Just when you thought it was gone

[CybrSlydr]

Oh man, this brings back so many memories! I can't believe BMS is still working on it and I gotta say - what I saw in that video was INCREDIBLE.

[Naismith]

and here Krause is a bit of a Falcon fan https://youtu.be/43l0UR2d2Z4 flying a Hornet here though.

[CybrSlydr]

Falcon 4.0 was my favorite, favorite FAVORITE flight sim for the longest time. The F-16 is my all-time favorite airplane. I remember the 1.08 patch, the various splinter groups, the drama... Oh man, that game was so far ahead of it's time it was scary. Scary good! Back when you could buy Ayes 1600x900 pits.

I have so many fond memories of that game and to see how far it's come is... amazing. I still have that 3-ring binder the game came in. I was SO EXCITED when my parents bought it for me for Christmas that year. I took that binder to school and read the **** out of it.

[FAC257]

I was one of the guys on SleepDoc's I-Beta team under Micropose/Hasbro NDA contract that put 1.08 together. I-Beta was a standalone commercial beta test group.

The testing schedule was almost grueling at times. For the better part of a year as I recall, they would often put out the newest version almost daily at times. The team was located on Pacific Time and several of us were on Eastern Time. The new versions were sent out at the end of their work day at 6PM, which was 9PM our time. They were full un-installs and re-installs of the entire sim. Thankfully it didn't require the full "Falcon 4.0 Dance". I spent many a very late night flying the pants off that sim.

That was probably my favorite all-time era of flight sims.

Below is an after action report I posted back in 1999. This was an online 1.08 version in action and taken straight off the flight recorder.
Corny, but I was younger and flight sims were in their hay day at that time and it was all about having fun. :-)


............................
To All,

This is a tale from the continuing FSFORUM Falcon4 Wingys on-line adventures.

This Falcon4 campaign mission was flown by Pappy and myself on the evening of 8/4/99, flown out of Osan Airbase.

Headquarters must have realized how close a call that last mud moving mission was for us and had tasked us with a simple
ATA Sweep mission located right along the battle front. Sounded very good indeed, but not until later on did I think back
to that the way the waypoints were situated so close to home base, should have sent up the red flag that this was going to be no ordinary ATA mission.

Time for take off was at hand with our 4 ship flight with a loadout of AIM-9s and AIM-120s, designated as Snake1. Our scheduled take off time was for 11:17 and it was at this point that, if we had been paying attention we would have picked up on clue number two. We were in for one heck of a ride.

At take off time I'm sitting on the ramp with my #2 wingy. Pappy's flying lead on the second element, but he can't taxi from the ramp yet due to lack of pilots. NO PILOTS ????? Now this is very early on in day one of the campaign and about the only way I can imagine that we're already having to wait for recycled pilots is that every jet and pilot known to man must be up in the skies over our head at this moment. I'm thinking, what can possibly be going on up there ?

This was clue number 2 as to our fate.

Well, within a minute or so Pappy gets his battle weary wingmen and we manage to roll out and make take off at 11:20.
With a text book departure of all four aircraft, I begin a shallow turn towards waypoint 2 and began quickly setting up the cockpit for ATA operations. ECM on, Auto counter measures on and RWR set to Priority Mode. Slammers hot and radar set to.........."holy sh*t !"....and that's where it started.

I couldn't believe what I was looking at. Just as TWS radar kicked over, the entire radar screen at any range beyond minimum was one solid white spiny snowball that covered the entire radar area. Instantly looking up and out of the cockpit confirmed the picture. The entire sky in every direction for as far as I could see was a solid mass of aircraft. Between our flight and waypoint 2 was the single largest attack force of friendly aircraft that I can remember seeing in any mission. I stopped counting when I got close to the 100 aircraft point.

I sent a radio call over to Pappy asking if he was looking at the same thing I was. He replied with a simple and calm, "This is one hell of an attack group."

The un-nerving part of the situation was the fact that just the other side of waypoint 2 was a fast approaching onslaught
of enemy aircraft in almost equal numbers stretching out, in what seemed at the time, from horizon to horizon.

