So My 9 yr old son (already a well practiced sim pilot) and I have enjoyed several Mulltiplayer flights in the BUFF. (we have three full FSX stations  with HOTAS and goflights and what not in out "man room". It is awesome fun. Here's a summary I wrote for someone friends on our gaming  list:

Objective: Destroy the Indian Pointy Energy Center on the Hudson
Stores: 60 Mk84 2000lb pound bombs
WX: Rainy and misty ceilings from 1000-4000'.
Flight Plan: Depart BDL (Bradley Int Airport in CT) hdg 250 along several waypoints intercepting the houstitonic valley  and descend to 300' at 350 IAS for terrain masking. Once we come out of the valley turn 273 to next waypoint Dutchess County Airport. Then 188 to the Hudson flying over the water at 100'. PreIP is I84 bridge over the HUDSON. Commence pop up to 2000 RA, 450 IAS. Bomb release point just past Iona island. Descend back down for 500IAS egress to Westchester co Airport then 058 to waterbury oxford 3000'AGl to begin set up for ILS approach rwy 6 BDL.

NOTE: In single player we use WeaponX where you can see the bombs falling and get explosions, in MP it doesn't work so we do a simulated bomb run.  The mission was planned with PLAN-G and w had maps and flight plans printed out and studied prior.

Work load division:. I would take off. Co (Copilot)  would pilot the first leg, I would handle most of the low level penetration, trading off when possible for short stints, Co would serve as Nav and Bombadier on the tgt run, and he woudl fly the return legs to BDL while I set us up for ILS.  I would land the bird.


Everything went fine up to getting in and out of the target.  We got a  little dicked up on our apporach to intercept the ILS gide slope (I was messing w radios and I think our navigator was focusing on guiding us direct to BDL instead of approach point. No biggie we came out Ok on BDL and executed the missed ILS approach profile. I turned 090 to take me over the CT river. (we were still getting  the nuances of the autopilot system down)

Here's where things went weird...

With the weather bad we had difficulty w VFR. While executing the missed approach, I descended to 1500' looking for some known points. Long story short, we couldnt not get a fix and the FSX map was reporting us way off. After a couple fixes it dawned onus that we had somehow been teleported all the darn way to over the central Highlands of Columbia South America! This was something weird out of the FINAL COUNTDOWN. (The co had been checking FS map while in flight and every time he returned out back to the cockpit both screens would go back and re load)

Once we got our fix we were faced with our next problem. Finding an airport that could handle a B52. (Nor did we want to fly on for another hour ... a nine year old's attention span only lasts so long) the co took the plane while I studied the maps. Ultimately we found one w a 6000' foot runway (edge of envelop). Oh and no ILS.  I dialed in the VOR to Nav 1 and set HDG to the VOR and CRS to the runway heading. We picked an approach point abut 20 miles out, weather was dertriorating worse and here we are coming into an unfamiliar airport. Eventually we had the runway in site maybe 5 miles out and were set up for a good. Next problem, ther were two HUG trees at the edge of the approach end of the runway approach. There is not a lot of finessing the glide slope of a B52 approach. Still with power and speed breaks we hit the tuoch down spot OK and I got on the brakes while Co popped the drag Chute.

Needless to say the locals were quite surprised and we walked away with a breathtaking story.

The next day  flew another low level profile against the Indian Pointy Energy Center on the Hudson. He didn't want to be stuck on a long mission so I said we'll fly this one, if there is another warp malfunction we'll quit right out, just don't mess with the in flight  map. Instead I had modified the co pilots station so he could call up an inflight RDR and route display  since normally the navigator would have access to this. This time around the mission woudl go smoother. I borrowed the in flight radar panel from Karol Chlebowski's excellent FSX  F-111 pig HUD project:http://simviation.com/1/search?submit=1&keywords=fxpiggb5.zip&x=10&y=6 this seperate guage is made to pop us similar to the simicons panel.

What could go wrong?....

First part of flight went fine. Then we commenced low level penetration along the Housitonic river valley. While the Co  was flying this part of the  leg manually while I was concentrating on the map when I noticed he was climbing and yawing of course.
"Get the nose down and come left you are veering off course." I said. He reported back: "I can! Tthe airplane keep pulling and to the to the right!"
I told him to check his trim wheel, then I checked the Autopilot ensuring it was off, as well as mentally ran through my head if the joystick could some how have lost calibration. Hmm, I quickly scanned the engine instruments and sure enough engines 7 and 8 were off and not responding. Somehow they had gone off, (Did I have malfunctions turned on in the server? Hmm) That's why she was pulling right.

I did not have my checklists ina rms reach -MSITAKE! but tried and engine restart on 7 and 8 to no avail. At this point we are turning onto the Hudson for the IP at 200' so there's not much time to screw around. We retarded throttles on engines one and two to provide some symmetry and put the rest up to full military power. I took the controls while Dexter prepared us for the Bomb run. We managed to level out after our pop up and this leg of the trip went fine. On egress I tried to engage the autopilot-NAV which created a severe attitude issue. From here on out we would not be able to use the autopilot since it doesn't respond well to the types of situations. As we  overflew Oxford OTW to intercept BDL 06 ILS the aircraft become progressively more difficult to control.  Luckily getting to a visual approach on BDL was attained but on the glide slope the aircraft became even more difficult to control.  By the time we were on short final I was on full right rudder and nearly full defection on the aileron to keep it aligned. The co adjusted the crab angle on the landing gear  We set down a little off runway but managed to get on  and popped the drag chute. By the time we came to a stop and went to external view we saw the problem...the right side Speedbrakes (on the wing) were stuck in the deployed position they would not go down.

Quite another adventure! Who needs explosions!

Los

p.s. yes we wre both wearing our flight suits