

BMS crashed so no nice screenshot, but debrief text file shows

Kills:
ZSU23-4
BMP-3
BTR-80
BTR-80
KS-19

Damaged:
BMP-3
ZSU23-4

Apologies Oden for not replying on chat, I don't know the chat key (If I've actually got it bound to something).

Good point, I do have the premium / pro version of Tacview, just don't often record acmi as it takes forever to save after a flight. In my VFS the server normally records it and is then shared with us afterwards.

Had about 40 minutes free so I hopped on and fragged an AI to Split to hit a tank battalion. Everything went fine until I committed. Too-long pie screen and dumped back to debrief. Tried to re-commit but no go. Exited and tried to re-connect but failed several times with the 'pending Kevin message' or whatever it says. Not the first time I've seen that. Gremlins got me today.

Haha no worries, same for me first time DBond started chatting I had no idea how to type in chat.
Also, when folks are in 3D I rarely expect any answer as they most probably have more urgent things to do than chat.

It should be Shift+t by default though
But I prefer to see silence over "Hi" and then radio calls like "Send RESCAP" or something

Sounds bad DBond, it is a pretty newly restarted server too.
I blame the Falcon Gods.

I'll give that a try next time

Are you guys not on TS3 when you fly?

I was the only person on TS the few times I've flown

Sometimes no, most of the time yes. I often connect just to survey the situation. I like to keep tabs on the various aspects of the campaign even if I'm not intending to fly.

But usually I will see some Reds that needs bombs dropped on them and I'll frag one up. If no one is on I won't even hook up comms. If someone is on I check TS to see if they are connected. It's sort of fluid and I go with the flow.

Speaking of the campaign.... Oden moving the 22nd was great, I approve. However it seems to have reset the force level graphs and cancelled the weather map, and I suspect because of a different save name perhaps? No worries, it's almost over anyway.

I had sent a few battalions on their merry way over the past few days and little progress has been made. Did manage to capture Kastela airport anyway. Saves the B-52s from having to fly there again.

Yep, and I'm all outta chickens

Just get a bucket of KFC......worked for Cerrano. ;-)

Surely the Falcon Gods will be displeased with KFC?

I'm going to get one last Balkans hop in (Gods be praised) and then work on the next campaign. Oden should have the new set up by tomorrow latest. So get your BoP hops in while you can!

Dunc's I think. Seems to work pretty good although either I did not set something up right or I had to make some adustments since I could not slew the radar cursors properly. Had to manually calibrate my HOTAS too because the microsticks would not center. All fixed now.

Already seeing some rust. Bogey's off the nose....lockem up....no diamond...WTF? Switch master arm on dumba**!

Apologies for disappearing off Teamspeak DBond, real life called and I had to exit.

Hopefully catch you all on again soon!

No worries Wildcat, glad to see you on, and I hope you're having fun on our server.



Same here. Interesting, because I was the opposite. I wasn't happy with manual calibration of the microstick, but going auto made it perfect. Falcon eh?

I saw you in the Team Speak lobby, but not in the F4 BMS room.

So what might prove to be my final Balkans sortie (sniff, sniff) was a good one. Managed to connect fine and found Wildcat on. he had already committed from Gino Lisa, and I fragged a solo interdiction east of Split. Picked a tank battalion as my target, set a precision steerpoint and loaded the jet with a silly eight CBU-87. Yeah, cause I can!

Took off from our shiny new digs at Banja Luka in the wee hours and turned for my target. I had forgotten to set my steerpoints to match the colum so I had to use the HMCS in Nav mode to turn on the proper heading. Enroute I had two blue pauses, Wildcat confirmed the same. No problems after that. As I approached my target steerpoint I could see they were gone, on the move. So I started to orbit while scanning in GMT and found a bunch of movers, Turned in on one, but I could see in the sniper pod that it was just a few vehicles, looked like trucks. Reached down and changed it to ripple two, 555 spacing and 3000 feet BA. Worked hard to get a good angle and pickled the pair in CCIP. Started a few fires and climbed out looking for more.

Found a much longer column, JSTARS confirmed hostile and I took my time to get the angle correct. I could see tanks in the pod, but kicking up some dust. I was at 17,000 and decided to keep working on lofting. Reached down and set 30 degrees, but I didn't know how much lead I would need. Lofting bombs from high altitude means a long fall time. Rippled the remaining six and climbed out while watching for my bombs. I was about Spaceman level, 30,000 when they hit. So safe and cozy up there



Bombs looked good and started some more fires, but too far to really tell much. I just knew I hit something. I am now in love with lofting CBU. I've now reached 71 consecutive missions and you guys have heard me talk about wanting that longevity medal. Lofting just might be the key!

Turned for home and could hear the tower talking to Wolverine. He was being scolded a bit and I was worried he might be on the runway. On final however I could see him liftoff and I greased it on down and shut it down.

Good bombs and a bit of cabbage. Not the greatest return for eight CBU. The two misses were the first two of the second string, which I think fell short as the column drove out from under them. Still, 12 of those were T-85s, not bad with -87s.



Good mission and I had such a good time I might try to get on again after setting up the Iron Fortress campaign. Nice to be on with both Wildcat and Wolverine. Thanks for joining guys.

I sure am! Being able to play pick up multiplayer is ideal, and even if it is just me on the server, helping towards winning the campaign just seems more rewarding than playing single player

Hopefully we'll get some stick time with a few of us in the same flight.

We agree Wildcat. And yes, we should get a few flights in together. To do that though, guys need to announce when they will be on. That's the only way I think we can reliably work out missions with multiple humans. Our set up is designed for 'pick up' (I like that term), so it requires some co-ordination to get guys in together without long waits and uncertainty.

With BoP coming to a close I just want to thank everyone who joined. We had our share of problems, it is Falcon after all, but i think on balance it was a raging success. I had a ton of fun flying combat missions over Bosnia, Croatia and the Former Yugoslavia. I learned some new stuff and just lots of fun. I want to thank our host, theOden, for making this happen. Without him, none of this is possible. Thanks Oden!

I ended the campaign with 97 air kills and submit that for consideration for Ace of the Base. Did anyone achieve more kills? In all, I was credited with 45 combat sorties, which seems a hell of a lot, doesn't it? Shows you how much fun I have doing this stuff. The program gave me credit for 180 ground kills, 52 static and 8 naval. Due to some connectivity issues and crashes on exit, I lost well over 100 more, but such is the life of a Falcon 4 driver eh? I had no deaths, and didn't track shoot downs, but I would estimate I was shot down about six times, all by IR SAMs. It's dangerous out there!

The biggest success though is having attracted new guys to join up and have a bash. Thanks to everyone who was brave enough to join us. If it were no big deal we would see many more pilots. It takes a certain type of guy to join something like this, and I was very pleased to see the upswing in participation near the end. Good job to all newcomers and thanks for helping us see it to the (near) end.

Get ready though, because the intensity is about to ramp up big time in Iron Fortress. See you over Seoul

You're Welcome.