Falcon 3 Revisited: A Red Flag AAR

Falcon 3.0 is undoubtedly one of the best flight sim ever created. Even today, this 15-year old game still have features that are either omitted or not as well implemented by newer games. This game can be played using DosBox, and as noted in my DosBox review, you should play around with 'frame-skip' parameter to get missiles performing properly. On my Ubuntu box, frame-skip = 4 seems to be the sweet spot.

Today, we will join Col. Sheehan, callsign Redrum, on a Red Flag A-A mission. Col. Sheehan is the CO of the Swamp Fox squadron, flying F-16C Falcons. The objective of this mission is to kill 3 bogeys in the training area. Two of the bogeys are Mirage 3s and the last one is a MiG-23. The training scenario calls for a stealthy sneak attack on the first bogey, with complete GCI control up to engagement point. The detection and engagement of the last 2 bogeys are left to the pilot.

Redrum enters the training area at Nellis at high altitude, approximately 25000 feet, completely under GCI control with his radar off. GCI controller guided him into the "saddle" of the first bogey. Now Col. Sheehan picks up the story.

"The GCI controller put me in a perfect position behind the first bogey. He is completely unaware of my presence, so I'd close up to within 3 miles, arm my Sidewinder, get a solid lock and tone and then launch. He tried to evade the missile, but it's already too late and I got my first kill."


"The second bogey was a different story. Since now I'm on my own, I fired up my radar in search mode and picked him up from a range of approximately 40 miles."

"Since the AMRAAMs will only lock on at about 15 miles, I decided to stay in search mode in order not to spook him too early. So I'd waited until he get to approximately 12 miles and then switch to TWS mode. At this instant, I received a message that the enemy is using ECM. This means that any radar lock will be unreliable and the performance of the AMRAAM missiles will be greatly reduced. When I'd launched my first missile, the lock is immediately broken and the missile missed. Foolishly, I wasted another Fox 1 on the bogey. The second missile also missed. Realizing that my AMRAAMs are now useless, I switched the radar to ACM mode and armed a Sidewinder. I didn't really hope that the radar would be able to lock on the bogey. Instead, I'd be using my Sidewinder's seeker head to get the bandit. We are now within visual range and after a couple of high-G maneuvers I managed to get a Sidewinder lock (still no radar lock) and launched a Fox 2. The missile tracked him correctly, but seems to explode just short of his tailpipe. He seems to be damaged from the shrapnel."

"I still have a healthy bogey somewhere, so I disengaged and try to find him. It proved to be quite easy. I'd detect the MiG-23 at approximately 30 miles, close up to approximately 13 miles then lock him up and immediately launched a Fox 1. This time, since there is no ECM activity, the missile guided perfectly and the bogey blew up into a smoky orange fireball."

"Having dispatched the MiG, I turned around to check whether the damage caused by the near miss had brought down the second bogey. I swung my jet around and fire up my search radar. Apparently the bogey was not downed and I detected him again at about 40 miles out. My first missile might have damaged his ECM gear, though."

"I then closed up to about 15 miles, locked him up and confirmed that his ECM is down. Then I performed a textbook AMRAAM intercept, launching a Fox 1 at about 11 miles. Without his ECM, my final missile hit him amidships and he simply disintegrated into a million pieces."

"After confirming that I have neutralized all opposition, I got a vector out of the training area. During the debriefing, I got 3 confirmed kills. Mission accomplished."