Are you here after having been magically detected by an enemy in Stealth Strike that you didn't even know was there for the fifth time in a row? Did you try to join an F-45A mission in multiplayer and ultimately got told off for not knowing how the aircraft works? Are you getting locked onto by an NMSS Cruiser from ungodly ranges despite flying a so-called "stealth" fighter? I know that feel. The F-45A may be quite small compared to other aircraft in VTOL VR, but that does not by any means discount just how powerful it can be in the battlefield. The F-45A is a very complex aircraft--it can be a death sentence received in the hands of the untrained and uneducated, but with the right kind of pilot gripping that flight-stick, it can be a death sentence given "to whom it may concern".

Heavy-metal poetry aside, the F-45A is a powerful aircraft on its own, and makes for an even more powerful support aircraft in the field. However, all of this is purely incumbent upon one's own knowledge of the F-45A, and how exactly it stands out among the bumblebees and the wasps in the game.* And that--my intrepid, G-chugging, death-defying friend--is what I have written this guide for. I myself may not be Boundless Dynamics himself when it comes to gameplay knowledge, but I know quite enough to share with you so that you can, you know, make it kinda look like you know what you're doing in the F-45A. Allow me to show you what I mean...

Oh, and one more thing, just before I forget: this guide will be using the F/A-26B as a reference for many flight mechanics and other gameplay elements within VTOL VR, as understood separately from the F-45A in general. If you do not at least know how to shoot down enemy aircraft in an F/A-26B or you do not have a general idea on how to avoid SAMs while flying, please familiarize yourself with those topics before proceeding.

*This statement is intended to be a very coy reference to VTOL VR meta. If you do not know what it means, then please disregard it for now.

Let's start with some of the basics, just to make sure we're all on the same page here before proceeding. The F-45A is classified as a stealth aircraft. What exactly does all of that mean? In a nutshell, the F-45A has a few key aspects that greatly differentiate it from other playable aircraft in VTOL VR. The biggest difference is its comparatively small size and deliberately smooth airframe. This gives it much better aerodynamics than its playable cousins and even has implications for its Radar Cross-Section, a term we will go into later on.

First, players should familiarize themselves with the controls within the cockpit. These interactive maps, courtesy of the VTOL VR Wiki, will help you get to know the controls a bit better.
Center Display[vtolvr.wiki.gg]
Left-Hand Controls[vtolvr.wiki.gg]
Right-Hand Controls[vtolvr.wiki.gg]
Study these maps as you are able and try to practice using them in a free-flight scenario if you can. Look at you, you've come so far already!

1. Start Main Battery
2. Engage APU, close cockpit canopy
3. Turn on HMD, MFD, and HUD
4. Flip engine switch cover up, turn switch to on position
5. Configure MFD as desired
6. Once engine RPM is nominal (in the green zone), disengage the APU
7. Disengage parking brake, commence runway taxi

The F-45A has a few different ways of taking off, all having to do with the current thruster tilt of the F-45A's engine. The three most commonly-used methods are listed here:

Conventional Takeoff
ENGINE ANGLE: 0 degrees

1. Run basic startup procedure.
   
2. Taxi to the start of a runway.
   
3. Position your aircraft so that it sits within the runway's midline and faces straight on.
   
4. If aircraft TWR >1.00...
   * Advance throttle to mil-thrust (maximum dry thrust; right below where afterburner would start)
   otherwise, advance throttle to afterburner (the AB light will turn on in the cockpit); lower to mil-thrust at ~100 knots
   
5. At ~120 knots, pitch upwards to start gaining altitude.
   
6. Raise landing gears.

Short Takeoff

ENGINE ANGLE: 45-60 degrees

1. Run basic startup procedure.
   
2. Taxi to the start of a runway or another stretch of flat ground.
   
3. Tilt engine to 45 or 60 degrees. (the lower the degrees, the longer the takeoff and the faster the initial airspeed is)
   
4. Advance throttle to mil-thrust.
   
5. Pitch upwards at ~30 knots to start gaining altitude.
   
6. Raise landing gears.
   
7. At ~80 knots, vector throttle to 30 degrees.
   
8. At ~120 knots, vector throttle to 0 degrees.

Vertical Takeoff
I technically wouldn't recommend trying a pure vertical takeoff in the F-45A, but I'm including this here for reference.
Not available for aircraft with <1.05 TWR.

