Last night I hopped onto a new DCS World server and a new experience for me that I wanted to write about. This time it was into the cockpit of the DCS: F-86, an aircraft I had purchased only recently, and onto the player versus enemy AI (PvE) experience of The Korean War server. Read on!
Out on patrol
I’ve been wanting to broaden my DCS World experiences a lot recently which is why I’ve been flying helicopters and looking to other aircraft to fly. Last night, I hopped into “The Korean War” server and did a flight with Cubeboy from Skyward Flight Media.
After binding some controls that I hadn’t yet setup, we lined up on the runway and were soon airborne.
The Korean War server is currently using the southern sector of the Caucasus map as an imaginary Korea. The Caucasus mountains stand in reasonably well for the similarly rugged Korean peninsula so it works well enough. Would I love to see a Korean War map and assets? You bet!
MiG’s spotted!
Climbing above 20,000 feet, we began to contrail and started sweeping towards the frontlines.
As we completed part of our sweep, Cubeboy spotted two contrails on our 2 o’clock and we made a turn to intercept. The contrails turned to intercept us and we assumed they were MiG’s.
I broke high and to the right putting the presumed MiG’s on my 11 o’clock while Cubeboy continued on course. On merge it was clear that we were dealing with a pair of MiG-15’s and the fight was on.
Cubeboy tackled the leader while I broke into a tight turn above the wingman attempting to get lead on the target. Soon I would have a firing solution but it was not meant to be as my clumsy attempts at handling the F-86 at high speeds meant that the ailerons were less effective and the MiG-15 slipped my grasp.
Soon I was in a turn fight with the MiG-15 with both of us going around and around unable to gain lead.
Meanwhile, Cubeboy was in a similar situation with his MiG. Our fights merged as the other MiG-15 blasted past me with just meters to spare with Cubeboy in hot pursuit. He managed to get guns on his MiG-15, damaging it and causing it to turn out of the fight.
Unfortunately I was in a rough spot as the MiG-15 had gained lead and I had run out of altitude to burn. Pulling up and narrowly avoiding the ground, I decided that my only option was to extend and try and use terrain to avoid the MiG.
With Cubeboy on my distant 6 o’clock and the MiG-15 uncomfortably close I started to try and get the MiG into a rolling scissors before ducking behind a tall hill. For some reason, it worked and the MiG broke hard and left with an F-86 hot on his tail.
Redeeming gunnery
I broke to follow the MiG and ended up on his six first. Closing rapidly, the MiG ahead of me seemed temporarily unaware of my presence and I fired a burst of M3 .50cal machine guns at the MiG. A control surface flew off and the MiG pitched towards the ground. A good shot to redeem my earlier poor gunnery.
You’d think that this would be the last of the MiG but it was not and Cubeboy went down after it. We lost it in the trees only to pick it up again as it emerged into a valley. A short burst from Cubeboy’s guns and that MiG was down.
We then closed on the damaged leader MiG-15 which was limping away from the fight and brought it down too.
That was 1.5 kills for Cubeboy and half a kill for me.
Landing with not much fuel to spare
I ate up a lot of fuel in the fight with the MiG-15 and a quick check of fuel status revealed that I had very little left in the tank. It wasn’t quite a nail-biter of a return to base, or so I thought, until I looked at the fuel gauge after landing.
I taxied off the runway and checked the fuel state. Low!
I’d say that was a first successful mission on this server and I look forward to flying there again.
Stormbirds 
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