F-51 / F-80C 10 Historical Scripted Campaign "Home by Christmas"

[Jaegermeister]

This Scripted Campaign for IL2 KOREA is titled “Home by Christmas” for reasons that will become clear as you progress through the story. It is a historically based series of missions, as recalled by our fictitious hero Captain Jack Russell from his wartime journal and flight log entries. Captain Russell flew a P51 Mustang at the end of World War II in Europe but arrived on the scene just a little too late to pit his skills against the remnants of the Luftwaffe in the skies over Germany. After his return home, he was introduced to the F-80 Shooting Star jet in the Nebraska Air National Guard, and when the North Korean Army moved into South Korea on June 25, 1950, he immediately volunteered for active duty. He was sure this new conflict was his opportunity to become an air ace after all.  

 

 

Captain Russell entered combat with the 80^th Fighter Bomber Squadron, attached to the 8^th Fighter Bomber Group flying ground support missions around the Pusan perimeter from Itazuke Air Base in Japan. This 15 mission campaign begins with your temporary duty assignment as a replacement pilot in the 35^th Fighter Bomber Squadron as you arrive at your new forward air base in Suwon, South Korea on October 7^th, 1950.

 

 

You will fly various types of missions including interdiction of enemy supplies, close ground support under the guidance of airborne and ground based forward controllers, suppression of enemy air defenses and bomber escort.

 

 

You may even get your chance to become the fighter ace you dreamed about in your early days, if you survive long enough to enjoy the recognition!

 

 

Timeframe: October 7 – December 12, 1950

Unit: 35^th and 80^th Fighter Bomber Squadrons, 8^th Fighter Bomber Group

Aircraft: F-51D, F-80C-10

Duration: 15 Missions

Mission Success: With a few exceptions, your primary objective will be completed a few minutes after arriving in the assigned target area.

Average Playtime: 8-15 Hours Depending on use of time skip function

Languages: English, Russian, French, German, Spanish and Simplified Chinese

Author: James =Jaegermeister= Yarbrough

 

 

Edited August 12 by Jaegermeister

[Jaegermeister]

More action screens from the campaign to follow ...

 

Edited August 4 by Jaegermeister

[Flyingadjo]

Hi,

Having a lot of fun pounding those front lines 🙂

A small typo in mission 5 : the village coordonate are 617- in the mission briefing but 616-9 on the map

Sorry, I must go back to the campaign !

campaign - mission 5 - error coord village.pdf

[Jaegermeister]

5 hours ago, Flyingadjo said:

Hi,

Having a lot of fun pounding those front lines 🙂

A small typo in mission 5 : the village coordonate are 617- in the mission briefing but 616-9 on the map

campaign - mission 5 - error coord village.pdf 415.54 kB · 3 downloads

I am glad you are enjoying it. That is on the list of corrections, but I will wait a bit and see if anything else turns up in  the next few days. Thanks for the feedback!

Judging from your screenshot, you should turn off HDR in your windows system settings and you will have a much better experience.

[Flyingadjo]

I also noticed in the P51 mission where you have to drop napalm in the mountain that each time I drop napalm I have a message "penality for targeting friendly". 

[K4tzenfr3und]

Many thanks for the free campaign. Just flew the first mission, very good feeling. Looking forward to the next ones.

[DIVEGUY43]

Where can I download this?

[Flyingadjo]

Mission 12 Blinding the dragon. Taking off at dawn. Very nice 🙂

 

[LukeFF]

23 minutes ago, DIVEGUY43 said:

Where can I download this?

It's in the game by default, nothing you need to download.

[Jaegermeister]

13 hours ago, Flyingadjo said:

I also noticed in the P51 mission where you have to drop napalm in the mountain that each time I drop napalm I have a message "penality for targeting friendly". 

I saw that message once when I dropped 2x 1000 lb bombs and another plane in my flight was below and behind me. That is the only time I have seen it, so I would guess you somehow fragged someone in your own flight. You may also be dropping the napalm too close to the friendlies in the village.

 

6 hours ago, K4tzenfr3und said:

Many thanks for the free campaign. Just flew the first mission, very good feeling. Looking forward to the next ones.

