PWCG P-38 Lightning Strikes Co-op Campaign

[Painless]

Well I suppose that is one way of doing it 402nd.... 

The 485th prefer the “only half the squadron makes it back in one piece with a hop skip and jump finale terminating on the grass” method !
Also giving the ground crew audience value for money is important to us, making the landings last at least 10 minutes is always preferable.

[FoolTrottel]

16 minutes ago, Painless said:

Well I suppose that is one way of doing it 402nd.... 

The 485th prefer the “only half the squadron makes it back in one piece with a hop skip and jump finale terminating on the grass” method !
Also giving the ground crew audience value for money is important to us, making the landings last at least 10 minutes is always preferable.

Me thinks by the time the remainder of your gang gets back home, all ground crew already left - Feierabend!

[Reggie]

4 hours ago, Painless said:

Well I suppose that is one way of doing it 402nd.... 

The 485th prefer the “only half the squadron makes it back in one piece with a hop skip and jump finale terminating on the grass” method !
Also giving the ground crew audience value for money is important to us, making the landings last at least 10 minutes is always preferable.

Well, if we are being honest here Major Painless, lets be 100% honest. The truth is we sometimes "help" ensure that only half the squadron gets back because you, Arty and I don't like sharing those British Waaf's that have been brought in to run the air base. There aren't enough to go round, so we had to get rid of a couple of chaps you know - otherwise it wouldn't be fair 😉

[Jabo]

5 hours ago, Painless said:

Well I suppose that is one way of doing it 402nd.... 

The 485th prefer the “only half the squadron makes it back in one piece with a hop skip and jump finale terminating on the grass” method !
Also giving the ground crew audience value for money is important to us, making the landings last at least 10 minutes is always preferable.

Making it last 10 minutes is just self-indulgent.

[Painless]

I do remember them WRAF (as they were know in my day) types, splendid chaps, funny shape though ?

[Jabo]

Signing up for tomorrows mission Tom.

[BluBear]

Reportin' for doody

[Painless]

Raring to go Skipper .

[Crash]

I will bomb some houses bad guys

[Squawk]

Manana mis Amigos!

[Reggie]

Reporting for duty skipper. 🐶

[Crash]

I might not be there tonight as I have to take Belle my old retriever to the vets. Looks rather bad

[DD_Fenrir]

Just now, Crash said:

I might not be there tonight as I have to take Belle my old retriever to the vets. Looks rather bad

Oh no, Crash. Hoping for a positive outcome mate, really am. Good luck.

[Painless]

Very sorry to hear that Crash, hoping for a good outcome mate. 

[Sid]

410th BG Debrief

A successful mission was carried out by Delta and Sid. We were tasked with bombing the railway station in Krefeld. Cloud cover dictated that we stayed below the cloud at approximately 6000ft and we set ourselves up for a run in with a tailwind. High windspeed, 10m/s, at this height provided us with a very gusty and wobbly platform...Sid dropped close but missed the train...Delta dropped down whilst Sid diverted the flak's attention, Delta then carried out a perfect low level drop along the line of the track and took out the train and rolling stock. Both aircraft made a rendezvous at Venlo and landed back at Eindhoven with no damage to either aircraft. No other aircraft were seen and flak over the target was relatively light.

Major E Shoo

 

[FoolTrottel]

402nd

Attacked targets at Emmerich, triple AA and transport. Estimated some 35 pieces destroyed.

As we still had some bombs left, we ventured south and attacked AA guns and field artillery.

Red 2 - dd_Jabo got hit by flak, nursed a/c to Ophoven base. He landed safely there.

Rest of us (4 a/c) landed at home base.

Good show 402nd!

[Painless]

485th did not have the best of days ! Red 1 (myself) and 2nd Lt Artois,  got hit by 88 Flak at around 11500 ft alt well into enemy territory. Had to hand over 485th to Capt Cloister (Friar) and make for a friendly airbase with holes, no right aileron, damaged right engine and three fuel leaks. Stellar Artois also had serious damage and made for his nearest friendly airbase. We both made successful landings thankfully .

After completing an extended patrol over enemy territory Capt Cloister made the decision to bring the remainder of 485th home without attempting any ground attack which given the circumstances was probably wise. All was well with the 5 ship formation returning home at around 1500ft @ 250mph when Mobius had a sudden and catastrophic airframe failure resulting in his demise ! We think due to an earlier flak burst causing a delayed structural failure ?

So, no enemy aircraft sighted, no ground kills, two damaged aircraft, two long truck rides home, one lost aircraft and pilot.....