ENGINE ANGLE: 90 degrees (max)

1. Run Basic startup procedure.
   
2. Taxi to open space if not at one already.
   
3. Tilt engine to 90 degrees.
   
4. Press the VCAP button to enable Vertical Control AutoPilot. Quickly move the throttle handle to the middle position.
   
5. Tilt the flight stick back to start gaining some altitude.
   
6. Raise landing gears.
   
7. Push the throttle handle forward to start gaining some speed.
   
8. At ~30 knots, vector throttle to 60 degrees and start leveling pitch out.
   
9. At ~60 knots, vector throttle to 30 degrees.
   
10. At ~100 knots, vector throttle to 0 degrees.

Each takeoff method described has its applications depending on the current takeoff situation (airport, carrier, et cetera) and your aircraft's current Thrust to Weight Ratio--or TWR--which is determined by the weapons equipped on the aircraft and the amount of fuel being carried. Of course, there are also specific methods for runway landing, as well as carrier takeoff and landing, but those topics are too expansive for the scope of this guide. If you know how to do those things in the F/A-26B, then doing them in the F-45A is as simple as following the same motions.

As mentioned before, the F-45A is deliberately designed to be smooth and relatively small, which gives it advantages in flight speed, maneuverability, and--wait, what was that term again? Ah, yes, yes. ...and its own Radar Cross-Section. The F-45A's most notable features are its internal weapon bays, which stow away the aircraft's weapons when not in immediate use. Additionally, when radar stealth is not required for whatever you're doing, the F-45A can equip external pylons on its wings, allowing it to carry more weapons in a much more visible posture.

Within the cockpit, pilots of the F-45A are able to make good use of the modular MFD UI for efficient multitasking and flight system coordination. Individual MFDs can be set to the following modes using the arrows within the MFD borders:

• Half Margin: MFD page takes up one horizontal half of the MFD UI in this state.
  
• Quarter Margin: MFD page takes up a quarter of the MFD UI in this state.
  
• Quarter Margin, Partial: Similar to the Quarter Margin, except the designated MFD page is vertically confined to two thirds of its vertical space. Subportals can be found below for quick switching between set MFD pages.
  
• Subportal Margin: MFD page is minimized below a partial quarter margin page, located at either the left or right side of the lower 1/3 margin. MFD pages will not display related data while rendered as subportals, except for RWR and EOTS.

Coupled with the MFD preset buttons, this allows for pilots to easily switch between different workflows on the fly, making a transition between MFD layouts for different tasks (Air-to-Air, Air-To-Ground, et cetera) nearly seamless when proper preparation is given. To save your current MFD layout as a preset, press and hold one of the preset buttons for several seconds until another tone plays.

One of the most important MFD pages the aircraft has to offer will be the Tactical Situational Display (TSD). This is the primary intelligence suite for the F-45A. It is able to receive data from other allied aircraft via datalink, making the TSD a powerful support tool in the field. Moreover, the TSD can coordinate the functionality of various aspects of the aircraft, including radar, EOTS [TGP], and GPS targeting, allowing an F-45A to efficiently manage the firing sequences for multiple different weapons in short order.

This is where we get into the meat of "[looking kinda] like you know what you're doing in the F-45A". Stealth mechanics! This aspect of the F-45A is the most misunderstood of them all, and it is the primary cause of negligent destruction for this aircraft.

So how does stealth work? How do I put my Metal Gear hidey box on and sneak up on those radars? Which button do I push to activate my fighter's metaphorical cloaking device? Let's take a few steps back. There are some things I want to make clear first.