You are very welcome. It was challenging to make during the testing process, but I think all of the major issues are ironed out now.

I would imagine the whole experience will change over time as AI behavior is adjusted, so that will be interesting to see.

  

Edited August 6 by Jaegermeister

[Flyingadjo]

I finished the campaign. I loved the last missions : the fall of Pyongyang. You really captured well the dramatic fall back to the south. I loved the intensity of the flack in the last 2 missions. Yet, I was shot many time by the blast of my own 1000 pounders that I was dropping too low!

It is overall really a great campaign. I would have enjoyed a bit more of dogfight : getting rid of the last IL10 of the NKPR.

The screenshot below is I believe mission 14 slowing the tide. My squadron would not follow me on the runaway. They only started taxiing after I took off and the green flare went off on the runaway. Each time, they meet me at pyongyang after a little while. I did not mind ahaving the whole show just for myself 🙂

You can see them still parked while I wait by the clock icon. 

 

[Jaegermeister]

4 hours ago, Flyingadjo said:

I finished the campaign. I loved the last missions : the fall of Pyongyang. You really captured well the dramatic fall back to the south. I loved the intensity of the flack in the last 2 missions. Yet, I was shot many time by the blast of my own 1000 pounders that I was dropping too low!

It is overall really a great campaign. I would have enjoyed a bit more of dogfight : getting rid of the last IL10 of the NKPR.

The screenshot below is I believe mission 14 slowing the tide. My squadron would not follow me on the runaway. They only started taxiing after I took off and the green flare went off on the runaway. Each time, they meet me at pyongyang after a little while. I did not mind ahaving the whole show just for myself 🙂

You can see them still parked while I wait by the clock icon. 

 

I am glad you enjoyed it! 

The down side to a historical campaign is that I can only control the content of the missions to a certain extent. Since I found no records of the 80th FBS encountering IL10s, there are no missions for it. The missions that you flew really occurred, and in the case of the last mission, the number of planes is even accurate. It was in the news at the time as the biggest dogfight of the war up until that point. I did not make up the details of things like 3 F-80s taking off before dawn to attack a coastal radar emplacement the day a new bombing campaign on the Yalu began, and I can't even tell you why there were only 3. Maybe one aborted before takeoff.

Regarding the taxi logic, if you either miss a taxi waypoint, or blow through them too fast and hit 2 before your wingmen start taxiing, they do not move. You have to hit the first one, wait for the No.2 guy to start moving, and then progress. Also you are not close enough to the clock icon, it should be right in your lap. The foolproof way to do it is to get started up, hit autopilot and once everyone is moving, take back over the controls. 

[Flyingadjo]

43 minutes ago, Jaegermeister said:

I am glad you enjoyed it! 

The down side to a historical campaign is that I can only control the content of the missions to a certain extent. Since I found no records of the 80th FBS encountering IL10s, there are no missions for it. The missions that you flew really occurred, and in the case of the last mission, the number of planes is even accurate. It was in the news at the time as the biggest dogfight of the war up until that point. I did not make up the details of things like 3 F-80s taking off before dawn to attack a coastal radar emplacement the day a new bombing campaign on the Yalu began, and I can't even tell you why there were only 3. Maybe one aborted before takeoff.

Regarding the taxi logic, if you either miss a taxi waypoint, or blow through them too fast and hit 2 before your wingmen start taxiing, they do not move. You have to hit the first one, wait for the No.2 guy to start moving, and then progress. Also you are not close enough to the clock icon, it should be right in your lap. The foolproof way to do it is to get started up, hit autopilot and once everyone is moving, take back over the controls. 

I definetly taxied too fast. Got used to the tarmac layout after few mission.

The historic accuracy is what makes the mission immersive.  The radar mission was a nice special op.

 

Edited August 6 by Flyingadjo

[Flyingadjo]

I found the trick. At this stage, you are squadron commander: you just have to issue the orders of taxiing and TO 😅

[Jaegermeister]

4 hours ago, Flyingadjo said:

I found the trick. At this stage, you are squadron commander: you just have to issue the orders of taxiing and TO 😅

Well there you go. Staff management!

