Rambler 1-1

looking good!

"Where the heck are we?" "On course." It was the first radio call since we formed up and turned south-east. It was a long strike mission, and my first 8-plane flight in a long time. It was a strike mission, disguised as a CAP, because we took off from a base far from the front lines. Flight one was the strike force, with 500 pounders and rocket pods (in addition to sparrows, 'winders and a gun pod), while flight two was escort, with 450 gallon tanks and rocket pods (and the above A-A stores). There was an other flight airborne, callsign "Zipper", made up of F-104s. Their job was to divert any MiGs while our wing flew in under a cloud of ECM jamming. We knew as well as they did that if we engaged anything other than bombers, our Phantoms were going to be much more useful than their Starfighters. "Lead, bogies, 100 miles off, eleven O'clock" We couldn't get them on our scope. "Okay three, track 'em, but no lock." "Roger" We flew on for a couple of minutes, then my RIO (conveniently callsigned "rio") piped up. "Ram, I see 'em." "what?" "the bogies. I got a return." "how far?" "75-80 miles" "gotit." The MiGs were a ways off, and they didn't know where we were. As we drew closer to the DMZ and our target, not much farther beyond, the MiGs traced from left to right across the top of the radar screen. They had picked up the starfighters. "Rambler lead, Nash lead. we have contact on bogies, almost in range. Should Nash flight engage?" "Negative, Nash lead. Don't let 'em know we're here." "Rambler lead, Zipper flight. Engaging MiGs. You've got the front door." "Roger Zipper. good luck." "Ram, we got one... oh sh*t two more flights inbound!" "how far?" "50 miles, closing fast" "heading?" "They're going for Zipper" Our flight hadn't been seen yet, but these next two flights would see us for sure. I decided to take my flight in for the strike as fast as possible. "Nash Flight, break and engage air after visual contact ONLY." "Roger Rambler, engage with vis." "Rambler flight, stick with me. We're gonna hit that comm building." "two, copy." "three, copy." "four, copy." we located the target and turned twards the communications building. "Lead, Nash one. Engaging air." "Rambler flight, bandit at your six!" "Three and four, break off and cover us." "Rog" "Rog" My wingman and I streaked forward towards our target while the rest of our flight engaged the MiGs. There were calls all over the radio, and so far it didn't sound good. All but one of the F-104s had been downed, with only one MiG accounted for. Just as we popped up before our bombing run, the last zipper called out a kill. "One Fishbed down!" "Tallyho. Confirm it." We were bearing down on our target. There were two AAA sites on either side, and their shots were good. A couple of bright green tracers flashed by my canopy, not far from a hit. My speed is high, put out the binders a little rudder to keep on target select 3 bomb pickle setting 450knotstargetlineduppickle... NOW! "Bombs gone" "Bombs gone" 6000 pounds of bombs dropped off their pylons and fell along an invisible curve towards their target. Mine hit first. "Shack! right on target!" without even a second though, I jettisoned all stores and went to full military throttle. The fight was behind and above us, and we had to help as much as we could. "Two, cover me." my RIO was trying desperately to distinguish a target from the pandemonium ensuing ahead. I didn't plan on using sparrows unless I had noting else left. "Watch it, three! you've got one on your six!" "Jeezus! GETIMOFFME!" "I see 'em!" "break off, I got a tone!" "Don't fire! It'll track me!" I looked up ahead to see a Phantom break hard left, and then I saw the MiG at his tail and the last starfighter behind the MiG, unable to get a 'winder off. I put my Phantom into full burner and lined up for a high-deflection shot with guns. I fired a burst off, and it sailed ahead of it's target. The MiG saw the shot and broke off. Zipper 3 followed and got his shot off. "splash one!" There was MiG-19 or -17 below and to the right, banking and climbing, trying to line up on some thing. I saw the glint off it's wing, silently thanked the person who decided to put all the MiGs in polished aluminum schemes, and rolled right, taking the MiG head on. He banked left, then right, then ruddered to try to line up a head-on shot at me. I nosed down, the up again, and as he and his green tracer whipped underneath, I reefed the Phantom into a hard left turn. The MiG was going up and over, so I decided to keep on the horizontal. as my vision greyed and the Phantom slowed from 500 knots down to 300, the MiG topped out of his loop and dove in on me. I pulled back and tried to line up a head-on shot, when I realized that I was in a fight that I could not win. "Lead, two. I got your MiG." That was enough for me. I passed up the head on shot and banked away right. With a quick look at my fuel gauge, I looked for another MiG. "I've got this one." "guns!" "Nice shot!" "one down!" "I see one. Four cover me." "Fox two." "Dammit!" "he's firing! break! BREAK!" In my mirror I saw the telltale flash and smoke of a missile lighting up. It was coming for me. I had committed the cardinal sin of flying straight and level. sunuva b!tch. roll inverted, no burner, 450 knots that's good enough for a 6G turn more if possible damn it's still trackingIwishihadflares! keep diving turning vision going black keep turning dammit ourfatherwhomartinheavenhallowebethynamebykingdomcomethy... "Ram! we're not dead!" my vision was coming back, and I rolled out of the 8-G split S. That must have been good enough to dodge the missile, where's that MiG? HOLYCRAP The MiG had tried to match my turn, but he overshot! Oh, this bast@rd is gonna pay for making me overstress my Phantom! He pulled up and right, and I punched into zone 5. The acceleration from 280 knots was staggering, and then I saw why. I now had 7500 pounds fuel remaining. Bingo is... "Rio, what's bingo?" I was gaining on the MiG. He continued to turn, just enough to prevent an easy 'winder shot. "6000" Bugger I gotta get this guy quick. I was following his every move, every twitch. Closing in. then he screwed up again. He doubled back on his turn. "Fox Two" I cut inside and popped off two 'winders. the first went straight and the other tracked. Just then, the MiG rolled inverted and deaked the missile. then he finished his barrel roll and stuck to his turn. Closing rate high, out of burner, 709 left, haul upppppp, G force bleeds off speed, high deflection shot. twenty rounds of gun. to the right of the target. pass him on his tail, full burner, pull up.... and over... The MiG had leveled out, not sure that I was high and behind him. Coming from the sun. Then I saw exactly what I was chasing. A pristine MiG-21PFM in polished silver, with a neat red star on the tip of one wing. I could see the pilot's head trying to find me. I almost felt sorry for him. Roll over and in behind, got a tone, one 'winder off. "Fox Two" The missile streaked like a dragon, leaving a serpentine trail of smoke. It tracked and flew up the Fishbed's tailpipe in textbook fashion.The explosion was more satisfying then awesome. Better you than me. "GODAMMIT RAMBLER! AWNSER!!!" "eh?" I pulled throttle back to cruise as my adrenaline ebbed. I didn't realise how much I was sweating. "Finally! what the hell happened? you just stopped talking!" "Any more MiGs?" "yeah, but they're all splitting. a couple of our guys RTB'd after you didn't awnser." "good. how many'd you get?" "one." "total?" "6-7 total, estimated." "damn!" "Nash three got two, so did Rambler four." "Four's bingo." "RTB, four. Nash and Rambler squads, form up. Let's head home." "two, roger." "three, roger." "four, roger." "Nash lead, roger." "Two, how many'd we lose?" "one. Nash four caught some cannon. Two 'chutes. All the Zipper guys augured in too." "Damn! sounds like I missed the whole fight." "Now I wouldn't say that." "Ram, Bingo fuel."

