Ace Combat 8 Paint It Blue medal: destroy all Podarges for Fire the Load

Count complete Podarges, not only their weapons

The directory identifies the landed hulls as hidden targets. One reply remembers a possible fifth aircraft but says they cannot remember for sure. That recollection does not establish a fifth required Podarge.

Prepare a deliberate four-target attempt

1. Bring an owned loadout that can damage the landed hulls and engage the flying pair. One player recommends MGP fire at the fuselage; this is attributed advice, not a required weapon or measured damage breakpoint.
2. At the landed pair, continue checking the hull after removing individual weapons. Confirm complete destruction for each aircraft.
3. Watch for both airborne reinforcements and keep a separate count. If they collide, distinguish a visual crash from a kill you can actually confirm.
4. If practical, attack the airborne fuselages before their drops to cover the stricter suggested route, without assuming that timing is a proven requirement.
5. Finish the mission and check for Fire the Load in the medal record.

A dramatic explosion or removal of every visible subtarget is not the same observation as the actual medal award. The checked reports do not give an exact spawn timer, target-lock input or minimum score.

Do they have to die before dropping the landships?

The October 21 replies disagree. ebolaisamongus says to destroy all four before the drops and recommends targeting fuselages with MGP. bentolunch reports earning the medal on Pilot after the flying pair had already dropped their landships, following an unsuccessful Rookie attempt.

The successful account also says the aircraft chained into one another. That prevents claiming that every collision invalidates the medal. Difficulty, attempt history and timing changed together, so neither “Pilot is required” nor “after-drop always works” is established. Keep the two reports separate rather than combining them into a guaranteed recipe.

All four looked destroyed, but no award?

Compare the landed hulls first, then your confirmation of each flying target. If repeating the mission, record difficulty, game build, drop timing, whether the second aircraft died in a chain reaction and the final medal screen. bentolunch’s second-run success is a case to compare, not proof that restarting twice fixes a bug.

There is no demonstrated one-step repair or verified fifth-target route in this discussion. Keep your save and result evidence; do not erase campaign progress to test a rumor. For a separate large-target problem, use Mission 9’s phase sequence or the Broncobuster medal checks, rather than transferring their award conditions to this mission.