Carter28

Started a new campaign but found out after 2 missions that the squadron wasn't in-theatre for over a year after the starting date so i cancelled it and treated them as training sorties.

Going Feet Dry.

16May65 Ensign Roger Kirby was shot down by ground fire over the target. A good chute was seen and Kirby was taken prisoner as soon as he reached the ground.

8MAR65. It was a prestrike mission to Bac Giang this time. Just like the first mission it was launch off the catapult then a climb to 20,000ft while heading for the beach. Since i was going in first there wasn't much in the way of delaying before reaching the push over. Right about at the mouth of the Red river, it was showtime. Drew scattered fire at first but it started getting serious as i overflew Nam Dinh heading upriver. Once past that it was a break of sorts as only the occasional AAA position opened fire before reaching the turning point slightly SW of Hanoi. From there it got to be a steady stream of AA fire all the way to the primary target. I thought maybe it would lessen as the Doung river was crossed but nothing of the sort occurred. Enemy fire grew even more intense across the river and all the way to, over, and on the turn onto the egress route. There was a brief respite as the distance toward the ridge was covered but once there and onto the final leg the groundfire was the worst that had been experienced during the mission. AAA was so intense that over the north side of Haiphong the decision was made to go full burner until feet wet and to zoom climb to 10,000ft once over the water. AA fire was still steady until about three miles off the coast though.

Well, i'll admit some gamey things i have done but nothing totally arcade style. Mainly shrikes on EA-6As, HARMS on EF-111s, 9Ls on F-111s (Not for dogfighting, for dealing with Mig23s from head on), rocket pods/WP bomb loaded P-2s, all SARH loadout for the F-102....That's pretty much as far i really gotten with doing something a little extra.

I'd love to see the results if you can get things going. The closest i've ever gotten to something like this in WOV was a Flight of EA-6As loaded with Shrikes. Between the AI birds ECM and erratic flight paths and random Magnum calls, things were sure pretty interesting to say the least.

2MAR65 The weather was as fine can be for a mission. Orders were to get some pictures of what was left of a fuel depot after the Air Force hit it so we could send a mop up strike if needed. Also need to see what kind of AAA reaction there might be but it really shouldn't be too much. Launched at 1330 then turned onto course while gaining altitude. The plan being to give the Air Force guys a good head start and let them get in ahead before i made my move. So it was up to 20,000ft and wait for the right time. Everything was just like training so far, even if all i was doing was circling about 30 miles of the NV coast. It wasn't too much time before it was my turn. Nose down, throttle back, aiming for the right moment, distance, altitude and speed according to plan. Letting the plane go down until it was truely time for business. It was quite surprising to see just how sudden the NV reacted. As soon as i went feet dry SW of Haiphong they were already shooting. Sparse and inaccurate, but still coming up. As i neared Haiphong more AAA was being fired but it wasn't really bad, mainly low and behind, 37mm for the most part, some 85mm and a few 57mm tracers were seen. The turn towards the primary leg really had them missing badly and over the primary it wasn't bad at all even though they were blasting away. Speaking of the primary, on the way towards the target zero smoke was observed nor was any kind of fire as i closed in. Looks like the Air Force missed. Throughout my time over NV MIGs were up but they were no threat all all. I was moving too fast and low and for the most part, the AAA fire would have discouraged any threat from 6 o'clock for much of the mission. The final leg SW of Hanoi to the the sea was a snap. Was in the vicinity of multiple MIGs but they were onto the Air Force heading outbound down at three low mostly to my track so they were no threat. Finally it was feet wet SE of Thai Binh and back home with the film. All things considered, it was as smooth a mission as one could ask for.

Considering the Mirage 5 is an attack bird, two missiles are all you need. If you desire more missiles, fly a fighter. The primary concern of anyone hauling bombs is to get the ordnance on the target then getting out of the area as quickly as possible.

Ok, i'm back in action.

Just getting ready to get back in the cockpit. Esposito and his crew were shot down on a recce mission over N. Vietnam. I'm working on my next pilot already.

Just been busy with things. I'll be back soon.

