homepage Forums Read Only Forums Read Only Forums Yankee Air Pirate 2 (Read Only) AAR: 650314 Ho Chi Minh Trail

Yes, you all already know about this one, but I liked it so much that I wanted my own AAR. The inmersion you feel flying this mission it's difficult to explain. Just some advices to fly it correct: wait until is late in the night, everybody at your home but you is sleeping, dim or even better, turn off the lights and you are ready to go.

One more thing, you will need a dark room also to see the pictures and videos in this report (remember HD)

First, as always, some background, so you know what is going on. Long but very interesting reading:

http://www.talkingproud.us/Military121504.html

Starting in the dark parking, not too much activity in the base at this time of the night, most people enjoy their earned sleep, not us. As I taxi I see the lights of Blind Bat (our C130 night FAC) moving on the runway and getting airborne. Soon after, Lead start rolling and I follow. I hurry to join up, the night is dark, there is a solid cloud cover and I don't want to lose sight of number one.

Once on his wing, formation is tricky, we fly inside the soup and there is not horizont to reference, it's really easy to get vertigo in these conditions and find yourself overcorrecting to keep position. Then you will fall into PIOs and see your leader dancing around your canopy, is he? is me who flies erratic? To avoid this I fly with one eye on my leader and the other on the ADI. Very subtle with the stick...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7lsOSLu44o

Blind Bat takes off





My turn



Bad weather formation



There is some openings in the clouds that allows us to see our secondary navegation device







We are getting there, we descend below the clouds, I see Bat has started it's lighting work.



Leads goes first, he makes his run and I see his bombs miss the trucks column, he did not align correct, the cloud ceiling is too low to execute a proper dive. I just see some light and scarce AAA.

My turn, I line up and open the bay... and then the hell gets unleashed, holly crap!! The first plane woke them up!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhfWNRxGNDY

I forget about my 250kts dive, I just deliver the bombs level and climb to get the hell out of there! No second passes today boys!



I don't think I got any targets but today is one of those days when doing this...





...is all I wanted, reward enough.

Taxi to parking, shut down the plane, shut down the computer, is late in the night, everybody sleeps, evrything is quiet, I want to go to bed.

Un saludo

Tulkas

Another great one. Tell me...did you like night flying? It is hard to show it in screenshots and videos since the light is degraded in the process. Here at YAPland, we think they are some of the most realistic and engrossing of all the missions.

I love night flying, If you can have a dark, quiet room, I think it is much more inmersive than day flying and you really get into the sim, you have to focus to fly instruments and if not, is easy to get vertigo, desoriented and find yourself flying upsidedown. After all, your office chair doesn't give you much physical information about the plane attitude , you relay solely in your instruments.

The lighting is very impressive in YAP, AAA at night is SPECTACULAR, I love how the explosions lighted dinamicly my cockpit, how the stream of tracers moved trying to track me, the flare light from the Herc... Very impressed with this mission.

Congrats for a great job

Cheers

Tulkas

you do know that in your youtube videos I can here you typing and clicking, breathing no in game sound?
oh and some music.

Yep, I know, when I recorded I forgot to open the correct audio channel before entering the game, so it recorded what got in my micro but not what came from the game.

The shots were good so I did not care to take them again.