For the record, just because you don't have any external pylons mounted does not mean that your aircraft is "invisible" to enemies. Aside from simpler algorithms such as visual and IR detection, radar is the primary method of aircraft detection in VTOL VR. You cannot discuss aircraft "stealth" in VTOL VR without first talking about how radar mechanics work in the game. This is, of course, an incredibly expansive topic, even just in the scope of VTOL VR, so I will only go into the raw basics of radar mechanics in this guide. Readers are encouraged to look into external sources if they wish to dive down the rabbit hole of "radar-ism".

At the most basic level, radar projectors send out radio wave pings in a certain direction, and register the "echos" that these pings make. In the context of VTOL VR, terrain is detected and filtered out, while objects separate from the terrain will be impacted by the radio wave and may send a signal back to the radar source. For any object to be detected by radar, two conditions must first be fulfilled:

1. The object in question must be hit by a propagating radio wave.
   
2. The radio waves that reflect off of the object must send back enough of an echo to the propagating radar source.

In this sense, radar "stealth" refers to tactics designed to decrease the amount of radio waves that reflect off of the aircraft and back to the radar source. The F-45A was designed with various radar stealth tactics in mind.

Remember that term RCS mentioned earlier on in the guide? No? It stands for Radar Cross-Section, and it refers to how much radio waves an aircraft can reliably reflect back to a radar source. RCS is NOT a static value for each aircraft--it depends mainly on three key factors: the aircraft's relative surface area, the 'jaggedness' of an aircraft, and the aircraft's own angle relative to the active search radar.

When looking to sneak up on targets, the F-45A relies heavily on its sleek air-frame for stealth. There are flush hatches for nearly everything on the vehicle--weapon slots, CM dispensers, and even the arrestor hook are all stowed away within their own little private nooks. The goal of this is to lower the amount of jagged edges on the aircraft as much as possible, which is primarily done to reduce the F-45A's passive Radar Cross-Section (RCS).

For example, when pinged by a radar source, an F-45A will send fewer radio 'pongs' back to the pinging radar while it is pointing its nose straight towards the radar--incoming radio waves will reflect off of the hull and into the sky when they hit, and weaker radio waves can even be absorbed by the F-45A's anti-radar coating material. This principle has less effect when the aircraft has its side pointed towards a radar source, and is even less effective when an aircraft's dorsal or ventral aspects (top or bottom sides) are facing a radar source--stronger waves are much more likely to be reflected back to a radar source, resulting in a greatly increased likelihood for detection.

The F-45A's smooth, minimal air-frame gives it a distinctive edge over other aircraft in terms of being more able to 'sneak up' on hostile radars. To provide another example, the E-4 Overlord (AWACS) has an immense RCS due to its massive air-frame, which is only magnified by that obnoxious-looking radar dish on its hull. This means that almost any search radar can very reliably detect the AWACS from great distances. Needless to say, an AWACS is NOT a good choice for handling SEAD duty!

"But what does all of this jargon mean for me in the battlefield?" That's a very good question, captain saltine crackerman! To summarize, the F-45A makes use of its already impressively diminutive Radar Cross-Section to better sneak up on radar-emitting targets. Combined with basic radar avoidance strategies such as terrain masking and notching, the F-45A is very well-equipped to deal with radar-based targets such as SAM radars and enemy aircraft. And finally, a little summation for players: to most reliably 'sneak up' on hostile radars, fly with no external pylons, stay low, and face straight towards radars. While facing nose-forward to a radar may seem counter-intuitive at first, this ensures that your aircraft gives off the lowest possible RCS to the active radar and can allow you to send an AGM their way before they can even think to start targeting you.

As of the release of the EF-24G, The F-45A now has access to an integrated radar jamming suite that it can use to improve your stealth even more than its already garishly low RCS permits. Unlike the mounted jammer available to the F/A-26B and T-55, the F-45A has its own integrated radar jammer apparatus, much like its EOTS (TGP), and does not need to equip a separate apparatus on one of its hardpoints to jam targets. Unlike with the EF-24G's jammers, the F-45A is only able to perform noise jamming (not DRFM or SAS) and can only jam on the MID and HI frequencies. However, given its already impressive suite of stealth features, the addition of jamming capability turns the F-45A from an already formidable foe in the battlefield to an infuriatingly powerful stealth asset, shrugging off all but the most focused efforts to kill it.

