perry

After Tarpan decided to call it an evening tonight, I decided I'd try crashing in to a few mountains.

Started on Gulf of Oman piloting the Su-34 by myself for a bit. Then MilesTeg joined the air squad and we took turns crashing. Neither of us really had a clue how to fly, but it was still fun. I think we managed to kill a few of the USMC guys, and, if nothing else, we kept the USMC pilots occupied so they weren't dropping bombs on our guys.

After that, StrikeFear joined the air squad on the oilfields and he was my chauffer for the round. If that wasn't fun! That was my first time flying in the bomber with a good pilot. He'd fly me across the map at a nice slow pace and keep the bomber lined up on targets.. "I got a lock on him!" *BOOM* He probably got frustrated with me because I couldn't figure out how to spot the USMC fighter that seemed to be always on our tail. And I seemed to miss half the targets he lined me up on.. including a tank whose turret I swore we blew off.

After that was Zatar Wetlands and StrikeFear & I were the only ones in the air squad, so we just flew around in the fighters all map. Good practice for me because the USMC didn't have their jets up much. Towards the end of the round I got so that I was starting to understand when to release my bombs and actually killed a few people that I had intended to kill. I'm starting to get the hang of that whole mountain avoidance thing

I have a joystick but it acts silly half the time. I wish it had been working tonight.. I was just using my keyboard to fly around Zatar - makes controlling the throttle really hard.

StrikeFear

Perry - it was great flying with you. You did great for a first-timer. The jets require some skill.

The enemy air force were up - but Zatar is weird like that - if your team is not spotting enemy aircraft, you could happily bomb all game and never see them. And they were troopers, too. We pretty much kept em down when we saw them, but they didn't give up! And there were some good dogfights over the Essex until we left the playing field too long and got punished-to-death.

As for the bombing - I never got frustrated with you. Not once. I know what it's like as a bomber. Sometimes you just don't understand why you're not getting a lock, and when you let the missile go - you just have to hope it does the right thing. As far as I can tell, the only thing a gunner can do to help is click the fire button.
And when it comes to dogfighting, you keep your head up, and try to spot the enemy jet for the pilot - that's hard, cuz if your driver is any good, he's whipping around and it's hard for you to even keep track of which way is up. But practice WILL make the difference.
Besides - don't sweat it. The pilot we were up against is one of the best I've ever had to fly against. It's been a while since I've seen him in the skies and I did much better this time, but he's good, and he will make a bomber's life painful and short and a gunner's life boring. - especially when you don't have a fighter wingman (like we didn't). We were lucky to take him out as often as we did.

__________________
"You live and learn. Or you don't live long."
- Lazarus Long

darth_fazer

hi strikefear!
looks like you're the one to ask: how to fly these jets?
i have lots of hours in flight sims (IL-2, the old falcon, etc..) but i'm to dam stupid to fly the jets in BF2.
when the airspeed drops below 300 the jets act like falling tree-leafes, and even with burner it takes a horrible long time to pick up speed and get the nose up gain.
what's a good value for mouse sensitivity?
with higher sensitivities the rolling motion is getting nasty, bit still not enough to pitch the nose up.
how do you fly constantly at low speeds?
how to land? - i always overshoot the RWY and crash into buildings.
how to handle the F-35's vertical mode? i can take off make the transition to normal flight, but when i try the transition back to hoover mode my nose drops and i cannot get it up gain.
i manged to land vertical once. i was low when i did that. what i found (correct me if i'm wrong) the hover mode works only until approx. 70-100ft.
and as for bombing - when to relaese the bombs? any indication on the hud (bombsight indicator?)

cheers

darth fazer

StrikeFear

Each question, in order:

1 practice on a local server til you get a feel for them and all their flight characteristics
2. No, the sim is too dumb for you. These jets are designed to be fun and accessible for non-sim players. Forget what you know.
3. Yep. You got it.
4. Dunno - I use a joystick. (What are YOU doing using a mouse?!?!?)
5. Are you SURE you have flight sim experience? Rolling doesn't pitch the nose up.
6. There is a lower limit to your speed which will maintain altitude. You'll have to keep your nose up. Also, not that the throttle axis is a centered axis.
7. Wait on landing until you get a little better at flying. But it's as simple (not easy, but simple) as approaching low&slow.
8. Yes, there's a moment of "loss of control." Make sure you have enough altitude (doesn't take much) before you make the transition.
9. Consider yourself corrected.
10. You'll have to just eyeball it. Make sure "rear chase cam view" is readily available to you. Drop your bombs and look back to see how they land. Do that every time, and you'll start getting a feel for when/how to drop em.
11. Nope. The HUD doesn't take some important factors into account - speed, AoA, delta AoA, rate of roll, turn angle, etc. Don't count on anything on the HUD except your boresight.

__________________
"You live and learn. Or you don't live long."
- Lazarus Long