Turns out that this isn't shaping up to be a typical Sweep mission, this is looking more like a full blown Scramble mission with targets coming in fast from as far as you can see in every direction possible from the North Korea.

This was going to be big, ugly and it was going to go down fast. At 11:32:00, I flipped the flight recorder on, I felt that what was about to happen was going to be something special and needed to be documented.

With the radar suffering from a severe case of too much to look at, I couldn't give Pappy and his wingmen a clear set of vector instructions to a particular bogey concentration. First thing off the top of my head was to roll to a steady heading straight into the impending doom.

At 11:32:30 and at a heading of 330 degrees and Pappy matching to course, my instructions were as simple as I could make them at the time.

I handed everything to the right of 330 off to Pappy and his wing, while everything to the left of 330 was mine.

I watched as Pappy immediatly fades right and heads directly after a group of incoming bogeys. I take a slight fade to the
left and setup an intercept on a flight of Mig-21s coming in fast.

Pappy's first confirmd kill on an IL-28 comes across at 11:33:55 and within seconds, his wing, Snake14 bags another.

A quick glance around reveals that the enitire sky has become on giant furball no matter what direction you looked.

Pappy's second confirmed kill comes at 11:34:23, a Mig-21 goes up in flames from one of his AIM-120 shots.

At the very same moment that flight of Mig-21s I was setting up on, un-masked their true nature. Turns out to be a 4 ship
flight of Mig-21s flying escort for a group of SU-25s and riding shotgun for them at a lower altitude is a pair of Mig-23's.
Just behind these guys are a pair of Mig-29s batting cleanup.

Also at about this same instant, Snake12, my wing slides an AIM-120 off the rail. That's it! Now that I know my wingy is on the same page as the rest of us, I immediatly give him the weapons free command and turn him loose. Things were getting very claustrophobic in the skies and conditions were disintegrating quickly into chaos. It looked like for the next several moments, there wasn't going to be a lot of time, to locate and lock targets for ONE aircraft, let alone having to find targets for both wingy and myself. This number two wingy of mine has made it through every misson safely so far and I had alot of confidence in his ability to take care of himself. Pappy and I haven't lost a wingy yet.

With Pappy and his wing off somewhere to my right sending Fox call after Fox call, it's showtime on my end of the world.
First Slammer away and it finds it's mark. My first kill of the day and one less Mig-21 to deal with.

Now since Pappy and myself made the initial split off to our sectors, there hasn't been much radio chatter back and forth
between us other than Fox calls, which is highly unusual for one of our flights. The intensity on this one was just too much for the usual gabbing.

I did manage to get a quick glance over in his direction, just in time to see Pappy leading his wingy straight into the middle of one hell of a hornets nest. The Fox calls from his group just kept on coming. This is also about the time where,
I start to lose visual contact on Pappy for awhile.

Another confirmed kill for Pappy at 11:35:00. Those two are kicking some big time butt.

11:35:50, my second Slammer makes short work of another bogey at the same time as I catch sight of my number 2 diving head long into a 3 ship formation of Mig-23s. He instantly gets his own Slammer kill.

At the very moment I witness wingy's hit, I relized we must've wandered over the first line of enemy ADA for all of a sudden I could see the ground below erupt in SAM launches of every description. Time to fall back and regroup. Dumping counter measures like there's no tommorrow, I bank hard to the east in the general direction of where I think Pappy should be. I'm a little concerned as I haven't heard anything from him for a few moments.

The second jaw dropping scene of the day. As I rolled onto my new easterly heading, what I now faced was a sky filled chock full of SAMs launching at friendlys from just about every angle and any part of the sky that wasn't occupied by a SAM, had an enemy aircraft in it. Gut instinct told that Pappy and his wingy were somewhere in the middle of the mess.

11:35:54 Pappy's still alive in there somewhere and gets another confirmed kill.

Banking more to the south and getting ready to set up on a new set of targets that I make to be back a little closer to
friendly territory I spot Pappy's wingmen , Snake14. He's up high and having a great time from what it looks like, beating up on the baddies. Curious though that there's no Pappy in sight.

