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Tank Busting With Enfield Flight

I chose to start the mission airborne…we begin in a typical travel formation.

Because of the distance to the target, we’ll fly the initial legs at altitude. I use the communication option menu to tell my wingman to go line abreast. The communications menus have several levels that allow you to tailor your directive calls to your wingmen.

Eventually, it’s time to drop down into the weeds, so I tell my wingie to close it up. I skim the tops of the mountains as I let down into the valleys and head for the dirt. I want to mask our flight in the valleys as we push into the Ust’-Dzheguta area.

As we run in, I’ve been watching my RWR scope. So far, no spikes of anything worthwhile…but we’re keeping in the weeds just in case. These valleys are worth their weight in gold for the cover they provide. The terrain feature of the map makes it easy to pick out the best ingress route. One never knows…there might be somebody out looking to make some pork bar-b-cue!

Speaking of the map…along the way, I’ve been doing a little target area study. I’m looking for references to help locate the bad guys. Here is a feature that I have found to be useful…the distance to go and heading computer. A button click activates this feature and I use the mouse to draw a line between two points to get their relative bearing and distance apart from my jet to the point that I’m interested in. The distance and heading show up on the top of the map screen.

Another tip…I use a rough rule of thumb of a ground speed of 5nm per minute. By dividing the distance to go by 5, I get an approximate time to go to the next point. I use the clock on the lower right of the HUD to give me an ETA at that point. This time and distance gauge helps me plan my initial Maverick attack. Since I haven’t seen the target, I need some crutches to help me point the Maverick seeker into the expected target area. I want to be “pipper on” at about 5nm…that way, I can give myself about 30 seconds to acquire and lock the target. If I can fire within this time, I can break away without getting into AAA range.

With this in mind, I check the map again.

The enemy force is moving north on the road going north out of town…a road in between a river to the west and a power line to the east. I want to be looking into the targets from about 5nm away…looking at the map. I can see that point will place me right over the town. I want to begin my climb (“bump up”) before that point. I want a bump point that is about one minute of flying time (5nm) away from my “pipper on” point. I’ll use the power line south of the town that crosses my flight path as my approximate bump point.

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