I look at it as part of the 'experience of exposure'.
Some folks that fly this sim for the first time make themselves a royal pain in the butt by their approach to others online.. just like lil kids squealing for attention. Good attention, bad attention.. they don't care as long as somebody pays attention to their tardedness.
Those I ignore.
Then there are those that are just socializing in a big chatroom while flying a sim they have no serious intent to gain skillz in.. like the buff group I remarked about. Those guys had as big a laff about their nylon letdown as I did, and who knows, maybe they will stick around and sign up after the two week free ride.. they've been 'initiated' good naturedly and during the free time and chatting they even learned some things.
When i see intelligent questions relating to the immediate circumstances of flying a complicated airplane in a combat situation I try and help. Questions like "how do i drop troops" or "where" or "how do i open bomb bay" I answer freely.. if i'm not buzy gettin killed myself.
Nobody here got in the plane BEFORE reading the manual in detail. All ACM is learned as part of "On The Job Training"... with the exception of Animal, who had to go through Affirmative Action first.
Newbies can be counted on for exceptional courage, daring ideas, tenacity and of course, a damn good belly laugh at least once an evening.
Case in point... back a few years ago we had a guy show up at a hevily contested field with a goon. Every defender in the area made for that guy like he was lit up in neon. The field in question had been prepped, and about 10 of us were keeping it capped, waiting on that goon. For 15 minutes the text buffer had been filled with our plaintive cries of "SEND GOON TO a15!!"
What ensued was one of the most incredible low alt air battles I'd ever been in.. I think I wound up with a 15 kill sortie and never vultched a soul.. I was in the 357th at the time, and ALL of us were hammering knits outta the sky around that field.. the kill buffer was solid yellow text just from the action around this field.
Thru this fight, oblivious to the carnage and mayhem flew that goon, where he lined up with the runway, lowered flaps, gear, made a beautiful touchdown and used all the runway for the rollout..
Still, the battle raged around this guy, and miraculously, not one single knit laid a round on him.. and then he exited. No capture.
I aked him "did you drop the troops?" His reply?
"what troops?"
Yah gotta love the newbies. They are truly spectacular at times.. and they are one of the best reasons to continue flying this sim.. you'd never see anything remotely as funny as what they can do if all we had to mess with was hungry alt monkies lookin for the DFC on the scorecard.