At almost this exact moment the first bad news radio call from Pappy came through the headset. He was completely surrounded, in trouble and in bad shape.

Now the part that I didn't know until after landing and viewing the flight film, was that right at this instant off to my left, to the north and dead center of the heaviest part of the giant furball Pappy was in deep sh*t. He had been jumped by Mig-29s. At one point I watched as Pappy had one Mig-29 glued to his butt and just below, two SA-7s looked like they whizzed up between his aircraft and the pursuing Mig and nailed Pappy's aircraft from behind. If they didn't hit him they had to have been a very, very close call. Now if this wasn't bad enough another Mig-29 was on a head on intercept course out of the north and dropping from above.

Rolling in on Pappys heading and finally getting a visual on him, I watch as Pappy somehow manages to get the upper hand in his dogfight with the one Mig and blasts it out of the sky.

Pappy then makes the turn back to a more southerly direction and towards friendly lands. His wingy, Snake14 is on a beeline to reform on his severly battle damaged flight leader. I continue inbound from Pappy's 4:00 and look back over my shoulder to see my number 2 moving up in to place very nicely.

This all suits me very well. Pappy is trying to limp back home in trashed ride, Winchester ammo, his wingy is Winchester ammo, everywhere I look around down below me there SAMs launching. The sky off to my left and everywhere behind me is full of enemy aircraft. Get Me Outta Here !

The trick now is to home in on Pappy and fly escort for his element and try to quietly sneek back to a better place to be.

That's when I noticed the solo Mig-29 on Pappy's 6, high and looking like he was setting up for a diving attack. I made the call to Pappy, "Mig on your 6 coming in fast." Rolling left and really not wanting to go back in there, I went full afterburner and made the intercept course for this knuckle head.

Pappy's already been through enough BS for one day, I thought.

It soon became evident that there was not a chance in the world of me getting there in time if this bogey decided to take a
stab at Pappy's element. Still with afterburner on full and thinking that I'm running out of time, two South Korean F-5's
appeared from the east, full speed and dumped an AIM-120 right through the top of the Mig.

Cool!..... problem solved, can I go home now ?

Well at least I thought so in my own mind but........

Rolling once again back to the south to find Pappy, it's now 11:39:36, and I get the third jaw dropper of the day. Do I find Pappy and his wingy, playing safe and taking a clear shot back to home base? Nope, at my 10:00 and very low, I spot Pappy and Snake14 on a heading that will take them straight through the center of a 10 ship flight of Il-28s bombing the living daylights out of some of our guys, just east of Seoul.

This guys going in, gimpy plane and guns only. I would have thought it was nuts if it weren't for the fact that I knew it was Pappy down there and is also one of the reasons I enjoy flying with the man. He doesn't quit. Trashed plane=small detail, go for it !

Besides if he has too hit the silk, at least he's in friendly territory.

11:39:54 It suddenly dawns on me that when my number 2 and I broke off our second intercept setup to go help Pappy, it left
us as still packing a goodly amount of missle hardware hanging underneath. Might as well us it.

The flight of IL-28s that Pappy was going after was about to have a very bad day.

Pappy's coming at them on the deck from a NNE direction. I'm making the attack run very high from the NW. Looking back to double check on my wingy, I find him off on his own already, down below me making short work of some SU-25s trying to make a low level bomb run at the same target that the IL-28s are bombing.

11:41:43 I zero in and get a lock on one of the IL-28s that Pappy managed not to scare half to death and was still trying to
drop ordinace.

11:42:00 Pappy and wingy, have two Il-28s on the run and pumping them full of lead.

11:42:17 The two Il-28s that Pappy's element were pursuing, split the chase. Pappy's broke low and left, his wing's bogey split high and to the right.

11:42:36 Snake14 sends his Il-28 up in flames and at the same instant just below me, my number 2 bags another Su-25.

11:42:56 Pappy's Il-28 goes bye- bye.

11:43:10 Another Il-28 gets hosed by one of my missles.

11:43:26 My number 2, gets his 9er kill on one of the remaining Il-28s.

I'm thinking too myself, "Hey Pappy, oh Pappy, now can we go home ?"
But again even through this second wave of intercepts the radio chatter has been minimal.

