By Thomas "AV8R" Spann

  What I also recommend that you do is make sure your ECM jammer is on and that you start pumping chaff and flares to spoof the oncoming missile. Both chaff and flares are rendered nicely in F2. If you want to have the best opportunity to out turn the missile you must keep your speed near the corner velocity (approximately 740 kph instantaneous or 810 kph sustained). At that magical moment what separates a fighter pilot from fodder is to make that break turn just before the missile strikes you at Mach 4 or greater.

This is a skill that you will undoubtedly have to practice over and over until you perfect it. Using F2's mission recorder feature will help you to examine your break timing as you review the video. To be bluntly honest, I can survive 2 or 3 missiles in a row. But a fully loaded "missile boat" enemy will eventually destroy me.

This is why the Soviets carry so many BVR missiles. They hope to overwhelm any opponents before they ever have to get into a CAC (close air combat) situation. Where F2 needs some serious attention is in the missile logic in that they can do uncanny things like: go through mountains and make some hairpin turns (SAMS). Being able to actually padlock the incoming missile would also make a good user option that would aid in survivability.

Graphics and Extendability

The remaining item on graphics that I want touch on regarding F2 is its extendibility. You can alter the cockpit art, the canopy reflections, and the skins. One of the really great features I enjoyed about Su27 1.5 was that you could pick different camo skins for your plane for individual or team visual identification. What was extra nice about this feature is that it wasn't just seen by you as with Jane's F15E, or forcing you to be in DOGFIGHT mode within Falcon4.0 to get this feature.

SSI has chosen to allow players to have access to the graphics files so that the outcomes are unlimited. You have several options here. You can simply select the from the built in camo choices within the mission editor, manually edit out the su27.bmp file with your favorite graphics editor (like Adobe or Print Shop), grab the work done by others (see add-on links), or go for the Cadillac of Camo tools: Eric Joiner's Game Tool Technologies (GTT, see add-on links) Flanker2.0 Camo Commander.

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GTT Camo

In this review you can see my enhanced version of GTT's "Acrobatic Team" air show camo. The F2 Camo Commander gives you several new designs and even improves the MiG29's appearance as well. As you buy, make and trade camos with buddies, you can use this tool to load the camos automagically. Note that any user altered camos must be selected in the F2 mission editor as the "European1" selection to show up in the simulator.

MISSION EDITOR:
The Mission Editor and Campaigning.

Missions within F2 come in several flavors: instant action, single, and branched campaigns. Instant action missions provide you with a quick mechanism to get into the fray without having to actually go into the mission editor itself. The available choices allow for all the multi-role combinations as well as choosing what kind of enemy and skills you will encounter.

Instant action also changes the time and enemy strength to mix things up. Probably the most valuable use for Instant Action is to use the automatic padlock and simple radar model mode. This combined with invulnerability will give the novice the chance to live long enough to learn how the new targeting and tracking systems work. Apart from that, IA gets old real quick for the experienced Flanker pilot.

Instant Action GUI.

Single missions are both viewed and customized with the Mission Editor. If you have a powerful mission editor, you can extend the life span of a sim indefinitely. If you only have canned missions, after you've flown them all the sim itself gets canned. F2 comes with both a large complement of canned missions and with the ability to make your own missions.

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