Flanker562

Heading to the range for gun run practice.

And needless to say if you got one we all would like to see them...

Me: EF2000 Typhoon with 4 x AIM-132 ASRAAM Opposition: MiG-21PFM with 2 x R-73 Archer Duds Usually when I select "Soviet" as the nation for the MIG-21 I get R-73 duds (may be just on the list) so before the merge he was shooting his two R-73s at me. One missed and one connected (as I was pulling to evade I heard the hit, wasn't sure at the time if it was just a miss explosion or a real hit) and had it been a real warhead I would have been smoked. Suffice to say I had never fired the AIM-132 and was seeing if it was as good as the DID one many many many moons ago. Overall standard fare and the EF2000 handles quite well despite feeling a bit heavy on the pitch than usual but that's just my first time really doing ACM with the type. After some cicrling he extended out east and pulled to the left and headed out to sea. So I locked him up with my first ASRAAM and fired, killing him. Not much to takeaway other than the EF2000 does handle quite well in the dogfight arena (though back then with DID's version it was a big difference...) and the AIM-132 seems quite a nice weapon.

2nd bout Me: F/A-18F with 2 x AIM-9X, 6 x AIM-120 and one center tank and gun. Opposition: Seaqeh with gun and 2 x Atoll Having learned my lesson I got my mind right and went at it again, mainly to redeem myself from the earlier bout. Anyways, launched off the deck and intercepted him as he was heading north and after getting within visual range the fight was on. More cautious this time I managed to get into a couple vertical energy fights which devolved into one horizontal scissors in which he managed to succesfully get shots off but thankfully none connected. After that he went real low and I guess was searching for me and tried to re-establish contact. From my perch I selected and fired one 9X killing him. Lesson was learned from previous so it's not as bad as before but shows how paying attention to aircraft types makes a big difference.

1st bout Me: F/A-18F EPE with 2 x AIM-9X and 6 x AIM-120 and one tank Opposition: Seaqeh with 2 x R-13 Atolls This first engagement with the Seaqeh shows what overconfidence can do to somebody and to make sure you're not distracted by other things and misjudging an aircraft. The fight started with me chasing the aircraft (maybe he couldn't detect me? Then again it could be his azimuth limits as I started below him. Once he visually acquired me the fun began. At the start of the engagement he started out with a couple energy circles. Both times I came over the top and tried to get a good firing solution. At the apex of the second half loop I misjudged his direction, thinking he was outbound when he was inbound. My first 9X missed clearly missing him. After that it turned into a few horizontal scissors, and then he began weaving. Maybe he was praying to Allah very judiciously as my second shot fired wide off the mark and he turned away again. This time it was either guns or AMRAAM. At first I tried AMRAAM at least trying to get a lock on him. As such the Seaqeh turns very well for its size even at low speeds and therefore when I was switching to guns I overshoot and he ends up right in my engine wake (next to last image). If he had the reflexes he could have put his 20mm in my tail and i would have been gone. Well some more energy circles and then another misjudge and my second mid-air (my first one ever was my wingman flying into me after a CAS mission in VietnamSEA map) collision. The takeaway is that I'm sure most Top Gun pilots back in the day have experienced, the big bad plane overshooting and the Top Gun Instructor "killing" the pilot. But a lot of it is the low speed handling of the aircraft in the knife fight and it's insistence on the scissors fight, in which if you're not paying attention, can get you.

Maybe as I got a similar reference

Practice as far as I know there isn't. Not many of us level bomb that high.

Yeah I see them too, just to the insides of the main landing gear.

Well Lady Luck and my Google Fu worked out for me today as I found a good four-way of the scheme so now as you can see it's starting to change a lot due to more references (I had three left hand and one right hand level shots, the image I found helped tremendously) so it's being redone so it'll be a couple days when it's finished.

Beautiful Sundowner

Thanks! I have to clean it up so its taking a bit longer than usual but here's some progress

Much appreciated!

An F/A-18F of VFA-14 egresses after striking a target deep in Indian territory.

Only bug is just renaming the planning maps from "India1" etc. to "PLANNINGMAP1" makes it viewable in KMD. Yeah I got Exp2 and patched up but KMD in some cases is still more reliable than the inbuilt mission editor.

That's okay CAS can be just as effective with unguided or guided bombs

lolz though still looks nice from a quick fly through.... though I went more westish hoping to get in the Asadabad area but nope the wall covers that but I'm thinking of altering it slighlty (even though it looks like Kandahar was my only option) but I'm sure I can have some fun with it, guess I'm bombing the Khyber pass though...

Hey so this is just the terrain itself right?

Me: MiG-29C with 4 x R-73, 2 x R-27R and tank (ejected before the merge). Opposition: J-10A with gun. Started off pretty well as prior to the merge I ejected my tank and got into the fight. Let's see... he buzzed by me one time came around and he tried to gun me down but all I saw were tracers as we flew past. After that it was pretty much energy circle after energy circle with the J-10. I got sick of it and came up vertical and pulled back into him and I managed to pull my nose past him for a HOBS shot but yet again Russian engineering failed me as even a 9X could have gotten a kill that easy (and would have ended sooner) as he dispensed flares and the AA-11 gleefully shot those down. Eventually I managed to keep getting into circles with him (that plane has yots of it) and we passed each other with him angling for a gun kill to my tail but thankfully I turned into him and he broke off again. I fired another R-73 and missed though this was of trying my luck and didn't hit. Then I got into another circle and this time managed to get another inkling of a kill and fired. Close but no cigar as the missile tracked the flares. Taking advantage of his confusion I launched my last R-73 finally downing him. The main issue is of course weapon reliability but that's the way it is. I managed to "hang and rotate" with the MiG quite well tracking with my nose as best as possible. Had I been a 1 V 2 fight I would have been a good target for his wingman. Since I had the J-10 on the defensive though I managed to survive. Overall though the MiG is growing on me as a good fighter but yeah... needs longer legs but otherwise is pretty okay.

good! It depends as some you can add to the existing one and importing and saving another and then you'll have those added as well. But it's a good idea to always back your stuff up just in case though...

Yes just open it up and save. The tutorial is to ADD stuff. If you have a weapons pack already it's already organized. All you have to do is open and save, and check it in game. If they're all there then you're good to go.

Don't worry about the first part as the weapondata.ini is already organized for you. All you have to do is open it up with the weapon editor and save.

Starting on the tails

Yeah. Strike Fighters has a very low learning curve as once you figure it out its not hard to forget. Okay you may if you go to SF2. Its that easy.

Well I'll have to edit it but no problem

No you have to put them through the editor as when you start the game the "weapondata.dat" is read by the game so it "knows" there are weapons. The only way to do that is to get the SF2 series. Then you can drop weapons in and start the game and they'll be automatically be there for your use.