Fighter Bomber - Hints

THE PLANES
1 - F1-11 More of a fighter than a bomber, has good
    maneuvrability, but a poor weapon selection. The speed
    of the aircraft is dependant on it's height, i.e it's a
    lot faster over 35,000 feet. Unfortunately this means
    it's an easier target for the enemy fighters.

2 - F15-E (Strike Eagle) The best all rounder available.
    Has good speed, Ok maneuvrabilty, slow fuel consumption
    but best of all a wide range of weapons

3 - Phantom . This is quite old and no match for the Migs
    (You may get lucky early on - but on the later levels
    you'll be lucky to even make it to your target!)

4 - Tornado. Good variety of weapons but is just too slow.

5 - Vigger. AVOID. A general no-no with hardly any weapons
    available.

6 - Flogger. Oh dear, only redeeming feature is it's name!

THE MISSIONS

MISSION ONE
Choose the F15 Strike Eagle, this is a good aircraft for the
beginner and has the most weapons (up to 16 Mavericks), but
I reccomend you only take 6 ATG Mavs, for completing the
first couple of missions as this makes your craft lighter
and helps increase speed and maneuvrability. Take off and
press U - this gives you your waypoint, climb up to 35,000
feet. When in rangeof the target (about 20 miles)descend to
12,000 feet and slow down to approx. 300 knots. Press RETURN
to select Mavericks, put the target in the centger of your
croshairs, then press BACKSPACE, the target should become
visible in the target window. Fire The missile (this helps
quite a bit and generally improves your chances of destroying
the target, we're not just here on a sightseeing tour you
know!!). If you wish to check the missiles destination, press
F3 , it should go on to destroy the target. Giving you the
"Mission Target Destroyed" message. If you wish to destroy
the secondary targets (well you might aswell now you're in
the vicinity!!) press Backspace again to lock on!
Now press N to get your second waypoint, this should give
you directions for Base. It is a good idea to keep your
maverick crosshairs on as this helps your plane stay level.
When you reach the proximity of the base, lower your landing
gear, slow down to around 200 knots and descend to 700 feet,
slowly dip your plane as soon as you land BRAKE and press
WHEEL BRAKE.

MISSION TWO
Arm your ship with 4 mavericks and 2 HARMS (The less weapons
the faster you go). Take off and find your waypoint, fly low
(400Ft - lower if possible) and at full speed. If you are
close to your target and a fighter appears, forget it, climb
to about 5000 feet, LOCK ON and fire at all the targets (It
doesn't matter which is first as there is already an enemy
fighter in the area). When the targets are destroyed go to
deal with the fighter (unless he's already dealt with you)
When you are dogfighting DO NOT give the enemy chance to
LOCK-ON, keep turning (banking), Accelerating and de-
celerating. With your sidewinders on press S, when you get
a LOCK-ON the outer rim turns red, Shoot only if you are
close by, Remember the Migs sometimes use ECM's (Electronic
Counter Measure) so a follow up measure (i.e. a HARM missile)
is a good idea (pretty smart eh?). I f all else fails try
and get close, bank and fire your cannon continuosly as there
is a good chance of a kill. If that fails, oh.. well err you
could try flying away as fast as possible and attempt to make
a succesful landing before his over excited missile catches
up with your retreating behind!

MISSION THREE
The Long One! First of all, arm with mavericks only. Take
off and climb as high as possible.TURN OFF YOUR AFTER-
BURNERS! If you keep these on you will run out of fuel,
crash and die! Thats the real problem here, running out of
fuel, so try and avoid contact with enemy planes as this
will increase your fuel consumption. The targets are pretty
simple and only a couple of Mavs are needed, but you will
also fly over an enemy Airport, and a few targets there are
easy pickings, and by shooting the airport and a few on-
ground planes you reduce the chance of being intercepted by
enemy fighters on the way back. Remeber to take the SAM SITE
out first (you know to a nice restaurant or maybe the
pictures) then hit the Bridge. After completing the mission
climb as high as possible and pray you have enough fuel to
make it back to base.

MISSION FOUR
This is a good mission, and providing you followed my advice
and picked the F15 (if not, why not? Do as your told!) this
should be easy. Arm up to the hilt with as many MAVs as
possible (more than 9 is OK). Take off and head for the
targets, when you reach them take out the nearest, then the
2nd closest, then the 3rd closest etcetera. You'll find there
are 9 targets in all. At the same time you are trying to blow
away the targets a few enemy planes will be trying to blow
away your plane, so keep your eyes peeled and follow the same
dogfighting techniques as detailed in mission 2 and you
should be OK!

MISSION FIVE
This is virtually impossible. Try to refuel
in mid-air, try to have a dogfight without shooting your
tanker AND try to avoid running out of fuel. Then take out
a column of Trucks, a nuclear missile and something else
I've forgotten at the moment! If you can do this mission
you don't need any help from me! I won't tell you any more
as it will spoil the surprises (Rubbish, I can't get any
further!).

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Typed by DAVE. Edited by PARASITE.





