Part 90: Season 15. Red Lightning (Harrier GR.3)
Season 15. Red Lightning - Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus (Harrier GR.3)Let's do some prep work
...
What?
How does the story go? Ah, right. The horny wizard Wenlock, who rides a MiG-27, turns half of Europe into angry Clancyfied Commies. Barbie's sister is turned into a Pegasus turbofan engine, which makes her a million times quieter, more useful, and cheaper to maintain, than she ever was as a human. Barbie rides her pegasister into battle, armed with the
And for fuck's sake, Notepad++, stop suggesting to correct "Pegasus" to "Gaseous".
This will be a bit of a challenge run. No support flight. I said it a while ago, that this radio option wasn't functional, until around the time of SF2NA release. All Gen1 and early SF2 players had to fly their Harriers without an F-15 GF summon at hand.
S15E01: 1979.09.18-19 (Tree-hugger)
1979.09.18
This time we start a bit earlier than in the US campaigns. I can't see us surviving till the end.
No new toys for Barbie.
But a lot of people to send to their death!
The mission video
In which we should have hurried
With all the time we had in the beginning, the results are rather unimpressive.
1979.09.19
A CAP mission. The best way to get capped.
The mission video
In which Floggers bend us to their will
At least, we're accurate
The mythical highway strips function only as grave markers.
Losses so far: 4 KIA
1 - Flogger guns
1 - Atoll
2 - Apex
25% of the unit gone in one update.
P.S.
What I said about the "soft landing" incident, is based on the posts here, here and the pics. It's magic
P.P.S.
We've struck gold!
Africanus posted:
You took off pretty much how we do.
Basically and not verbatim from the NATOPS:
For a Short Takeoff(STO):
1. Nozzles 10 Deg.
2. Hold Brakes.
3. Throttle, run up to 70%.
4. Wipeout controls, check instruments.
5. Release brakes.
6. Throttle, Mil-stop(100%)
7. At a pre-calculated airspeed(try 80 knots or so), Rotate nozzles to 60 Deg.
8. With two positive rates(altitude and vsi increasing) Gear up.
9. Slowly rotate nozzles forward as you accelerate(see below).
MAINTAIN LEVEL FLIGHT AOA AT ALL TIMES UNTIL SECURE IN WINGBORNE FLIGHT. Basically use the nozzles to rotate and "push" yourself off the runway and use the stick to maintain attitude. Once securely off the ground with the gear up you can slowly rotate with the stick and nozzles SIMULTANEOUSLY TO MAINTAIN NOZZLE ORIENTATION RELATIVE TO THE GROUND. At that point you "nozzle out" so to speak. This can be confusing, I may have to re-write this and clarify. What you did in the video worked, so whatever.
You did a conventional landing, which is fine. In the jet the flaps have a couple different settings, for a CL you would set the flaps to AUTO and they would schedule themselves downward automatically as you decelerate and land. Short landings use the STOL flap setting, which schedules the flaps all the way down to the setting we saw in the video. I suspect that SF only has one flap setting, all the way down. If that's the case it's probably the reason you got so much lift since that flap setting isn't actually used until the aircraft has already decelerated.
Regarding the "soft-landing" incident.
Obviously for a tight-knit community that prides itself on skill and professionalism, the incident was a massive source of shame and embarrassment. The articles Selenic posted have a very good run-down of what actually happened. Something they left out was the mishap pilot and the MAG CO screaming at each other over the radio, one threatening to request mast(a method of bypassing your chain of command to report unlawful orders and such) and the other threatening relief from duties. Eventually the mishap pilot agreed to the plan after getting the Duty Officer on the radio and getting him to record in the duty logbook(a legal document admissible in courts martial) that he was doing so under orders and was absolved of all responsibility in the event of said eventual mishap.
Meanwhile in the front seat was a nervous student who listened to the whole exchange and said nothing while keeping his hands and feet clear of the controls for his irate instructor. It was his 3rd flight or so in the Harrier. He would later go on to be an instructor at NAS Whiting Field in Florida while I was in Primary Flight Training there. He was one of a very few Harrier instructor training us to fly the T-6B Texan II trainer.
His callsign?
"Serta"