Tonight I decided that it was time to put together a very simple mission into North Korea. Primary platform was the Skyhawk on a tactical recon of some smaller airfields around Wonsan. The 737 was orbiting just South of the DMZ, and Canterbury was ‘hiding’ behind an Island off the coast of Wonsan. The idea was to rendezvous with the 737 on the way North, then descend to low level for the tactical part of the mission. After Wonsan, I would do a fly-by on Canterbury, before heading back down the coast, via the final airfield in the mission.
Even before the mission got going there was a setback with my plan; The 737 lost *half* of the CDU display, making it basically useless. So the plan for the 737 was changed, on the fly, and launched without a functioning FMS!
The weather was pretty awful, with turbulence and rain at 15,000ft, but lower down it was far, far worse, with low cloud and bad visibility.
At the first ‘target’ airfield I encountered a concentration of AAA, and had a quick snap-shot at them as I passed….”honor the threat” as the strike guys say 😉 Next up was a quick pass over Wonsan airfield for a couple of photo passes, then out to wave at the crew of Canterbury.
It was a great mission, but a shame the 737 has failed it’s CDU…. that just moved to the top of my list to repair! Next time I want to roll some FS-Recorder tracks into the mix, with maybe some FAC action in the Arrow…
0.9 Hours in the log, a bunch of photos… now it’s time to build on the mission and bring more elements into play!