HORNET BAY
FLIGHT LOG
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FEATUREGRAPHICSUI

The reel: five scenes of trouble behind the menu, and a key to the whole board b739eb6

The Hornet Bay menu over the night catapult scene — twin afterburner fireballs lighting the deck as the jet takes the shot, ALL ACCESS on the board

The old attract mode was one Hornet touring the bay at a polite 210 knots. Polite is over. The menu now backs onto a five-scene cinematic reel — a director that cuts between carrier ops, a dogfight and a bridge run, day, dusk and night, with a flash cut between takes:

  1. The cat shot, at night, full burner. Steam wisping off the track, deck crew in their jerseys, and the Hornet goes from the hold to 78 metres a second in 128 feet of deck — twin fireballs you can read from the LSO platform. The camera rides the bow ramp for the tension, alongside for the shot, then chases the climb-out.
  2. The furball. A MiG-29 and a Hornet circle over the bay. The bandit shoots first — the Hornet flares it off, pulls the reversal, and its Sidewinder does not miss. Watch the fireball, the smoke bloom and the death spiral into the headlands; the camera rides with the winner until the kill, then with the loser all the way down.
  3. The trap, at dusk, under a full moon. A Tomcat in the groove, hook down, 2.4 kilometres of final at three and a half degrees — into the wires, smoke off the deck, rollout on the angle.
  4. The fleet flyby. An F-14, an F-16 and an A-10 in echelon come down the deck axis at 250 knots and forty metres — burner glows on, sonic crack as they cross the island.
  5. The bridge run. Night again, 290 knots at 46 metres, straight through the Golden Gate gap with the burners lit — then the pull, vertical over the towers, vapor puffing off the wingtips. The camera rides the left wing the whole way.
  6. Every scene owns its sky. The reel sets its own time of day per take (the menu day/night toggle no longer fights it), and the burners got the cinematic treatment — bigger, angrier flames than gameplay, with a glow sprite that reads from any angle, day or night.
  7. And a key to the whole board: MALCOLMSONLY. Press U on the menu and enter the code — every school sortie and every campaign mission signs open from the first boot, no syllabus, no progression. Named for the skipper’s toughest critic. The board reads ALL ACCESS when it takes.