[Horton]

Having joined in the fun and realizing I need LOTS of practice as a fighter or heavy bomber pilot, I was left with one option- light bomber.

Selecting a JU-87 with Finn Markings and the largest available bombload, I set out to legally "vulche," hoping to use Blitzkrieg tactics (single handedly) and become a detriment to the evil "Red" team.

Blue team at the time was doing alright; we had several fighters over our closest bases, but a large dogfight was going on over the front lines. Blue seemed to be on top.

Guiding my JU-87 into the skies, I realized alone I was a sitting duck. Not many chaps in the TS at the time to ask for help. Thus, with one option left open I turned around and nosed up at an elevation that allowed me to maintain 210kmh. Reaching 1000m, I turned slowly for the front lines, maintaining my degree of climb. The tide seemed to be turning; Red team was downing Blue in frightening repetition and speed.

Slowly I made my way to the front lines, maintaining my rate of climb until I was at 2500 meters. Leveling out just over the lines, I was able to push the Stuka to 250kmh. Tracers were evident about 3 miles to my 9 low, estimated they were ~1000m give or take. I was in the clear- for now.

Now my mission was to find enemy targets. According to the game chat, the enemy carrier was already sinking; no way I was going to waste these bombs on that. Trying to remember the coordinates of Red Bases from the briefing map, I flew along between 2300 and 2700m in elevation, until I caught an enemy closing on my position some ways off about 2000m in elevation. Turning to the right and making my way to 3100meters, I continued to scan; the cloud cover rendered that impossible. Nothing. Hills, trees, and a few towns; If I was a Soviet or a Nazi, perhaps that would have been an aluring target, but alas, I am not- Finnish pilots do not even fly over Civilian targets for fear of causing collateral damage.

The enemy plane flew under me; closer observation showed a A-20. Nothing to worry with, unless it was a forward observer.

For some time I flew, watching the fuel gauges, hovering over enemy territory watching tracers flash back and forth. If I flew down to their level, no way I would last more than a few moments.

There she was! The little bastard! A concrete strip several miles off. Using the topography on the map with the ground, I mentally marked the position for my next run. If I survived, that is. Then the fun began.

Dropping my throttle to 10%, I slooped down wards making for the back side of the airfield. No reason to give recent take off's a target. Making good time at over 300kmh, I dropped down to 1800 meters. I was now in the rear of the airfield, and taking cover in clouds; a Yak had spotted me, and I was attempting to cloud hop to lose him. The last cloud had taken me just over the airfield!

Dive brakes engaged, throttle cut, turn over and go!

The macabre whistle of my brakes kicked in. Two enemy planes sat on the strip, a pair of fighters about to take off. They started moving; I adjusted my aim. One-Two- Three! All bombs released. Brakes retracted, throttle at 110%; now was time to run like hell and watch my work. Missed one fighter; BOOM! Second one was on fire.

What was that?! An IL-10 it appeared? On fire from the blast! That taught him to fly too low !

And there we have it... a good mission. And of course, that pair of Yaks coming down out of the clouds on me. Goodie.

Frantically zig zagging, rudder jigging, diving and trying to make speed, I typed "Help" and my coordinates. No luck, they were almost withing firing range; I was done for!

I climbed over a hill, hugging it so close one false move- easy for a new pilot like me to do- would be my death warrant. This offset the Yaks for a moment; that was all I needed. Before they were even in range 3 BF-109's came out of nowhere, zipping around and downing both Yaks in moments. I was saved.

My fuel was at 33% of what it started with, so I decided to take my time, get back to base, and make it a successful mission. Turning left over the sea, I re-climbed to 2,000meters. Dogfights were abounding over the base to Blue's front line. My base was further back.

After a few minutes of flying along, I turned in for that last bank before wheels hit home.

It was a good start; a few moments later my wheels touched and I made it home.

Time for the next mission...

[stansdds]

As much as I enjoy flying offline, online flying brings a whole new dimension to the combat flight sim. The many hours I spent flying in my squadron were great. The ability to use TeamSpeak to verbally communicate with other members made the use of combat tactics much easier and allowed me to keep my hands on the stick and throttle instead of the keyboard.

I remember my very first online mission, a break-in mission to get me accustomed to flying in the squadron. Flying F4U-1's (Corsair I) in the Pacific, encountering a flight of Zekes, I kept them off of my tail and saw another member in trouble. I nosed over and into a hard turn to port, made a good guess at deflection and flamed the Zeke with one burst. I was congratulated on my marksmanship by the CO. A few minutes later I spotted a lone Zeke, down low. I rolled in on it, got behind it, and fell into the classic trap used by the Japanese. I never saw the Zeke high above until it was locked on my six and filled my crate with machine gun and cannon rounds. In my first mission I learned to use TeamSpeak, engage in squadron tactics, save a squadmate from certain destruction, get my first kill, and die in a blaze of foolishness.

