Can someone help me with static camera orientation?
 

I'm aware of how to move and rotate the cameras using the numpad in the 3D view, but for some reason they resume their original facing when I go to fly the mission. They show fine when using the 3D view in the map, but I cannot for the life of me figure out why they're back facing the way they were when first dropped into the map in the actual mission. This is getting quite frustrating now, so any help is much appreciated.

The default spawn position for static cameras is facing east. This cannot be changed.

Aviar

So the only way to have static cameras in the mission is to have them facing east? Seems kind of a strange limitation?

Not really as you can look around the camera view in the mission in all directions with your mouse.

See this is what I can't figure. I can zoom in and out, and change the elevation; I can look 'behind' the camera's point this way but it's upside-down. Maybe I'm just being incredibly slow but I couldn't find a way to actually rotate the camera around its vertical axis in-mission using the mouse.

It's all in your mouse movement, just play around a bit more. You get upside down if the mouse is moved way too much. You can zoom in/out by holding down the left mouse button while moveing the mouse. You can look around 360 degrees just by the mouse movement, also see what your mouse speed is set at in the hotas page, default is 1.0

Well thanks for the help but I must be doing something differently to the rest of you. I start up the mission and hit Ctrl+F8 for the camera view - moving the mouse towards and away from me alters the elevation, doing so while holding the left button changes the zoom. Nothing I can think of doing allows me to turn the camera around the vertical axis. owell... off to find some maps with East-West-running runways, I guess.

Your locking ground targets using Ctrl + F8

Use Ctrl + F2 repeatedly until you see the correct camera views.

Alpha is correct. You were using the incorrect view command. That's not the command to view the static camera.

Aviar

Gah, knew I had to be being dense somewhere along the line. I'll try that next time, thanks a lot.