Difficulty Level: Very Hard (Stratospheric injection is a bit easier when you realize what to do. I won’t spoil it by telling you the secret). Challenging due to fuel requirements and manual flight performance.
NOTE: To make this mission more enjoyable I recommend you fly the stratosphere inverted or at some steep bank.it gives you AMAZING cockpit views and doesn’t alter your vector any as long as you keep altitude. I like to make it so I have a great window view.
[This is a tentative idea, I haven’t worked out the specifics of each leg of the flight, etc. But this is something I’m thinking of turning into a real flight profile. It won’t be something in game but it’s something we can just custom enter]
The year is 2035; anti-satellite technology such as ground based lasers have rendered permanent spy satellites relics of the old Cold War. While quick-turnaround cube-sat launches can sometimes get a peek behind the Iron Curtain, the Russians are watching every trajectory of every launch. In space; nothing goes noticed.
But, at the edge of space, crews of the DS-32; 2032 being the certified flight year of the Darkstar; fly near daily missions over the largest nation on the Earth.
The mission window is open. The clock is ticking.
Moscow Time: 0700hrs
The orders were unsealed early that morning: From your base at KWDS Edwards, the home base of the Darkstar program, wheels up before 2000hrs to land at Thule (Qaanaq) Air Base to refuel as the refueling tanker (KC135-Q) is grounded due to a refueling incident recently over the Arctic. Enter hypersonic to achieve this objective and be ready to turn around within 0200hrs of wheels up.
Thule AB: Land around 0200hrs local time.
Moscow Time: 0900hrs.
From there things get tricky, but it’s nothing you haven’t experienced before. The Russian Woodpecker has a fiercer beak than ever before. So called for the radar’s iconic clicking sound like that of a woodpecker in a forest.
A debrief on the Russian systems are as follows:
The most important piece however is that the overhorizon radar can see out past Svalbard.
You will fly a mission out over the arctic before lining up onto your target vector and then go stratospheric and hypersonic. The purpose is to mask your approach within the ionosphere where the overhorizon radars will be unable to detect you easily due to their bouncing off the lower ionosphere. You must be above that zone. Which means a Hard Deck FL1550 to avoid early detection. Surprise is a must and if you violate this then the 2nd and 3rd backups will have to follow-through.
The borosilicate composite skin at Mach 9 will be hard to detect by less powerful direct radars; a similar problem with the old Orbiter Space Shuttle. At Mach 10, you’d be virtually invisible to electronic eyes. They won’t know you’re coming until it’s too late.
Your vector should look something like this.
But getting into Russia was the easy part.
Your approximate time over target should be 12noon Moscow Time.
Your target: A Nuclear Warhead wearhouse where the 12th Main Directorate presumably stores tactical warheads. The objective is to see if the train yard still has rolling stock or not to determine if Russia plans to use tactical nukes in tensions over the Baltics.
The stakes couldn’t be higher: NATO needs the most accurate information possible. We will need pictures from under the cloud deck. Descend to under 40,000feet just enough before the target to get your pictures, regain speed and altitude, and scram out of there.
Fly overhead; take the pictures with your down facing camera (screenshot if you’re really pro) and fly back to safety over NATO airspace in Turkey God willing.
You don’t have to land safely, as long as the data is uploaded.
You know from your prior experiences that headon against S-400s and the new S-500s SAM systems are survivable as long as you maintain over mach 1 at below 40,000 feet. Their systems shouldn’t have enough time to lock on once you make your descent.
The problem has always been when they fire SAMs at you from behind. The briefing states you may have no more than 10 minutes being at low-altitude and low-speed. Well, low for you that is.
The mach-profile guide is designed to make it difficult for SAM systems to keep on target. While the missiles are climbing to 80,000 feet you’re already descending to 40,000. While they chase after you you’re already rolled over accelerating to high-Mach and going above their operating ceilings.
The commander would quote Mission Impossible: “Should you choose to accept”, but you know that’s a joke.
You signed up for this the day you got your wings.
And Cap’t, should you make it out of there, exit your stratospheric flight over Turkey and make your landing at Incirlik Air Base:
Mission Specifics:
Fuel - the Darkstar seems to consume about 25% fuel per 1,500km. This limit can probably be pushed.
The mission requirements puts you at the edge of your fuel limits even if there was a refueling tanker orbiting entry and egress points. You will have to manage your efficiency very well.
Altitude changes - Testing will reveal whether or not the flight profile can be done and done efficiently. A test pilot will work these out soon and give feedback on the mission parameters.
4 Stratospheric injections. The total mission would have 4, the hop to Thule, from Thule into the arctic north of Zemlya (probably needed just for fuel efficiency), the hop from that point in the Arctic on target vector to target. The hop from target to Turkey.
Mission Challenges:
Needless to say the biggest challenge is nailing a screenshot of the target area within the specific mission parameters. Just lining up a clean shot like that would take immense skill since you lose reaction in the stratosphere and have no way to course correct.
You will need to be a precise pilot for a long distance.
The next challenge is finishing the mission all the way to Incirlik. Although if it proves to be impossible due to fuel consumption it can just be assumed there’s a refueling at the end. There’s ways to just add fuel in game - I’d hate to see it come to that though.
PS - The location I chose is actually the 12th Directorate’s Tactical Nuclear Bunker near Sergiev-Posad. I did extensive Russian-language research and interviews among other sources to determine this in actuality. The bunkers are where the rail line leads into the forest and have an underground entrance then elevators that are unseen. I could talk at length about the unclassified portions, as someone I know once said “I don’t owe allegiance to Russia so I can talk about all their classified *#@% I want”.
So have fun. If you fly this mission you’re really flying over something the US keenly has its eyes on.