I fought against some skilled pilots, and usually got my butt handed to me on a plate.
But one sortie I'll remember for a long time.
I was up with a squaddie of mine in spit IXs somewhere on the pizza map. My squaddie had a mech failure (*cough* insufficient fuel *cough*) and had to RTB, so I told him I'd join him soon "right after diving into this bandit cloud". I picked at my food, then followed a p38 down. Soon I was the only friendly in the area, on the deck with about 10 guys on my six.
I was dead.
Still, I gave a good show of it, scissoring and rolling and scraping wingtips and all that. But the conga line behind me just kept growing. When I counted about ten, and parts were flying off the plane, I decided it was time to check out. So I pulled vert, grabbed 1k and bailed out.
That's not why I'm expressing my appreciation.
No less than five planes landed shots on me while in free fall. I died before I could open the chute.
Now that, my friends, was a masterful display of marksmanship.
and that is why good pilots ride it in.