Yes, thank you TK for allowing me to blow up things the way that I've always wanted to... with a fighter jet. TK for prez 2012

False, I've been to three. Well, four if you count Canada. The person below me was sure that he had a tone on that MiG, but didn't see the Phantom the MiG was chasing, and then blemished their record with a freindly fire kill.

is that photoshop, or WIP?

Thanks D, I've been looking for a pilot like this, but I didn't know which download it came with. You saved me a lot of trouble!

looks kinda like a TA-4 + AMX + Eurofighter, with a bit of mirage 2000 thrown in for good measure. I like it's looks, it's not really beautiful, but elegantly functional. Though the big bubble canopy does seem out of proportion.

You mean there's sports other then hockey and football?

You'd be suprised how often that happens. In my city here I've seen mobs of people flying flags from Israel, Ukrane, Kosovo, Australia, France and Germany, just to name a few. You wouldn't see that in quebec, though. THey don't even fly the Canadian flag there.

False, I've had about 15 seconds so far. The person below me thinks "alot" is a word.

nice touch with the Cubs to pick off... I'm thouroughly enjoying taking those ships down.

"Okay two, find that radar site." "I can't see s**t. If you hear a boom, it's either me or the radar."

well, St. Patrick managed to get the snakes off of ireland, maybe we can get somebody to do that with the eels.

Now we just need a big black monolith in the middle of this canyon, 1x4x9. TMA-4.

I was there last weekend. It's where they tested the "AvroCar". It was a miserable failure, for those who don't know.

If you take the numerical value of every letter in a president's name and multiply them together, you will find that it is evenly divisible into the year that they were elected in. Using this formula, I have predicted that the next president will be named Yellink McWawa.

Oh no, I see where this is going. First person to rent a movie theatre for multiplayer WOI gets a prize. Jeez, some of those pits are approaching actual size!

It's that red lightning stripe. It makes anything silver from the 50's and 60's look good. Here's mine: testing some night bombing strategy...

Yeah, I had been using the gun editor and I wasn't having problems, so I never really gave the Weapons Editor a second thought. A folder for the lods and bmps and inis (oh my) isn't really necessary for me, all I did was add one weapon. And I didn't know anything about the .DAT file, so I just treated it like an ini.

Yeah, I discovered that trying to make ground flares work is but an exersize in futility. I just made the flares very light ("Parachute Retarded") so they float for about 3 minutes before burning out, enough time to turn around, nail the target and then they go out on the egress to cover my butt from the AAA. Works pretty good.

Okay, I now have a flare launcher pod that works fairly well, but I still haven't been able to figure out how to get the flare to stay lit on the ground. I was hoping that there would be a simple entry for an explosion effect, and I could just replace the explosion tga with the flare tga and increace the duration, but I haven't found anything. I might fool around with the "Effects Class" a bit though... Anybody know where the "SmallBombEffect.ini" can be found? Also, THE RF-4C PACKAGE TAKES UP MORE SPACE THEN MY ENTIRE SFP1 INSTALL! thank goodness for external drives...

well, I think I am using an '06 editor, that would explain everything. And I always wondered what the .DAT was for... now I'm off to find new editor and kick myself... EDIT: Well, that was the problem. I suppose that I should make sure all of my stuff is updated before making a thread about it next time... thatnks for the help, guys!

hmm... bunyap pack causing game crash... that's exactly what happens to me, but it's because I'm using a painfully slow computer and the hard drive overload of the bunyap pack is just too much... In the other thread I'm trying to figure out how to add weapons without a weapon pack to get around that problem.

It's SFP1 with the Oct. 08 patch, but I'm using an editor from the previous patch... I thought that might cause a problem, but it's only an ini editor, and I figured that it's probably the same post-patch. If that turns out to be the problem, I will kick myself. say, where does one find a weapon editor for the '08 patch?

Fly low and fast. Or if you get cought high, turn twards the missile and then break off hard at high speed. Nerve shredding, yes, but it works. Barrel rolling is good too, but what's the fun in that?