Tuesday 14th January 2020

[john (scooby)]

will you be on blue or red side mate?

Not sure, highest bidder or first to request?

i think blues might need the numbers more, once you choose a side then youre commited to that side

[Robbo]

Was going to do ATC tonight, but my PC seems stuck in a pre-POST boot loop. It's been acting strangely for a few weeks now but the motherboard and/or CPU may have just given up. It was built in 2012 so it's had a good run.

I'm not into building PCs myself so after I confirm it's dead I'll be looking for a ready built gaming PC and finally get the performance I've desired for so long.

[Flyco]

I cannot say that last night's mission was one of my most enjoyable. Again, I found myself, with no idea of what the sortie involved, whereas there were several who clearly did know - did I miss a published briefing? It had the feeling of a quickly thrown together kill-fest. I am becoming slow of mind and feeble of body, but I didn't think I had reached that stage yet.

I think, largely as a result of several of us simply "following the leader", there were others who lacked any real mission awareness. Or am I wrong? I also rather resented spending 2 hrs of my life for just 25 minutes flying - albeit it would have been 35 minutes if it had not been for my inability to evade a pesky F-14 and a Harrier! I was also unimpressed by the very indifferent R/T procedures.

I will conclude by confessing that my general bewilderment led to my committing a very elementary mistake in my weapon handling. After re-flying today, I have satisfied myself that I was solely responsible for none of my JDAMs releasing simply because I 'tapped' rather than 'pressed and held' the pickle button - something I don't ever remember doing before. Consequently having arrived at a point where I should have been able to hit all me assigned targets, I actually got none.

[john (scooby)]

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it Alan.
The basic premise is straight forward enough. An airfield attack with top cover and sead. Obviously I don't know anything about blue sides plans or procedures.
Overall I think the hogs did a great job getting through a hostile airspace and successfully caused mayhem at the target.
For what it's worth it was me and matt who got you. I put 31 20mm rounds into you're engine and the damn thing still wouldn't go Down!
Also don't forget this is early days and most deffinately a work in progress. You know much better than I do how hard missions are to make and balance

[Flyco]

My primary concern was the total absence of any basic brief. It also seems to need better balance between the Red and Blue forces.

I am firmly of the view that, in real life, an hour's sortie needs at least a three hours brief, unless it is a 'scramble for survival'. Perhaps not entirely realistic in this case, but the basic data should be available in advance - ac, load-out, frequencies etc.