APR65 Pleiku, South Vietnam. So we got off to a quick start. First was basically a stroll away not too far from base. An enemy base camp so we loaded up with a lot of rockets and WP, except for our plane as they had us lugging four 500lb bombs. How they expected us to deliver them with any kind of accuracy was beyond us but i wasn't in the mood to argue. So three of us went on the mission. To cut a long story, we found some trucks moving under some sparse tree cover and attacked. First pass, two bombs off the wings, scratch one truck. Talk about a lucky drop because that's what it was, pure luck. So we spot another truck and what do you know? Same result. Two bombs, another truck. So by now everyone really has their eyes open (with Williamson on the scope) but no joy. After a few minutes of circling around some we decided to overfly the area real low but then we remembered some A4s were coming to hit the camp so we climbed and waited to get a visual on them. Guns first saw them from the back so we lined up and maneuvered to get a good sight on their drop. Sure enough, after they dropped we went straight in and as we dipped in to take a look, Surfer in the nose spotted a truck. A bit of a climb then another dip and in we went. Sprayed the area with rocket fire and we got that truck. We were pretty sure there was more down there but why press our luck (and strain the airframe) so back to base it went. Next mission was a quick step over the DMZ to check out something someone saw recently. The flight up there was nice and quiet. At least for us, the Air Force B-57 flight that was supposed to hit what we found flew over some VC position and their leader was shot down!. Oh well. It was an easy check ride up until AAA opened up on us. We were at 8500ft so we figured it should be too bad but it soon got pretty lively. As me and Kenny put the aircraft through some evasive action, Surfer saw something of interest at 11 low so as we broke to take a look, a very apparent base was seen by all. Even though we had the ordnance, our orders were just to take a look and anyways, the fire was getting pretty bad. So as a grand evasive method, me and Kenny decided to dive in over them and drop some WP so we could fix the location. So that's what we did. Except the AAA was so bad we actually circled back towards the base in our evasion. Seeing as we had climbed at a good rate, it was time for a go to hell move. So that's what we did. Back down we went with rockets flying. I didn't aim at anything, just fired as many down among them. As we were heading back over the hills now, we really went through some contortions but we got out of there in a hurry. All in all it was good that we only had some very minor holes from the whole affair. Could have been worse, those Air Force guys had another B-57 hit over the base and had to bail out on the way home due to the damage.

BTW. I was going through the process of changing things up to fly out of Da Nang but figured let me not screw things up. Anyway, who would expect a Navy squadron to be based in the Central Highlands?

Somebody is out of their $^%&ing mind! How the %&$# do they expect us to do this %&*% with this airplane? So the Air Force has this new thing they are doing and somehow, someone piped up along the lines of "the Navy can help a bit". So they pick us. Of every squadron in SE Asia, they pick VP-2. Notice there isn't an A or an F infront of the number. We fly patrol aircraft, for Christ's sake. We are an anti-submarine outfit. What the hell do we know about finding and bombing VC? Nothing that i know of, but they figured we fired ordnance before so we must be qualified for the job. So as i barely get my feet on the ground in Da Nang after getting in country, they cut a bunch of orders and move us all they way here in the middle of nowhere, absolutely nowhere near the sea. Yeah i remember what my dad and uncle said when i told them i'd be flying a Neptune. They were Marines in World War 2, y'know? They saw everybody and everything getting blown to hell on island after island across the pacific and they saw the guys in planes flying patrols, taking vacations in comparison. Oh hell. I need a drink. I'm David Esposito. I'm a Naval Aviator.

I should be starting a new campaign soon. I'm working things out with the aircraft and squadron i'm going to use. Absolutely guaranteed no one has ever don't DiD with this plane and in a single mission test flight, it's going to be a really big challenge.

Didn't even know the remod pack existed. I'll go look it up. I figured some time ago how to run something of a viable campaign using the RB-66C. I was looking to run a few practice missions to to see if the threat is serious enough to be worthy of a good challenge.

Anyone knows if one exists? I went to fly it in single mission and didn't see anything, just empty space at the front

2LT Eugene Hornwell was on his photo run flying through heavy AAA fire when his aircraft was hit and went down just short of the primary target over Hanoi. No chute was seen

Udorn AB, Thailand. Drew Haiphong again. Except this time it was with Capt. Brown and in daylight. Some strikes were going in and they needed some pre photos. Takeoff and the outbound flight was routine. The action began as we came down to mission altitude and broke out of the hills SW of Ninh Binh. By now i'm firmly convinced that there are AA emplacements virtually everywhere east of the hills N of Vinh. We were already being tracked by a Firecan before we even set for our run and as soon as we got past the last hill the ground fire opened up. Not bad at first but from the Ninh Binh to Nam Dinh it was very brisk. There was a lull as we passed Thai Binh. That was good for us as by then we got settled in for the pass on the primary and hit the burners enough to get us up past the mach. And it was a good thing that it was a supersonic pass as the groundfire was of such volume and accuracy that i'm positive the aircraft would have been hit. So we zoomed over the primary and kept on past the ridge N of there. The area N of the ridge was completely devoid of defenses. We swung NW and went on our way, passing on the far side of Kep and Thai Nguyen, keeping an eye on the scope the whole way. Midway along the passage we went to altitude to see if SAM would come up but from some checking us out with their radars, nothing happened. As it stayed that way all the way up and until we headed out N of Yen Bai. There was some meager AAA but the scope was indicating that at least three sites were looking at us. So maybe we were just out of their range or they were reloading after engaging earlier strikes. Guess we'll find out sometime soon.

