Welcome to a non-commentary playthrough of the original Ace Combat (Air Combat as it was named outside of Japan), where I'll be going through each of the game's 17 sorties and doing my very best to ace a lot of bogeys!

I have set myself some conditions for this run: Hard difficulty, no damage and (if possible), destroy any non-targets or as many as I can. I'm also using certain planes for certain missions. All of this is to try and unlock a bunch of achievements through the RetroAchievements website, just for some extra 'ace pilot' cred.

Taking down the enemy's supply planes hurt their ability to function on the frontline, but it had the unfortunate side effect of revealing the loyalists' main air base to them. The coup forces immediately launched a counter-attack against the base, intending to cripple what air power the Skully government had left. Scarface Squadron was very quickly scrambled to intercept, with Phoenix engaging the main thrust of the attack.

"Immediate mobilization required. Our base's position was compromised in the last enemy push. Reports indicate imminent arrival of bombers. Scramble and ace those bogeys! Target: B-52 Bomber Force. Good luck."

So, this one took me a few tries. On the first attempt, the bombers actually reached the base and levelled it, something which I never knew could happen! (I still had fuel remaining at that point, which is essentially your time limit). On the second, I forgot about the B-52s having tail guns (only on Hard IIRC) so took a bit of damage, which I'm not allowing for myself. I ended up just ignoring the last of the escorts; there just wasn't enough time to bag them all AND the bombers.

NOTE: Played & recorded on DuckStation with RetroAchievements enabled.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YnocO1LpO8