Tuesday 9th June 2020

[Neil Willis]

It would be a good idea to ask people whether they will be attending the following Tuesday night as part of the briefing. We are now publishing mission schedules we’ll in advance, so mission planners are not put on the spot and asked to make last minute changes.

I know you will always get people dropping out, or joining late, but wherever possible, a good advanced idea of numbers, give or take a few would really help planning.

It doesn’t help of course that the F-16 was well and truly screwed up in the last update.

[Flyco]

I am sorry I had to drop out last night, but my microphone seems to be u/s - need to get my headset open and take a look. Since it was intermittent, and I did drop it a couple of days ago, it may just be a loose connection.

I would like to know how the mission went last night. So, if anyone has any points about the mission, please let me know; or if I anyone has a Tacview track recording that would be useful.

[john (scooby)]

From uzis point of view. most of us had severe technical issues of 1 sort or another.
However we achieved every objective completely and also the f18 sead worked well too.
Imo we demonstrated we can do more than just cap

[Mutley]

From uzis point of view. most of us had severe technical issues of 1 sort or another.
However we achieved every objective completely and also the f18 sead worked well too.
Imo we demonstrated we can do more than just cap

He says as climbing out from the target airfeild , victory rolling as the bombs impact the targets sending them to oblivion . oh shout yeeeaaaharrrr as well as per squadron sops

[Mad dog]

I am not sure if any of the other Sqns had similar issues, I know the TACAN signal for both carriers was not working on any channel so UZI prepared to recover to KBL which was sending a TACAN signal. UZI waypoints looked to be okay, but after take off I flew to my wypt 1 to find it 200+nm in the opposite direction to where wypt 1 should have been. Once I got back to the real wypt 1 by dead reckoning, my TID said I was 4300nm away from my waypoint and I was covering 3 miles a second, warp2. After we had cleared the AOR of naughty jets we turned towards KBL for recovery and the server crashed out for everybody.

I don't know if the issues were related to the server, the mission or the latest patch, but something was definitely screwy for Uzi. I will say that we did see loads of messages about red air, AWACS was running and the mission seemed to work fine with the issues mainly being confined to the jets.

[Mutley]

i cant remember a mission when it wasnt screwy for uzi

[Flyco]

I did not set any new waypoints for the F-14s. Last time I was told that they were using a different grid etc, and would prefer to sort out their own CAPs. I did explain in the initial posts that I would leave it up to the F-14 Sqn Cdr to do his own route and briefing. However, the original waypoints were still there - did no-one see them?

As for the TACAN, it worked OK while I was testing the mission, for the a-10s and F-18s at least, including while on the Carrier (Abe) in the case of the F-18. Will anyone who did (or didn't) see an operable TACAN let me know.

If I can get hold of a TacView recording, I will be able to see better what went wrong. The Server Tacview is recording blank tracks.

Once I've had some feedback, I will put the mission on my server and get a few members to try it out.

As for flying to a waypoint, before discovering that you had gone 200 nm in the wrong direction! Was the compass not working, was there no coast-line below etc etc. Come on!

[Matt]

From 1(F) Squadrons point of view for the Harrier, it went very well indeed, we engaged and destroyed all aircraft on the pan at sochi including the L39's and identifed and destroyed rotary aircraft operating from a FARP on the southern side of the airfield.

We had the same issue as Uzi in reference to the TACAN at the Abe, but mitigated this by returning to waypoint 1 and identifying the fleet by eyeball.

All in all a good mission for Colt flight, and a very well done to Uzi flight for being very adaptable and employing their aircraft in an A/G role with sort notice and to great effect.

Great job Alan

[Flyco]

Thanks Matt - good to know that the Harrier element went well. I wasn't sure how viable was the request to go chopper hunting, but I wanted to give you something different to do. If there are any suggestions or changes you would like to see to the Harrier element just let me know. What fuel did you land with, and what would be a good Bingo for that mission? Just so that I can amend the printed brief.

I have just flown the mission, on my own PC, again as a SEAD F-18, and everything worked OK (apart from the landing where I got an 'ungraded' and a 4-wire) - TACAN was solid throughout.

Would still welcome a TacView file if anyone has one.

[Mad dog]

The waypoints on your map from the briefing looked to be correct. The Uzi elements that went for the airfields, entered their own new waypoints. As for:

"As for flying to a waypoint, before discovering that you had gone 200 nm in the wrong direction! Was the compass not working, was there no coast-line below etc etc. Come on!"

I didn't get to that distance before I corrected, and no there was no coastline to dead reckon against as I came off the deck of a ship in the middle of the ocean. I could see the waypoint on my TID, but with the TACAN needle spinning like a roundabout I was trusting my other instruments instead.

As I said before, I am not convinced the issues we encountered were all to do with the mission, I largely suspect they were server or update related.