Mission 9: Stepping Stone

Project Wingman’s campaign has 21 missions in total, with each mission averaging around 10-15 minutes to complete. On a good run without restarts, accidents, or grinding, you may finish the entire campaign more or less around 5 hours. Of course, accidents will happen and you may encounter challenges but don’t worry! We’ll do our best to help you.

While we’ll offer pointers and tips, ultimately, the pilot behind the plane is still you so if you’re having problems completing a mission, try a different plane or approach, or even swallow your pride and attempt the mission on a lower difficulty. In this page, we’ll discuss how to complete Mission 9: Stepping Stone, including the recommended aircraft, strategies, and more.

Mission Overview

The new aircraft is another fighter that excel at air-to-air combat. However, since the mission has more ground targets and considerable air targets, bringing in a multirole is recommended. If you’ve used the F/E-18 from the last mission, you can use that excellent multirole aircraft in this mission by giving AA and AG SP weapons loadout. Some of your targets are long-range SAMs and you’ll be mostly flying near mountainous terrain so bring flares as your module instead of the AoA limiter.

Mission Walkthrough

This is a very straightforward mission, with no separate phases or mission updates. You’ll be flying at night so the visibility will be limited and you’ll have to rely on your HUD for locating your targets. The priority ground targets here are mostly not clumped together and are located at the foot of mountainous terrain so using unguided bombs here can be quite challenging. Furthermore, the stormy weather and night flight will make it even more difficult to manually drop bombs on ground targets. Smart air-to-ground weapons like the F/E-18’s MLAG are very effective in picking up these targets accurately once you’re able to lock-on to them.

There will be enemy patrols that will intercept you. These are optional targets so you can destroy them for extra points or take out the ones that keep harassing you. Don’t spend too much time engaging them since they seem to spawn unlimitedly in this mission. Some of the ground targets have advanced AA capabilities, like long-range SAMs and dangerous C-RAMs that can shred your plane if you get too close.

Continue to the southern portion of the map where the bulk of the enemy forces lie. The enemy aircraft in this mission will keep spawning from the hidden airbases in the mountains so you don’t need to actively chase after them. Engage them only if they start harassing you.

Some mountain bases will require a good attack angle to give your missiles a good line of sight to destroy your targets. If you find a group of targets protected by natural geological depression, you’ll need to fly higher and attack from above.

Mercenary Difficulty

You’ll be facing heavier fighter patrols, accompanied by three airships: a 205-class battleship, a Littoria-class battlecruiser, and an Arcion-class heavy cruiser..