He hasn't spotted me, and a moment later I am almost in range. It's a waiting game; will hel spot me before I can close the distance?

Closing on Bandit: notice the red box.

Just before I fire my wingman is warning me that there is a bandit closing on my six, but he is on it. A few seconds later tracer fire is arcing over my head, and I hear an impact on my airframe. I dip and jive around a bit, whipping my head back for a quick look. The bandit is now at my five o'clock and breaking high. I turn my attention back to my victim.

External Panning View

I let fly from about two hundred yards and catch a piece of him before he breaks hard left and then rolls to break high. The MiG is more manouverable and I can't stay with him, but in spite of no smoke from the aircraft a moment later I see the pilot eject!

My wingman is celebrating my victory with me. Meanwhile, I am also receiving calls from the rest of the squadron. There have been a few other kills and I may have lost one pilot.

Now my wingman calls a bandit location at my 2 o'clock high and I swing my view in that direction. I have a MiG pulling toward me at about 500 yars and 2,000 feet overhead, but he is hot on the trail of another Sabre.

Click to continue

Scratch Two!

It's a great opportunity, and I am able to pull onto his tail very quickly. This time my rounds have more effect, and he is making smoke as my wingman calls the kill.

I notice that my fuel is getting low, but I have the taste of blood and decide to try for one more kill. I spot a llikely candidate at three o'clock and slightly below me. As I turn to engage I notice a second MiG nearby but decide to ignore him, since I have my wingie for protection.

However, this MiG spots me and begins manouvering. I attempt to stay with him but I make a bad move and find myself in a spin. Whew, this is a nasty one. I finally recover at 11,000 feet. Only now do I notice that I have lost some lift on my left wing as a result of taking slight damage there. Time to call the squadron to disengage and regroup.

SUMMARY

I am immensely impressed by the experience. I had a lot of fun with this mission, and the flight modeling, squadron and ground control comms and view modeling all feels great.

I noticed after this mission that I did not have COMPLEX pilot AI set to ON, which may explain the ease of my kills. My squadron of twelve came up against twelve or more MiGs and we did fairly well. I have a feeling that it will be a lot more difficult next time!

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