Our flight has finally reached our cruise and attack altitude of 20-thousand feet and I reach down to the left sub-panel and put the autopilot on steering and altitude hold.
One thing I’ve noticed thus far with FF3 is that the flight model feels a bit more “doggy” with a full load-out. Flying at 20,000 feet and doing some mild 60 degree bank turns (2G turns) bleeds speed a bit more than previous installs and recovering airspeed after maneuvers requires a bit more time as acceleration back to cruise is a bit slower. I don’t know if I’m imagining it or not, but the fully loaded F-16 feels much more draggy and heavy; precisely how I would “imagine” it to feel. It is how I would think the real aircraft would feel although that is pure supposition on my part.
The sound effects in FF3 are outstanding, with new aural tones in the cockpit and new Bitchin’ Betty sounds. They are very well done and are excellent replacements for the previous effects. I also like the gear retraction sounds and in flight sound.
The radar cursor has a new effect also in that when you slew the radar scan volume to below sea-level, the bottom numbers turn red indicating a negative value. Nice touch.
Coming up on 68 miles to the target and things are heating up over the area. Multiple flights are engaging enemy bandits and AWACS has multiple threats when I query them for the picture.
I lock up an AWACS designated threat at 40 miles, a flight of MiG-19s. Luckily there is a flight of F-15 CAP aircraft between us and them, already engaged, allowing us to concentrate on the bombing run.
