Editing Mercenaries and planes (section)

====Recap====

	So we ferried ourselves out to the Kitona airfield. We weren't sure what our basing facility would be like, so we loaded up with a variety of weapons. We arrived in Kitona uneventfully, although a bad roll for the Mirage pilot meant his GPS/NAV conked out mid flight, and he had to follow one of us to Kitona. On landing we found out that Kitona had halfway decent facilities. We talked about the mission in a ready shack near the flightline, as well as called the mercenary company for some more intel. We bought flight plan information, and the Flanker pilot did a bit of work figuring out time and distance. Based on where the Falcon was going to be.

	The Vark pilot told us he was going to get the ground crew to take off the buddy tanks, and we agreed. Internally, the Vark pilot had a single AGM-84, as well as his M61 Cannon with a retarded amount of ammunition. Externally, the Vark was clean. The Flanker pilot loaded up with six Alamo missiles and six Archers. I chose to mount 4 AIM-7 Sparrow and 4 AIM-9. The other phantom had spent a bit more cash to acquire 2 AMRAAMs and 2 Sparrows, as well as the same AIM-9 loadout as me. The Mirage had four Magics, and 2 MICAs. Other than those, we were all 'clean' no drop tanks, no air to ground. We had asked Steve about C3, but he told us that an upgrade like that, while purchasable, would take time to install on the aircraft, since this was a short notice tasking we couldn't have it up and running yet. I also decided to take a skill/feat in 'Burner Bastard' allowing me to gain an extra unit of move in an accel phase if I wanted. With all that settled, we discussed our plan one more time, and headed for our planes.

	The fighters departed first, rumbling into the night. We told Steve that we were circling the airfield, and joining up on the Flanker in formation. We then departed south, climbing to altitude. Twenty or so minutes later, the Vaark tore off the pavement, headed out over the Ocean, and settled in to a hard mode cruise 200ft over the surface, quickly punching through the sound barrier, on his way to one and a half mach. Meanwhile, we had turned north again, and were heading towards our calculated intercept point, all of our noses were cold, although the Flanker had his IR tracking system running. The Flanker was the lead aircraft ahead by twenty miles or so. The rest of us were formed up, trying to be as radio silent as possible.

	Forty miles out from his target, the Aardvark enabled the search radar in his aircraft, supplementing the terrain following one. Within 20 seconds he had a radar match on the patrol boat, and his FLIR confirmed it. Since he was moving at 20 miles a minute, it didn't take him long to cross the patrol boat, clearing it by 150ft, at close to mach 2, with full burners. Radio traffic on the Guard frequency spiked soon after, and we heard that the boat was in chaos, windows blown out from the shock of the Vaark passing by it. But that wasn't enough, so the Vaark made a turn (took a while at his speed) and came back for another pass. Although this time, he opened up with his cannon, in a supersonic strafing pass.

	The gun pass had the desired effect. We got distress traffic about 15 seconds later, some half crazed person shouting in french that they were under attack by unknown aircraft. Steve said just below the crackle of the radio we could hear the aftershocks of the F-111s engines in the transmission. Our radar warning receivers started to go nuts, and we were all getting slammed by search radar. The Flanker however, had drifted further away from us, and was not getting hit by the tracking radar, but we radio'd him and told him where they were relative to us, and he changed course slightly, and soon called back to us that he had several IR targets on reheat angling down towards the patrol boat, heading for the deck.

	The Aardvark pilot meanwhile, was making a beeline for Angola, at full military power, hugging the sea surface, and trusting in his speed advantage and being lost in the radar clutter to make a good escape. The Flanker pilot decided now was the time to let loose our secret weapon, and rattled all six AlamoETs off his rails, one every five seconds. The afterburning mirages were excellent targets, and since he was a good strata or two above them, the Alamos also had a kinematic advantage. But the biggest advantage is he was behind them, launching BVR heatseekers, so he (hoped) remained undetected.

	They didn't notice for about 25 seconds, then they started dumping flares, lighting up the sky for miles. Didn't do much good, our Flanker pilot scored two immediate kills, one Alamo took out a Mirage instantly, another two slammed into the next unfortunate F1, and the final Alamo severely damaged a third Mirage, who's engine flamed out. The remaining two AA-10s lost track and fell into the ocean. The Mirages stopped their rapid descent, and began arcing back around to face this new threat to their rear. The Flanker, for his part, was turning hard away from them, and hitting full military burner, his threat receiver going wild, but no locks detected (Apparently the Russians, for all their vacuum tubes, built one of the easiest to read and most accurate RWRs available today.) The remaining three Mirages were clearly now chasing the Flanker.

