First Career. First patrol. 0 Alive, 46 dead.

[svenks]

I was running at 1024 TC, and the weather was perfectly fine and clear.

And therein lies a big part of the problem: 1024TC is WAY too much to be running surfaced on a clear day and within aircraft range (which by the way is way too long, at least for the Hurrcane). The thing is, you'll only have 1/1024 of the time to react, as opposed to running TC=1. The sequence of events is:

1) An aircraft gets close enough to spot you.
2) Your threat indicator turns yellow or red.
3) The Aircraft spots you.
4) The indicator turns red, if it hasn't already.
5) He starts his attack (and aircraft are fast!)
6) Your crew sees him.
7) Only now does your TC drop to 1.

All of points 1 thru 6 takes a few moments or minutes, but at 1024 - only fraction of a second - and you're toast!

I use max TC=128 when aircraft may appear, and then I keep my finger on the backspace button and my eyes on the threat indicator. When it turns red, I drop to TC=1 and go to the tower to see what may be seen. But it would be cheating to take action, until the aircraft has been spotted.

Oh, and do keep up the speed at day - you can always save fuel at night

BRGDS
Sven