F-2 MISSIONS
Basic Flight Training
Seven sorties at Matsushima — from your first takeoff through turns, the circuit, night, energy, and a navigation flight that has you read the map around Kinkasan. The fundamentals, built up one sortie at a time.
AT A GLANCE
- Where
- Matsushima Air Base, Miyagi
- Sorties
- 7
- Covers
- Takeoff, turns, the circuit, night, energy, navigation
- Unlocks
- One sortie at a time, in order
The first chapter of the campaign. It is set at Matsushima Air Base, and all seven sorties take off from there and come back there.
The mission
There are no switches to memorise and no checklists to learn by heart. What you learn is how to fly.
The flight model works the way the real aircraft does. Bank, and the jet wants to sink; pull, and you hold it up. Trade speed for height, and you can trade the height back for speed. Each sortie in this chapter adds one more of those to your hands.
The campaign opens one sortie at a time. You cannot pick the next one until you have flown the one before it.
How it flows
| # | Sortie | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | WHEELS UP | Your first takeoff. Check the controls yourself before you go, and hold the brakes until you are cleared |
| 2 | FIRST TURN | Through the gate at 500 m, then 180° left; from the next gate, 180° right. 45° of bank at 500 km/h |
| 3 | ROUND TRIP | The traffic circuit as seven gates — in order, and in the direction shown |
| 4 | NIGHT CIRCUIT | The same circuit at night. The terrain disappears; only the runway and approach lights are left |
| 5 | ENERGY | Trade speed and altitude. Climb at 30°, then hold a 30° dive with the airbrake |
| 6 | OUT AND BACK | Out along the RWY 07 centreline, turn, come back down the same line and land on the far end, RWY 25 |
| 7 | CROSS COUNTRY | Read the map, round Kinkasan and fly home |
What it asks of you
Bank, then pull
The first wall is FIRST TURN. The moment you roll into 45° of bank, the jet starts losing height: the wing’s lift is tilted, and less of it is holding you up. Bank, then pull to hold it — only then is a turn a turn.
If you are sinking in a turn, the cause is almost always the same: you have not pulled enough for the bank you are holding. More in Stalls and Turns.
The gates have a direction
The gates on ROUND TRIP set not only the order you fly them in but the direction you go through them. The point is to fly the shape of the circuit, and flown backwards it is not the circuit.
Enter a gate from the wrong side and the mission is over. Look at which way the next gate faces, not just where it is, before you start the turn.
Losing height is your job
On OUT AND BACK you have to get rid of the height for the landing yourself, on the way back down the centreline. No gate tells you when to descend. Arrive over the end of the runway still high, and it is too late.
Read the map — CROSS COUNTRY
Cross Ishinomaki, clear the Oshika ridge at 1,500 m, and round Kinkasan keeping it on your right. Then come home low over Ishinomaki Bay to RWY 07.
For the six sorties before it, following the gates told you where to go. CROSS COUNTRY does not. You read the map and choose the way yourself.
GALLERY
The major missions of the campaign in the Steam edition (Windows / Mac). Content may change in updates.