Upped a set of 17s to take out ord at 41 this morning. Didn't want any sneaky Bish attack from a forward and well located base. Figured I would go in at about 18k. Make 3 passes over the base and no more ordinance. Hard to believe there are only 4 ords at a large base. Oh, I missed one ord when I tried to get radar and the ordinance at the same time so I had to come back for it. Hence 3 passes. However the last pass had me lined up for town. Then Madcap joins in and wants to take the base. Several things crossed my mind. I'm 18k and could scoot home unscratched, bombing is boring, and Madcap wants to take the base. We also now have uppers. Then I could get some kills. I nose down and slowly circle to base until I get on the deck. I'm going to strafe the town. Much of it was down. Plans changed! A high f4u and a zeke come in on me and the town ack was hitting me too. Fortunately just a couple of ack were up. Somehow I missed the zeke but when the F4U dives in I dispose of him pretty nicely.
The zeke makes a second pass. This time I get him. Now things changed. Name in lights, glory be to me, FAME! I head home. Almost to the dar ring and started thinking I was home free. Still 3 planes intact. Not so. Seems the two bish I shot down have a streak of vengeance in them. One comes back in a C Hog. Not good. He pulls parallel and sweeps in from the right. Lucky me nails him and kills his engine. The uses what E is left and comes in behind me again. That did not go well for him even though I was missing a few guns.
Then I spot the 190. Jeeze this is not good. The 190 charges in and immediately takes out the lead plane. Though I did get his oil. Then he takes out the the other drone. Oh my! Now the plane I'm in noses up. I ping him a bit more and he rolls out and heads home. He PM's me asking me why am I flying?! He had gotten 3 kills. I check my pulse. Nope I'm still alive. Then he realizes he had shot down a plane earlier in the flight. That probably saved me for the moment.
Now what?! I'm fighting this plane trying to keep the nose down and all she wants to do is climb. No elevators and only one aileron. I lower the gear to see if that helps. It does some. But now I'm doing all of 125 mph and really fighting the stick. Looking at my EB6 I have 4 minutes of fuel left and I'm outside of the dar circle. I come to realize this is not good. Set the rpms lower and raise the gear. That gets me to 150 at level flight and 6 minutes of fuel. Also that makes it 15 miles until empty. Now it actually looks like I'm moving on the map.
What seemed like forever I finally make it the field. Working the throttle I gingerly lower my gear again and make the landing. All I can say is Wow. Good fortune and a plane that actually will fly with that much damage.