I won't go into how exactly jamming works in VTOL VR in this guide; that's a topic expansive enough to warrant a guide of its own! However, I can put things into perspective for you: if you are jamming a MAD-4 Radar, one of the enemy faction's most powerful land-based radar systems in the game, on the MID frequency at close to its highest power and flying with your nose facing directly towards it, you can get close enough to the radar to destroy it with your aircraft's guns (range: <1 km) without it being able to lock onto you. Think about that for a moment. The passive stealth techniques that the F-45A enables plus the active stealth technologies granted through jamming can make for a truly powerful stealth aircraft in the skies.

However, jamming doesn't quite come for free. Aside from its relatively gluttonous power requirements on the aircraft, you can't use your aircraft's radar systems while jamming; one has to be off for the other to function. Another thing to consider is the fact that units may have home-on-jam capabilities, whereby they can fire missiles towards you with a passive guidance system that rides your transmitted noise straight into the missile's active radar burnthrough range. Jamming is an incredibly powerful tool in the battlefield, but it does have its limitations and exploits, so learn how it works and use it judiciously for the greatest effect.

Hello, my ambitious reader! Are you skipping to this section straight from the start of the guide? That's understandable--this is arguably the most important section of the guide, and if you feel you are ready for it, then judging you for it is woefully beyond my own jurisdiction! However, if you do not know the basic mechanics and what all those little buttons and switches and MFDs in the aircraft do by heart just yet, I would strongly recommend for you to read through the previous sections of this guide just so you don't go in simply expecting something akin to a tiny F/A-26B.

Another dicey topic that less-experienced players tend to struggle with a lot is the tactics of weapon deployment in the F-45A. Granted, firing off an AGM or dropping a bomb is a simple task for anyone who is even just somewhat familiar with the F/A-26B, and though the F-45A's weapon deployment techniques are mostly the same, its extra systems can allow for some very clever strategies to be employed in the battlefield. This section of my clearly exhaustive guide will go over the different ways in which weapons can be deployed so that their targets won't know what's going on until after they've been pummeled into ugly piles of smoke and scorched metal.

I want to get this weapon out of the way before any others, mainly because it's the most highly misused weapon that the F-45A has to bear. Anyone who has touched the F/A-26B will know the basic drill for firing its AIM-120s (not AIM-120Ds!): enable radar, lock target, fire missile, wait for impact. The same thing can technically be done in the F-45A, but that is ultimately a waste of its vastly expansive potential. Here's what the pros and chads and at least moderately competent players of VTOL VR can tell you about the F-45A's AIM-120Ds.

Notice how I've been stressing the different name of the missile here. The F/A-26B uses the bog-standard AIM-120 anti-air missiles in Beyond Visual Range (BVR) combat. The F-45A, however, has its own specialized variant of that missile it uses, known as the AIM-120D. At the most basic level, the AIM-120D is distinctly different from the standard AIM-120s the F/A-26B uses in the following ways:

• Better maneuverability
  
• Better countermeasure (chaff) resistance
  
• Longer booster phase
  
• Longer range for pitbull

Ergo, the AIM-120D can be viewed as a more "high-tech" version of the F/A-26B's own AIM-120 missiles. But the F-45A's AIM-120Ds are more than just some fancier circuitry to blow up! All those metaphorical bells and whistles are implemented to allow for some very special BVR tactics in the battlefield.

The most important thing to know about the AIM-120Ds is that they can acquire target telemetry data from other allied units via datalink. This includes allied radar sources, visual tracking, and TGP/EOTS lock among other things. If you are receiving target telemetry data from external sources (ie. other allied vehicles), you do not need to have the F-45A's radar on at all to fire its AIM-120Ds. That's right! You are wasting your aircraft's potential by even having its radar on in the first place. Unless you are alone in the battlefield with no friendly units whose data you can work off of, the F-45A's radar is mostly useless outside of emergencies. This means that an F-45A can fire their AIM-120Ds at targets based solely on TSD data alone! Now we're getting deep into this topic--stay with me here, cadet!

