F-14A Zone 5 Campaign info

[Matthew Flies]

As I read on Facebook, they asked the Navy but neither got an answer or got denied.

 

I finished 4 missions by now and I am having a blast! First I had my doubts about the radio comunications and the fly in and out and just a few seconds of action. But when I hear "fights on" I get goosebumps and I am 100% focused.

 

Mission 2 1v1 against the F-16 was pretty difficult to score two kills and manage your fuel state. I needed 5 or 6 approaches. But I learned a few things. And yes I know, I may also could skip or call knock it of. But I wanted to get these 2 kills.

 

Now the campaign unfolds with more realistic scenarios, multiple bandits and wingmans. Learning curve is well balanced. But you need to have advantage knowledge of the F-14. Anyway its great and imo it is worth every dollar.

 

Also kudos to reflected and all other guys here for answering my (stupid) questions.

[Reflected]

9 hours ago, Grater Tovakia said:

If I may ask, what was the reasoning behind the fictional skins/squadrons?

 

Officially you can't sell anything with Navy trademarks (squad logos, or even use the word 'Topgun') without a permission of the Navy's licensing office, and paying a percentage to them. We did not want to go behind their backs, so Bio submitted a request. They did not reply for 3 months so we decided to go with plan B: change the callsigns from 'Topgun' to 'Sniper' and use fictional squadrons. It's a pity, but I'm quite happy how those skins turned out, they're totally plausible for that time period and this does not take anything away from the value of the campaign.

[=37.Sqn= Mjugen]

Can I buzz the Tower to spill coffee ?

[Reflected]

You can but you’ll find yourself on a cargo plane flying dogshit out of Hong Kong  

[eddyimac]

I'm getting more and more excited about the campaign. As I have mentioned, I am an admirer of the Reflected campaigns and I have them all. Any news about when to be available on Steam? Sorry for my insistence, and thank you very much !!!

[Reflected]

5 minutes ago, eddyimac said:

I'm getting more and more excited about the campaign. As I have mentioned, I am an admirer of the Reflected campaigns and I have them all. Any news about when to be available on Steam? Sorry for my insistence, and thank you very much !!!

 

Thanks  It should be available on Steam soon. ED already started the procedure - whatever that may mean. Unfortunately I have zero overview of how this goes, but I'm sure it's going to happen soon. Probably the ball is already in Steam's court.

[Grater Tovakia]

5 hours ago, Reflected said:

 

Officially you can't sell anything with Navy trademarks (squad logos, or even use the word 'Topgun') without a permission of the Navy's licensing office, and paying a percentage to them. We did not want to go behind their backs, so Bio submitted a request. They did not reply for 3 months so we decided to go with plan B: change the callsigns from 'Topgun' to 'Sniper' and use fictional squadrons. It's a pity, but I'm quite happy how those skins turned out, they're totally plausible for that time period and this does not take anything away from the value of the campaign.

Thanks for the reply! That does indeed stink but it doesnt take away from the campaign at all. Im two missions in and loving it so far and those kneeboards are amazing. Great work!

[draconus]

It's on Steam now!

 

Bi-Di normal: more on that here:

http://www.heatblur.se/F-14Manual/general.html#hydraulic-system

 

Roll SAS off:

http://www.heatblur.se/F-14Manual/general.html#afcs-automatic-flight-control-system

Quote

Roll SAS should not be used for situations involving flight at AOA above 15 units and should therefore be set to off for combat maneuvers.

 

Mils 053: The gun elevation angle is fixed up over +3 degrees. What Mils setting controls is just the HUD piper and only in the manual mode as a backup in case no radar tracking is possible.

http://www.heatblur.se/F-14Manual/weapons.html#m-61-vulcan-six-barreled-gatling-cannon

Quote

The gun itself is mounted to be elevated slightly more than 3° from the ADL to provide built-in lead for dog-fight situations.

Quote

The manual piper is adjustable to enable selection of desired lead. The GUN ELEV panel on the pilot right vertical panel sets the lead, normally this should be set to 53 milliradians to place the manual pipper on the gun sight line.

 

Defense Point (DP) = MAN (manual) steerpoint, idk why DP, but the RIO pit has the MAN position on the steering selector.

