Dec 29th - Training session Report

[FoolTrottel]

Had a good session today, invited and led by Fenrir.

Spitfire!

So, first take off was yeah, a take off. No tires screeches, no damage to the runway.  Need some more training though.

Started shooting up some ground targets, some nice ones, that did not shoot at us. Shot one up, then my left hand wing got hit by the one that suddenly raised its barrel up in the air, or maybe it was me dipping it too low. So, anyways, I managed to fly it back to base, no way it would land - so I bailed.

Took a new one, Fen landed as - I think - only he can  And he perfrormed a quick re-arm and re-fuel, as our AA was firing. So I took off from the taxi way - scramble - rather similar to the first take off - all over the place. By the time we were in the air, the offending a/c had been shot down by AA. Good. So, we went off back to the ground targets, shot them up some more. Last targets done, off to a supply column that should be near. It was. We wrecked it, both got 7 trucks. 

So, back home. To land. Oh dear, the thought of that!! But then my game crashed. Oops. An error in d3d11.dll. Oh well, Restart PC, all is fine again.

Took off, and we set out to the enemy airbase. Fen spotted the dots, I followed him. He was a bit ahead, so in the end, he got the interest of two 190D9's. Somewhere before my game crash, I had tuned my rudder sensitivity, that improved my hitting... so I shot both 190's down. For sure, a lot of that success was because of Fen's SA and callouts

On the way home, Fen called out once more: "FT, BREAK!" And usually, my stoic being and right out coolness - one could also say lack of reaction speed or the "Hmmm, Hey, what?" does not help in situations like that, but in this case it was not relevant as at the very same moment, the AA gun shooting at me did damage. Inspection by Fenrir learned my right hand elevator was gone, the stabilizer it had been connected to damaged, the left hand elevator was perforated, as was the rudder.... So, yeah that explained the funny flying the machine did. Now I was afraid the thing would be completely out of lateral control in a slow speed landing attempt, so I was getting ready to bail. Then Fenrir advised me to climb to 4K Ft, slow down, see what it would do. Well, it did not too bad, until I lowered the flaps. Yeah, so, it nearly went out of control, but I could get it back. Phew. So, next was the task to try and bring her lower, lined up on the runway / grass next to it for a belly landing.

Control was still difficult - such slow response on the elevator, no rudder - takes patience to slow it down just using power ... 

There's the runway, there's the grass. (so my approach was good!). Good speed. Now you know, there's that ground-effect. Brilliant when you're in a Spit with elevator damage. Yeah, just when I was about to close the throttle completely, and let it 'flare' on the grass... the nose just pitched up and no way to catch that... 

Managed to bring her back up to some 3K Ft, and bailed out - again ... 

Next time, I'm gonna try and land the thing! Hopefully when I somehow make it home without damage

Thanks Fenrir, good fun, good show.

And to all that are thinking about getting into DCS, stop thinkin', and go for it. And grab the Spit. Even if you get to fly it once a fortnight or once a month like me... it is so effin bwilliant! You do need to know how to do stuff, and when to do it, but if you assign the Autostart procedure - like I did - it just takes some time to fire it up, nothing else. (One can even hear the auto procedure operate the wobble pump) and if you just keep an eye on the Rev counter and on the boost, oh, and on the speed, the Spitfire just flies itself.

 

 

 

[PapaBear]

Yes thanks for all your help Fen, had a great time perfecting my take off's and eventually getting to land the spit without breaking it Also had some fun attacking ground targets, great stuff thanks again Fen for your time and patience