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Drivin' on the highway! - Printable Version

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Drivin' on the highway! - Ion_Milu' - 25.06.2009

The battle took place on 109vsSpit mod server, on the rare played Bassarabia map on my I.A.R. 80, with 75% fuel, 800m convergeance.
One comrade and I were returning from a quite long mission of escorting old 1935 ARR Blenheim bombers from a bombing run on the Soviet port of Odessa. The bombers(only 2 of them) cruising at a very low speed because of the severe flak dammage suffered by one of them while over the target. The dammaged bomber, while Oddesa, was hit by a enemy 85mm shell in the left wing, destroying the left engine and badly dammaging his left wing. The crippled bomber made the bomber group slow down to a mere 190km/h. Another I.A.R. pilot, that had just shot down an enemy I-153 that previously tried to intercept the Blenheims, joined my flight. We decided to leave the bombers under us and to try to get about 1500m above the bombers(the bombers were cruising at about 4100/4000m and loosing altitude at a relatively slow pace). After we reached the wanted altitude we throttled down the engines to 45% so we wouldn't waste fuel. Everything went fine for most of the time. The other pilot (Radu****, I can't remember the last 4-5 characters ) decided to get about 500m bellow me to get a closer look at the bombers.
I remained at 5500m, looking for enemy fighters, but after we crossed the border, i decidel to leave my guard down, as itwas quite unlikely to see any enemy fighters at that position and altitude. But not even 2 minutes passed when Radu said that he spotted planes about 2 km over me. I looked around, then I told him not to worry as it was very unlikely to find any enemy plane at this position.I knew from the briefing that the enemy was operation I-16's and I-153's in the area and that these planes had very low high altitude performance. I couldin't see anything, but after another minute or so I began to hear a loud engine noise closing in. Immediatly Radu said that there were 5 enemy fighters diving on me. In the next line of chat i saw that there were enemy I-16, most likely Type 18.I was amazed, and I said in the TS "Ce dracu'?!" (what the hell is going on?!). I waited no more, with a quick hand motion I gave the engine as much gas as it could eat, pulled the stick down and started to dive. Next i closed the radiator hoping to obtain extra speed. I told Radu' to rotate 180 degrees and try to get them away from the bombers. He immediatly did so and begun to dive. I soon reached him but he remained in front of me. I told him that we needed to stay together. We both slowly pulled up and headed East, with the bearing 92-95. We hope that the enemy Ratas followed us and not the Blenheims. As we later realised it they didn't and only 3 of the 5 enemy Ratas were following us. We were at 3000m with about 520km/h and slowly loosing speed. We entered a large cloud formation. That was our chance. Radu went up and climbed as high as he could, while I remained on course, flying strainght and flashing my navigation lights hoping to attract any additional bandits. The plan worked and when I was out of the cloud formation i saw that all the 3 Ratas were following me. I estimated the distance to the enemy fighters behind me then I reduced my speed to about 400-410Km/h to let the Ratas bite and hold the hook. Strangely the ratas seemed to have forgot about Radu. I communicated that to my comrade, and i kept flying forward. At that time Radu was about 1200m higher than me and about 1 km behind me. I waited until he got relatively above me then he dived on the enemy formation. He attacked the last fighter from the formation. He was lucky enough to fire direct into the enemy's front fuel tank, so the enemy fighter errupted in fire. I saw the enemy pilot pull down and bail out. But then, all the remaining ratas behind me started to dive. I told Radu to slow down and let them get about 600-700m close, so they would stay baited. I mannaged to get close to one of the fighters, then with a 1 second MG burst I dammaged the enemy fighter's right wing. He pulled out of the dive, but that was the last maneuver that he did.His plae entered a spin, and I with another MG burst killed his pilot , leaving him in dive to his end. The other fighter kept following Radu, but when I got behind him, I haphazadly fired a short burst aimed at him. I missed, but i mannaged to get him of Radu's tail. He turned about 270 degrees then he pulled up. I engadged the combat flaps as he did a loop, then i fired another burst, this time i mannaged to hit his engine, and make it smoke lightly. He then turned 90 degrees to the right and begun a thight turn. As I was slowing down to 250km/h i engadged the take-off flaps, fired a large salvo of MG's. I mannaged to badly dammage his right wing and puncture his fueltank, but he kept turning at an even higher rate. As I kept following, I realised that unless I finnish him now I will have to either dive or find another way to kill him, because the plane was begginging to stall. As a last ditch effort i engadged the landing flaps. That gave me a small lead on him. I fired for 1 second, then i saw his fuselage on fire. I disabled the flaps and dived to about 2000m. At that time I heard on the radio that Radu's fueltank had only 120L left.
(That is about 1/4 of the 450L of fuel that the standard IAR 80 fuel tanks can hold without any moddifications.) While I had about 200-210L, he had only enough fuel to land at Barlad at an improvised, dirt-only airfield. While he was heading to Barlad, I changed course to Iasi, where I expected to find the Blenheims. I tried to get contact of them on teh chat, but they didn't respond. I kept going forward, at 2000m and with 440km/h, as fast as the IAR 80 can go at that altitude. After about 5 min, I saw green tracers in the horizon. I dived a little and I mannaged to get 455-460Km/h. As I closed in i saw that there was only 1 Blenheim getting attacked, (I latter learned that the Blenheim which was ok dived and landed at Barlad to avoid getting attacked by the enemy I-16's.) I closed in undetected on the enemy Rata until I was 400m, then without doing nothing, the Rata turned about 90 degrees to the left and began a thight turn. I engadged the combat flaps then the take off flaps but without any significant results. I was at 1400m going 200km/h. I reakised that i didin't have a chance to out-turn the rata so i chose to dive. I dived untill I had 680km/h, then i pulled up. I engadged the combat flaps then it was all dark for the following 150 degrees. I found myself going up with the Rata in my mirror, stalling! The enemy I-16's engine was dammaged by the high speed rotation of the propeller caused by that high speed dive. I waited for my plane to reach 180km/h, then i throttled down, applied full rudder right and succesfully turned the plane towards the ground. I dived towards the enemy Rata, fired a long, 3 second salvo into his fusselage then pulled up. I was at about 400m with 450km/h and i was looking for the other I-16, because, 3 fighters went after us and 2 after the bombers.
I looked around, but i couldn't see any bandits, so i decided to head towards home base, located 2km west of Iasi. As I was going towards Iasi I spotted a Me-109 E-4 probably, going towards Odessa. After he passed out of my visual range, I saw tracers above me, then I've got hit. I turned full right with take flaps "On" and saw the attacker. It was the Me-109. I typed on the chat, to see who it was and told him to stop. Nothing, he kept firing at me. I decided to make a landing in the field. I looked around for a long straight road, so i could take off latter when the matters cleared out. I mannaged to land, but as I was driving on the highway Big Grin , I got shot in the wings. Almost simulataneusly, I saw the Me-109 go over my plane, and crash 5-6m in front of me. I was stunned. I checked the dammage and the results of the 20mm Mauser guns were revealed. I had my wings cut from the middle of them to the outside. I couldn't even take off. I was unsure on what road i was on , but i kept going West, with bearing 250-290. Then i reached a small village, and i hit refly there when I saw that there was a 88mm battery, and it was obviously not shooting at me.

- FeiHu - 25.06.2009

Good read.Thanks for posting.