Blazing Angels part 2

The day is mine! When we last met, I was stuck on the mission flying through the ice canyons to destroy the heavy water plant. Before we begin, may I re-emphasize HOW^$%%#&$%#$ REDICULOUS THIS STUPID LEVEL IS AND HOW IF I EVER MEET THE *&^%$%^**$ WHO DESIGNED IT I'M GOING TO SKIN HIM ALIVE!!!! Ahem. Anyway, I hate to say it, but there aren't really any tricks, you just have to keep flying the mission until you figure it out. The only real hints I can give are to try different planes. they all fly differently and you may have better luck with a certain one. I wound up using the Spitfire. Also, each time you re-try the level try something different. Find out which corners you can fly around full speed and which ones you have to slow down for. See if you can fly around obstructions a different way. You may be surprised. And remember, there is a rediculous time limit, so you have to go full speed 99% of the mission. Once you get through the first canyon (yes you read that right, FIRST CANYON!!!! THERE ARE MORE!!!) you have to bomb some German ships in an alcove. This is rather tight flying, but is not terribly tricky. Then you follow Joe through ANOTHER canyon, but this time, there are enemy fighters in there with you. Take my advice: IGNORE THE FIGHTERS! Shooting them down does you know good, and if you don't shoot them, it doesn't matter. Just concentrate on flying through the canyon. Once again, stupid time limit. After this canyon, you have to shoot down the fighters and sink some more ships. Fortunetly, this cove has more room than the last one, so you don't really have to worry about crashing. However, these enemy fighters are a pain. They have equal planes, and these guys are GOOD. Use the target follow mode here. Trust me. Once you destroy the enemy, Joe will unceromoniously disappear and you have to follow him again. Look for the blue arrow on your radar, that's him. He is busy going through the last (finally!) canyon. Follow him, this is just like the last one, fighters and all. By the way, each canyon is worse than the last, and the time is harder to beat, but without realizing it, by practicing the mission you are getting better at canyon flying. After the final canyon, you finally reach the heavy water plant. Just bomb it and get it over with. No problems here. Oh and one last thing, there's a sub to sink at the end too.









After that HELLACIOUS mission throught the ice, it's time to get back to the real world. Now you have to assist the DDay landings at Normandy. This seems fairly standard shooting bombers and ground targets. Biggest trick is there are soooo many targets. Each time you come around, use the joystick to select the target closest to you. This makes it easier to see. Here you have to beat both a timer and the little meter saying how many friendly troops are left. It's not terribly hard, but you have to be quick. And the land targets are low and tucked into small ravines. Try not to crash! Oh and also, one of your wingmen is killed on this mission. Just like landing your damaged plane on a previous mission, this is part of the story and nothing you do can change it.





After saving the Normandy invasion, you have to rid Paris of German troops. By now it should be becoming clear that the missions are getting harder. Imagine the last mission, but all the enemy tanks are in between tall buildings. The biggest challenge with this mission is to not run into the buildings. To avoid this, your best bet is to fly along roads, rivers, etc as much as possible. There are a lot of them, but you have plenty of time to take them all out, so relax and watch out for the buildings. Also, unlike previous levels, if you are called to help another area here, you have to go immediately. You can not wait until you finish cleaning up the area you are at, or you will lose. After cleaning up all the Germans, you have to take out the fleeing German general. This is very bizzare, because he will pop up and dissapear on your radar repeatedly in a pattern that is physically impossible. Your best bet: Hang out by Notre Dame, just circle over the river. With about 35 seconds left on the timer, he will appear in this area on three boats on the river. Take these out, then a few fighters, and the mission is done.

Your next assignment is the Ardenne Woods, more commonly called the Battle of the Bulge. This one seems to be quite a doozy. First up is a wave of German fighters to take out, then some armored columns, then a bomber wave. Oh, and you have one restrictive time limit to take out all of it. Well, this is where I am now. I was going to wait longer to post this next installment, but since I am leaving now and who knows when I will get back to the game. So when I do, I will continue my little narrative. Have fun!

Blazing Angels...part 1

Ok, so for Christmas, the wife got us a Wii as a way to spend time together. I recently got this game for it, Blazing Angels, Squadrons of World War II. I have to say for the most part I like it. Now I'm not much of a video gamer, but I'm having fun. Biggest problem is that every time I get stuck on a mission, it's not due to lack of ability as much as there's a trick to doing it. And by the way, I searched the web and none of the "hint" sites are any help. So here I want to impart my little bit of knowledge for you guys.


