Airgress!

[onwards]

I promise this a post about flying so it fits here... it just doesn't start out that way.
==
Does anyone here play Ingress? if you don't, here is a quick (shortened) summary from Wikipedia:

Ingress is an augmented reality massively multiplayer online role playing location-based game created by Niantic Labs, a startup within Google. The game has a complex science fiction back story with a continuous open narrative.

The gameplay consists of establishing "portals" at places of cultural significance, such as public art, landmarks, monuments, etc., and linking them to create virtual triangular "control fields" over geographical areas. Progress in the game is measured by the number of "mind units" (MUs) captured via such control fields, i.e. people nominally controlled by each faction. The necessary links between portals may range from meters to kilometers or hundreds of kilometers in operations of considerable logistical complexity.

How does this tie with flying?

Well, when you fly low and slow in the ol' rust bucket, cell reception can often be surprisingly good, what with the lack of ground interference. I have found that 3500-4500 feet AGL is often a sweet spot.

And this leads me to the subject of this thread, which is my recent experiences with Airgressing, that is, playing Ingress from the air. Why on earth would I want to do that?

Well... some of these field ops referred to above can be extensive - international efforts that end up covering vast regions of the world, entire countries or even continents at a time, and involving teams of hundreds of agents in multiple places coordinating the necessary operations. And each team has to respond when the other executes something like this successfully.

Such a response can take many forms. And a plane can be handy when the other team "anchors' large fields in uncomfortable/hard-to-reach places. You can't really do that from the air - the in-game actions take too long - so this typically involves hours of hiking to remote locations. Of course, responding then also requires similar effort... except if you can fly right over it and perform a specific in-game action that is akin to dropping a bomb on the site. That CAN be done from the air, with enough precision in low-speed maneuvering. The game does not take altitude into account.

I am part of our faction's "air force", and I recently participated in two such missions. The first failed. The second succeeded. But it was incredible fun, and I wanted to share (flying-focused parts of) the sitreps with y'all, as the next two posts to this thread.

 

[onwards]

The first mission

Summary: wanting to tear down a large field that the Enlightened put over Northern California, the Resistance Air Force (RAF) attempted an airstrike on one of the anchors. The strike ultimately failed, but many good lessons were learned.

The field: on the afternoon (PST) of 7/12/15, the ENL created a field anchoring Point Arena Lighthouse, a remote location 6 hours drive north of San Francisco, a portal in Yosemite national park, and one in the Channel islands off the Los Angeles coast.

The Plane: A Cessna 182.

The Strike Team

Pilot in Command - agent lightnng (that's my in-game name, POA peeps)
Weapons Officer - agent [redacted]
In-flight Tactical Support - agent [redacted]

The rest of this report is written as a narrative from the perspective of one agent (lightnng).

Call to Action

At approximately 6PM PST, I received communications from agents [redacted] and [redacted]. Both knew that I am part of the RAF, and asked if I would be willing to fly out to take the northern anchor down (at Pt Arena) so that it does not make additional scoring checkpoints.

I was dealing with Internet connectivity issues at my house so could not immediately perform the necessary research, but eventually concluded that at least from a weather perspective, this could be possible.

Several things still had to be figured out. First, movie night with my significant other had to be canceled. She deserves mention and credit for being supportive which was a necessary requirement for this mission. She also lent me her car for the night so I didn’t have to stop for gas on the way to the airport (mine was running low).

Then I realized that I wasn’t current to carry passengers at night. My plane ended up being in annual longer than anticipated and I forgot to reschedule a currency flight when it came back mid-June.

Unfortunately, my airport has a noise ordinance prohibiting stop-and-go operations after 10PM. I initially thought this put paid to the mission, but after checking civil twilight and finding that sunset began at 831PM, I realized that I had a 30 minute window between 930PM and 10PM to regain currency so we could go out. That became the plan.

Lastly, I had VZW as my cell carrier, which has no reception at all at Pt Arena. We had to find agents with AT&T to join me. After a background call to arms, agents [redacted] and [redacted] joined the team.

We agreed to meet at the airport at 9PM.