[Spitfiresammons]

The home by Christmas campaign looks amazing when I played and I hope in a future to have more new campaigns on il-2 Korea like "Sabres over MIG alley" "MIGs over MIG ally" "Aussie Mustangs over Korea" of RAAF 77 Squadron and "Thunderjets over Korea"?

[Jaegermeister]

5 hours ago, Spitfiresammons said:

The home by Christmas campaign looks amazing when I played and I hope in a future to have more new campaigns on il-2 Korea like "Sabres over MIG alley" "MIGs over MIG ally" "Aussie Mustangs over Korea" of RAAF 77 Squadron and "Thunderjets over Korea"?

I hope you enjoy flying it all the way through. I do not have any definite plans for another one but I am considering options now, which requires research to see what is appropriate for the map and the planes we have available.

I am sure you will have more scripted campaigns, but they take a while to make. I started this one shortly after the Korea Beta started before Early Access. I think it took at least 3 months to complete, so that is probably how long it will take the community to produce more content. 

 

Edited August 8 by Jaegermeister

[AEthelraedUnraed]

On 8/8/2026 at 11:59 AM, Spitfiresammons said:

RAAF 77 Squadron

Working on it 😉

[Mikeoo21]

I'm encountering what seems to be a persistent bug when flying the F-80 C in the Home by Christmas campaign. Several times during a mission it keeps turning the engine off saying there is a fuel deprivation problem but there is fuel indicated in one or more tanks and plenty of range. I can switch it to autopilot but sometimes even autopilot can't get it to turn back on. It didn't happen in the earlier episodes of the campaigns in F-80 C. Is this a bug?

[Sherman503]

Noticed a small typo in mission 2's journal entry.

Quote

it's a wonder any of are still alive at all

Seems it's missing a "us", as in "any of us are".

[Sherman503]

At the end of mission 3, the flight just continued to circle above the target instead of going home.

I got the "Let's go home" type green text message and the mission/objective complete message.

I went home on my own and completed the mission.

I have a video if needed.

[ComputerJones]

6 hours ago, Sherman503 said:

At the end of mission 3, the flight just continued to circle above the target instead of going home.

I got the "Let's go home" type green text message and the mission/objective complete message.

I went home on my own and completed the mission.

I have a video if needed.

Was just coming here to post the same: exact same thing, lead calls to rejoin formation and fly home, then just circles endlessly. I flew their wing for maybe 20 minutes as the other 2 just endlessly overshot the lead as the lead held about 190 MPH indicated, circling to the right continuously before I just decided to fly home myself.

[Jaegermeister]

6 hours ago, Sherman503 said:

I have a video if needed.

That is unnecessary but I appreciate the offer. I’ll take a look at it. Thanks for the detailed description.

[Sherman503]

I feel like the briefings could use a bit more info on what the mission consists of. I have literally no idea what I'm going to do when I takeoff.

Good example is mission 4, there is just a big target area with no indication that friendlies are advancing in this zone.

So I see a convoy advancing north up the road I'm supposed to follow, it's pretty dark so I can't ID them beforehand, and napalm a friendly convoy by accident.

[Jaegermeister]

On 8/11/2026 at 11:04 AM, Mikeoo21 said:

I'm encountering what seems to be a persistent bug when flying the F-80 C in the Home by Christmas campaign. Several times during a mission it keeps turning the engine off saying there is a fuel deprivation problem but there is fuel indicated in one or more tanks and plenty of range. I can switch it to autopilot but sometimes even autopilot can't get it to turn back on. It didn't happen in the earlier episodes of the campaigns in F-80 C. Is this a bug?

I believe it has to do with the outside temperature which was -20 degrees F. or so during that time period. I actually only set it to -10C which is 14 degrees F. for the later missions. I looked into it and found conflicting information stating that the Allison J33-A-35 engine actually performed better at lower temperatures, but that other systems like hydraulics and electrical had significant problems. Fuel flow at startup was also an issue. JP-1 kerosene jet fuel does not freeze, but it got thick in extreme cold. I don't know if using JP-4 (kerosene mixed with gasoline) is modeled. 

I found that when I had this problem, reducing the throttle to 80-90% remedied it.