You start out on a training mission in a biplane. It's pretty easy, and tells you exactly what to do. Perhaps the hardest thing to figure out is how to drop bombs. The gun crosshairs are obvious, but when you are given a bombing task, a circle will appear on the ground beneath you. If you can't see it, fly lower or at a downward angle. When your target is in the circle, release the bombs. Oh yeah, and landing is easier than you think. Just go low and level over the runway, then hit the brakes.


Second mission is Dunkirk part one. Pretty simple at first. Just shooting down bombers and bombing tanks. Trick is towards the end the tanks start coming faster, and the last column appears right in front of the bridge you are defending. With this column you have to be very fast and use guns, not bombs or you will never get them all in time. At the end of the mission you have to destroy the bridge, with a time limit as always. To do this you have to hit the same spot (near the middle) several times.


After defending the bridge, you are tasked with defending the British ships. The hardest part of this is sinking the German ships with bombs. The biggest suggestion for this is to attack them lengthwise. This gives you more to attack. Also, for all of these missions, use the right arrow to send your wingmen after your targets as well.


After Dunkirk, you move onto the Battle of Britain. This mission is straight forward: Shoot down German planes. The challenge? You have to do it before they bomb the crap out of London's famous landmarks. Try using the follow cam here. I didn't like it at first, but it is really useful for shooting enemy planes. I still don't like using it for ground targets, though.



The next mission is a trick. It is not terribly hard, but you have to understand it. You take off from a carrier, then have to photograph your ships for practice (you are a recon plane.) You get a new display with a green bar across the top. This is the range meter, and when the arrow is in the middle portion, you can take the picture. You have to hold the button until the picture is done though, so you have to take it IMMEDIATELY when you are in range, or you will not have time. It is really slow on the practice runs, but don't worry, it is much easier on the mission (go figure.) When you actually go on the mission, you are flying through a sandstorm in the North African desert. You will start off in the right direction to find your first "target." To find the others, two green bars appear on the side. Each represents one of the other "targets," and the bigger the bar, the closer to the right direction you are going. It makes more sense when you actually do it. Finally you have to land back on the carrier before getting shot down. Try to figure out quickly which way the carrier is facing so you have time for a nice long approach.



Your next mission is attacking the Germans in North Africa. Typical shooting down planes and destroying ground forces. Here you get rockets instead of bombs, which is actually pretty cool. The aim point is the same as the guns, and you have a meter for how many rockets you have. They are lots of fun to shoot, so go nuts! BTW, you can shoot planes with them too!



Now comes the real fun. You leave the European theater to be a "flight instructor" at Pearl Harbor. I'm sure you can figure out how that goes for you. Just remember all of your dogfighting tricks, and you should get through this one without excess difficulty.



After the Japanese attack on Pearl, you fly against their fleet at Coral Sea. When flying to the fleet, stay low! They don't mention it, but if you fly any higher, you get spotted too soon and fail the mission. This is your first mission with torpedos, which are a lot of fun too. Their display looks similar to the camera display, but you have a horizintal bar for distance and a vertical one for height. Both have to be green to get a hit. Word to the wise is attack ships from the side here, so the torpedo has a bigger target. Also, try to get as close as possible while still in range, in order to garantee a hit.

Next is the defense of Midway. If you have a historical instinct, you will probably be tempted to fly the Buffalo fighter. Trust me, don't. Take the P40, you will be glad you did. First you attack waves of japanese dive bombers. For this, concentrate on one wave at a time. If you try to go back and forth, you will lose big time. Next you have to escort friendly bombers back to base. this is a huge pain in the you know where, because you are flying between friendly planes while trying to kill the enemy. And when the bombers make it back, you have a time limit to get the rest of the Japanese fighters. Again, try the follow mode here and remember to use you wingmen. There are a lot of 'em.

Next you get to do the fun part of sinking the enemy carriers. Well first, you have to escort the friendly bombers (which, btw, you are flying. I'm not sure what the heck they were thinking on this one!) After taking out the enemy fighters, you get to torpedo the enemy carriers before they launch more planes. After the carriers, you get to sink the rest of the ships as well. Hint for this one is use the joystick to switch targets each time you approach and find the closest one to go after. This helps prevent hitting ships that are already sinking.