 

@Reflected I wonder how much Bio cringed for taking off the Nellis first but I guess it's all fine since we're not Top Gun anymore

Edited February 2, 2021 by draconus

[Reflected]

10 minutes ago, draconus said:

 

 

@Reflected I wonder how much Bio cringed for taking off the Nellis first but I guess it's all fine since we're not Top Gun anymore

 

 

 

Not at all, I told him we don't have Miramar but we do have Nellis, he said OK no problem, let's tell the players Miramar is closed for some reason, and this is a training det, hosted by the USAF at Nellis. He was pretty easygoing about making adjustments to fit what we have in DCS.  Originally, I wanted to call the campaign 'Fightertown', but he said Fightertown is only Miramar, so if we move it to Nellis let's find a different name. He came up with Zone 5 and I loved it.

 

The only challenge it meant was to find out what the real life procedures were there, because Bio didn't have experience flying around Nellis. But we found some documents and managed to set up the procedures accordingly.

[Gretsch_Man]

Does the Zone 5 campaign allow to have labels on in-game (on all the Youtube videos I've seen so far there were no labels displayed)? As a VR pilot, been able to turn on labels is crucial.  

 

Can anybody please confirm? Thanks.

[Reflected]

The Zone 5 campaign does not enforce any kind of realism settings in dcs. I also fly with dot labels on my laptop. 

[Gretsch_Man]

16 hours ago, Reflected said:

The Zone 5 campaign does not enforce any kind of realism settings in dcs. I also fly with dot labels on my laptop. 

That's good to know. Thanks for the confirmation.

[wowbagger]

So many good things about this campaign.

 

Spoiler - don't look until you've explored the map on your own:

Spoiler

After a longer than anticipated engagement (and some bad flying on my part) I was bingo on fuel, got worried, and inadvertently took a shortcut home across Groom Lake. I started laughing out loud. Nicely done! 

 

Love it. 

 

edit: can we no longer edit the spoiler title text?

Edited April 21, 2021 by wowbagger

[Vino]

Love it too. But I suck at dogfighting. Mission 5, with 4 F-5:s. I am dead every time about 10 seconds after merge...

[Nicoleon]

In my opinion, this is the best campaign I've played. For the immersion, for the radio system, the quality... 

Thanks a lot for the little kid who has watched Top Gun more than 40 times since 86.

[LithiumR]

So I just got the campaign and I’m pretty dang excited. Gonna get “Fear the Bones” also. Stoked!!

[Spartan111sqn]

On 5/10/2021 at 12:11 AM, Nicoleon said:

In my opinion, this is the best campaign I've played. For the immersion, for the radio system, the quality... 

Thanks a lot for the little kid who has watched Top Gun more than 40 times since 86.

agree

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

Is this campaign good for learning the ropes and polishing?

[draconus]

1 hour ago, VFGiPJP said:

Is this campaign good for learning the ropes and polishing?

Yes, you don't have to win to pass, you can't be shoot down (it's simulation of training) and there's lots to learn.

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

41 minutes ago, draconus said:

Yes, you don't have to win to pass, you can't be shoot down (it's simulation of training) and there's lots to learn.

great, I’ll need the NTTS map

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

I am going to get the NTTR  map just for this.  The map is just fine, fewer “wow” factor.

[Reflected]

47 minutes ago, VFGiPJP said:

I am going to get the NTTR  map just for this.  The map is just fine, fewer “wow” factor.

 

Thanks for the support. You'll be surprised, I was reluctant to get the NTTR too, but actually it looks pretty nice.

[VR Flight Guy in PJ Pants]

The NTTR map is currently "on trial" use, flying a few training missions here and there and I understand why some people swear by it. The mountains look really nice, even in VR. But I already have PG and Syria so to say, I am less than impressed.

[washedupgrunt]

Picked this up today, been spending the last few months going through my rpl and ppl course irl and learning the f5e and fc3 aircraft in dcs before I committed to the f14 module apart from the first few famil lessons when I picked it up a while back. Just wanted to say thanks to all involved in making this. This level of access, if even only simulated to a percentage of the pressures faced by a pilot and a rio, makes me respect them even more. We had a lot of American air assets on station when I was doing my grunt work and can honestly say how elated we were knowing they were there and how deflated were felt when they weren’t. I can’t imagine how the air to air mission must have weighed on them, was never witness to it in my time (‘01-‘16) from the ground. But I felt like a total imposter listening to Bio in the first mission. I still had a grin like a slit watermelon, but felt that same sense of deflation when I realised I am probably out of my depth ha. I will continue to fly the lessons as provided with the module and apply them as I can in the campaign, thank goodness for active pause though. Cheers Bio and @Reflected. I am a happy wug with my purchase. 

[Reflected]

@washedupgrunt thanks, I'm happy you're enjoying it  Careful with the active pause, it pauses your aircraft but not the others. Not a good idea while flying in formation