Getting Ready

I performed full flight planning after dinner - I would be flying at night to a remote and unfamiliar location, so wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be any surprises. Looked like weather would cooperate in the sense that there would be no clouds or fog. This presented a different problem, though, which ended up being a major factor in the final mission result.

The California coast has basically two types of night weather: it’s either covered with the marine layer, a 200ft thick cloud that sits about 1000ft above ground, or it’s clear. When it’s clear, it’s often because there is a lot of wind blowing that stops the marine layer from forming - like on the night in question. In flight planning, mention of 20kn winds drew my attention, but I naively figured I could easily account for it.

After we got to the airport I taxied and took off for my three stop-and-go’s right on time. There was a bit of incoming traffic, but I was back and we were loading just before 10PM, and airborne around ten past the hour.

Enroute

A beautiful, clear night greeted us once in the air and on the way to the coast, a distance of about 110 miles. Agent [redacted] suggested we aim to come in from the south, and I aimed the plane to intercept the coast line about 20 miles southeast of the target, then follow it in.

The perceptive amongst you may have noticed a hidden assumption in the last statement - that there would, in fact, be a coastline to follow.

As we neared the coast, it became abundantly clear to me that this would be more challenging than I originally thought. Two problems immediately presented themselves. First, it was a moonless night. Second, along the coast, it is completely dark. There are no lights on the ground to follow, and without the moon shining, no contours or other land features either. We were flying in pitch darkness, following the GPS and aiming for a faint, remote light that I assumed was the lighthouse (it was not, but it was helpful anyway).

And in attempting to follow the coastline, the third problem presented itself, namely, the winds. They were, indeed, around 20kn on average, and I say on average, because they were variable and shifting. Not by much, but certainly enough to make the notion of placing that little Ingress circle right on the dot representing the lighthouse portal increasingly mind-bending. In fact, the winds got so bad I had to go back a mile or so inland and attempt to track from there, which made it more difficult for my fellow agents to guide me, since the rail was along the coast and now off their screens.

We finally arrived at the lighthouse at 11PM.

The Strike Attempt

The next 45 minutes were, I am certain, fairly amusing for the folks at Oakland Center, with whom we had flight following. A couple of kind souls were attempting to track our position remotely, resulting in the following photo:

[picture from flightaware tracking my radar signature over Pt Arena]

It is a bit misleading since we had multiple close passes - within 50 meters of the portal, including two that were 2m and 5m away.

But no matter how hard I tried, I kept running into the same basic problems.

I was flying in pitch dark, with no effective ground reference. Yes, there was one small area on the ground that had some lights. The surface area they covered was very small, and too close to the target portal to be of any more navigational use than my GPS (since getting above the portal meant not seeing them anyway).

The 20kn winds, that also constantly shifted just enough to make any attempt to make a stabilized approach (along the rail) very difficult, if not impossible, while hand-flying the plane.

Of course, I had to configure to plane for slow flight, which made it more vulnerable to wind deflections such as the ones that we were experiencing constantly. The winds were strong enough that when I tried to dial in 20 degrees of flaps to get even slower flight I ended up almost losing control of the plane, and had to go back to 10 degrees. This created an effective speed floor of 75MPH, instead of the 65MPH or so I would have preferred.

The data connection, in the meantime, seemed “sort of” stable, that is, it worked until it didn’t. And that would happen without warning, unfortunately.

And being busy with flying the plane in what I can only describe as “faux instrument conditions” (that is, not so technically but sure felt that way) made it more or less impossible for me to examine the Ingress scanner so that I could actually have something to aim for.

My best summation of the experience is that I was trying to hit as close to bullseye as possible inside of an invisible 100ft diameter circle “target” while hand-flying and executing maneuvers in slow flight in darkness with essentially no ground reference while dealing with strong, shifting winds, by performing constant heading calculations in my head while attempting to adjust my flight path based on verbal guidance and occasionally sneaking a sideways glance from the instrument panel at the Ingress scanner. I must note that both my fellow agents were exemplary during this time, remaining calm and focused, and not showing their mounting frustration. I could not have asked for better teammates.