[Horton]

Well last night, on the map of North Africa with the slot/river on the north bank, took a Yak-1 iirc to test it out. I was gaining altitude and passed about 4 teammates I suppose on their way back to collect points. As they flew back to base, I noticed two fighters hugging the deck; swooping down to get a better look I could see their numbers and it was two blues.

Well, who lives forever? I decided to dive in and break them up at least, buy the guys they were stalking some time to land and refit.

A La-55 (or... something like that... 33?!) at the rear broke off and then the lead came in and all of a sudden before I could react these guys were buzzing around my 6. All of a sudden a friendly spit came up out of the river bed and one of the enemy broke off to get him. I didn't see all of the action but I do know that when I saw the spit next, the guy was all over him. These must have been good fighter pilots, cause they were all over both of us when we started with great advantages.

I tried to get on this guy's 6 to help the red out, but shots were flying by my pit so I fired off a few shots way too far forward, just to tell the guy there was someone there, then I broke off. idk what happened to the spit after that, but I only had one guy on my tail.

Then I started this crazy dance. Several attempts to get on this guy failed. His gunnery, thank God, was not as good as his flying, although I had my share of holes.

So, doing what any idiot would do in the situation, I started playing with fire; I didn't even attempt to get on his 6, or out maneuver him, or even outrun him. I started flying at deck level, using all my controls to scrape over the clifftops, and then dive back down, bank into the river bed, and back up over the cliffs. This guy stayed on me the whole time, up, down, banking left to a dive and right to a climb over the cliffs. It was probably the best maneuvering chase I've seen yet. I did stuff I didn't know possible to get away, and yet he never crashed.

Too bad, though, at the last moment he turned away and gave chase to a A-20. After all that, he hit a cliff nad the A-20 pilot got the kill. Was a sad end for a good flight on his part.

As for me, I made my way back to base, holier than the Pope on sunday, and landed safely. Didn't get a single kill last night, but that was a great flight, especially for a newcomer like me.

[Horton]

Well I'm about to pass my two week mark in the server.

Shot down my first friendly last night (FOX). Was a sad occasion, I came down in a Hurricane seeing a blue team all over FOX's tail. No other enemy in site, so I went to clear it... nothing peeves me more than running to a friendly with some guy hot on my six and they just fly by and keep going (sometimes, 2 or 3 friendlies will fly on by), and I didn't want to do this.

As it appeared I would be too late, I decided to fire a burst in front of the blue's nose, and warn him that there was someone on his six. The first burst was too late and fell behind him (still not too good at angles, or dogfighting in general). The second burst was right on; but he kept on FOX. A third burst was sent, but before I could react the blue broke right from the leftward turning fight and FOX, wounded but in the air, was right in the path of the burst. I must have hit with the second burst, cause the blue was trailing gasoline, but I lost him as he dove and climbed in a much faster plane; right before FOX went out of my cockpit's bottom left corner, I saw an orange spark denoting a cannon hit that I knew was mine. Then I got the message "FOX killed." It was too bad I didn't even get the guy who I was trying to. Flew the rest of the night with a negative score.

My victory for the night of note was a Spitfire with German markings. He'd been wreaking havok on red team and I came down in my own spit. Almost shot down another friendly who decided to cut me off and try to get the kill off me, but I ignored him and got a confident shot off. Hit the pit and wing joint and knocked off the left wing of the spit. I was out of ammo, and decided to head for home to try and negate my negative score. I was jumped by a FW-190 moving at an insane amount of speed, and tried my cliff dance, which worked to get me within landing distance of the base; I jumped a cliff one more time, dropped flaps and gear, cut throttle, and he came over the cliff after me at full speed. Fortunately Red AA let into him, and his one burst overshot me. I got on the ground and then ruefully, I crashed when my rudder failed and I went off the edge of the odd carrier like airfield (which I'm not a fan of, for the record).

My only other victory of note was against Flying Circus, who had been killing me all night; He took off as I started a bombing attack run in a Spitfire with a full bombload, and decided to nose up and fire at me. So I dropped my 250's and noticed he was probably going too fast for my 2 second delay, and I was right; he was going fast, fast enough to intercept two 250lb bombs in midair!!! It was amazing, I wish I'd been out of pit to see it, but the deep warming sensation when it said I'd FINALLY killed Flying Circus was well worth it. Of course, after dropping my 500 on some hangars and running for home I was shot down by, well... Flying Circus :S



And that was that...