Seriously, my jaw dropped to the floor, mid air collision with wingman AAR

[ZoltanTheHun]

Hi guys, I have been away for a while... summer holiday and etwas, but I am back and...

 

I loaded up the game again, and ohh, this was my most amazing random mission ever... the only issue is that I was too stupid to make screenshots.

 

Vietnam, 1964, Intruder close air support far in the north. I had to fly over 200 miles to get there in the beautiful night sky with darkness below. The mission started out nicely, packed with bombs I climbed up to 35000 feet. The journey was calm, about 80 miles from the target the radio operator informed us about a few migs, but we passed them without any issues. This way we traveled until about 20 miles to the final checkpoint before the target, when I started a descent with a right bank which was pretty steep, I descended with a speed slightly under the sound barrier, and the others are followed, and I don't remember taking any sudden motions. 

 

Then an explosion happened, and the master caution lit up. And I just wondered what happened, what hit me. I didn't hear the beeping sound, actually I think there isn't any RWR in the A-6 early versions, also I have a habit of listening to music while flying. So I turned my head left, and I saw the other plane banking left in flames, and my plane was still intact. The engine seemed to work, and I switched to outside view to see what happend. Plane intact, or no... dammit, half of the elevator is missing, I am going to be reported dead. And there is a a very bad smoke trail behind me... Yeah, the other bird is falling down, ok, nice, looks beatiful, but what happened...

 

The enemy was quite far behind, and it was just impossible to be hit by them. AA? Is it possible? I am not sure, but It can't be that I crashed with my wingman, the AI, it can never happen... Ok, let's concentrate on flying, because I fly now in the wrong direction. Let's see, target is about 20 miles, and I am still 16000 feet up in the air, a bit too much. Let's see, engine seem to be OK, even if the master caution is up. Controls? Fine, it looks like I can climb and I can turn, so let's see what we can do....

 

A quick turn to the left, around 140 degrees, right on track, steep decline. About 10 miles closer and 10000 feet lower, I start to worry If I can see the target... the ground is incredibly dark, I thought even much higher that I am going to crash, now maybe it is really time to worry about that...  I checked the distance again on the navigation system, getting close... Let's cheat a little bit, I pushed the targeting button for land targets, let's see if I can select it already, but it didn't work. Ahhh, that cannot be, It should be close enough, let's cheat again, I bring up the HUD, and I try to select the target again pushing the number several times. And then... I just lost tracking my height, but I suddenly realize that I am much closer to the ground then I would expect, and there is a hill opposite to me... I grab the joy, but no avail, with half the elevator missing, the plane responds slowly. The angle of attack increases, but my velocity vector does not follow up quickly, my engine power was kept low to keep the speed low on the descent, I push the throttle but it is late, soon it is only a burning metal skeleton showing my presence in the dark night.

 

Mission report. Failure. 2 Intruders down. They killed each other.

 

 

Strike Fighters always has surprises. 

 

[xrearl]

great story

[Emp_Palpatine]

So what was it? Is it ppossible that it was the AA? Never seen the biggest gun hit anything in SF2... :(

[ZoltanTheHun]

Thanks for the comments. Maybe I did not express myself clearly, but it was a midair collision with the wingman (it was an 8 plane formation though). I don't know how it happened, I think I banked to the right, and the guy was on my left... My plan was not to go directly to the waypoint, but to take a turn, about 30 degrees, and I just started that turn, and I was watching the compass....then there was just a big  boom and I was just looking around and saw the wingman going down, and my plane was stable but the master caution was already red... I was too stupid to not to make any screenshots, but I myself did not believe that it was a mid air collision,  until the aar did not show that Eiswhatever was killed by Zoltan. And the next line: Zoltan was killed by Eiswhatever... the only kills during the whole flight :D

[Do335]

Midair with wingmen does happen occasionally... short of turning off "collisions" in options, asking wingies to "spread out formation" might help at times.

[ZoltanTheHun]

It is not a problem that happens, it was very cool and totally unexpected. I did not experienced such thing in a hundred flights and it was a very pleasant surprise.

[Do335]

It is not a problem that happens, it was very cool and totally unexpected. I did not experienced such thing in a hundred flights and it was a very pleasant surprise.

Sorry. I made my suggestion based on the assumption that it's not a nice thing to run into wingies for anybody. Apparently I'm wrong and I apologize.

[ZoltanTheHun]

No need to apologize. I think with this frequency the collisions are acceptable, I never paid attention to the formations, because I thought the AI is 'too perfect' to collide. It was a very nice lesson.

[Do335]

hmmm.. I had been flying 1960+ missile era and indeed mid-air was not a cause for concern, even less when it was mud moving. You just don't need to think about it. Probably missile seeker accidentally locking onto friendlies etc. was more of a problem.

I've since then moved onto guns only jet fights and collisions became frequent among the 3 parties: me, wingies, bandits. (It reads a bit funny atm but when it happens it really doesn't...) Not a "daily" occurrence but enough to pay constant attention to.