I was getting closer with each attempt, and eventually hit upon the tactic of performing a slow, tightening spiral “onto” the target to nullify as much as possible the wind gusts. And it worked; amazingly enough, around 1145PM, we managed a perfect shot above the portal, right through the bullseye. It was fully centered, and our weapons officer deployed at the perfect timing. I saw the little animation building on his screen from the corner of my eye, and relief surged through me.

And thirty seconds later, he got the message “data connection failure”.

I was overwhelmed by exhaustion. This had been, for me, difficult to execute - in those conditions, I had to really stretch my skills to execute that single, perfect run. In daytime, or even with a full moon shining on the coastline, this would have been easy. An IFR pilot, or one with autopilot, or simply one with more experience or better skills, may have gone back and tried again. However, in considering the safety of all onboard, I determined that I no longer could, and terminated the airstrike. We flew back and landed safely half past midnight.

Conclusion: even though the mission ultimately did not succeed, I enjoyed it tremendously. It was challenging to my skills as a pilot, involved much of our local Resistance community, allowed me to fly with two really cool people to do something totally crazy, and for a few moments, when that animation was still playing and we thought we had it, allowed me to feel like a hero.

Lessons Learned: I think the following are useful tips:

1) the right seat occupant should have better tools, and in particular, a tablet. It would have been much easier for me to have it in my field of vision without disrupting my ability to fly the plane, and thus, would have made proper aiming easier;
2) I would not go on another night mission without a full moon if the target is not near an area with reasonable ground references in the form of lights of some sort (like a town or well-lit harbor);
3) Winds are a lot more difficult to deal with when attempting such careful, slow-flight maneuvering. If they are present, an autopilot-equipped plane should be preferred;
4) I need to finish my IFR

 

[onwards]

The second mission

Summary

Following a large local field (~2M MU) thrown over the San Francisco bay area, combined with intel suggesting a mega field about to be thrown by the Enlightened to cover a large portion of North America, the RAF launches a complex mission to defend humanity. Multiple airstrikes later, the mission is crowned a complete and total success.

The fields

On the early afternoon (PST) of 7/25/15, the ENL created a field anchoring Pt Reyes, a remote location 4 hours drive north of San Francisco, one in the “far east bay” (DWR water tower west of Altamont) and one in a state park (Burleigh Murray Ranch, southeast of Half Moon bay in the mountains), both of the latter requiring significant hikes that would not be possible that day considering the time when the field was placed.

[image of field]

Note the link running to the left which is, in fact, preparation for something even more significant. Intel reports were coming in that a much larger field was being prepared between the states of Alaska, California, and Wyoming, which happened about an hour later. The Alaska Resistance also mobilized to try and take down that anchor. The California anchor was in Pt Sur lighthouse (PSL), an atoll only reachable by boat at designated tour times, and of course, the field was thrown at the end of the last tour of the day.

Lastly, links were thrown from Hawaii to two other portals in the same Atoll (On Top of the Rock and Pt Sur Light Station Plaque), indicating an attempt to throw another massive field anchoring Alaska, Hawaii and California.

Because of the times and placements, it seemed that these fields were destined to remain standing until at least the following morning.

The Plane

A Cessna 182.

The Goals

The mission plan incorporated the following goals, aiming to complete them before the next checkpoint, so that the Enlightened would not receive any team credit for these fields.

Primary strike -- take out the PSL anchor for the big North American field. Hitting this goal would define the mission a success.

The following goals were considered secondary but not essential:

Second and third strikes - take out the two other Pt Sur portals linking to Hawaii.

Fourth strike - take out the Half Moon Bay anchor, clearing up the skies over San Francisco.

The Strike Team

Pilot in Command - agent lightnng
Weapons Officer - agent [redacted]

The rest of this report is written as a narrative from the perspective of one agent (lightnng). Agent names are bolded.

Call to Action

We all gathered for a lovely cross-faction BBQ at 1PM on 7/25/15. At least 30 people from both sides were present when the local field was thrown, to collective groans from us and corresponding chuckles from the other side.

Then while agent [redacted] and I were chatting he mentioned the much bigger field that was about to be thrown. There were already snippets of conversation earlier suggesting that PSL might serve as an anchor for a big field; it now seemed like it was about to be thrown, and the HI links were set up as well.

