Introduction
Saitek X52 flight stick and throttle
Insert your own joke here about sitting in front of a screen waggling your ‘joystick’… there’s too many for us to choose from.
The ice had fogged up my goggles. Being in an open cockpit at 15,000 feet in the middle of a Russian winter was just about as close to no fun as you could get. Up ahead, the lead elements of my flight were starting to pull flak from the AA guns surrounding our target. Though the guns concentrated on the leaders, it was no better for us as those black puffs of smoke acted like a flag to all the enemy fighters in the area. Within minutes my crew are yelling like mad men as two fighters home in on us. I can’t do anything, I have to hold course for our bombing run or this will be a wasted trip. Feeling incredibly exposed in the open cockpit of my TB3, I lean down to check that the bombardier has the target in his sights. Bullets stitch across the wings and cannon shells slam into the outboard engine to port… it winds down and then bursts into flames… we start to yaw to the left and I frantically fight to reduce power in the two starboard engines in an effort to keep us straight… Damn, by accident I’ve throttled all the engines back, we’re going to stall… where’s the damn engine selection key? Where’s the damn key to feather the prop on my busted engine? Before I can grab my well scribbled on key reference card the TB3 stalls a wing and slips into an unrecoverable spin… I’m still fumbling with the key card as we smash into the frozen ground 2 miles below us…
