Erinyes SLFS

Erinyes Supersonic Lightweight Fighter System

(Slider 1 for Flaps)

I thought I was done with frustrating speed trials after the Learning How To Be Frustrated contracts, but nope. Then the game threw Beggar's Canyon, Juno Edition at me.

As always at Aurora Aerospace, form follows function. This ultra-maneuverable lightweight fighter can run the 72km Cutting Corners Air Race course in 3 minutes flat. To achieve that time, follow these two rules:
1) Keep your foot on the gas
2) Keep your foot on the gas

Some handling notes:

As with most ultra-maneuverable aircraft, Erinyes is a bit touchy. She's unstable in Normal Time Mode - the autopilot PIDs can't keep up. She's only stable in slow-mo where the autopilot has more time to react. There's no fly-by-wire system because she's stable in slow-mo - honestly, if you can run this course supersonic in Normal time mode, you probably have the Force.

You can run the entire Cutting Corners course in afterburner. You'll be going Mach 1 by Checkpoint 3, running the majority of the course faster than Mach 1.7, and pulling 50g+ turns - don't bother trying to put a Drood in it, he'll just get crushed. You'll probably need to be in at least 12x slow-mo to be able to handle that speed.

You can cut every corner supersonic on afterburner, including the dreaded Checkpoint 8 (picture 3). To make it work, approach from about 200 AGL, Mach 1.7, and drop in at -15 deg. Any steeper and you won't be able to pull out. Just before you hit the checkpoint, pull the pitch up to 90 deg, pop flaps to full, and stand her up on end (picture 4). She'll make it. Afterwards, it's a real B to get back down from that pullout to make Checkpoint 9. Took me about 10 tries, but it's doable.

The high-speed slalom between Checkpoint 6-10 is the hardest part. After that, it gets easier.

To save time at the end, don't bother trying to make a landing approach. Just climb over the last mountain (picture 5), roll inverted like you're freaking Maverick from Top Gun, and just dive on the last checkpoint. If you're lucky you can sail by without cratering. If not, you can still get credit about 1 millisecond before you turn into a smoking hole :D

If you don't have the Tech Points for afterburner, you can run it with the engines configured as a low-compression, zero-bypass turbojet, but the timing will be a little tight to make the 4:24 contract time limit.