I never remembered this maneuver being so hard back when I played as a kid.

When I first played the game, if I recall correctly, the command section separate button was bound to F12?

I try to do it... Disable flight assist, hammer down the thrusters towards the Excalibur, pitch up 90 degrees, pop command section... I always get held up at the last bit. Can't mouse to the button fast enough and then transition to flying the comsec off.

Was the F12 to detach function removed or am I just that much worse at the game now?

I tried to find a way to bind F12 back to separation but I don't know what the internal name for the command is. :(

Anyone know it?

F11 is commandsection separation according to the refcard (which you should have in your downloads).

Good luck!

Yeah, I remember it being F11 or F12 or something on the refcard, scratching my memory from when I was like 10 or something.

But I also remember that I played the original European version of the game, and it seems there have been a few changes since the release of the American/patched version. Can't really check since the disc version won't install under 64-bit.

F11 doesn't work either so part of me thinks the functionality was removed.

Anyway, did Impeachment 2 by getting quite a bit more range than I thought I needed before the final burn.

It's not the only different thing I noticed. When I was little I scouted the COSA base first after McDuff's meeting, and ended up getting Wild Weasel sometime after The Gift, and never saw At All Costs even though I was pretty consistent with the "good path" choices.

To be honest I never played the gog version so I wouldn't know about differences between EU and US versions.
Could be a glitch, see if you can limit frames to no more than 60 fps, if that still doesn't work try 30 fps.

Did you press it once or twice? You have to hit it twice to "confirm" separation.