Morning Supercarrier catapult launch:
Enroute to Recon Point we were joined with another F/A - 18 Hornet Squad providing air cover just incase the Iranians could still launch their fighters, 4 Wing formation:
Started the recon, taking videos of the bombed sites, Bandar Abbas, West of Bandar Abbas Harbor and East Of Bandar Abbas Airfield. Got locked by an Iranian SAM at waypoint 3 but I made sure the SAM was still out of range to actually fire. With the recon stuff finished, continued to land at Ras Al Khaimah to meet the UAE Royal Family per their request. US Combat Pilots must sometimes do boring PR stuff like this, part of the job lol. Been quite a while since the last time I did an airfield landing in DCS, most of the time it's Supercarrier landing mode lol. With Airfield landing it's a bit different, had to switch to airfield mode with antiskid on. Then upon touchdown had to use aerodynamic braking by keeping the nose up as long as possible and Flaps, then I gently let the front gear touch the runway and then I started using the wheel brakes by pressing the rudder pedals down gently and softly to slow down my Fighter or otherwise you would lose control of your fighter and land upside down or sideways or worse lol. :
Then landed back at the Carrier. Case 1 Carrier Landing and got a good OK Wire 2 landing score. It's basically 4 out of max 5 landing score, pretty satisfied with it lol did not get max 5 because I was a little to the left of the LSO during the approach:
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