HQ... please send hookers and whisky !

 

 

[Reggie]

Well, it wasn't all a loss for the 485th, some of the jokes en-route were slightly palatable.

Just glad we were in a JU52 or something, as that route would have taken us 3 hours at that flying speed 😁

[AOB]

Can I join in next Monday? If nothing else I will make someone else look good. I believe it is a co-op mission and units are assigned on joining Teamspeak and then spawning on the airfield. I have a few days to practice taking off in the P38 and do not need practice crashing in one.

[delta7]

Next lightning mission is scheduled for the 7th, you will be assigned a moniker and squadron prior to mission, you must be on comms and available prior to 2100 gmt to allow mission number to be confirmed. 

[DD_Fenrir]

Hey AOB.

Glad you're interested in joining the campaign, our next mission is on Sunday 7th February at 2100GMT which I understand is your Monday morning? If you could join half an hour/15 minutes before hand I will happily include you if you can still make it.

One thing that consistently catches out the first timers is getting the engine start procedure running without a hitch; we start engines off at the ramp then taxi to the relevant runway. Due to the specific procedure to engine starts in the Lightning we have often found that it can catch out those unfamiliar with how to do it, people mostly being used to air starts, or on the runway with engines already going, so I would suggest you take some time to get comfortable with getting the motors running, and how to rescue the engine start procedure should you accidentally fluff it!

Here's the procedure in case you haven't tried it before:

1. Ensure both engines selected (they are both selected by default when you spawn in).

2. Mixture 100% - Levers fully forward 

3. RPM 100% - Levers fully forward

4. Press Engine start key (default 'E')

5. Left Engine will start first, then Right Engine.

6. When both motors running reduce Mixture to 70%

7. When ready to taxi release Parking Brake by pressing your brake input/key once.

8. Should either motor fail to start ensure you switch off that engine by selecting it and pressing 'E' to switch it off prior to trying again.

 

[AOB]

53 minutes ago, DD_Fenrir said:

Hey AOB.

Glad you're interested in joining the campaign, our next mission is on Sunday 7th February at 2100GMT which I understand is your Monday morning? If you could join half an hour/15 minutes before hand I will happily include you if you can still make it.

One thing that consistently catches out the first timers is getting the engine start procedure running without a hitch; we start engines off at the ramp then taxi to the relevant runway. Due to the specific procedure to engine starts in the Lightning we have often found that it can catch out those unfamiliar with how to do it, people mostly being used to air starts, or on the runway with engines already going, so I would suggest you take some time to get comfortable with getting the motors running, and how to rescue the engine start procedure should you accidentally fluff it!

Here's the procedure in case you haven't tried it before:

1. Ensure both engines selected (they are both selected by default when you spawn in).

2. Mixture 100% - Levers fully forward 

3. RPM 100% - Levers fully forward

4. Press Engine start key (default 'E')

5. Left Engine will start first, then Right Engine.

6. When both motors running reduce Mixture to 70%

7. When ready to taxi release Parking Brake by pressing your brake input/key once.

8. Should either motor fail to start ensure you switch off that engine by selecting it and pressing 'E' to switch it off prior to trying again.

 

 

[AOB]

Thanks Fenris, I would have instantly failed because of the way my plane is set up in practice.  I am going to fiddle with my settings to make them compatible with your instructions. Also I am slightly confused with the start time. The forum calendar shows that the game will be from 0530 to 0730 my time which is GMT plus 10.5. Your start time is 2 hours later than that, not that I am complaining or anything. 🙂

[Jabo]

Hey AOB, it's also worth ensuring that you have a button set up so you can feather the prop if you have an engine failure - leaving the prop windmilling causes a huge amount of drag so being able to feather the prop is important. Having made two single engine returns so far in this campaign I can vouch for this. I have set up two buttons so I can select either engine 1 or engine 2 plus a third button to feather/unfeather the selected engine.

[DD_Fenrir]

51 minutes ago, AOB said:

Thanks Fenris, I would have instantly failed because of the way my plane is set up in practice.  I am going to fiddle with my settings to make them compatible with your instructions. Also I am slightly confused with the start time. The forum calendar shows that the game will be from 0530 to 0730 my time which is GMT plus 10.5. Your start time is 2 hours later than that, not that I am complaining or anything. 🙂

From the various online calculators (which coincide with your GMT+10.5) it appears the start time for you would be 0730. I trust these over the forums calculations - not sure why the forum is so keen to get you up at the crack o'dawn?! 

If you could be on from 0700/0715 that'd be great.