Tom Sanford

COMBAT

The primary difference between jet and prop combat is quite simply SPEED. Everything happens faster. Takeoffs and landings are at higher speeds, cruise speeds are above the maximum speed of most prop aircraft and best maneuvering speeds are high as well. For example, the Sabre's best maneuvering speed in combat is in the 250-knot plus range. Contol response is also much more rapid in jets than in prop aircraft. This just takes some experience to become acclimated. And unless you are accustomed to flying jets, you might want to first fly the campaigns in Easy flight model and mission difficulty settings, moving on to the advanced settings later.

SPECIFICALLY:

You will need to learn how to use your airbrakes (spoiler key) in order to prevent over-shooting a target in many cases. Jets just don’t “bleed speed” like prop planes do when you back off on the throttle.

And you will find that TRIM settings become more critical in having a steady gun platform.

You will also find out about high-speed stalls when flying at altitudes of 25,000 feet or higher, and learn to be a bit gentler with your control movements under those circumstances.

Accurate gunsights are also very important because of increased ranges and shorter shooting windows...for that reason all of our player aircraft have "tweaked" gunsights, unlike the stock CFS2 aircraft.

All aircraft have been provided with KNEEBOARD CHECKLISTS for takeoff and landing. Use them. ( C or Shift + C depending on keyboard.)
You will find that many aircraft also have useful NOTES in this section pertaining to the panel and aircraft characteristics.

WINGMEN

CFS2 has some difficulty landing AI aircraft, again because of the differences in performance parameters between props and jets.

If you like to land your aircraft manually at the end of a mission like I do, and you slow to normal approach/touchdown speeds, you will experience most of your wingmen “bailing out” or crashing. The AIs don’t have flaps or airbrakes and cannot decelerate as rapidly as you, so they land at too high a speed or slow too much and stall-out. The more wingmen in your flight, the more critical this problem becomes. With a single wingman there is seldom a problem, with seven you might lose half the flight. Do not confuse this with the occasional wingman who will bail out or crash because of previously sustained combat damage.

You can minimize this by making a very smooth and steady approach with no drastic deceleration or maneuvers. Or you can also race ahead of your wingmen on approach and land “hot” but safe using your airbrakes. But the best policy is to fly directly over your airfield at approach speed without landing, because your wingmen will land. Then you can do a normal pattern and land. Of course, if you chose to just press ‘X’ to end the mission, you don’t have to worry about all this.

Please read our Getting More out of Missions gude to use your wingmen to your best advantage.

NAVIGATION

All campaigns and missions are designed for you to use the WARP feature. You will find that it is enabled at all times when you are not in contact with the enemy, or within a defined Combat Zone or Target Area. You will miss nothing by warping, but take a few seconds to look around at WPs because there may be some interesting sights to see.

If you chose to fly your WPs manually, you might miss something because you will not know the correct altitudes, i.e. you might be too high to see something you’re supposed to see.

All player aircraft have been equipped with a GPS panel pre-programmed for all of the Korean bases…some 37 of them. It would be hard to get lost even navigating manually. The panel is, I believe, activated with SHIFT+5 in all aircraft, but check panel notes on the individual planes.

There is a nice map of Korea included with the basepacks, which I encourage you to view or printout in order to become familiar with Korea. Each base is there with its nav data.

DROPTANKS

All droptanks on our aircraft are functional. When you jettison one that is empty, or when you go into combat, you will note that your fuel gauge goes back to full reading as you switch to internal tanks.

CARRIER OPERATIONS

The carriers you will be operating from in naval campaigns will all be moving at their maximum speed of 30 knots to aid your takeoffs, as placing catapults in CFS2 is not practical…nor is it necessary. Also, you will note that your aircraft has been moved to the extreme aft end of the carrier deck. Specific instructions for carrier takeoffs are in the notes for the individual campaigns in which they apply. Suffice it to say that carrier takeoffs are made easy. But you will also find simulated catapult launches, as well as airstarts, in our carrier campaigns.

Landing on a moving carrier in a jet is actually no more challenging than doing it in a prop plane, so I encourage you to try it. CFS2 has never been able to land wingmen on a carrier, so it’s easier to give them the SPLIT command before doing so. They are doomed anyway.

And remember to ignore the LSO’s instructions on approach, as he has never seen a jet and has no idea what he is doing. He is scheduled for jet training soon, but is currently just being quietly shunned.

The carriers are all moving on a fixed track throughout the mission, so where you are in relation to the carrier at your last WP depends on how long you were away. If you are not using WARP, aren’t using your TAC display or just want to find a carrier to land on, you can use your GPS to do so. For example, the track of the carriers is approximately 100 miles, or about 3 hours long. Your GPS has the beginning and ending positions of each carrier track programmed in (like Yankee 1 & 2). If you’ve been out two hours (see cockpit clock), fly to Yankee 2 using GPS, then retune GPS to Yankee 1 and fly down the track until you find the carrier. It will be about 30 miles downrange.

ADVANCED INFORMATION

Advanced Information and Recon Photos are very useful, and sometimes necessary to mission success, so use them.
They aren’t there for looks.

To use Advanced Information, the one thing that you have to do manually is update your airbases.dat file OR (suggested) use the airbases.dat file provided. (See install instructions in campaign packs).
Failure to do this will cause a CTD (crash to desktop) when you attempt to use this feature.

KNOWN ISSUES

The only potential conflict that we have found in beta-testing the campaigns has been with an addon customized HUD available on several of the download sites. This may not affect you but don’t use it. It negates that nicely “harmonized” gunsight we gave you.

All we can do is design a package for a default CFS2 install, though we have loads of addons on our machines and haven’t experienced a conflict.

In fact, several testers who had room on their drives, are installing the Korean project in fresh duplicate CFS2 installs for simplicity…and because of the number of upcoming campaigns they want the flexibility of customizing the install for Korea. This is, of course, a luxury many cannot indulge in because of disk space limitations.
See FAQ page for doing a duplicate install of CFS2