Hi, all. I'm developing an idea for my squadron, The Buccaneers, and thought I might float the idea here for possible mass participation. I'm setting up a series of 12 fighter missions, to be run 2/week, and rotating through the countries -- that way, no single country will feel left out or picked on. These missions will be about 90 minutes in duration, and will be set up to authentically replicate a typical mission profile, such as escort, fighter sweep, JABO, intercept, etc. We will also rotate through all fighter types currently available, so no one has an advantage simply by virtue of having flown exclusively only one type of ac.
The difference here will be that you will only have ONE life for the entire 12 missions...period. The idea is to give people a taste of what it was like trying to survive a real tour of duty, while still attempting to acccomplish the mission. I will be making up a campaign ribbon to give to all who participate; to earn one, you must survive five missions as a minimum. A few other special awards will be given, such as for top-scoring pilot and most missions successfully completed. Should you be killed in combat before completing the minimum required 5 missions, you will receive the dreaded "We regret to inform you..." telegram instead
. There will also be certain mission objectives that must be fulfilled for a mission to count. For example, if you're to fly to waypoint 1 and rtb for a fighter sweep, every pilot must make it to waypoint one and rtb to get credit.
The way I can handle this is for people to e-mail me their desire to participate, including which days they'll be available to participate(schedule to be announced). I'll then publish a flight roster -- no one will be turned away if they simply show up, but I want to know ahead of time how many flights/squadrons I'll be able to field. I'll also need volunteers for buff duty on a couple of nights, so I can set up escort fighter missions. People who volunteer to drive the "dicke autos" will receive credit for the tour of duty, regardless if they survive or not.
We will be using VERY strict rules to verify kills for people. Gun camera footage or an eyewitness of a plane lossing a wing/blowing up/crashing to the ground will be required to get credit. Assists will count as half a kill.
So what do you think? Who's interested, and do you have any suggests to improve the idea? Feel free to e-mail me now if you want to get on the e-mail list for the general pilots' roster.
Sabre (a.k.a. Rojo)