I asked him if he wanted to go flying to take them down. “Hell yeah!” he responded, and after a couple of short conversations within our group, we headed out towards the airport. The ENL, of course, realized what we were doing, and alerted their team to the possibility, but there was little they could do to stop us.

Getting Ready and Getting There

This mission did not require much in terms of flight planning. I instructed agent [redacted] while driving to the airport on how to obtain and relay to me the information necessary, such as weather and NOTAMs. In the meantime, the North American field was thrown:

[image of field over western portion of the USA]

We reached the airport around 330PM, and took off shortly thereafter. Flying to PSL on a busy day was not exactly a straight shot, as we had to be carefully transitioned around many private and commercial flights, but it was also not unusual. It was a lovely flying day, and while the marine layer was covering large swaths of the CA coast, the Pt sur atoll was in a fairly clear patch and still visible from the air. We reached it around 430PM, and I started the process of aligning with local surroundings by making several passes from different directions to get a good sense of where I needed to place the plane to get a shot at bombing PSL.

Lessons Applied

Agent [redacted] was struggling with the reception on his devices, which created havoc with our ability to target any portal - the GPS would continually jump from place to place. He mentioned it to me, and we looked at my phone from a different carrier, to find I had a strong signal. I set my phone up as a WiFi hotspot, he connected to it, and the game was on.

Winds were moderate, at 10kn, but constant, coming from the west. If we had not undertaken the previously failed mission at night to Pt Arena, I would have thought this would be a hindrance. Rather, with the lessons learned from that run, it turns out that such winds are actually a favorable condition for this kind of activity. The reason was the technique I developed for pinpointing a portal from the air, accidentally discovered on that other mission.

In the most basic terms, it involves setting up a fairly constant entry point into a slowly tightening spiral that circles the target portal. The idea is that by tightening onto the portal some of the issues with GPS drift get negated, because while the drift itself is random, this sort of spiral makes some of those random drifts useful to the weapons officer. In a straight shot, every drift goes sideways, always away from the portal. In a tightening spiral, some drifts go inside, towards the portal, often allowing more than one deployment attempt per spiral. The advantage of having a moderate but constant wind is that in a typical spiral, we get times at which our nearing pass is at a slower ground speed, and performed properly, the most critical attempt (the exit from the spiral) is performed at the slowest possible speed.

Strike 1 - Primary Goal (result: success)

After the first few initial passes, I started trying to hit the portal in earnest. It took 4 attempts before agent [redacted] could successfully deploy on the main anchor, but it worked. The North American field was down.

Strikes 2 and 3 - Secondary Goals (result: success)

Things were going swimmingly, and after a quick conversation, we decided to find out if we could take out the other two portals at Pt Sur, with the links to Hawaii. A total of 6 passes later saw both portals in our hands. The excitement in the air (pun most certainly intended) was palpable. The comm chatter was increasing the whole time, and agent [redacted] was relaying some of it to me as I took the plane out of slow flight and headed north.

Strike 4 - The Local BAF (result: success)

As we were making our way north, we had a discussion about which portal we should aim for, since all three were within striking distance. I was leaning towards the eastern anchor as it was inland and thus might have fewer reception issues, but we eventually decided that we should shoot for the southern anchor (in the mountains near Half Moon Bay) first, and if we could not hit it, head north to Pt Reyes and try to take that one instead.

As we got near Burleigh Murray, a new technical challenge presented itself - I had very little room to work with flying over the portal. The marine layer below topped out between 1600-1700 feet; the Bravo shelf above started at 3000 feet. In other words, and in choosing to be conservative, I had 200-300 feet of legal altitude in which to perform my tightening spiral slow flight maneuver, with the added stress of not wanting to bust class Bravo airspace. Precision was the order of the day. Thankfully, I had a lot of recent practice.

The other challenge was Ingress-specific, which was that agent [redacted] did not have a key to the target portal, and thus could not easily navigate to it. Since the ground was covered by the marine layer, we could not aim by sight before first getting close enough to obtain a fix.

Even so, it turned out to be a lot simpler than both of us imagined. We found the portal quickly, and in three passes, nailed it; my altitude changed less than 20 feet throughout the entire few minutes it took to execute. And now all fields were down - before scoring checkpoint.