                                FIGHTER BOMBER TIPS

TIPS
Use the Air Brakes for making extremely tight turns, especially when in
close quarters combat as you could go endlessly round and round in circles,
trying to catch a circling enemy if you didn't use them.  Your speed drops
off like wildfire so keep an eye on your air speed (and remember your stall
speed!).

Ideally you should have either the F-111 F or the F-15 Strike Eagle for the
missions with an F-5 Tiger II as the dissimilar enemy.  The F-5 is pretty
useless for a long range attacks and just loves to show off by roaring over
your aircraft (in most cases through your aircraft).  To really screw his
air manoeuvres up, wait until he's within the 3 mile radar range and then
switch to cannons.  As he draws near, his radar image should merge with
yours: as it does so, fire the cannon a few times, 9 out of 10 times it'll
hit him and make you look like a hotshot ace at the same time.

If you can, use the Mavericks as your primary weapon.  They're easy to use,
require little in the way of parameters to launch (just make sure you're
the right way up), they hit 100% of the time with total destruction of the
target, and lock onto anything from tents to bridges.  The higher you are,
the further away from the target you can launch them.  Thirty thousand feet
is ideal for launching at the 20 mile mark, a very useful fact to know if
you're up against a time limit mission and need to fire from long range.  A
true Fire-and-Forget weapon.

You've got unlimited chaff and flares so use them at all times during
combat and often during flight.  Although you're warned of SAMs and
missiles it's best to be overly cautious than be lax.  Never let down your
guard, or you and your plane will surely follow.  The SAM sites are
extremely rapid at firing and quickly get trigger-happy, firing missiles
constantly.  Luckily they're pretty stupid missiles and conveniently get
confused when flares or chaff is launched, if only chaff or flares were
this efficient in real life.  Basically you only need to jettison a single
chaff for each missile fired at you.  Best be on the safe side and launch
as many as possible - after all there's no limit.

HOW TO CHEAT
Load up the game, play air-guitar to the music at the start, and then
bring up the pilot selection screen.  Press SPACE to name a new pilot
and enter BUCKAROO (with space after the word). You now can choose any
mission available.

THE TOP AIRCRAFT

1.  GENERAL DYNAMICS F-111 F:
  A true beast of the air with a superlative payload capacity, good fuel
economy, and top notch all-round flight performance as well.  It may not be
as glamorous as the Eagle and it doesn't quite hit the Mach 2.5 mark, but
it's got more payload and that means a lot less trips back to base on the
later levels.

2.  MCDONNELL DOUGLAS F-15E STRIKE EAGLE:
A real powerhouse of a jet for those with the need for speed, plus a superb
ground attack capability.  The F-15 was initially promoted as the 100%
Interceptor with 'not a pound for air-to-ground'.  Ironic that it has
become one of the premier ground attack aircraft.  A superb aircraft with a
payload of up to 14 Mavericks, and a mass of weaponry.  The one to choose
if you want the best of everything.

3.  MCDONNELL DOUGLAS F-4E PHANTOM:
A flexible aircraft with the capacity for a varied payload even when it
isn't in the F-15 league for sheer brute force when it comes to
acceleration, vertical climbs, and fuel economy.  Other than that, it can
carry a medium level of pretty standard weaponry with up to seven Mavericks
and four bombs on the outer hardpoints (no room for sidewinders if you do
though).

4.  PANAVIA TORNADO IDS (RAF/LUFTWAFFE VARIANTS):
Not a lot of difference between these two excellent all-rounders.  The
payload is pretty impressive with eight Mavericks plus Sidewinders (I get
everywhere! hee hee).  For total devastation though, a JP233 Airfield
Denial Weapon (known as the MW1 by the Luftwaffe) is awesome.  Launch the
thing as you fly low-level over the target and the weapon spreads itself
across the area, wreaking destruction all around.  It's not too good for
pinpoint accuracy but it does the overkill job extremely well.  Very good
variety of payload with more than enough Mavericks to the job you want.

5.  MIG-27 FLOGGER D:
Strange how the BOMBER crew thinks this is a premier Soviet ground attack
when the SU-24 Fencer (the Russian version of the F-111/Tornado class
bomber)seems to be the biggest threat at the moment.  Slightly better than
the Viggen for carrying aims with capacity for up to five freefall/cluster
bombs and one air-to-air missile but otherwise it's a dinosaur.  The
Kerry is the Russian equivalent of the Maverick (at least in this game
it is) but with the incredibly limited range of 6.8 miles it's a waste
of a hardpoint.  It's better than the Viggen but that's not saying much!

6.  SAAB AJ37 VIGGEN:
Like a fool I chose this one for my attempt at winning the cup, thinking it
would be a pretty potent aircraft.  After all, the Royal Swedish Air Force
swears by it - and probably swears at it as well considering it's limited
payload.  The maximum of four Mavericks and four Sidewinders is a pathetic
'bomber' payload so make sure you're a good shot with the cannon.  The
rocket pods are good fun to launch and watch fly through the air but
without a sighting ring they're tricky to aim.  The successor to the
Viggen, the Gripen, looks set to continue the trend for low payload
(providing they get the bugs out the software first).  For now I think Saab
had better stick to making cars.

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Typed by SIDEWINDER for LSD.