Moments later, I hear Pappy's radio to tower and delaring an emergency. Tower gives him the green light for a straight in approach and rolls the emergency equipment.

I too am just about to give the tower a call that I'm inbound, when suddenly I noticed a solo Su-25 that somehow had managed to escape the wrath of my rampant wingy, cutting across my flight path up ahead. I turned number 2 loose on him and I closed in behind. Wingy went full afterburner and was almost instantly right up this guys rear end. The Su-25 made a diving turn to the north with wingy well within what I thought should have been kill range. Outta ammo maybe? Hmmmmmm. Pushing the throttle forward I quickly close the gap and pull right up behind my number 2. Like the Einstein my wingy is he immediatly breaks high right, only a split second before I unleashed my last AIM-9.

11:47:27 Chalk up the last kill of the day for Pappy and FAC's Snake1 flight.

There's around a dozen and a half enemy aircraft damaged and detroyed by Snake1 flight on this outing and that's a good days work.

NOW it's time to go home!

11:50:00 Pappy safely gets his aircraft down on the runway. I wished I had been in a position to watch his landing but I was still 10 minutes out.

On my approach to Osan Air Base I contacted tower and recieved instructions to orbit for spacing. By the looks of the
huge amount of returning aircraft closing in on the base, I knew this could be a long wait. A few moments later I repeated the call to tower and was hit again with the orbit for spacing reply. A couple more times of the same routine and I get a radio call from Pappy suggesting that I declare an emergency. Very good call, although in a very crowded situation like this I've seen disasters as a result of trying this trick. But as luck would have it, I'm also starting to hear a wingy on the comms reporting Joker fuel, that's an emergency in my book. Better expedite this arrival!

After getting emergency clearance to land from the tower, I now had to barge my way in line, not an easy task in this sky.
Osan looked like Miami International on it's busiest day ever. Taking advantage of what looked like a good slot in the
landing cue I rolled in, ILS on, gear down. Pappy calls in that it looks like I'm in close proximity to an A-10 on final.
Looking to my right and then glancing up I find the front wheel of an A-10 hanging just off my canopy , almost close enough
to check his tire pressure. I don't know where this guy came from.

Slamming the throttle full back and doing the little snakey dance routine, I manage to let this guy ease out in front of me.

I'll just follow him in at a safe distance......well that theory only lasted so long. I've watched more than a few A-10 airshow routines and I should've known better. This A-10 hit the ground and had that thing at almost a complete stop before he reached the first turn off. He was going for the very first taxi way turn off at MY end of the runway.

After all we've been through today, I'm going to die from slamming into the back of an A-10 on my home runway and it's too late to really try much of an abort manuever. I'm almost at the point of no lift in the wings and only inches above the runway.

Full speed brakes, the tires make contact, instantly push hard on the brakes and jam the stick full forward trying to get that nose wheel to engage ASAP. Although not pretty by any means, I mangaged to get my Falcon off the right side of the runway and avoid a stupid mistake.

From the comms I hear Pappy radioing for me to come join him on the ramp under the water tower. I taxi over to his location,
swing around him, pull up and park within a couple of feet off his right wing tip.

When I asked if we were checking out now. His radio reply back could not EVER have been more appropriate for the atmosphere of the moment.

"Nope, let's just sit here and watch awhile."

It was only then that the full impact of what we had gone through this day hit home. More than a dozen kills, surviving one of the most intense enemy aircraft and SAM environments yet, and all wingys are back safely on the ground.

For a few minutes we watched a constant stream of landing and departing aircraft. In front of us on the taxi way, another flight of A-10s were heading for a scheduled take off. All around us the sky was full of aircraft as far as you could see.

Startled by a shadow that suddenly passed across my cockpit, I glanced back over my left shoulder in time to see two more
A-10s in formation flying across our 6 , just on the other side of the water tower.

Turning back and looking at everything going on around me, I found myself once again starting to feel the effects
of that inevitable Falcon4 on-line post-mission terminal grin kicking in.

FAC VMF-257

.....................................

[CybrSlydr]

Now that's a great story! Thanks for sharing!