Next you defend Guadalcanal. This is tricky because you start out hitting transports, then you hit tanks once they get ashore. However they are well covered by trees and buildings enroute from the beach to the airfield. Try not to hit the ground when shooting them. But this isn't the best part! After destroying the enemy, your plane is magically damaged beyond repair (I swear, this is part of the game, and nothing you do prevents it.) You have a minute and a half to land your crippled plane, which by the way, flies like a rock now. I found the way to do this is to approach with the runway on your right as you approach land. If you go the other way, you have to contend with a large mountain. In order to make the time, you have to start towards the base immediately at full speed. You probably won't succeed on your first try. Imagine the challenge of landing, but with a time limit, a plane that does not steer, and you can't see because of the smoke. Fun times! After landing, you switch planes and take off to sink more enemy ships. Same routine as always.

Now you have to assist the landings on New Georgia. This is actually rather tricky, because you have to attack land, sea, and air targets in three locations before they destroy the invading forces. The only way I found to do this is to once again concentrate on one spot at a time and kill all the enemies there before moving on. Even when the next friendly group calls for help, don't respond to them until you have finished the current enemies. To those familiar with Star Trek, this seems like a Kobayashi Maru situation, but that is how it must be done.

Next mission is to assist the attack on Rabaul. This mission must have been easy and non-eventful because I don't even remember it.

After Rabaul, you return to Europe to assist in DDay workups. First things is attacking a German fleet near Norway. This is pretty standard except you are among icebergs, so try not to crash. The ships tend to congregate right next to the icebergs, so find the best way to navigate around them and still hit the ships. The other trick on this one is you have to hit a german submarine, which surfaces and sinks from time to time. Be quick or you'll miss it. And with the sub especially, attack it lengthwise so you have more area to hit.

Ah, now we come to where I am stuck. At the end of the last mission, one of your wingmen spots and enemy base hidden deep in a fjord. It is determined that the base is a heavy water plant and it is your job to take it out. Ok, a little background first. A little research shows that there was in fact a German heavy water plant in Norway. But the allies destroyed the plant with a series of paratrooper raids, and at one point a heavy daylight bombing raid. That is the historical background. Now, here is the game's version. You and one wingman have to fly through an ice cave for three minutes to reach the plant and bomb it. Seriously, WTH DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING???????? This is the most retarded thing ever! Now, the only decent guide I have found on the internet says this level is "easy." I suppose for people who always play video games and are used to this kind of stupid crap maybe it is easy. But I do not play many video games, am therefore not well practiced in randomly flying down canyons for no reason. All I want to do is fly around, shoot planes and bomb stuff. NOT go flying through an ice canyon that has no historical basis! Sorry, I'm getting really spun up about this, because I have been stuck here for a few days now. If anyone has any little secrets for this level, please let me know! Anyway, when I finally move on, I will continue this little hints naration. Thanks for playing folks! By the way, you can get it here.

Leavin, on a.... prop plane

Ok, so this is my first "mobile blogging"! Try to follow along here. The wife has been up in South Carolina for a while now, but when I came in, she came down to "visit" for a day. Then when we went on standown she asked her dad (did I mention he's a pilot?) to come down and fly me up there. No, not his house, to her mom's house near Charlotte. We're going to her dad's house near Columbia in a couple days. Then we will drive home to Georgia. Confused yet? I'm not sure yet that I'm not. Anyway, here is her dad's plane at the St Marys airport.

Starting lineup at the airport

Friendly reminder from your local submarine base. I love how the small sign says pilots are "requested" to not fly over the base.

Here's the base, looking out toward the piers.

Here's the rest of the base with all the admin buildings.

Crooked River, the jut of land above is where the state park is.

Woodbine, GA. Here is the Camden county courthouse complex

looks like some clearing operation going on

The Altamaha River above and below. The mouth of this river is where Oglethorpe created the town of Darien as a barrier for Savannah.

Nice farm yo.

Here's where we stoppped for gas

Gassin' up the plane

Nuke power plant at the Savannah river site. Oh by the way, that's the Savannah river too.

