I have to say I am surprised at the hubbub over the DA. I have been flying for about 9 months (original name) and initially ended up in the DA when the instructor, who was more patient than Methuselah, spent an hour teaching me very basic flight. After bugging him, he suggested that IF I MUST GO TO DIE, which I insisted on, (its my 16 bucks per month right?) he sent me over to the DA with me having NO IDEA how difficult and brutal the learning process would be.
I was there for 1 hour and 8 guys helped me out. I came there nightly (I have to fly in the evenings because I have a family and a job and do not have the time or inclination to read the gargantuan volumes of tactical flight information that is available on the internet....if someone does have that kind of time, they are either a kid or someone who thinks this game is somehow important enough to distract them from their family or job....lol, I have heard this game referred to as "Divorce in a box") TO DIE....DIE EARLY, DIE HARD, AND DIE OFTEN and again, many people, witnessing my slow, painful, agonizing, REPEATED deaths spent their THEIR TIME to show me things: Rowdy1, Krupnski, MugZ, Flood, vegas, Dodger, Hombre, TA57x, Daveski, Bentnail, Havoc, Waystin2, etc. So it IS about relationships.
The DA is appealing to me for these reasons: 1) I like the guys I fly with; 2) It doesn't take 20 minutes of climbing to only find some BnZer who is higher than you are; 3) It takes much less time to get back in the fight 4) Even your enemies will help you with your flight skills; 5)and to try new planes and maneuvers under duress. Almost all of us change sides at one time or another....regardless of what some may say. The gangbanging, well, folks, that comes with the compressed area that the DA Lake is and every single country in there has their daily advantages in numbers..if you don't like getting banged, don't fly in there until it evens out and it evens out believe me...each and every few hours.
On another note: 1 v 1: I am truly lucky to have both my grandfathers still in this world and both were pilots during WW II. One was a B-25 driver and the other was a Texan trainer at Luke Field in AZ and then went on to the P-51B and both have laughed at the 1 v 1's we conduct. "Aerial Gunnery" was the term used at the time for both marksmanship and ACM and all pilots were "rated" in that single category with numerical grades, of which, my instructor grandfather still has his "grades". He watched me 1 v 1 xxxJCxxx and started screaming at the top of his old lungs to "fights-off" the fight because JC didn't knife edge pass me on the merge (they also chuckle at the HO rule and both agree....you wanna live or you wanna die?). Apparently, the rule was and still is, initial merge is a knife edge pass (canopy to canopy) so that neither a/c has an advantage. Some of you Im sure have heard of this but I have yet to see one person conduct a 1 v 1 in this manner. Ofcourse it really doesn't matter much because its a game but as I have learned over the past 9 months the winner of the 1 v 1 in here is virtually ALWAYS the pilot that gets position BEFORE the merge. I lay no claim to being any good at all at 1 v 1 but I believe them both and the rate at which I die in 1 v 1's is certainly a function of lack of experience in obtaining the advantage prior to the merge, NOT my lack of sack because that has been tested outside this game where it actually means something. Living or dying in this this great game doesn't add up to a hill of crap and anyone who measures their "manhood" by their skills in this game is distracted....be it chemically or physically.
I won't and haven't turned down a 1 v 1 for one simple reason...it means nothing..win or lose, lol.
