F-2 MISSIONS
Controls — Stick, Rudder, Throttle
Bank and rudder live on the same stick, and which one you get depends on where your finger lands. How the controls switch on you, and why they go dead at low speed.
A few things about the controls here are easy to miss — you can play all the way through without ever noticing them. The rudder is the big one: most players never find out it is a separate control at all.
The stick — sideways depends on where you started the touch
This is the single most important thing to know. The same stick gives you bank or rudder depending on where you put your finger down.
The pad is drawn with vertical divider ticks (|). That is the boundary.
| Where the touch starts | What you get |
|---|---|
| Center (within ±26 pt), then drag | Bank (roll) |
| A tap outside the divider | Yaw (rudder) |
Only the position where the touch began counts. A drag that starts in the center stays bank even if your finger slides out past the divider. A finger that started outside stays rudder until you lift it.
- Bank is a rate command. Hold it over and the jet keeps rolling (up to 180°/s, with no bank angle limit); let go and it stops at whatever attitude it reached. Nothing rolls you back to level on its own. Inverted flight works the same way.
- Rudder is a flat turn (±1°/s). It is a very slow heading change, standing in for the real jet’s side-force limit.
Use it when you are too slow to bank and just need to nudge the nose over a little. The last corrections on a carrier approach, and lining yourself up in formation, are the typical cases. It is not a substitute for banking into a turn.
Pitch — pulling is down
Up and down on the stick is pitch. Pulling down raises the nose, the same convention as a real control stick.
There is no auto-level, so pitch attitude is always yours to manage.
Throttle and afterburner
The throttle bar sets thrust. There is a detent at the top of the bar, and that is AB (afterburner).
Lighting it has a fixed procedure.
- Push the knob all the way into the detent at the top
- Hold it there at full for one second
That lights the burner and thrust goes to 1.7×. But —
Relighting costs another full second at the detent. You cannot ease off and bring it back when you want it again. Once you have decided to use AB for a stretch, leave it in.
ACE grade is the only one with a limited AB budget: 60 seconds per attempt. Burn through it and the burner goes out and will not relight. If you are going to spend it on ACE for something like the climb over Fuji, decide where before you take off.
Control authority scales with speed
If it feels like the jet ignores you at low speed, it does — control authority scales with dynamic pressure.
authority = (speed / 110)²Halve your speed and you have a quarter of the authority. On top of that, control response has a time constant of 0.3 seconds.
What that means is that at low speed your inputs are weak and late at the same time. Grabbing at the controls once you are already close to a stall does not work — not because of your hands, but because of this. Keeping your speed up is the only way to keep the jet controllable.
Landing gear
The behavior changes with grade.
| Grade | Gear |
|---|---|
| NORMAL / HARD | Automatic (down below 95 u/s, up above 110 u/s) |
| ACE / FREE PLAY | Manual (GEAR button) |
On manual, touching down with the gear up is a belly landing and scores as a CRASH. The cycle takes about 2.5 seconds, so remembering on short final is already too late.
Manual gear also brings its parasite drag with it, so dropping it early costs you speed.
Gamepad bindings
If you are playing with a controller:
| Control | Binding |
|---|---|
| Bank / pitch | Left stick |
| Yaw (rudder) | Right stick, left/right |
| Throttle | Right stick, up/down |
| Look around | R1 + right stick |
| Zoom | Left stick up/down (while holding R1) |
| Reset view | R3 |
What to remember
- Sideways is decided by where the touch starts. Center = bank, outside = rudder.
- Bank keeps rolling while you hold it, and stops where you let go.
- AB is one second at the detent. Back off at all and it goes out.
- Control authority goes as the square of speed. Slow enough and your inputs never arrive.
- ACE gear is manual. Forget it and you land on the belly.
Next, what these controls will actually do to a mission — The first five minutes — seven ways a mission fails.