F/A 18 INTERCEPTOR (?) (?)

In mission 6, once you've fired all your missiles, you can land on the Shadow Sub (if it's still afloat) and it will refuel and rearm you.

Select option '2 - Free Flight - No enemy confrontation' from the main menu. Then select '0' instead of 1 to 4. The screen will go into a spiral and scroll way south to 34 by 117 degrees, placing your plane somewhere without a runway. This happens to be in the middle of Edwards Air Force Base, where the F/A-18 was flight tested. Hmmmm... To take off you have to use the afterburners. 117 degrees is the furthest south you'll be able to fly, but you can go in other directions. (Is there more to this back door?)

The following comments contain tips on how to better enjoy Interceptor:

FOLLOW THAT F-16:
I just finished the third mission. You have to fly in front of the F-16s. When you have successfully done this, you will be prompted to return to the carrier.

STUFF AND NONSENSE:
'Starting at San Francisco International Airport, gamesters can fuel and arm their jet fighter, then 'taxi' down U.S. 101, hang a right at Highway 92, pull up to the Electronic Arts headquarters, and blow the place to bits. And these were people who _liked_ the game.'

I wish I knew where these stupid, false rumors started. The answer is NO, you cannot 'taxi down 101, hang a right at Highway 92, and blow up the EA headquarters.' That's totally absurd. You have to hang a LEFT at Highway 92.

EA is on the second floor of one of the two low buildings ESE of the 92-101 intersection. I won't tell you which one - we'll give Trip Hawkins a 50-50 chance of survival.

TRAINING EXERCISES:
> Exactly what is the difference between a aileron roll and a barrel roll?
> (ie, what do you do with the joystick).

An aileron roll is one where the plane stays mostly in the same place but the roll angle changes. (Your wings go around, you sit in place). A barrel roll on the other hand, the plane moves in a circle while constantly changing it's roll angle. Consider the following visual aids, for an aileron roll imagine that the plane is on a string stretching to infinity. When you roll you stay on the string while rolling around. No visualize the plane attached to the inside wall of a tube, when you barrel roll its like flying around the inside of the tube.

> In all of the maneuvers, I cannot help but lose sight of the instructor.
> (the instructor pulls away from me half way through the inside loop, when
> doing a roll, or inverted flight, the instructor usually ends up going off
> at an angle to me, etc...)

This is probably because you are flying in 'video game' mode where every motion is made as abrubtly and as severly as possible. The instructor doesn't make the tightest loop or the fastest roll. He is also probably using his rudder pedals. As for inverted flight, the instructor does some maneuvers while inverted, run the 'Show Maneuvers' option or whatever it is and press ENTER to get inside the instructors plane. Then watch what she does while inverted.

> When landing on the carrier, what is the correct direction of approach in
> order to snag the wires? (it would be nice to see the layout of airports,
> carriers, etc when using 'M')

The carrier landing runway is always pointed due north (ie 00 on your compass) and that is the direction you should be flying when you land. The easiest way to line up on the carrier is to fly a true pattern. Fly 180 degrees and line up on the carrier. (coming from the north) when you get lined up (ie it's straight ahead, turn right to 270 and fly for about 10 seconds, then turn back to 180. Now watch the carrier to go by on your left. Turn your head and watch when it touches your wingtip. Now count to 20, turn to 90 degrees (that's a left) count to 10, and then turn to 0 degrees. You now have 20 seconds before the carrier will be directly under you. At this point I usually drop my gear and arrestor hook. Then line the horizon of the plane on the carrier. This will put you into a glide slope that terminates at the carrier.

If you are too high (more than about 5,000 ft) your glide slope will be to steep and you will have to use the air brakes to slow down as you decend. As you get closer to the carrier, make the alignment better. (slide to the left or right as needed using the rudder pedals). Keep the horizon lined up on the end of the carrier just past the cables (when they are visible). Just when you think you are going to crash into the deck, flare out. If you are travelling fast you might want to hit the air brakes just before you are over the carrier. Steer toward the right runway! If you miss the cable, drop the brakes, hit the afterburners. Lift the arrestor hook and when your burners kick in pull up and go around.

MISSION 3 - CONFIG:
I've completed mission 3 several times. I hit the Mig's before they ever shoot at me, though it says to fire only if fired upon. This gives you more time to get up by the F-16's. Close in on the F-16's and fly between them at the same altitude and just a hair faster (usually about 84% power). They will turn back after a couple of seconds and you will be instructed to return to the carrier. By the way, if you want to change your stats you can look in the 'config' file on the disk with a Hex editor and put whatever stats you want in there (use a backup disk!). This way you could cheat and qualify yourself for all the missions if you wanted to.

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO QUALIFY:
You first need to reset the log to a blank log the enter a name... After that you will be qualified. Just be sure after landing safely to power down the jet F1 then another F1 after power reahes 10%.

HOW TO QUALIFY/LAND:
To qualify you must:

  1. Land on the carrier from the south (landing from the north doesn't get it!).
  2. Make sure the arrestor hook and landing gear are down.
  3. Aresstor hook must catch in the cables on the deck (they look like gray horizontal lines on the deck).
  4. You must be going slow enough to be able to stop. This means going in at 50% throttle and cutting back to 10% just before hitting the deck and hitting the brakes at the same time. As soon as the throttle reading says 10% hit 1 again to cut off all propulsion. Otherwise you will keep on rolling.
  5. If you come to a stop and don't get a notice that you have completed your mission then you screwed up! Try Again!
HOW TO SINK THE SUB:
To sink the sub, come in low (about 120 ft max) with tracking OFF, so you can fire missiles where you point the plane. Fire an AMRAAM missile into the conning tower (that's the tall part of the sub). The tower will start to smoke.
Now go back an refuel & rearm if necessary & down all the MIGS. You'll then get the message to return to the ship. I haven't been able to verify all of this, but it is possible to hit the tower with tracking off (I did it today, and yep, it started smoking), but so far I haven't sunk the sub (I guess it takes multiple hits, just like a real sub might). During one attempt on the sub it fired off a cruise missile that headed toward San Francisco! Didn't get a chance to learn what happened there because I crashed soon afterward.

I SUNK THE SUB/CARRIER:
Yes I finally managed to sink the carrier/sub. Hit the sub twice with missiles. To do this you must have the targetting system off and be low and at very close range. 45 feet and waiting till the sub is more than 3 pixels high usually works for me. Then go and kill all the MIGs. I killed all the MIGs I could see and then refueled at my own carrier and another MIG appeared. After I killed it I got the mission complete message. That is the last mission by the way. By the way dont forget to pull up fast after launching the missile. Ramming the carrier doesn't count. While I was trying to figure all this out I did pass the time by landing on the sub and taking off again.

Also have you noticed that when you are flying low the enemy will sometimes follow you and get themselves stuck in the water. If you have the afterburner on it is possible to hit the water and bounce back up into the air. (TIP: use the afterburner while flying low on the way to the sub - press F10 while at 100% power and wait for the kick at MACH I)

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