Vampyre

So your Mystere was a mystery?

A-7K running home after hitting an enemy airfield.

I was over at the WoP Zekes vs Wildcats Server flying my F4U-1D Corsair a few days ago. It was my first mission after a long hiatus and jumped right in head first. I was conducting a single aircraft strike on the harbor and beach facilities on the island of Chichi Jima. I had my bird loaded down with eight 5" HVAR's and two 500lbs bombs plus full ammunition for my six .50's and 75% fuel. I coaxed my heavyweight Corsair off the deck (Il2 dogfight servers have stationary carriers so it is pretty tough for the uninitiated) and proceded to climb out on a heading of 180. After climbing out to angels 15 I made a lazy banking turn to the right to 270. When the islands came into sight I noted a lot of tracer fire to the north but decided it was safe to proceed with my strike. As I was approaching the southern island three aircraft appeared, two to my front and one at my 4 o'clock position. The larger threat was from the bogie at 4 o'clock so I heaved my big sair around for a better look at him. We were in a head on pass and I trained my reticle on the nose of the bogie until he was identifiable... A6M Zero... Bandit! Bandit! As soon as I ID'd the Bandit I let loose a quick burst from my six .50's and was rewarded with a large explosion and Zero parts flying by my bird. I did a quick scan to ensure my plane was still operating as advertised and to clear my six. The two bogies were still over the island so I assumed they were a CAP defending the port as they were just circling that one spot. A big air battle was in process and was evidenced by the large amount of tracer fire to the north. I boldly proceeded towards the bogies CAPing the harbor to get a positive ID on them. As I approached the closest bogie he started spraying my general direction with cannon and machine gun fire which immediatly gave him away as a Zero. For the second time before hitting my target I had the privlidge of sending some .50 cal lovin to a bandit head on. This time he caught on fire and burned for a good 10-15 seconds before exploding. His buddy then decided to take a swipe at me and only managed to not die under a hail of Ma Duce fire by performing a barrel roll as he came in range. I didn't kill him but did get some hits causing him to lose fuel. After this pass I rolled inverted and pulled down initiating a dive to the harbor. As I approached the harbor area I recieved AAA fire from several positions and a destroyer in the middle of the harbor. The destroyer was the first target I hit, the two 500lbs bombs were delivered into his bow instantly sinking said destroyer. Upon my pull up from the bomb release I lobbed two 5" rockets at a AAA gun popping off at me, performed a 90 degree roll to the left to dodge his return fire. The rockets impacted squarly on his position as I pulled out of my turn I acquired a small fishing boat and put two rockets into it causing it to sink. I extended out to the west of the harbor area and did my usual post attack scan and performed a clearing manuver noting a Zero streaming fuel and trying to follow me. At this point I decided to use the sair's speed advantage to extend out further and make a shallow climb. After flying for about five minutes I performed another clearing manuver and the bandit was gone. I turned around and proceeded back to the target area put two rockets into a cluster of three tanks killing them and used my last two rockets on another fishing boat. My last rocket attack had me positioned west of the harbor again so just before egressing to the fleet in the northeast I made a straifing attack on a truck convoy destroying three of them. After performing my last scan in the target area I noticed three aircraft in a dogfight at my 12 o'clock. As I got close I identified two of them as Zeros and the other as an F6F Hellcat. The Hellcat had good energy and was holding his own against the nimbler Zeros. The timing for me to arrive on scene could not have been more perfect. One of the Zeros had manuvered to the Hellcats rear quarter as he was climbing and was trying to acquire a fireing solution but had run out of energy. I whipped into the fight with a ton of smash acquiring a firing solution on the unmanuverable Zero hanging on his prop and poured fire into his center mass exploding his plane in an instant. Evidently his wingie did not like that one bit and started spraying fire my direction and missing widely. The Hellcat took advantage and when I performed my clearing manuver the Zero was missing a wing and falling into the sea on fire. I then proceeded to the Carrier and prepaired for landing. Radiator full open, prop pitch to 95%, flaps to combat, canopy open, speed 140kts, flaps to landing, gear down, lights on, hook down and rolling into the groove. I leveled my wings with the mast of the carrier slightly offset to the right of the top of my hose nose with throttle at 25%. Airspeed 105 kts and on glideslope, I chop the throttle as I cross the fantail and perform a perfect trap. I love that Corsair!

My campaign ended June 16 1991. I was running out of targets and the only enemy left flying was the occasional An-12 Cub at that point.

Only two weeks... ish... lol

You might want to give an idea of what you might be interested in doing in London. I personally would hit the RAF museum in Hendon. Its in the northern part of London. It's been ages since i last visited. http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/london/index.cfm

Heres's a few miscellaneous shots from the past two weeks of my on and off flying. SLUF doing gun runs. Fitter rocketing a Destroyer. These boys are in trouble... MiG-19 just before slaughtering a flight of F-104C's.

Go ahead and fly for the Iraqis in ODS:the Great Showdown. If you get above 200ft AGL you're toast. I will usually fly about that height and wait for the HAWK battery to start lobbing missiles my way then duck down low to break their locks. Doing this while flying around their battery will deplete their ready missiles so you can attack the airfield at will... that is if enemy fighters are not in the area. Of course, this tactic also works well with both active and simi-active missiles fired by enemy fighters as well. It is only partially effective against IR missiles. For gun shots, the AI don't deal with the low altitude very well so they have never shot me at Vlow altitude. Heres an older pic of me egressing the target area. If you look closely you will see my wingman getting shot down by a M-163 while attacking a forward Marine base in the background. The Mirage F-1 is a blast to fly and fight plus you don't have the usual US/CIS weapons.

Like the A-4 Skyhawk?

Indeed, It also helps if your father was a military man too...

I assume you are doing Hope Charity and Despiration too. EDIT- I just saw the d-load for them. very nice!

I managed to break the ALE-50 while flying very low level and smacking a sand dune... it wasn't pretty. I haven't seen it break due to a missile hit yet.

Did a Strategic Reconnissance mission in the venerable U-2. Had about five SA-2's shot at me plus about a dozen fighters trying to intercept me. I also had a bit of fun dodging fighters and attempting to shoot stuff with the new AC-130U. Hopefully we will also see the MC-130H in the sim sometime in the future.