We successfully hit every single goal! What a delightful and unexpected end result.

Conclusion

Airstrikes are certainly possible, and I am glad our team has both the ability to execute them, and such talented people like agent [redacted]. Without his precision in handling three devices battling with constant drift in a small plane and all that comes with being in one, we would have had no chance. I really enjoyed the flight, and am proud of the little homing-in technique we developed. And getting such resounding success eliminated the bitter taste of ultimately failing the previous mission.

Lessons Learned

I think the following are useful tips:

1) the tightening spiral is the way to go, as it really helps combat GPS drift, and in fact, makes it work for you;
2) have multiple cell carriers onboard, and make sure you can tether so your weapons officer can use whichever connection is best in any given circumstance;
3) Constant winds are helpful for this type of operation, as long as you take them into account and utilize them;
4) doing this in day is a whole lot easier than at night

 

[onwards]

One last note: this was NOT written for pilots, but rather for the local Ingress community. So some of the terminology is imprecise, the descriptions a little different than they would be if I were writing it for this group in mind, and so on.

 

[SkyDog58]

WTF?!

 

[simtech]

Captain started this a year or so ago. I beleive a few people signed up and got on teams. I tired it for a day and never played again.

 

[onwards]

Captain started this a year or so ago. I beleive a few people signed up and got on teams. I tired it for a day and never played again.

I came upon it independently, but cool to know that there are others on POA who have experienced "Airgressing"!

Anyway, it does lead to fun and unusual flying experiences. The folks who joined me on these flights are actual former US airforce, so that was really neat.

 

[MAKG1]

Keep in mind that it's not legal to use your cell phone while airborne.

It's also not hard to find you, should your provider get ****ed off that you're pinging dozens or hundreds of towers at once.

See 47 CFR 22.295. Note that is NOT a FAR. It's not the FAA's enforcement that you have to deal with. It's not a safety issue (besides distraction), and it's not your choice as PIC.

 

[onwards]

Keep in mind that it's not legal to use your cell phone while airborne.

It's also not hard to find you, should your provider get ****ed off that you're pinging dozens or hundreds of towers at once.

See 47 CFR 22.295. Note that is NOT a FAR. It's not the FAA's enforcement that you have to deal with. It's not a safety issue (besides distraction), and it's not your choice as PIC.

I wasn't using my cellphone - the passengers (aka the weapons officer and tactical support) were.

 

[EdFred]

Keep in mind that it's not legal to use your cell phone while airborne.

It's also not hard to find you, should your provider get ****ed off that you're pinging dozens or hundreds of towers at once.

See 47 CFR 22.295. Note that is NOT a FAR. It's not the FAA's enforcement that you have to deal with. It's not a safety issue (besides distraction), and it's not your choice as PIC.

Depends on the bands you are or aren't using. I've flown all over the country with my mobile phone on, and Verizon has never said anything to me, nor have they contacted the FCC to come get me. And I doubt they ever will.

 

[Mtns2Skies]

WTF?!

I second the motion.





Flying pretend "military" missions in a 182... sounds like CAP.

 

[Velocity173]

Doesn't sound like much of an "air strike" with no air / ground threats. Now that I know where you operate, I'll throw in a notional ZSU-23-4 out there and put an end to that happy horse**** real quick!

 

[onwards]

Doesn't sound like much of an "air strike" with no air / ground threats. Now that I know where you operate, I'll throw in a notional ZSU-23-4 out there and put an end to that happy horse**** real quick!

LOL. That sounds awesome - the new game Niantic is promoting (called Endgame) will be more weapons focused, so this might fit well in that world

Anyway, it's more about doing something cool in GA plane while blowing holes in the sky than the "airstrike" itself.

 

[Direct C51]

WT actual F are you doing? Illegal, waste of time and money, and seriously weird man. And to top it all off, I am most certain no one read more than 4 words of your "mission" narratives, so chalk that up as an hour or two additionally wasted. My advice, if you want to play army, go talk to a recruiter.

 

[MAKG1]

Flying pretend "military" missions in a 182... sounds like CAP.

No, it doesn't. Not even close.

First, the only quasi-military missions CAP flies are as targets for ANG and USAF.

