Erratic Aircraft Altitude Variations During Strike Mission

[rmeckman]

The attached save from one of the Falklands scenarios (v1.06 1328.14) has flight Cheetah58 departing from San Julian Air Base on a maritime strike mission. This flight contains four Skyhawks on flight plans set up prior to takeoff. Two of the aircraft---Grupo 5 #3(lead) and #1---steadily climb up to the 2000 ft ASL altitude set at the Hold Start waypoint and stay there while in the holding pattern between waypoints 2 and 3. However, aircraft #2 and #4 behave differently during the hold, erratically climbing and descending as if they are receiving alternating orders to fly at either their minimum altitude or 2000 ft ASL.

These altitude variations during the hold don't cost the two aircraft much fuel, so they are not that important as far as the mission goes. Once the hold ends and the aircraft start for waypoint 4, however, the erratic behavior of aircraft #2 and #4 continues. The other two aircraft climb steadily to the 36000 ft ASL cruising altitude set in the flight plan, but #2 and #4 instead start to yo-yo between the surface and several thousand feet ASL as if they are getting a sequence of conflicting orders to fly at either minimum altitude or 36000 ft ASL. At the same time, these aircraft wander back and forth across the flight path in a manner that suggests they can't reach their formation station. Compared to the other two aircraft in the formation, #2 and #4 rapidly run out of fuel due to their low altitude.

The flight plans for all four aircraft appear to be the same, so it is unclear what is causing half the aircraft to deviate from the flight plan altitudes. The bug report given in

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 9#p5120769

is somewhat similar, but that was an intercept mission with the aircraft staying at a steady low altitude.

[blu3s]

Thanks for the report

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