Yesterday was one of those days. Went out on Saturday night and while I don't drink, it was sufficiently early when I got home that I wasn't all too concentrated later the same day. Anyway, I got up, fired up the computer and started playing. Was vulched HO within seconds by a Tempest before I even got from the runway. Yes, the ack was up, the bastard obviously didn't give a damn. Got up again in a Yak, got in a nice dogfight with a Typh. Pinged him but the pilot pulled an excellent reversal and put some 20mm's in me at high G. Quite pissed off I logged off. Did a nap in the late afternoon and with a clear mind got airborne again. A gigantic dogfight was going on on a base to the south but what plane to take? As I was tired of trying to work with Hogs I looked a bit further. What I obviously needed was firepower, B&Z capabilities and good al around view to help my meagre SA. After some internal debate I chose the P-47D-25 instead of the other alternative, the Fw-190A8. I climbed leisurely to altitude, about 15K, arrived at the airfield and started to wreak havoc. Classic B&Z, no shortage of targets, but more importantly, I could keep the speed up and wasn't bounced by some bastard I didn't see. Numbers also helped. To my great surprise the mission didn't end when I got shot down, but when I ran out of fuel. Result : hogenbor landed 5 kills in a P-47D-25. After this unexpected succes I got into the air again with my most loathed fighter, the F4U1-D, 75% fuel. Immediately had to avoid a Yak when taking off (imagine a F4U with a lot of fuel at 150mph trying to pull a tight turn at low level) but got lucky and wasn't hit. A bit of trouble with getting to fighting altitude but after that I again had a blast and again only ended the misson when I landed with tanks almost dry. 4 kills.
Feeling invulnerable I took a Spit I. Surely I had to be killed in seconds in this? I climbed a bit (did you know that auto climb can be so erratic that the Spit I's engine can cut out due to negative G's?) and dove headlong into a furball. With a bit of speed I actually managed to gain on a La-7. The bastard dove on a friendly PT but I could see that it was heavily involved in firing the other way. So a 1 second burst of 8 .303's and the La-7 was history. A sharp turn to get away and then saw a friendly being chased at the deck by no less than 5 Spits. I picked a target but saw too late that this guy was giving up the chase and was reversing. So we collided, thus ending my 10 kill streak. Still, not a bad result for an average player like me.
But what I noticed is that I should not play when sleepy or tired. There is no instant gratification with a game as complex as AH. Play a 3D shooter instead. The difference between playing after a hard day's work and when well rested is (at least to me) the difference between life and death.