To fire an AIM-120D at a target, select the target using the TSD, cue up your AIM-120Ds, and pull the trigger to fire a missile. Like the standard AIM-120s, the AIM-120Ds will engage their own internal radars to "pitbull" their targets once they get close enough. Ordinarily, other friendly units in the battlefield will be using their own radars or other means of detection to find targets in the air for you to hit. The F-45A's radar should only be activated when no allies are in the area to find targets for you. And even then, you'll need to be very careful with how you use it! An active radar searching for targets is like shining a flashlight into a dark room; whether or not you find anything out there, someone out there will have definitely found you. Here's a little challenge for you: how could an F-45A use its onboard radar to deceive opponents in the air? Think carefully about this!

In accordance with the F-45A's overall stealth paradigm, this allows for some very creative stealth-kill tactics to be performed. If you target an enemy contact on the TSD from behind a hill, you can fire an AIM-120D over it towards your target, and if the angle is small enough to allow the missile to turn effectively, you can hit targets in the air from cover without them ever knowing you're actually there. The AIM-120D will otherwise behave as expected, moving towards the target's location and using its onboard tracking radar to track and intercept them once they're detected. Unlike with MADDOG firing, this technique poses no risk of friendly fire.

In short, AIM-120Ds can be guided to their targets using even just datalink alone. The F-45A's radar should not be used for target searching and tracking unless absolutely necessary. And even then, you don't even have to get a hard lock on an enemy target like the F/A-26B does to fire a missile directly at them!

Now we move into the domain of the F-45A's special air-to-ground munitions. Like with the AIM-120Ds, these weapons are optimized for stealth destruction tactics and designed for deployment via the F-45A's TSD. In terms of munition qualifications, the AGM-145 Ballista and the GBU-53 Advanced SD Bomb both serve a similar purpose: to destroy ground targets from behind cover or in any other stealth posture.

The AGM-145 is based on the concept of the F/A-26B's own AGM-65. The AGM-145, however, includes advanced Lock On After Launch (LOAL) technology, which allows it to lock onto targets in its destination area after being fired. This makes it an ideal weapon for striking hostile ground targets from behind hard cover. Like with the AIM-120Ds, the AGM-145s can be fired at targets from behind hills, but because they have their own optical seekers and LOAL capability, they are able to forego external input for both their cruise and intercept guidance--as long as the missile's optical seeker can identify the target in its line of sight and is able to properly maneuver to it, the AGM-145 would require guidance from the launching aircraft only for its initial deployment.

The GBU-53 is a Small-Diameter (SD) Bomb, much like the related GBU-39, meaning that they have comparatively weak explosions but more can be carried by an aircraft at a time. Moreover, the deploying glide wings on each bomb allow them to cover significantly greater distances with higher maneuverability, making them apt for long-range precision strikes against hardened ground targets. Unlike the GBU-39s, however, the advanced GBU-53s are equipped with optical seekers and are capable of receiving and processing TSD data for target acquisition and tracking. Not only that, but they can be deployed via the F-45A's EOTS (TGP), allowing for much faster deployment against ground targets in the immediate area.

In conclusion, the F-45A is a very often misunderstood aircraft that can be very powerful if used correctly. With the information presented in this guide, I hope to annul many of the misconceptions regarding this sleek ghost of an aircraft and properly educate players on how to maximize the aircraft's potential in the battlefield. If anyone has any further questions about the F-45A, feel free to ask what you need to in this guide's comments. If I can't help you, I can at least direct you to someone who can!

Thanks for reading! I'm glad I could play my part in educating our intrepid air devils to-be on the creative tactics that the F-45A can employ. Some sections of this guide have been left unfinished due to a lack of relevant information to go off of, which I may fix in the future.

The following source(s) has been used for information within this article:

• VTOL VR Wiki: F-45A (Version ID: 2028)[vtolvr.wiki.gg]

I would also like to think the eggheads in the official Boundless Dynamics Discord server[discord.gg] for their pointers and patience with me as I came to learn about the F-45A and many other game mechanics in VTOL VR.