Another site at the Sav River site. Looks like a former plant site that has been decommed and is being disposed of.

Some kind of mining operation. I'm used to seeing these out west digging for gold or copper. Not sure what they're looking for here.

Lake Murray, west of Columbia SC.

Dreher Island State Park on Lake Murray

Monticello Reservoir, just north of Lake Murray. You can see the dam and power plant here that form the lake.

Charlotte, North Carolina

Catawba Power plant at Lake Wylie

Here we are, Rock Hill Municipal airport

Jacket at the Rock Hill airport of Robert Bryant

HOLDER OF WORLDS NON-STOP LIGHT PLANE RECORD
MIAMI, FLA. TO CAMDEN, NJ.
JULY 13, 1938 1051 MILES
IN 13 HRS. & 20 MINUTES

Memorial Monday

Ok, tommorow marks the end of the Berlin Airlift in 1949. It began in June 1948 when the Soviet Union blockaded Western Berlin from all supplies. Berlin was entirely inside the Soviet occupation zone, but was split between the victorious powers. The Soviets cut off Berlin in 1948 in an attempt to force the Western nations to accept its demands concerning Germany. The Allies turned instead to the sky. While roads, railroads, and rivers were blocked by the Soviets, the treaty signed in 1945 had designated three airspace corridors allowing access to Berlin from the West. There was only one way to stop an aircraft: Shoot it down. And shooting down an unarmed aircraft in a treaty-protected zone would be an unquestionable act of war. On June 25, 1948 the airlift began and lasted for fifteen months. While the blockade was lifted in May of 1949, the last plane of the airlift flew on September 30. During those months, over 75,000 people from the US, England, France, Germany, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and Baltic State reufgees loaded and flew over 2,300,000 tons of vital supplies to the people of Berlin in the greatest humanitarian airlift in history. The US and its allies had won a major Cold War victory, and without firing a shot. And so, our first "Memorial Monday" is dedicated to these men and women who showed the Soviets that beating us just would not be that easy.
Photos taken at an airshow at Beaufort, South Carolina in spring 2004.
The Spirit of Freedom is a Douglas R5D transport that participated in the Berlin Airlift, and now flys as a memorial to these brave men who saved Berlin.

Fly me to St Marys

Ok, so here's just a quick look at some of the interesting things I have seen at the local airport. There used to be what looked like an old British jet fighter that flew around here once in a while, but I never got a photo of it. Anyway, I am not familiar with what most of these are, but the above appears to be an old Army Chickasaw helicopter. I looked uo the company out of curiosity, and Aircrane is a "Hot"lanta (Atlanta for you non-locals) based company with helicopters that it rents out for projects involving lifting, etc.

Some kind of small helicopter
An interesting "pusher" type plane

No idea what this is or what it was for, but it looked very official. Taking a guess, it had something to do with the Navy base.

Boneyard part tree

Ok, this is the last of the Pima posts, and focuses mostly on the majority of the museum's WW2 collection, whic we saw after the AMARG tour. We begin with this spectacular plane, rarely seen in the US, the Hawker Hurricane, the unsung hero of the Battle of Britain.
B24 Liberator, arguably a better overall plane than the B17 and did just as much, but far less well known.
An actual Nazi V1 Buzz bomb, the weapon that terrorized London in the latter days of the war. Most examples in museums are reproductions.

F16 canopy from aircraft shot down in Iraq Jan 19, 1991 (the first Gulf War.) It was flown by Major Jeffrey Scott Tice, who ejected safely after being hit by a Surface to Air missle and was held as a POW until Mar 13. The canopy was recovered by the 101st Airborne Division in April 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
A local resident says hello
A parade of old airport firetrucks brings a sense of completness to the aircraft collection.
An oddly shaped meteorite known as the Tucson Ring Meteorite
This is the 390th Bomb Group Memorial, called a "museum within a museum", this is separately run from the rest of Pima, but is located inside it and has no additional cost. The 390th flew its first bombing mission on Aug 12, 1943, but became famous on a mission to Munster on Oct 10, 1943. On this raid, a fierce air battle took place where the 390th shot down a record 62 German fighters. This reputation continued as they became known as the most accurate bomb group in the 8th Air Force, with the lowest losses per mission/bombs dropped. They flew 301 missions until May 1945, losing a total of 179 aircraft, and never once turned back due to enemy action. The heart of the memorial is the meticulously restored B17 Flying Fortress, the most recognized aircraft of WW2.

