Mr_Tayto

Rewatched a few Devin Horner A-1 videos, and the flak sure seems more manageable at 6000ft, so point definitely taken. When flying F-105s downtown, I did Hi-Lo-Hi profile dive bombing, and that worked fine but it's obviously not an option in a Spad, so I'll try to keep it medium level.

CMH seems excessive for a few infantry squads on top of a camp. Mind you, they were very well hidden.

Hi all, I've owned SF2 for a few years now, but couldn't get on with it. Let me explain; I've been a flight sim guy for 30-odd years, having played my first flight sims on Atari STE. I've been a WW2 pilot flying Spitfires, P-51s, B-17s... Jumping to F-16s, F-14s, A-7s. My real interest has always been in "non-glass" cockpit combat jets, but sims didn't really exist for them as far as I could see. Until SF2. The reason I couldn't deal with SF2 was that I didn't have the physical set-up with my PC; it's a sim where you need to look at instruments (no HUD) and around you for SAMs and muzzle flashes, so I set about buying an IR tracker (Delanclip) and some brackets for my HOTAS. I was ready./ I came to SF2 late, having only even heard about it a few years ago. You couldn't believe my glee when I saw it was based around Korean- and Vietnam-war aircraft and on until the early 80s. I love the plethora of mods and the tight community, even for such an old game. I have questions though; while I understand the game is not a strict "cold start" type sim (like DCS), on the other hand it holds no hands. I know - in theory - how to land on a boat, but the game still needs me to know the gear, flaps and landing speed of a lot of aircraft, and doesn't signpost this anywhere. I guess I'm looking for a resource somewhere. Same with bombing; I love that most aircraft don't have a CCIP (although I downloaded Migbuster's DIANE mod for the A-6, a plane I love), I struggle with bombing. Flying the F-105 I looked at some 1960's resources and managed it in Hi-Lo-Hi missions from Thailand, but that was dive bombing. Flying through flak at <500ft and popping up into radar controlled flak and SAMs makes it a bit trickier and I've missed a lot more than I've hit. I'd love someone experienced in A4s and F4s to teach me there. Then there's mission types; flak suppression in aircraft without an RWR seems nuts, and ridiculously difficult, even with the ability to look out the cockpit. I'd like to "turn off" the HUD one day but I'd never find the targets without it (not to mention managing airspeed on carrier landings). So if anyone is still playing regularly and wants to help me with the above, I'd be very grateful.

So after some experimentation (and because I've always loved the plane), I decided to start "learning" carrier ops with the A-1, flying Steel Tiger missions - because again, they're pretty cool. My first mission (with a new pilot, following the "Dead is dead" principle) was a milk run to the Vinh PT Boat base, which I dispatched fairly easily by rippling my entire load of M117s all over it. Took some HMG fire from the PTs themselves as I dropped in, but nothing that affected the plane, so I flew home and trapped (first time!). In the de-brief it seems I was "injured", so spent some time in Subic chasing nurses. 5 months, it seems Next mission was a looong flight from Yankee to the SVN/Laos border, (south of Da Nang) to deal with a HCMT camp, which I did with bombs, took fire again from the jungle so circled and rocketed a couple of squads before coming home. On the way back I noticed a right roll, looking out of the cockpit I see that my right flap had been shot off, but nothing major as it was easy enough to counter with light pressure left on the stick. Get all the way back to the ship, and despite her manoeuvring like she was dodging torpedoes I trap again on the first attempt, sans flaps! Now, as pleased as I was with myself for a successful mission and a good trap, I wasn't prepared for what came next: Apparently for my work deleting a camp and a couple of VC squads in what was a fairly permissive environment, I received the Medal of Honour Has anyone else had this before? Was it purely for a good mission, or was the fact I landed the Spad something to do with it? Score for the mission was 3000 I think.

I agree wholeheartedly about the civilian casualties, and it's one (of many) reasons that both our countries are better off with professional armed forces. It's also in a weird way why I want to be better at bombing; the way the game works I can order my wingman to hit the target and if he is sufficiently skilled he will complete my mission for me, but I want to hit the target, and if I'm downtown I don't want to hit a civilian centre by mistake. If that makes sense. I've also been taking advantage of the fantastic mod community here, and have downloaded the Falklands '82 and WOK mods. Next is Desert Storm 30AE, because that's the war I grew up with on TV and the one which started the fire of aviation for me (that and the Soviets in Afghanistan).

I don't know why, but I'm drawn to them. I'm a historian by education, and the Vietnam war really appeals to me as a subject. In aviation terms it seems like such an inflection point in technology and tactics; for example NFWS being instigated due to experiences in VN, and also things like the first showing of SAMs, and how hard it was to counter even the SA2. Add to that analogue cockpits and tactical nuclear bombers being repurposed as CAS aircraft (two things that couldn't be further apart)... I'm not American, actually I'm Scottish, so no hangups on the war here, just a studied interest in the men and machines.

So @EricJ I watched the Devin video on bombing tactics - it was already watched so I must have seen it several years ago, which explains my Hi-Lo-Hi instincts on the 105. Makes a lot more sense with a regular reflex sight now.

Thanks for the reply. Finding Devin Horner has helped me a lot, I've been glued to his videos for a couple of months now, and learned a lot about how to fly and fight from them. I will look at The Range map, I've been crying out for training missions to be honest, so that seems a good place to start. Somewhere to practice with a carrier would be ideal. I'm comfortable with land-based planes, pretty much. Even before the IR Tracking etc. I was happily running missions into NVN with 105s, having read enough about missions to know - just about - what to do. Carrier Ops is the dream, though. I want to fly the whole arsenal of Vietnam-era aircraft from ships. I've been most successful with the A-6 so far, I guess because she's pretty tame at landing speed (even though I bolter at least once per trap!)

Hi all, based off a recommendation I dropped the requisite 100 buck (well, £76) on the full install, and so far I'm very impressed. I have an X52 Pro, so I downloaded and applied the "SFPITkey.ini" from the downloads section of the site here, and it's great. The problem I have is that with only two hands, I find it difficult to get across some other aspects of the sim beyond flight control. An example of that is the radio; I find the radio marked button doesn't work on the profile, and even if it did (or I'm doing something wrong) there's no tutorial so I don't know how to use it. I may even be using it wrongly, but again I see know way of knowing how. The second thing is vision controls. I don't have any eye tracking software or hardware, so will be reliant on some kind of accessible control to "turn my head" looking for targets or threats. Again, short of taking my hand off the throttle or stick, there's no way I can see of doing it without reassigning some hat on the HOTAS (which is not ideal). In this case I suppose I'm asking if it's worthwhile reassigning a hat on the stick to turning my head, and using the keyboard controls for radar operation? Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to give. I've realised one ambition this week, of flying a SEAD over North Vietnam in a Thud, and I'm looking forward now to another, which is flying the EE Lightning. Just with there was a "quick fly" with no bad guys to practice take-offs and landings (especially on CVs!).