Manual

Training theatre revolves around OceanaNaval Air Station (NAS) located outside ofNorfolk, Virginia. It extends as far northas southern Pennsylvania and as farsouth as the Bahamas. While in trainingat Oceana you’ll be assigned to VF-101“Grim Reapers”, the east coast FleetReadiness Squadron (FRS). As a GrimReaper, you’ll be given an opportunity tosharpen your flying skills before enteringinto combat. Go ahead and practice allthose fancy manoeuvres you see in themovies. Just remember that once incombat this game is for real. You justmight want to discard all that hot-doggin’for some common sense ACM.The majority of the training takes placeover water. Somewhere out there is anaircraft carrier, provided it hasn’t beenswallowed up by the Bermuda triangle.This carrier is devoted to conductingtraining exercises with rookie aviatorsbefore classifying them as mission ready.Now is the time to practice take-offs andlandings (TOLs). If you’re going to makemistakes it’s best to make them duringtraining and not during combat.FLEET DEFENDER does not require youto spend time in training, however. Youmay choose to ignore this theatrealtogether. Air combat can be veryunforgiving to rookie pilots. It’s life anddeath out there with no such thing assecond best. You don’t score any pointsfor being a good loser. Chivalry in skywas tried in WW I. The idea that aircombat was a gentlemanly joust betweenknights in the sky didn’t last long oncemen started dying by the thousands.Therefore a little advance training prior tocombat can pay off big-time. If nothingelse, it’ll help you get a jump on thecompetition.Those of you died-in-the-wool flightfanatics with an eye for detail will-VF-101 “GrimReapers”squadron emblemundoubtedly be sayingto yourselves; Hey- ifthe F-14B didn’t enterservice until the late1980s how comesome of thecampaigns take placebefore then? That’s afair question.The design teamchoose to model the F-14B because itrepresents a markedimprovement over the F-14A. The underpoweredTomcat-A wouldn’t haveperformed up to everyone’s expectationsunless we toyed with the data some andproduced an unrealistic flight model. Wewanted to recreate actual campaigns butgiven our choice of time periods andtheatres, this would have forced us tomodel the F-14A. It would not have beenfun to fly.As players, we all get a greater sense ofinvolvement when the simulation ispatterned after historical events. There’sa greater emotional attachment to one’scharacter (and one’s aircraft for thatmatter) when you can equate gamesituations to “real life.” So with this in mindthe design team decided to keep thehistorical flavour yet allow the player to flythe F-14B.If you believe this gives you too much ofan edge, you can always limit yourself toa maximum power setting of 80%. We’vetaken care of play balance problems byallowing the Soviets to deploy some oftheir contemporary fighters in these earlyscenarios. Enjoy! Don’t slow down forturns and may you always catch a threewireon your way back home.