A look back at the past 15+ years of FSO

[RedBeard]

I'm now going to turn to looking at the planes we fly.  To start with, we are looking how often planes are featured in a plane set for a frame.  I found the result a bit surprising.

Plane	Frame Count
Ju_88A-4	197
B-25C	163
Fw_190A-5	145
Bf_109G-6	142
Bf_110C-4b	124
Bf_109G-2	114
Bf_109F-4	114
Bf_109E-4	108
Ju_87D-3	103
…	…
Jagdpanther	2
Tiger_II	1
RV-8	1
LVTA4	1
LVTA2	1

It took me a bit to figure out why German planes seem to be featured so much more than any other planes.  The best I can come up with is that the Germans used a limited plane set that was flown in all their theaters of operation, while other nationality planes were more specific to a theater of operation.  British planes on the western front.  Early war American planes are hand me downs to Eastern Front, China-Burma-India, and North Africa.  US Naval and Japanese planes for PTO.  So a common plane set used in multiple theaters is going to show up as the most featured planes in FSO.

I still get a chuckle when I see HiTech's RV-8 pop up in our stats.  I've tried hunting for the plane number for it a few times, but haven't found it yet.

[RedBeard]

That was how often planes were available to use, now we look at how often they were flown.

Plane	Sortie Count
Bf_109G-6	5330
Bf_109E-4	5074
Bf_109F-4	4792
Ju_88A-4	3721
A6M2	3619
Fw_190A-5	3529
Bf_109G-2	3513
Hurricane_Mk_I	3264
Bf_110C-4b	3194
Ki-61-I-Tei	3074
…	…
RV-8	15
Jagdpanther	9
LVTA2	7
Jagdpanzer_IV/70	6
Jagdpanzer_38(t)	3

Now a sortie count can be influenced by a number of factors.  All FSO events have had various aircraft minimums and maximums, which are the primary influence of sortie counts.  To some extent, I think these tried to reflect aircraft availability at various points in the war, but I also suspect playability has been factored in. 

Early FSO sortie counts were also influenced by the need to replane for a disco or takeoff crash.  Later FSO events using multi-life would have been more influenced by aircraft survivability.

[RedBeard]

One way to look at survivability of planes is to look at the average flight hours per sortie.  Another way would be to look at planes that feature the most landed sorties.  Both have potential problems.  Planes might have long average flight hours per sortie because they were used on deep penetration events where you spent a long time getting somewhere and a long time getting back.  Planes might have more landings because they were featured in more events with extra points given for landing back at a particular base.

In this case we are looking at total flight hours flown for each type as well as total sorties and coming up with an average flight hours per sortie.

Plane	Hours	Sorties	Hours Per Sortie
P-51B	1265.35	1149	1.10
P-47M	130.99	123	1.06
Me_262A-1	190.54	184	1.04
Tempest	318.65	316	1.01
B-17G	1290.68	1295	1.00
F4U-1	472.19	474	1.00
F4F-4	2261.43	2309	0.98
P-47N	413.05	430	0.96
F4U-1C	115.64	121	0.96
B-26B	949.00	1002	0.95
…	…	…	…
PT_Boat	53.62	829	0.06
M16	14.28	255	0.06
LVTA4	1.78	32	0.06
Panzer_IV_F	10.71	215	0.05
Jeep	7.21	158	0.05

[RedBeard]

I also looked at what are the deadliest planes we have in the inventory.  Initially, I opened it up to everything, but the results was dominated by GVs, so this is just looking at airborne assets.

As you might expect, perked planes tend to show up here, but there are a few surprising contenders as well.

Plane	Kills	Sorties	Avg Kills Per Sortie
Me_262A-1	240	184	1.30
Brewster_B-239	872	703	1.24
Me_163B	48	41	1.17
Fw_190A-5	3871	3529	1.10
N1K2-J	1431	1409	1.02
Tempest	318	316	1.01
F4F-4	2302	2309	1.00
F4U-1	446	474	0.94
Hurricane_Mk_IIC	252	269	0.94
Fw_190D-9	1155	1269	0.91
…	…	…	…
C-47A	5	74	0.07
TBM-3	71	1053	0.07
Ar_234	10	162	0.06
B5N2	54	912	0.06
Mosquito_Mk_XVI	4	120	0.03

I'd blame ZE for the Brewster being one of the top contenders on the list, but I haven't checked to see if that's true.

p.s. OK, I had to go check and yes, ZE is the top Brewster ace with half again as many kills as the next person in line.

[hazmatt]

p.s. OK, I had to go check and yes, ZE is the top Brewster ace with half again as many kills as the next person in line.

I think ZE uses some special kind of wax on his plane or something. I don't recall ever being chased by a fast moving Brewster other then ZE.

[RedBeard]

Squad Hoppers

...

These are the pilots with the most squads that they have been a member of.  We don't know why they move from squad to squad.  It may be squads reforming or it may be the pilot looking for a different mix of people to fly with.

Going through some old FSO data for my squad, I happened upon a case of squad hopping.  If you fly in multiple kinds of events (e.g. FSO and Scenarios or Fortress Europe), then there's a chance that you may be changing squads across these events.  I expect it also depends on whether or not those events are occurring in the same Special Events Arena.