Hello all. After all these years i finally decided to make the jump into SF2. Still having a blast with WOV Gold and NF packs + mods WOE but i figure since i finally got a Win10 computer, i might as well upgrade. It should be no big deal but as we all know with the Gen1 series, it takes a bit of work to get everything together in the right order. So as i begin looking through the forum here, i thought it would be a good idea to ask about the initial setup as well as the usual patches and their order as well as what the popular basic mods are before i pick up the actual sim. Thanks in advance.

Udorn AB, Thailand. It must have been a reward for that night time craziness that i got tasked with a quick one over Thanh Hoa. Just a quick dip at speed down the Song Hieu river, over the primary then swing SW before turning to head for the hills again. Drew some stiff ground fire at the mouth of the valley so there must be something of interest there. It was less intense over the primary but perhaps they were distracted by some F-105s that were working over something just to the north. As it is the flak bagged one of the Thuds. I heard the radio call and soon after looked out the starboard side to see a fireball trailing thick black smoke arcing earthbound near the bridge. Didn't see a chute but if he did manage to get out it was impossible to call for rescue as he went down virtually right over the area he had been bombing. Hopefully he makes it to a POW camp in one piece.

It took me a while, as well as assistance from Wrench, but i have everything set for now. The final hassle was my joystick but i moved a lot of things on my computer and it all works like a charm now. I began flying WOI but stumbled across the Custom Campaign feature and am currently doing a DiD campaign flying an RF-101. At least the great thing about being so late to SF2 is that all the nastiest bugs have been worked out by now! Hope to do a lot of flying in the future.

Udorn AB, Thailand. Someone, somewhere came up with a hell of a doozie. The primary was over Haiphong, but get this, they wanted it at night! Could you imagine that? Somehow i got involved in all of this and when i took a look at the track that was involved, i fought like hell to do it solo. I was to come in from over the hills at 5000 ft, then pass south of Hanoi, cross the Red River, turn SE and fly over Hai Durong and Haiphong before heading SW over Thai Binh and heading back over the hills passing N of Ninh Binh. They said something about not much to worry about AAA at night. The only good advice i got was from a Major that had experience in Korea. It was "Don't worry about tracers unless they are coming from right on your nose." Ok, Sir. I took my time getting things just right as i drifted down from the heights to mission altitude and then went to full military power to begin the run just past the hills. It seems like scarcely that i did so when the AAA started coming up. I knew it had the potential to be rough but it went past that in an instant. The ground fire was thick and heavy, lots of 57mm in particular. It was so bad, that i was easily able to read the instrument panel from the light of the shell bursts. For any gunner along the flight path, it couldn't have been too hard not to know some aircraft was coming along soon due to all the flashes. As bad as it all seemed, it was fine (all things considered) until the aircraft was S of Hanoi in the vicinity of Bach Mai. 57mm tracer from 11 o'clock coming virtually straight up just missed the cockpit and then the port wing was hit short seconds after. As I went through the systems checks, another hit on the port side came about 30 seconds after. By then the Master Caution was on and i had to decide on a course of action after overflying the primary. Everyone wants to win the big one but my bird was already hurt and i haven't even made the main leg yet. That came soon after. In all that time the groundfire barely skipped a beat. Over Hai Durong the possibility of an emergency deviation from the plan became a reality. Too much AAA, bird hit twice that i know of, Master Caution is telling me something, etc, etc. So i zoomed over Haiphong and just kept right on going on the current heading until i was feet wet. Even then i was still drawing fire from Cat Ba but it wasn't as bad. Even under those lasts bursts of fire i knew exactly what to do. Once a decent distance offshore was achieved , it was then a matter of turning S and getting some altitude. Compared to all the action earlier it might have seemed anti-climatic, but one never knows in these situations. I heard two calls on the radio of other planes going down when all should have been out of relative danger. So i kept flying S until i was sure i was past Vihn then turned W to pass over this area called "The Garden" and get back over the hills in the direction of home. All was quiet and calm except i noticed the bird had problems holding a fixed altitude. To make a long story short, it was just a matter of cutting back on the throttles and putting the nose slightly down and losing altitude enough to get situated for landing in a handy manner.

I'm Gene Hornwell. I'm a pilot in the United States Air Force. Aged 24. I'm from Albuquerque, New Mexico, though i was born in New York City. My father moved us down here after the war. He was here during the war too. First training as a Bombardier and then as an instructor when he came back from England. We are about the same age when we first stated flying in combat, though i do have to say that his debut being in the famous Ploesti raid does have my experience beat by far. When i was 15 i decided i wanted to fly jets and so here i am. After UM, OTS, BFT and the rest. Got honed at the 29th TRS (Photo-Jet) flying the Long Nose recce bird and then it was orders overseas to Thailand.