Posted By: BeachAV8R
LOMAC/FC: Training Mission #05 - 12/21/06 05:42 AM
Today we are going to take a bit of an airmanship test. This late afternoon hop will offer up some miserable weather with low ceilings, rain, thunderstorms, and a good bit of winds (both surface and aloft) to add in a little challenge. A strong storm system is moving in off the Black Sea causing winds to whip in from the west. Our challenge today will be to fly in formation with our flight lead on a short cross country down the coast to Khersones (the site of my very first crash!). The objective is straightforward, maneuver to stay on the wing of the lead plane for the duration of the flight. The first couple legs of the mission will take us inland across Simferopol then back out to the coast to land at Khersones just southwest of Sevastopol.
The mission can be downloaded here: http://www.mudspike.com/lomac/simhq05.zip
After futzing around with the mission editor I’m still learning (and have a ton more to learn) but I did manage to get a 2-ship flight of Su-25Ts into a flight plan. I saw no way to make the human player anything other than the lead pilot however so I did a small workaround by leaving myself as the lead pilot then, once the mission started, moving over to the wingman to jump into his cockpit (ALT-J) leaving the AI to handle the flight lead task. CAUTION: Once you enter the mission and make the “jump” to the wingman the lead aircraft will takeoff immediately, so be ready! If someone can point me how to make myself something other than flight lead let me know. I suppose I could also alter the mission so that it started on the ramp so that after making the “jump” you would have plenty of time to taxi out with the AI lead.
I also find it odd that the wingman is assigned with an aircraft #01 while the lead is #02 (?). In any case, I’m stationed on the right side of the runway and after a second or two the lead aircraft bolts down the runway on the start of the mission. By the time my engines react to me shoving the throttle forward the spacing is actually pretty good for a staggered takeoff. Another note of caution: if you are ever flying in the “lead” position, make sure you stay on your side of the runway or the AI aircraft will get pushed out into the grass as he attempts to hold the lateral offset during takeoff. (What is that glow in my rear-view mirror? Oh - - my wingman in flames!)
The blustery winds buffet my aircraft around and require constant adjustment to the controls (thanks goodness for CH pedals!) and eventually I reach flying speed. I retract the gear, wait a bit for the speed to build then start retracting the flaps as I try to catch up to the flight lead. I purposely set the enroute speed for this mission at just a bit over 500 kph to allow for catching up if I ever got behind, but during the transition from the takeoff to the enroute phase there is plenty of time to get joined up with the flight leader. Remember, if you feel the leader is pulling away you can always use a little lead pursuit to cut some distance off the turns to gain a bit of ground on him. I won’t lie though: the challenge of joining up into formation with the Su-25T are pretty impressive. Judging closure and the fact that the –T doesn’t decelerate very quickly led to many (embarrassing) overshoots on my part.
With TrackIR I find I’m far less reliant on padlocking type schemes although they certainly still have their place. I searched for 10 minutes in my documentation but couldn’t find a way to padlock another aircraft unless I was in an air-to-air mode (something we’ll cover later) so you must (apparently) switch out of NAV mode to one of the AIR modes (keypress ‘2’ in the Su-25T) before you can padlock another aircraft (NUMPAD DEL). I’ve always really liked the way the LOMAC padlock works with the small, unobtrusive cross coupled with the mini-HUD to help maintain situational awareness.
Like I said though, with TrackIR I suspect I’ll be using less and less padlock and spending more time moving my head around. I’m already lost without TrackIR when I fire up the sim to do a test or something without putting my TIR hat on; it really does become an essential part of the sim once you get used to it. As the flight lead finishes the departure sequence he makes the turn enroute to the first waypoint. This relatively stable time was a great opportunity for me to move in closer and test what distances I was comfortable flying at. I can tell you it took all of my concentration and constant work on the stick and throttle to keep stationed next to the flight lead. The AI doesn’t fly quite as smoothly as you might expect another human player to fly and obviously you miss those verbal cues that you might otherwise get over the radio. So learn to watch the distance remaining to your next waypoint and anticipate that the flight leader will be making a turn and/or elevation change very near that point. Also keep in mind which way the lead will turn so that you don’t get smashed as he turns into you. I found keeping a distance of around 100 meters (a guesstimate) was good for allowing for some maneuvering without having to pay 100% attention to every nudge of the stick or throttle. Closer distances require ever tighter monitoring and very tiny corrections (I have a newfound respect for the LOMAC based Virtual Blue Angels and Virtual Thunderbirds!).
Soon enough we are screaming over Simferopol at a few hundred meters. This was the first flight I’ve flown since installing Archer’s sound modification pack and I love the new sound of the Su-25T and the breathing sounds inside the cockpit. Fantastic!
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