Ya know, there's an awful lot of squeakin an' moanin' in here about the shortcomings of the game, or teh shortcomings of some other player, or country. But I still get a kick out of being in here, because smetimes, just sometimes, it's....well...good things happen, like this:
12 March ’02, 20:30 hrs
The thrill of the hunt was in the air as I climbed into the cockpit of my P51. The Bishops were coming in waves from their base just 50 miles north of us. I taxied out to the end of the runway and immediately began easing the throttle forward. The peculiar rumble and pop of the 1500 hp Rolls-Royce Merlin sent a thrill of excitement through me, as my “Pony” and I hurtled down the runway. The air around me was alive with the noise of my countrymen landing and taking off, and some simply buzzing the field for the sheer joy of doing so. A spitfire crosses my path left-to-right, going full out at 20 feet off the deck.
Near the end of the runway everything smoothes out as my plane becomes airborne. With wheels retracted and trim tabs set, I settle on a course which will, at first, take me away from the action as I grab some altitude.
At 18K I turn towards the sector where most of the action seems to be. For this sortie I’m carrying gas and bullets, only. No bombs or rockets: I’m going hunting. Banking my plane left, then right, then checking my “6”, ever vigilant and wary of being bounced, I continue this routine for some minutes. I’m looking for stragglers, and the unwary. After about 15 minutes of this I see a dot. That’s all, just a black speck, off to my right, and slightly below me. Too far away to know if it’s friend or foe, I assume it’s a foe, and begin setting up for a fight. The speck becomes an almost distinguishable plane-shape, then, suddenly; I know it’s an enemy Bf 109. And he has seen me. We close with terrifying speed. I can tell he’s an experienced flier, because he doesn’t waste time setting up: he realizes I have the advantage in altitude and speed, so he attacks immediately, going for a head-on shot hoping to use his 20mm nose cannon to deadly effect. But I have built up good speed, and have anticipated this move. Nimbly, my mount dances away from his lethal spray. We pass in the blink of an eye. I haul back on my stick, almost blacking out completely: only a small blue circle of vision amidst a sea of inky blackness, but it’s enough to view him as I track my prey behind and below me (thank God for whoever came up with the bubble canopy for the P51), as I loop over him. Now I’m looking straight down on him over my right wingtip. Rolling completely over, I haul back on the stick again, pulling the nose earthward, as I dive on him. He pulls up into my arc. I continue my loop, pulling back up, but I still cannot get a bead on him. He rolls into a flat turn, and is now well inside my turn radius. If I continue with this strategy he’ll blast me out of the air, so I reverse my angle with a quick aileron roll, pulling the nose down at the same time to pick up some speed. I dump in 2 notches of flaps and pull up hard, losing most of my precious speed and nearly stalling out, but it pays off: the 109, with the greater speed now, shoots past me. I roll the pony over and dive on him yet again. He must be out of ammo, or nearly so, because he heads for the cover of the deep valleys in the rugged terrain below. He tries to elude me in the mountain passes, hoping, no doubt, that I’ll wipe out in the tree tops, or smear myself along the rocky slopes in a fiery crash. I myself have made this desperate miscalculation when being pursued. He’s out of gun range, but I’m closing the gap. Before I’m within gun range were both doing better than 400 mph, just above the trees. At this speed mine is the more agile plane. Just as I’m about to squeeze off a burst he pulls up, and hard right in a maneuver that must have drained every drop of blood from his head and upper body: blackout city. I stick to him like white on rice. When I awake, we’re both screaming skyward. I squeeze the gun trigger. My ride bucks and shakes just like a bronco as six 50’s pour lead into his aircraft. Suddenly I see his plane begin to tumble, as he enters an accelerated stall. No doubt he yanked back too hard on his stick in an effort to loop over me and head for the deck again. By now there are flames pouring from his wing roots as we pass each other, still in the vertical plane: he windmilling down, and me streaking skyward. To my horror, we pass too close. His stricken plane shears the vertical stabilizer, and one horizontal stabilizer from my plane. Now my plane too is mimicking an autumn leaf. Intermittently, I glimpse green and brown mountains, and blue sky. Time to bail. As I leave my would-be death trap, I hear the all-too-close explosion of my adversary’s plane on the mountainside very near me.
In a heartbeat, all is very quiet. It’s as if the sweat and sound and fury of the past several minutes had never been. My heart is still pounding in my chest as I serenely sway suspended beneath my canopy of silk, slowly drifting to earth. It was a good fight.
