Jamusta,
I am as guilty as anyone. I will step up and admit that when I am working well with a group of wingmen, against multiple targets I am at the height of my online enjoyment. I blame Puma, (JUST KIDDING).
It is a thing of beauty to see Puma and Jappa do there thing. Flip back a few months and look at some of their screen shots, you will see how tight they fly.
What I can say, is that sometimes you do get to be the windshield.
Another suggestion, try and convince your fellow countrymen to "FLY SMART". Check the dar, dots are made apparent for a reason in the arena. If you have 3 enemy cons grouped in a sector, circle your wagons. What I see time after time, is even numbers on the roster, and one country getting picked off one at a time. What begins even, will quickly end heavily outnumbered. I try and communicate my intentions to my countrymen, "going left..... he's past me and going up". "I have two cons my high 2 oclock, I am extending left".
With this kind of communication, and wingmen that are trying to clear your six and set up shots for you, it becomes a quick paced furball, with the results going in favor of the most innovative pilots not necessarily the best pilots or aircraft.
For example landing kills in Razorbacks, P40s, and P39 Cobras against higher performance aircraft is something that adds that historical feel to the arena. In the Main Arena, they tried to bring in Early and Mid war aircraft only. The problem is (I know Jimson will back me on this one), flying a F4F 4 against another F4F 4 has no tactical advantage, and really doesn't show these birds in the light in which they operated.
Chilli,
Good comments! Thanks for the acknowledgement. When Jappa got me hooked on this addiction, he wanted to learn tactical and close formation flying. We read everything we could get our hands on and started practicing a lot and then practiced even more. It took quite awhile to get it down pat and really make it work. To achieve this level of immersion takes comment and dedication. The payoff is a lot of fun and a sense of accomplishment vs ganging up 5v1 and pounding a guy in the dirt (which most everybody will agree doesn't require much skill and is no fun for the "1").
As has been mentioned numerous times before, it's up to how each of use wants to spend our $14.95 a month and what we want to get out of it.
Like you so astutely put it, fly smart (and I'll add sneaky here). Use all the assets available (other aircraft, terrain, sun, sky conditions, etc) to close on your opponent and turn on the guns. By the way, you guys watch out for this Jamusta guy, he's got a laser range finder on that 109 and only takes one or two taters to smack ya in the back O the head.
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