Visual confirmation — M1 briefing, tactics and the one mistake everybody makes

Mission 1 is a scramble, a vector and a rule of engagement that most pilots break within ninety seconds. Here is the briefing, the approach and what failure looks like.

Mission 1 is dated September 6, 1994, and it opens the campaign the way the 1988 original opened its career: a bogey, a vector and a lot of temptation. No spoilers here beyond what the briefing itself tells you.

The briefing

NORAD Strategic Command puts it plainly: unknown aircraft in your sector, inbound bogey closing on Enterprise. Scramble immediately, intercept for aerial recon, confirm friend or foe, and return to base. Then the line they print twice: do not fire unless fired upon.

By the numbers

• Start: the SFO runway, with your choice of airframe.
• Loadout: 2× AIM-9 Sidewinder, 4× AIM-120 AMRAAM, 500 rounds of 20mm.
• First vector: the tower calls a heading to the bogey, rounded to 5 degrees, and updates it as you close. The scope waypoint follows the nearest contact you have not yet identified.
• Identification: get within 900 metres of a contact and it is called visually. There are two of them, and the mission wants both.

How to fly it

Follow the vector call, not your instinct. Use the scope to put yourself behind and slightly below the contact so you can slow down and look rather than blow past it. A pass at full throttle gets you one identification and a long turn back.

Know your weapons before you need them: the Sidewinder and Sparrow posts cover how the lock system behaves before you press the button.

The one mistake

Arming up and shooting the moment you see a hostile shape. The rules are enforced: if you kill a bogey before it has fired on you, the sortie ends in a court martial, and no kill score will save you. The bogeys have to earn the shot, and patience is the objective.

And the standing rule applies: a mission only counts once you are back at the point of origin. Other decks and fields will rearm and refuel you, but the sortie finishes only when you are down at SFO. Once the objective is done, the waypoint swings to your point of origin.

Every mission is open from your first launch now (the campaign board is open), but flight school is still the recommended road if the intercept scope is new to you.

Try this: fly M1 once without touching the weapon selector. Learn the ID pass first; the guns can wait.

— HB