Howdy, B-Man!I sent you a PM on the video you made for the AW convention in LA -- yep, I've still got it and will send you a copy.I watched that thing so many times. What a great video! Many thanks!There's also a snippet of an interview in it with a P-38 fighter pilot, George Chandler. I got to meet him a couple of months ago in Seattle. Here is one of the several interesting stories he told.He was based at Munda, flying P-38's. Among others, he participated in the US invasion of Bouganville, flying cover during the invasion.After the war, he was travelling and was in a hotel lobby waiting around. He saw another guy in the lobby who looked about the right age to have been in WWII and struck up a conversation with the guy, eventually asking him if he had been in the war. The guy said that he had been in the army in the Pacific. George asked him where in the Pacific, and the guy talked about how he had been in some of the island invasions including the one at Bouganville. He went on to talk about it, including the following part. The guy had been on a troop ship, which was bringing in thousands of troops for the invasion. The ship and its decks were packed with men. As the ship moved in closer to the island, two Zeros with bombs came diving down on the ship. He was on deck and could see the Zeros clearly, diving right on target for the ship. He figured he and the rest of the folks on the ship were doomed when a P-38 came screaming in from nowhere at fantastic speed. It caught each Zero quickly in turn from behind during its dive and blasted both out of the sky before they released their bombs. He said, "I don't know who that guy was in the P-38, but I sure wish I could meet him."George said, "You just did."
I noted it because Chandler flew with the 339th FS, 347th FG which was my first operational squadron in the USAF. The other claim to fame the 339th had was the Yamamoto intercept mission.
I responded to a post by Guppy35 in another thread where he stated: My guess is at least half the player base are what I'll refer to as "long-timers". This is nothing against Guppy35 in any way but it made me curious. How many ARE "long-timers". Since Tour 12 ended 1/31/01 then tour 1 must have ended on 2/28/00. Since the first tours were beta and other sim's were still alive then lets use tour 12 as the beginning so the question is, how many have played flight sims since 1/1/01 or earlier. Please post only once so we get a good count. Include your starting date as closely as you remember it, the sim you started in, and your guess as to the percent of long-time players in AHII.I started in '96 in Air Warrior and my guess at long-timers is half the player base.
Hi xbrit! <S>
And then you came back for 2 weeks to tease us!
From the Blue Knights ... let me tell you who are old timers that DON'T fly anymore ...Badboy58 Icer CHECKERS Crapgame DipStick Drex Edbert Grits Howitzer Jigsaw Kwan lazs Leviathn nopoop Ouch Pirate Recon7 Redd rickt WadkeMorpheusand there are more ... these are just on the current squad roster.Some make an appearence here and there, but for the most part ... they just don't fly anymore.I have been around since early '02.
That's what he would like you to believe. He ran into me one flight while he was AFK and I thoroughly out flew him and shot him down. He's afraid that everytime he'll go AFK I'll pounce and totally and completely own him, so he's not coming back.ack-ack
