Lt. James Cater

I'm going to give it one more try at flying SPADs before i go with my initial intention to fly F-105s. When it comes to CAS and Armed Recce, the A-1 is unbeatable. However, taking it into highly defended areas is pretty much futile. There is my wingman just after he dropped his bombs. He did manage to strafe and destroy a Firecan, but was shot down soon after as he was heading for safety. You can see Tucker going down in the rear of the pic. Was about 5 seconds from the actual attack run when the plane took a direct hit. If it's this bad around Vihn, i can imagine what it's like around Hanoi.

Gotta love Willy Pete! Flyin' Home!

Incredible pic!

Sounds typically Hollywood like.

This is the info on the first two sorties The first was a pretty much a milk run, even if i did have some problems getting the ordnance on target at first. The second sortie was a way bigger challenge. I knew things were going to be difficult just from the weather alone. The added fact that base areas tend to have lots of AAA also makes for some added thoughts considering that we were going to have to come in very low just to be able to see the ground. 2nd LT Jones and i took off and headed northwest into Laos. Due to the clouds and low lying mist in places i decided that 2,500ft would be acceptable enough to be able to work our way around most of the terrain on our way to where we intended to hunt for Charlie. Imagine the shock we got when intense and accurate AAA came up at us just minutes into our flight! I slammed the throttle forward and pulled the plane up into a steep climb while jinking as hard as i could. We wen't even 25 miles from our base! After evading the fire, we settled at 5,000ft and cruised on. Sure enough, about ten miles later we drew more ground fire so once again we headed up. Considering the flak down there i figured it would be healthier for us to stay high until we got near the hunt area. At 10 miles out from the initial point, we began descending in a shallow dive. The weather was really bad and at any moment i fully expected to slam into a ridge or mountain. Luckily, we made it under the coulds safely and began a low level search up a winding valley towards the Base Area. Since the conditions were so bad, we had to go pretty slow so we could get a good view of anything moving below us. At the end of the valley we flew up the side of a very steep and high ridge with nothing to show for our efforts. and so began a tune to the southeast to check for things in that direction. About 30 seconds into that we began drawing heavy AAA fire and so i knew we had to be over the base area. The really picked a great spot too. All our manuvering was restricted by the terrain with the added defense bonus of the weather adding to the chances we would go down. By some miracle, we didn't get hit but since we knew we were in the right area so we began searching again. Sure enough it was AAA that gave us the hint. A light AAA gun (estimated 14.5mm) opened up on me and i saw what appeared to be a truck when i jerked the stick to avoid the fire. With a sure spotting i then began to fly in wide circles to see what else was thet and the perfect thing appeared. A long convoy of trucks! I then ordered LT Jones to attack and began setting up one of my own. The first pass was to gauge the situation, the weather made things difficult enough that the trucks seemed to come out of nowhere and i got the first by instinctivly pulling the trigger and nailing one. With Jones being ineffectual at the moment (at least that's how i felt) i decided to go for it. It was a very tasking effort! Frequently, the convoy was lost to sight and the attack had to be broken off in order to relocate them. Radio contact with LT Jones ceased early and i could only hope he was alright because i couldn't see his plane anywhere. The damage to the aircraft was not due to any AAA. The attacks were done from so low and close that pieces of exploding vehicles were seen shooting higher than the aircrafts' altitude a few times. Also, on occasion the aircraft flew through directly over it's own exploding ordnance. It took everything carried to ensure maximum destruction of the convoy, CBUs, Napalm, WP, Rockets and 20mm guns. After destroying the last visible truck i circled the area a few time searching for LT Jones then climbed to 8,500 ft to the return to base. Tucker

My new pilot is named Curtis Tucker. Also flying WOV GOLD/Steel Tiger with the 602nd SOS. Before any more action with this pilot i'll post screenshots and details of what has occured in the first two missions. Flying SPADs is way more dangerous than i thought!

That was fast! Stupidity kills... Heading on a strike up North we flew over an area which i never would have suspected had flak. Even when they started shooting i figured that they didn't have much of a chance since they didn't have any Fire Control gear. Boy did i guess wrong! It took them less than 10 seconds to down the SPAD. I got a new pilot with two successful missions so far. I'll post the details later. Yes, he's also in a Spad!

It's getting close people. Hook up a pilot and have a blast!

Will add details later, have to get back in the cockpit! EDIT-What a heck of a start! Took off at dusk to cover for friendlies. Thankfully the sky was clear because by the time we got over the troops, things were getting dark. Anyways, it was pretty sizable firefight going on and it was a real target rich situation. Can't count how many passes we did but we came through.

Got the flying comp up and i'm set for the DiD challenge! Got about 12 minutes left here in the Pacific time zone and i'm taking off at midnight so, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

LOL! I forgot all about the time zones! I'm just having a few brews and listening to Jaco Pastorius until i go to bed. I'll wake up sometime around 11 pm and get ready.

We had enough people voting for the group name. I got a feeling they'll come around soon. It's the kind of challenge that is pretty hard to resist for these sims.

Tonight's the night. At midnight it's on!

A warning to everyone! Be really, REALLY, REALLY, careful when you are bored and messing around online!!!! Idiot me managed to accidently download some CP the other day while BUI. I figured, "no problem, i'll just delete it and that's it". Something didn't feel right so i researched a bit and was stunned by what i found out about the fate of others who did the same. Tuesday, i'm going to get a pick up a bunch of gear and obliterate my current HD. First i'm wiping it with some software and then i'm going to remove it and toss it in the trash. I'd rather start from scratch with a new one than deal with the Feds sometime down the road.

That's pretty much it.

Just another usual day Going to be drinking some beer, waiting for the stroke of midnight so i can get the DiD challenge going. If you spend enough time working in Hotel/Casinos, holidays lose their meaning.

About the only near SAM proof aircraft i've ever flown in these sims is the EF-111 found in the ODS campaign. Everything else? It depends. Early ECM pods work wonders in WOV but you will still have a chance on getting hit due to certain factors.

To be honest, i've never actually given anyone a call sign before. So that means i don't have a clue about the rosters. Not sure if i work on New Years eve or not. Seeing that i work graveyard, i'll be ready to take off EXACTLY at midnight! I plan to go all out for at least 3 hours. As far as training? I always use the ever reliable "Ace Pilot" No matter how many times he screws up , he always manages to get back in the skies!

I suspected something like that, i've actually figured on taking the HD apart and smashing it with a hammer. BTW...BUI should read Browsing Under the Influence. I did do virus and spyware checks but nothing was there. Guess the safe thing will be to pick up a new HD tommorrow and be more careful in the future.

CP-Child Pornography BUI-Browsing While Intoxicated

A few days left to get things together and commit to a course of action!

Merry Christmas everyone. Got off graveyard shift a few hours ago!

Thanks for the info. I just needed something to take shots of the debrief screen. IRfanview was such a hassle that i bailed on it. XNview is much handier for that task.

I figured i'd ask here before making a move. Something has come up and so i want to transfer my system onto a new hard drive so i can deal with some problems on the old one. I've been looking around and know that the usual way is to slave the HD but i was wondering if there was a more convinient way to go about this. I've seen a lot of people suggesting Acronis True Image but i've been wondering weather to pick up a cheap duplicator (Around $100) instead. This is the first time i've ever done this and so i'm looking for the simplest way possible. Thanks all.