Return to normal Tuesday joint missions

[Father Cool]

Does anyone have a functioning copy of last nights Tacview file that they can post? Mine was broken and only showed my plane and no weapons releases.

Cheers
FC

[Neil Willis]

Tacview hasn’t been set up on the new server yet, so it may be difficult to find a good recording.

[Father Cool]

Ah that makes sense. Shame as I really wanted to review what happened.

[Flyco]

Not a great success, but at least we got airborne. I knew it was not going to go well, when, immediately after take-off I retracted my gear and then, for some unfathomable reason, retracted my flaps - stupid - stupid - stupid!! Even in my new aircraft I fell a little short of scintillating. Eventually a passing friendly Mig-29 put me out of my misery. I would congratulate any A-10 driver that got home, but the best we seemed to do was when Luis put his crippled ac down at Sukhumi. At least Luis got a Sam-6, and I think Geoff got a few kills as well

I would like to say that it will go better next time. However, without TeamSpeak, I am going to find the weaknesses a bit difficult to identify. I would therefore be grateful if anyone can identify any obvious faults (there were quite a few!).

An obvious one is that I forgot to brief on AWACS and AAR frequencies etc - I will correct that. I also need to sort out the triggering of offensive aircraft to cater for fewer blue aircraft and higher blue losses. But do please let me know what your gripes were. I have a thick skin and without your uninhibited feedback, improvements will be difficult.

The high point was the Harriers, who clearly couldn't see what all the fuss was about. They got airborne, flew to their target, killed all the Migs and flew home. A bit boring really. Just to make up for it, I will set up a couple of Mig flights for them for the next time - just so that they can share in our pain!

Thanks to all of your who tried - sorry it wasn't the great success that it should have been.

[Neil Willis]

It was difficult without AWACS support. I got a blue on blue kill, but given the lack of SA, probably inevitable I am afraid.

The main purpose was to give the new server a bash, and that was a complete thumbs up.

Small points:

The carriers were a long way from objectives, so fuel was critical. There was no indication of TACAN on the F-18 carrier.

Comms - we need far better radio discipline. I suspect some of us were broadcasting on Teamspeak and SRS simultaneously through poor push to talk config. We were also getting cross talk from the F-14s on other channels.

It will always be difficult getting everyone operating in harmony, but I still say the mission was a success given the reasons we opted out of joint missions when the bugs nerfed things. I don’t believe any of them caused problems?

Mission writers will have a lot of aircraft to cater for, so perhaps it is time to split ops into 2 separate servers? Time will tell.

[Father Cool]

I would second the carrier distance. It was a good trek in to get to the CAP point.

As for the SRS coms, we didn't get any cross chatter with F-18's on our 127.7 frequency which was designated for our carrier. The only F-18 I spoke to was Jack and he was on 251.0. Who did you hear?

[Paul(Dragon)0043]

Unfortunately, I was getting cross chatter from the moment I turned on the 3 radios in the A-10, at first I thought it was TS, but I temporarily disconnected it, but was still getting cross chatter, I was on 134.0 VHF, 251.0 UHF, and 31.0 FM.

I had my SRS overlay open and none off my freq's were turning white to show anyone was transmitting at the time, so I don't really know where the chatter was coming from, except it was loud, and I just couldn't concentrate on the task at hand.

[Flyco]

There would appear to have been some comms problem. Paul could hear a very great deal of F-14 transmissions, no matter what he did to try and stop it. It does sound as though this aspect was, at least in part, the system set up, rather than individual's finger trouble.

I have taken note of the carrier positioning. I was torn between giving a reasonable forward speed, at least a 3 hrs transit, and not getting too far in towards the coast. It was clear that I very much overdid this.

[Flyco]

Regarding frequencies etc, we did agree some time ago to use the same frequency for Carriers etc on every mission. I suggest we standardise on Carriers, AWACs and AAR ac with standard Frequencies and TACAN channels for all Blue AI elements. After all, we do not change the airfield frequencies between missions.

We could also stick to the same callsigns for the different Tankers, which would avoid F-18s trying to get fuel from a 'boomer' and A-10s trying to get fuel from a 'droguer'. It would all help us concentrate what little grey matter some of us have left on essentials.

If everyone agrees I will draw up a kneepad page, with all this 'fixed' data which could be included in each mission.

[Father Cool]

Sounds Good Alan.

Regarding the comms, I was set at 127.7 on the 182, 251.0 on the 159 and on teamspeak within the 11th squadron 'room' as two of our guys had SRS issues. I have no idea how Paul was hearing any of our comms as it shouldn't have been anywhere near his frequencies. It's all very odd.