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== USS EISENHOWER, 1615 HRS ==
== CONFIDENTIAL ==Attendance was higher than usual in the briefing room below deck, no doubt a result of one of the scariest carrier landings anyone had ever walked away from.
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It had been a routine (read: "boring") combat patrol mission - that is, until two bandits appeared unexpectedly on radar, converging on our flight path well inside international waters. My IFF squawk got no reply. As they approached the reach of our long-range missiles, I vectored my wingman to the closer blip, and locked up the second one myself. "Engaging," he called back, as he rolled away into combat spread.
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AWACS identified my target as a Fulcrum, which only carries short-range weapons. Maybe, I thought, I can lock him up and scare him off without actually wasting any ordnance. I continued toward him, our combined closing speed over 1000 knots, and the adrenaline began flowing.
Should be coming into visual range... there he is! Missile armed and tracking, and... Wait! My single target split into two contacts!
Things began happening very fast. I launched the first missile, and called out for my wingman to engage the second MiG. Only then did I realize that his original target had dragged my wingman away from formation. I was on my own! I locked onto the second bandit and fired another missile. But by then, he was in range to fire back. Cockpit alarms were blaring as I pumped out flares and pulled hard up and left to get out of the way. His missile flew harmlessly past behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the fireball as one of my missiles was more successful.
Okay, I thought, my odds are getting better. But I'd lost sight of the other guy while evading his "face shot." Where did he go? The answer came quickly, in the form of tracer bullets streaming past my windscreen. Another grunting, high-G break turn to ruin his aim, but not before a few rounds had pierced my Hornet's airframe. I eased off the stick to avoid bleeding what speed I had left, rolled inverted, and dove away to separate.
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The MiG driver stayed high, perhaps hoping I'd lose him in the sun. But a 9-Mike is not so easily fooled, so I risked full afterburner against the cool water below to bring my nose up into a clear look-up shot at the Russian fighter, before he could get out of range. The Sidewinder growled hungrily. Fox two! My wingman re-appeared from nowhere, just in time to see the MiG pilot eject from his smoking jet.
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It was only when we got within sight of the carrier that I realized my control system had taken serious damage, with the throttle stuck at full power. I radioed my wingman to set down first while I considered my options.
Not enough fuel to divert to an airbase. I could eject near the ship and would be picked up within minutes. Or, I could be a hot-shot and try to save the plane with a daring unpowered landing after running the tanks dry. A normal carrier landing is already one of the most nerve-wracking things a pilot can do, but a dead-stick approach, in a possibly damaged plane, borders on madness. Which, perhaps, is why I just had to risk it.
I jettisoned my remaining missile and circled at the marshall point until the fuel gauge read empty, then called for landing clearance. As the engines spooled down to an unnerving silence, I lined up on the approach beam, staying on the high side. The LSO talked me down, knowing full well I had only minimal control.
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I dropped the tailhook, but waited until the last moment to lower gear and flaps in order to keep my speed steady. Finally, there was nothing to do but finesse the stick with one hand while readying the other hand on the ejection handle.
The Hornet landed hard, and snagged the first wire. The front gear snapped, then the hook, and I started sliding almost helplessly across the deck.
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Between full brakes and screeching metal, I somehow managed to come to a stop - just a few feet from the bow. Eventually, I even remembered to breathe again.
...And save my pilot file, so I could continue on with the next simulated
mission another day.
It's not a textbook, and won't get deep into technical details unless such background information is interesting and pertinent to improving your results. And it's not about secret cheat codes, easter eggs, hacking, or other artificial tricks that are not part of the illusion of reality. Nor is it a "strategy guide" with give-away clues to "solving" a specific game's missions.
Instead, this book is a self-guided training tool, intended to help you have more fun and less frustration, by becoming more proficient in the challenging role of the combat pilot. If you're new to combat simulators, it will help fill in gaps in the software manuals, which vary greatly in quality and amount of detail - and often assume you already know a fair amount about military aviation and air combat. If you're an old pro, you may still find a new trick or two, and perhaps get an alternate perspective on simulated flying.
I've taken a personal approach to the subject, and don't expect everyone to agree with my opinions. I happen to prefer sims that fall somewhere in the middle between pure arcade games and detailed "hard-core" simulations. I'm not a "simulator snob" who will refuse to fly a simulator that doesn't have the ultimate in flight model accuracy, or that has a few creative alterations like manual flaps on an F-16 (they should be automatic) or a carrier-capable F-117 (which, in fact, has a tailhook, but only for emergency use). Nor am I opposed to features like pause keys and time compression. I've even occasionally been known to turn on an "unlimited ammo" option to get through a mission that I just couldn't seem to survive any other way.
In case you're wondering... I've never piloted a real aircraft - except for one Air Combat USA dogfighting adventure described in Appendix A - let alone flown combat missions for the military. I have enjoyed PC flight sims from the "early days" - before the first IBM PC, in fact. I also had the opportunity to "fly" in a full-motion fighter simulation, which you can read about in Chapter 22.
I should point out that I am not a fan of violence. It's a curious irony that the deadly and expensive practice of military aviation, when moved into an artificial world (where the only thing that's really in danger is your ego), becomes something of a sport and an intellectual challenge. There's an older form of simulation, complete with battling warriors, conquests of castles, and assassinations of royalty, about which no-one apologizes for playing - it's called "chess." In some ways, even real modern aircraft and weapons (and media coverage) seem headed toward that science fiction theme where actual wars are settled in arenas, with the destruction limited to a few people and a sizable fraction of the combatant countries' budgets.
One more editorial comment: when I refer to a simulator pilot as a "he", I'm doing it out of convenience (and what the heck, the vast majority of sim fliers are male). If you're a female pilot, please don't take offense or think you're not welcome in the virtual skies. You can take solace in the fact that I refer to the artificial "pilots" of computer-controlled aircraft with male pronouns, too.
Included with this book is a unique software application for visualizing air combat maneuvers. ACMVIZ lets you play back canned scenarios from a number of viewpoints, with complete control over playback time. It's much more effective at illustrating dynamic three-dimensional situations than static 2D diagrams. Chapter 3 explains how to set up and use the visualization program.
In case you want to skip to a particular area of interest, here is a summary of the remaining chapters of this book:
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