F-16 Combat Pilot #3 - Mission: Deepstrike / Result: KIA

I did some of the training and free flight missions last night to get familiarized with the systems and controls. Overall I have to say, that everything is fairly simplistic compared to modern study-sims like Falcon 4.0, but it is still fun to plan and execute the missions. What really bothers me and makes life in the virtual cockpit very hard, is the lack of situational awareness. You have for basic viewpoints from your cockpit and that's it. 

These restrictions make especially dogfighting very hard. If the bandits managed to get close with me, I'm usually finished. Well maybe it's only that my dogfighting skills are a little bit rusty ...

Here's my first mission report:

Primary and secondary targets.

Plotting my WP around those nasty SAM sites.

Before you jump into the cockpit you have to check your targets, plot your waypoints and arm your aircraft. Everything is very basic, but overall everything you would expect from a decent combat flightsim is here.

Bombs, missiles, fuel ..

The target of this strike mission is a factory complex. Therefore I ordered the crew to equip the F-16 with 4 Mk84 general purpose bombs, 2 AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, 4 AIM-120 AMRAM missiles and an external fuel pod.

In the hangar.

In contrast to the training missions, you start real live missions inside the hangar with a cold aircraft.
You have to power up the engine and taxi to the runway. In the sim itself this means: push the throttle forward (press the plus key), get out of the hangar and steer to the end of the runway. No complicated startup sequence, no taxiways.

Lined up.

Once you're in position, push the throttle t0 80%, release the breaks and go into afterburner. At 125 knots we rotate and we're airborne.

Take off!

As we had several SAM and EWR sites on our way to the target I choose to stay low and attack the factory with a pop-up attack.

Everything looks good ...

A few miles out and everything look good first. I stay really low (about 500 ft) and managed to pass the first SAM site undetected.

Passing a city, I presume?

But then I was warned by my own EWR site that enemy fighters are inbound. First I kicked in afterburner and try to evade the bogeys, but as they were approaching directly from ahead of me they were on me faster as I thought. 

AIM-120 in action.

I managed to shoot down two of them with my AIM-120. I thought I killed a third one with an AIM-9 and then ..., we'll then I was shot down.

KIA

Hm, at least I took two of them with me. BTW, "Parachute failed" means that I'm dead. And dead means "Dead". Permadeath! When I went back to the Crew selection screen, my Pilot was gone, erased, deleted, dead, RIP.

Well, maybe I'll be luckier tomorrow. And just in case if I might be not, I will keep a backup of the DOSbox file. Hehe...