After a little over a week without strapping into the pit, I decided Sunday morning I'd better shake off some rust. After firing up the coffee pot, I headed to the briefing room and got started. I picked up where I left off from my last flight with "Axe" on Day 1, 19:35 and found some enemy battalions set up just N/NW of Kaesong.
In the past 8 hours of the Campaign, the Allied forces have hammered the DPRK Air Force into near submission by a combination of shoot downs and attacking enemy air bases. At the same time, I have also lost 5 aircraft from my own squadron bringing my total air frames available down to seven. Because 2 jets are reserved for scramble, I really only have five Vipers available for mission planning. For these reasons I have decided to take a single ship without an escort and use the impending darkness as my cover for this mission. I'm hoping the Pentagon sends me some jets soon!
There are a few groups of targets in the area, but I have my sight on the HQ battalion, just South of STP. 5 as a primary. If the situation dictates, I have the option to pick and choose as I set the mission up as an AI (Attack/Interdiction).
Now that I have my mission fragged and DTC set, I get some intel from Weapons Delivery Planner and VMT (Virtual Mission Tools). I'll have a data card, mission map, and weather map along with the appropriate airport charts to help keep me out of trouble.
As you can see on pg. 2 of the data card, I'll be carrying 8xCBU87 CEM's along with 4xAIM 120B's and a center line fuel tank. That weather looks crappy, but the storm is actually moving away from the areas I'll be operating in, so I'm not too concerned with the weather, which is a bit of a relief. The last few hours of the campaign have seen several thunderstorms passing through the area.
Here is the entire mission from start to finish w/ debrief at the end. If you don't feel like watching (it's nearly an hour long) I'll summarize below the video. I had to edit out a couple of songs because of copyrights (damn Beetles) banning the video, so there are a couple of spots where the audio doesn't match, but you'll figure it out.
Turned out pretty good if you don't count the landing!
I was met by a 3 ship of J-5's as I was getting close to my target, and was able to dispatch them quickly before they really knew what was going on. Once they were out of the picture I turned my attention back to the task at hand. There was a patch of stratus clouds moving into the area so I had to make several passes and ended up using the radar more than the TGP. Fortunately, the HQ battalion was dug in and I didn't have to hit moving targets which would have put me below the FL 150 threshold I had given myself. I handled them with extreme prejudice and am pretty sure none of them survived.
In the end I got 30 kills on the ground and 3 A-A kills. 7/8 w/ bombs and 3/3 w/ slammers. I was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross and was only 88 seconds early TOT. I just wish I could have that landing back. I was down to just a few hundred pounds of go-juice and had one slammer left and my center line tank empty, so the jet was really light and when I flared to land the jet just floated off the runway. I was able to touch down about a third of the way down the runway, and if it hadn't been for my fuel state, I would have gone around for another pass. It was uglier than home-made sin, but I got her down safely!
...and of course, after 3 cups of coffee, it was off to hit the head!
A few questions, if I may: 1. What program do you use to record videos? 2. Why add music? I personally prefer just the game sounds unless making some sort of trailer video. 3. Have I just been flying the Cessna too much in XP11 or is 165 knots a bit too fast if the jet is light? I'm also guessing you did not have your boards out?
One suggestion - maybe some links directly to certain times on your video to the interesting bits?
Otherwise, good job! My new year resolution is to finalize my gameroom and dig back into BMS in the new year, so hope to get more flying then and will start to bombard you guys with campaign questions.
1. Using OBS Studio. Freeware and I need to update it (for months now). I'm sure there is better and I am probably not using it as well as I should, but I don't do much recording and I have it working good enough for what I'm using it for.
2. Music - I like to have something on in the background when I'm solo. Keeps my eyelids open when things get boring. Usually just hit random on Win. Media Player and take what it gives me. I can do one without music, but I have watched a few of my solo flights w/o music and I have trouble staying focused/awake.
3. Yeah, I'm fast, but this happens sometimes when I get too much time away from the stick. I don't usually look at air speed when I'm landing and just try to stay on the slope. That is usually not a problem unless I'm running light as was the case here. I also flared a bit too much and forgot to turn on my lights.
Bring on the questions when you're ready and I'll try to answer what I can. Hope you can keep your resolution!
1. Any good tutorials you'd recommend for OBS? 2. Ah, so the music is actually playing when you're flying? I just thought it was added later.... 3. Glad it's not just me!! I was recently testing how slow I can go in the Cessna and was bringing her in just a couple of knots above stall speed
As for my resolution, I'm really looking forward to it! Got a new 500GB NVMe drive just to relocate Falcon BMS and XP11 and added theatres to BMS.... new skins and airport textures next, as soon as I figure out how to install JanHas stuff.
1. There are quite a few attempts to put together a tutorial, but everyone seems to do things a little different for different reasons. I watched a few before I figured out how to do what I wanted and then stopped researching. I am quite sure I am not using it to its full potential. Hell, I don't even have the latest version. Might update tonight since it's fresh in my head now. We'll see in a couple of hours if I remember when I get home from work.
2. I guess I could play music on a different device so it doesn't end up in the video. I like pretty much anything that isn't hip-hop or rap, which is why you hear so many different genre in my video. Doesn't bother me, but I guess my tastes aren't the same as everyone else. As a joke, I named one of my playlists Doug Masters mix tape.
3. Haha, misery loves company!
I bought a dedicated SSD for BMS a couple of years ago. I had my previous install on the same SSD as Windows. I would have eclipsed my storage capacity on that drive by now. My current install is somewhere in the neighborhood of 75GB as of now!
I like them too, even when I am not flying. Might be getting time for me to strap the old bird back on too... See if I get better luck with the program now.
It didn't back when I was flying it, but my last experience with it was many updates ago, like in the 1rst year BMS came out. I am sure one of these other guys can give you some more up to date info as it currently is