	I'm guessing at this point you are wondering why the Mirages were not coming at us, despite all the radar hits we took. It was all part of a brilliant plan, the final piece of which we decided to now implement. Myself and Biscuit broke out from underneath the wing of the South African Airways A340-600 we had been flying with, and our burners fired up to max, probably scaring the daylights out of the cockpit crew who suddenly had two Phantoms shoot out from underneath their plane. When we were clear, Biscuit flipped on his search radar, and spotted the four Mirages, three climbing up towards the Flanker but now going away from us and the patrol boat. The fourth was moving much slower and was much lower. We figured this was the damaged one.

	With the sniff complete, Biscuit shut down his radar, and we launched all our Sparrows, which were not the SA/RH variant, but the passive anti-radiation kind. However, one of mine faulted out and simply fell off the rail, the other three ignited fine. Biscuits Sparrows both fired well, and rocketed out into the cold night sky. Along the way another one of my sparrows shorted out (goddamn American piece of Vietnam-era shit), but four missiles still found their way to the targets. I scored a kill, with both of mine slamming into a Mirage, one scoring an impact hit on the radome (according to Stece). One of biscuits also decided to impact my Mirage, and just added to the utter destruction. The other one missed wide when they switched off their radars when the first missile hit.

	It must have been clear to them that they were not getting the Flanker anytime soon, so both Mirages vectored back in towards us, but by the time they'd turned, we were in Sidewinder range. And then I paid for all the good luck. I'd cheaped out on AIM-9s, buying the lesser model. Which, I realized as I read the datasheet I'd had in front of me for the past two sessions, could not lock on from the front. And then I started getting hit by the radar again, and my IR detector started yelling at me.

	Biscuit had no such problem, and rattled off two more missiles into the Mirage's heading our way. This forced them to evade, and they didn't get a shot off. Biscuit didn't score a hit though. I was popping flares like a son of a bitch, and went to full military, using the speed advantage to rocket out of range. Biscuit formed up. When the Mirage's began their final turn, our own Mirage lit off his search radar, as did the Flanker who was now coming back at them. The Mirages realized this was a lost cause (not knowing that the Mirage (Scotch) south of them was out of range, and the Flanker was bluffing, since he had no BVR left on his wings). They decided the safer choice was to bug out, turning away from both our planes and heading outbound on a North Eastern course. The flanker pilot then tracked the wounded Mirage, as Biscuit and I headed towards the incoming Falcon, which was turning towards land, but they weren't going to outpace us.

	We pulled in behind them, and since we didn't try to communicate over the radio, we did it the old fashioned way. Biscuit fired a warning shot of cannon shells across their nose, then pulled ahead on burners. I pulled beside the Falcon, and flipped on my formation lights. They got the picture, and I told them to follow the Phantom in front with hand signals, they rocked their wings, and then followed Biscuit as I slipped away to join up with Scotch. Scotch and Hugs had done the same thing, cannon shot across the front of the wounded and smoking Mirage, and then pulled alongside. However, they waited there, until I formed up on the other side, before pulling ahead, as I slipped behind, so that if he took a cheap shot at Scotch, I'd ram a sidewinder up his ass.

	Hugz peeled off and climbed, turning, keeping his Radar on to look out for threats for us. There weren't any, surprisingly, and we took the Mirage and Falcon back to Kitona. We arrived there, and circled the field with our gear down. The Flacon and Mirage took the hint, and landed, followed shortly after by us.

	As we taxied in, we saw a black Cadillac on the tarmac, and two military Gaz trucks. There were a lot of ragtag looking assholes beside the trucks, and as the Falcon shut down, they stormed the plane. We weren't sure, but we saw them drag two people off the Falcon and shove them roughly into the Caddy. The car peeled off with the trucks in trail as we were shutting down. Scotch investigated the Falcon, and found both pilots and the purser shot dead inside.

	The Mirage pilot got down, and Hugz went to see him, as he put it “Grinning like a motherfucker” with a flask of whiskey. The mirage pilot was a bit surprised in addition to being confused and pissed off. We called up the Merc outfit and told them we had a mirage. Turns out, we get bonus cash now for bringing back a damaged plane! Although, I have no clue what/who the Liberians took or why. Steve ended it there, saying we got a call from the Vark pilot who was down and safe in Angola, and that the Mirage pilot would be offered a merc job.

	We spent more on intel this time, the Flanker pilot came up with the idea to pull the Mirages around the sky, and we planned the airliner overflights in the area to mask our advance. Steve loved the initiative and had about six civilian airliners in the air during the game.