First US flag ashore on Utah Beach on Jun 6, 1944 (DDay).
An F4F pulled out of Lake Michigan. On April 12, 1945, Ensign Robert Woodruff flew out of Glenview Naval Air Station to conduct landings and takeoffs on the training carrier USS Wolverine. Just before reaching the deck, the Landing Signal Officer saw he was too low and waved him off. The plane touched the deck just as the pilot applied power, and the tailhook caught an arresting wire, causing the plane to be dragged down to the deck and over the side. The pilot was not hurt and returned to Glenview for more training. The aircraft was one of several recovered from the lake in the mid 1990's.
The giant B29 Superfortress. Like the B17, but much bigger and with much more range, it brought the war to Japan, destroying their production to the point where they no longer had enough fighters to attempt to shoot down the invading bombers. On August 6, 1945, a B29 changed the world forever by dropping the first atomic bomb, bringing a hasty close to the world's most bloody war.
Another fairly uncommon plane, the TBM Avenger. Developed just before WW2, this large torpedo bomber was first shown to the public at the opening of a new Grumman plant on Dec 7, 1941, just hours before the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor hurled the US into the global conflict. The aircraft first saw action at the end of the battle of Midway. They were flown by both actor Paul Newman, and future President George H. W. Bush, who was shot down, but dropped his payload on target first, earning him the Distinguished Flying Cross. The planes flew many important missions, including the sinking of the Japanese Super Battleship Yamato, and the submarine I52, which was transporting gold to Germany as payment for technology. It is also belived that the sub was to pick up some Uranium Oxide from the Germans to build a nuclear "dirty bomb". The Avenger also gained fame when a group known as Flight 19 disapeared in the Bermuda Triangle.
Bomb tags used on B29 bombers, including the city, date, and mission number.

Boneyard part dose

Ok, this is the real "Boneyard", or 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group (AMARG) at Davis-Monthan AFB. I have wanted to come here for years, inspired by powerfull images of rows and rows of B52 bombers and other warplanes, a symbol of the great war with Russian that never came. Most of the B52s are now gone, but the place stills conveys a sense of power. The base was created in 1946 and since then has been used to store excess aircraft for future use or spare parts. It currently holds over 4,000 aircraft with an estimated total value of several billion dollars. Due to money from selling planes for scrap, it is also one of the few government agencies that makes more money than it needs to run. Starting above, we see a row of F16 Fighting Falcons in storage. Most of these are former air guard units, as can be seen by the logos on that tails for Arizona, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, and others. These are kept in better condition as most will be probably be reactivated or sold to other countries.
The tour bus goes through "museum row", a lineup of enough aircraft to make an entire separate museum, though only a few are shown here. Above is an S3 Viking and an A4 Skyhawk used as a Red Rogue fighter for training at the US Navy Fighter Weapons School.

The McDOnnell Douglas YC15, the competitor to the YC14 (last post) to replace the C130. While neither one went into production, the basic design of the YC15 is readily apparent in the modern C17 Globemaster.
The EC24, a DC8 modified for electronic warfare and testing.
Several rows of T37 Tweet trainers
hundreds of F4 Phantom fighters

S3 Vikings
A7 Corsairs and T2 Buckeyes
This is the area where all aircraft arriving or leaving pass through. Protective covering is applied here if they are going into storage, and it is removed and all systems checked if they are leaving.
Rows of F14 Tomcats with C5 Galaxies behind them
F111 Aardvarks, now retired from the US, kept mostly for spare parts for the Australian Air Force, which still flies the type.

Several C141s, also recently retired from the Air Force.
This is the ultimate fate of those iconic rows of B52s. Due to the Strategic Nuclear Arms Reduction Treatys, the old B52s are chopped up into several large pieces and left for a specified number of days to allow Russian sattelites to verify their destruction.
A group of F18 Hornets, and in the background the next B52s that will become victims of the START treaty.
Here is the closest thing to the old rows of B52s. A rather small cluster of more modern B1 Lancer bombers, too valuable to cut up, kept for spare parts to keep the others operational.
This grouping of planes is destined for various museums, and are awaiting pickup.