kodiak@amiga.UUCP (Robert R. Burns) (09/10/88)
So I thought I'd add my two cents to the F/A-18 discussion. I had made notes
for these but lost them, so I'm doing it from memory, so I may mess up on the
details.
Interesting things to do:
1. Fly around the world. If you look from the flight tower as you do it do
you get whiplash as you get more than 1/2 way around? (I don't know: it
takes too long and I wasn't looking when it switched from looking east to
looking west.)
2. Land the plane with the nose pointing into the air. How? You don't want
me to spoil the thrill of discovery do you? ;^} If you don't get it
quite right the plane will slowly settle down -- eerie to be looking out
the window when this happens, but I didn't have my landing gear down at
the time so I was stuck.
3. Free flight from locations 0 or 8. One of these is near a north "edge
of the world". Fly due north up to max altitude and thus wedge yourself
against the edge of the sky and the top of it. Now let loose with some
missles and look from outside ... they're sitting right next to you but
I havn't been able to get them to damage me when they explode.
4. My favorite: do the AF-1 mission and land slightly behind and to the left
(west) of AF-1. Note that AF-1 does *not* land on the runway, but
between the two of them and then taxies to the left one. Anyway ...
when the "President's plane has landed" screen appears, THERE YOU ARE!
So cool, not just a canned image but a "live" shot.
5. Structures are weird. Taxi around on the ground near buildings and they
display unsettling wall shifts. Taxi onto AF-1's wing. When I tried to
look like a shuttle (on top) it finally blew up. Disappointments: You
cannot fly into the dirigible hangers at Moffet AFB (for non SF Bay Area
folks, these are impressively huge structures). More disappointment:
bridge roadways are vaporous. Never was able to land on the side of a
mountain....(was *I* bored w/ the scenarios?)
6. Fly straight up from the carrier. Look from the carrier. What *is* that
rotating thing, my plane? No, I thought so at first, but I figured it
out after I bailed out and the plane (sans pilot) ditched.
7. More disappointment: You cannot die while bailing out. I did it upside
down into the middle of the aircraft carrier (head on run @ 150' viewing
zoomed out a little from outside to the side of the plane). Interesting
to see the parachute open up under the blacktop of the carrier -- I must
have survived because I landed right in the medical quarters :-) :-(.
8. The F-16 intercept mission is a good way to practice formation flying.
75% throttle @ 270 degrees. I find the flying upside down slowly over
them is a good way to get the mission complete message. Hitting them
slowly just causes minor structural damage.
9. More disappointment: misleading scenario descriptions -- gunning down
everything in sight is usually just fine, "escorting the F-18's back to
base" just teaches you that they lied about going back, and you don't
even have to look at the enemy sub to complete the sub mission. I've
tried to but never seen any enemies take off from the sub carrier:
I think they just appear near it *POOF*. You cannot sink the sub.
You've got to trip a wire on the carrier to be refueled (I made a
perfect landing sans hook in the correct (south to north) direction
and I had to taxi back to the wires and "pull" to be refueled).
:-( :-(
Summery: good flight characteristics but unpolished (and too few) scenario
implementation.
In article <1115@cbnews.ATT.COM> wbt@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker) writes:
)The Rescue scenario is also a pain, as they don't bother to equip
)your plane with conveniences like, oh, bombsights
^^^^^^^^^^
10. But there is one! fly level @ 450' @ 70% power straight to the downed
pilot and release when the pilot is directly under the square hump in
the center top of the otherwise smooth curve of the "dashboard". My
problem is that half the time I release a flare :-(.
- Kodiak
--
| / _ _|' _ |/ Bob Burns . . . . .---. .
|/ (_)(_)|(_\|\ {pyramid|oliveb|cbmvax]! / \ |\ /| | | __ / \
|\ Kodiak \ amiga!kodiak _______/ A \| \/ |_|_|___|/ A \
| \ Software "dedicated to the science of fun"\_________walker@sas.UUCP (Doug Walker) (09/12/88)
In article <2861@amiga.UUCP> kodiak@tooter.UUCP (Robert Burns) writes: >1. Fly around the world. If you look from the flight tower as you do it do Wait a minute, this is impossible. There are set limits - you just DON'T go beyond a certain point. In fact, you run out of longitude and latitute lines on the map screen if you look. What's even stranger is that there is LAND out there beyond the edge - you can see it, but you can't get to it. >4. My favorite: do the AF-1 mission and land slightly behind and to the left > (west) of AF-1. Note that AF-1 does *not* land on the runway, but > between the two of them and then taxies to the left one. Anyway ... > when the "President's plane has landed" screen appears, THERE YOU ARE! > So cool, not just a canned image but a "live" shot. Even better; time it JUST RIGHT, and you can fire missiles at AF-1 just before the "live shot" starts, and see them heading towards AF-1 in the shot. I, too, was fairly bored with the scenarios (thanks to countless hours flying time). I was practicing dead-stick landings from 40,960 feet onto the carrier and was shocked to discover the landing runway was NO LONGER AT 350 DEGREES! The entire carrier had rotated about 40 degrees! I think this must be a bug. I had noticed some strange-looking behavior as I came down, but I assumed it was due to having to wrestle with dead controls (turns are especially hard). I did manage to land on the carrier dead-stick, but I had to line myself up with the runway under power first. Anybody else notice this? (NO, it was not the Russian carrier).
kodiak@amiga.UUCP (Robert R. Burns) (09/14/88)
In article <625@sas.UUCP> walker@sas.UUCP (Doug Walker) writes: )In article <2861@amiga.UUCP> kodiak@tooter.UUCP (Robert Burns) writes: )>1. Fly around the world. If you look from the flight tower as you do it do )Wait a minute, this is impossible. There are set limits - you just DON'T go )beyond a certain point. In fact, you run out of longitude and latitute lines )on the map screen if you look. I gotta say it... Think what Columbus, Magellan, et. al. would have accomplished if they just trusted and followed maps. :-) )Even better; time it JUST RIGHT, and you can fire missiles at AF-1 just before )the "live shot" starts, and see them heading towards AF-1 in the shot. I *am* impressed. One more pan... it's always the same time of day. Early on in my frustration in scenario 6 I decided to try another scenario and see if the trick was to hang around and wait for the sub to surface, but the sun is always at 135 deg. in every scenario and never moves. (What a nit!) - Kodiak -- | / _ _|' _ |/ Bob Burns . . . . .---. . |/ (_)(_)|(_\|\ {pyramid|oliveb|cbmvax]! / \ |\ /| | | __ / \ |\ Kodiak \ amiga!kodiak _______/ A \| \/ |_|_|___|/ A \ | \ Software "dedicated to the science of fun"\_________