...to post this:
Remembering
Since I am no longer flying online I do a lot of perusing the BBS. I see, from time-to-time, a post where someone is recalling past exploits, or maybe even something that happened only the night before. Now, I started flying online sometime around 1992, I think, in AW. So I should have a few good/funny episodes of my own deposited in the memory bank. Time for a little withdrawal. (chokes on dust and bats away th cobwebs as I rummage through th vault) Ahhhh yes…I remember this one…
The First Time I Met Whels
I’d finally convinced my wife about 4-5 weeks previously that this online flight sim thingy was an O.K. expenditure of our rather limited discretionary income, and that grown men did, indeed, participate in such “kids’ games”. (her words, not mine). I had not yet been invited to join any squad, nor did I even realize the benefits of being associated with a group of sympathetic comrades or flying with a buddy. I was a loner, more often than not. On this fine perpetually sunny afternoon in AW A-land I was in my trusty Spit at around 4k and climbing, right? I mean, even I had learned that the alt-monkeys lived longer than the ground huggers, especially if you, like me, had just enough knowledge of the game to get yourself shot out of the skies every time you went up. Heck, I thought everyone got shot down every single time with only zero or one kill to show. I never even considered the possibility of landing multiple kills (gasp!!)
So there I am, leisurely climbing through about 4k when I spy a dot co-alt and off to my right, sorta angling in my direction. I see by the radar it’s a C-lander Spit. “Oh, crap” I thought. “Someone who’s prolly been flyin for years and is way better than me and in a plane as good as mine I’m gonna die soon.”
All I see is a dot, but I start jinkin like he’s on my six. But he’s flyin straight and level. We draw closer and I can now make out his plane. He apparently doesn’t see me, as I’m now a little behind him and a little lower. I quickly saddle up on his six and move in to about 200 yds…..takakakatakakaka….boom!! Yeeehawwww, I got the easiest kill I’d ever had up to that point. I was sooooo proud of me! I did victory rolls. I swooped, I soared. I was feeling great.
Then…in the text box I see: “Whels:Slim, you’re gonna die”. “What? What’d I do?” I typed back. “Whels: I was AFK, you jerk”. (maybe he didn’t call me a jerk, but he wasn’t a happy camper) “How was I supposed to know?” I asked. “Whels: Doesn’t matter, prepare to die.” “Pretty cocky, aren’t you? You want some more, come and get it, weenie”. Whatta braggart. Whatta blowhard. Come and get it, he did. I guess it isn’t really braggin if you can back it up. About five minutes later we were squared off again. I didn’t last past the merge. Well, he merged: I snap-rolled and augered. “Uh, sorry bout that” I said rather sheepishly (no pun intended). “Meet me at 5k south of the base and I’ll make you work a little harder” I called. “Whels: whatever, dweeb”.
“Boy, I’m gonna make him eat those words” I thought to myself. Chit, the whole AW world had just heard him call me a dweeb (I was a lot more sensitive about that in those days than I am today). Well, 5k came sooner than I woulda thought and there he was patiently waiting in his spit, still with a full ammo clip. We merge…it was pitiful how quickly he saddled me. To this day I still believe he was only toying with me, seeing how much of my plane he could demolish without actually killing me. At least this time I didn’t auger….o no…I went out in a fiery explosion. After that fight I could tell I was in the presence of something approaching greatness. From that time on I made it a point of looking him up every time I got online. Over the years we dueled many times. I never have killed him in a fair fight. One other time I jumped on him while he was sluggin it out with 4 other Az. He was rather POed at me for that, but he got over it. To this day I consider Whels (a.k.a. Mike) a friend.