 

[onwards]

WT actual F are you doing? Illegal, waste of time and money, and seriously weird man. And to top it all off, I am most certain no one read more than 4 words of your "mission" narratives, so chalk that up as an hour or two additionally wasted. My advice, if you want to play army, go talk to a recruiter.

Illegal? how?

Waste of time and money? do I tell you how to burn your gas?

Sheesh.

 

[EdFred]

Illegal? how?

Waste of time and money? do I tell you how to burn your gas?

Sheesh.

YOU MAY ONLY HAVE FUN HOW OTHER PEOPLE TELL YOU TO HAVE FUN!!!!!

If you enjoy it go for it, and **** what other people have to say about it.

 

[onwards]

YOU MAY ONLY HAVE FUN HOW OTHER PEOPLE TELL YOU TO HAVE FUN!!!!!

Oh, right, I forgot!

If you enjoy it go for it, and **** what other people have to say about it.

No kidding.

 

[mkosmo]

I, for one, think this is a pretty cool way to join Ingress and flying.

 

[BigBadLou]

I have heard of this thing before but never bothered to learn more and understand it (no, I am not speaking against it, I am neutral).

While others might not share the same perspective as the players, that does not make it wrong.
Some fly for $100 hamburgers, some fly pups for charity (I do both ), some do flour bombings and spot-landing contests (I am not that good yet) and some fly for games. (and some fly in sandals to dump bodies in the Ozarks after eating too much cole slaw)

The reason should not matter as long as we have fun flying!

 

[Brad Z]

I have a friend who is into it and is trying to get me into it because I have a plane. Think of it as sort of like Geocaching but a little more involved.

 

[Direct C51]

Illegal? how?

Waste of time and money? do I tell you how to burn your gas?

Sheesh.

Keep in mind that it's not legal to use your cell phone while airborne.

It's also not hard to find you, should your provider get ****ed off that you're pinging dozens or hundreds of towers at once.

See 47 CFR 22.295. Note that is NOT a FAR. It's not the FAA's enforcement that you have to deal with. It's not a safety issue (besides distraction), and it's not your choice as PIC.

Are you even reading the responses? He straight told you the CFR this violates.

 

[EdFred]

Are you even reading the responses? He straight told you the CFR this violates.

Did you read part H to know which bands it does and doesn't cover? Maybe you should do that before saddling up, Captain Horse's Ass.

 

[Katamarino]

WT actual F are you doing? Illegal, waste of time and money, and seriously weird man. And to top it all off, I am most certain no one read more than 4 words of your "mission" narratives, so chalk that up as an hour or two additionally wasted. My advice, if you want to play army, go talk to a recruiter.

Who p***ed in your cornflakes this morning? Jeez. Go yell at kids on your lawn or something.

 

[onwards]

Are you even reading the responses? He straight told you the CFR this violates.

You obviously have no clue whatsoever with respect to the regulation, what it covers, how it is enforced, by whom, and in essence, anything about it.

Go find somebody else to troll. I'm done with you.

 

[Direct C51]

§22.925 Prohibition on airborne operation of cellular telephones.
Cellular telephones installed in or carried aboard airplanes, balloons or any other type of aircraft must not be operated while such aircraft are airborne (not touching the ground). When any aircraft leaves the ground, all cellular telephones on board that aircraft must be turned off..

Onwards, If you have something that contradicts this, then go ahead and quote it, or in some way please show a reference.

 

[EdFred]

Onwards, If you have something that contradicts this, then go ahead and quote it, or in some way please show a reference.

Not onwards but here's your regulation

§22.905 Channels for cellular service.

The following frequency bands are allocated for assignment to service providers in the Cellular Radiotelephone Service.
(a) Channel Block A: 869-880 MHz paired with 824-835 MHz, and 890-891.5 MHz paired with 845-846.5 MHz.
(b) Channel Block B: 880-890 MHz paired with 835-845 MHz, and 891.5-894 MHz paired with 846.5-849 MHz.

Not all mobile phones use those blocks. If they aren't using those blocks, they aren't regulated under that.

Here's a hand-dandy chart showing which carriers use which bands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_frequencies

If you do some actual reading, you will see that he may not have been breaking the law at all - and probably wasn't.