By Kurt 'Froglips' Giesselman, MP Falcon 4.0 IP

  Adjust the SEAD Escort's TOT to be two or three minutes before the Black Hawk's arrive. Leave the Tot steerpoint locked (gulp). Switch to the SEAD Escort's take-off time and slowly (SLOWLY) using the minutes adjustment retard (earlier) the take-off time. Eventually flight path between the SEAD and take-off steerpoints will turn red.

Advance the time until the flight path turns back to white. Now look at the steerpoints between take-off (1) and SEAD (4). Notice the Airspeed is less than 150 knots. When we adjusted take-off while holding TOT we forced our SEAD flight to fly slower and slower. When the speed dropped below 140 knots on any leg of the flight plan then that leg turned red. We can see the same thing happen it we try to take-off much later and any leg exceeds 500 knots (these speed limits are different for each aircraft).

The A-10 FAC and On-Call CAS should arrive before the SEAD Escort. Just have them pound the shore Zsu batteries. The fireworks of the A-10s pounding the ground at night makes the long flight in over water quite a bit more interesting.

The AWACs and ECM flights can be adjusted now. Both flights should be kept south of the action, out of harm's way. Both flights should be on station at least a few minutes before the Air Mobile package reaches the IP. Both could be on station as early as take-off time for the Black Hawks. Sending up an AWACs is, to me, waving a flag to the enemy that you are planning something in the area. The Falcon AI is not that smart so you can add both flights early if you wish.

The DPRK has two flights to add, the CAS and the Intercept. Remember we have three enemy CAS flights to choose from. Let's try the Su-25s first. Their target is the AMB. Make their TOT for 0531. The SEAD Escort should see this four ship inbound after they pass their SEAD steerpoint. If the Escort does not take out the Su-25s then they will bomb the Black Hawks on the ground. Adjust the TOT for the Hind and Hokum flights to be 0800 so they are not in the air during any portion of this mission.

Click to continue

If we discover during play testing the mission that we cannot take out all four Su-25s and still provide Escort for the Black Hawk's egress then we can switch to the four Hinds or two Hokums. The same results for the DPRK if we don't shoot them down (dead AMB). Helicopters, even Hokums, provide easier targets for our Escort.

The Intercept is a product of my twisted sense of humor. In writing dozens of missions, then flying them with my online squadron, I have found that pilots often relax after they have cleared the target zone and begun their egress. On a personal crusade to try and cure this lax attitude (GRIN), I often add something to the end of a mission just to check and see if everyone is still awake.

In this case, I added the now very angry DPRK sending an Intercept of Su-27s to shoot down the Black Hawks since they were not able to recapture the decoding device. We did not create this flight when we created all the other packages because Falcon will not adjust the Intercept's location and flight times when we change the target's (the Air Mobile flight) flight path or times. Therefore, adding an Intercept should be one of the last things you do in building your mission.

To add an Intercept, turn on just helicopters in the Air Units mission menu, run the mission clock forward until the Black Hawks are at the position where you want the intercept to occur. Select add flight, click on Black Hawks for point of origin, aircraft are Su-27s, mission type is intercept, target is Black Hawk flight number.

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