Gunnery Course - Wednesday, May 28th - RSVP Required

[TequilaChaser]

Heya KingPin,

Thanks for hosting this Gunnery Course, Sir!

my apologies for not being able to make it last night.......

I can't wait to see Vudu15's Fraps work with it

<S> and Thanks for Volunteering to step up and do this!

cheers

TC

[Kingpin]

This was a very helpful and informative class. If he offers it again I highly recommend anyone to take it. Thanks for all the work you put in to do this for us Ryno.    

You're very welcome.  Thanks for the feedback Medic!  I'm glad you liked it and got something out of it.  I look forward to having you attend Part 2: Deflection Shooting when I get that organized.

By the way, Medic is the FIRST player I've run through the Gunnery Course to successfully complete the "Aim Small, Miss Small" test in his FIRST try -- the test is shooting to hit the bottom half of the left engine nacelle (only) on a Mossie VI in order to shoot the landing gear off but no other parts, then repeating that on the right side engine nacelle, without shooting the Mossie down.  Not as easy as it sounds, especially in a Corsair, but after practicing a bit in the TA he did it on his first try in the DA!  Kudos Medic18!

<S>
Ryno

Heya KingPin,
Thanks for hosting this Gunnery Course, Sir!
my apologies for not being able to make it last night.......
I can't wait to see Vudu15's Fraps work with it
<S> and Thanks for Volunteering to step up and do this!
cheers
TC

Thanks again TC for attending on Wednesday.  We had even a few more players in Thursday's session, which went very smoothly.  I think I was even better at conveying the information the second night.  

Running the course was fun for me and I was glad to hear the positive feedback and the "oh, that's cool" comments, even during what I think are the kind of the "boring bits".  I'm looking forward to running it again in the future and hope even more players can attend.

I had a squad-mate attend the last half of the course last night, who also ran film and will be posting that as well.  

I'll share the links for films when they are ready.

<S>
Ryno

[The Fugitive]

I want to thank you also Ryno, it was time well spent.

Everyone knows I complain about having the worst aim in the world due to lack of practice time. However the time spent listening to the hows and whys of gunnery made a lot of sense and may have clicked something "on" in my head.

I got to fly about 6 hours Saturday, and even though fights were hard to find and its the end of the month and the "numbers" don't change much my hit percentage went up a point and a half. Thats a big jump for the end of the month! Most of it was "how" I was aiming. Your tips and explinations help me see where I was going wrong and those small adjustments zeroed me in a bit better.

Thanks again for taking the time and I look forward to Part 2!

Anyone looking to improve their aim should definitely make the time to attend this class when Ryno gives it again.

[Tinkles]

Did anyone record it? Even though my gunnery is fairly good enough as it is, I wouldn't mind learning something new!

[Schen]

Did anyone record it? Even though my gunnery is fairly good enough as it is, I wouldn't mind learning something new!

Search for vuduvince on youtube I believe he released his first of 6 vids of the night

[Kingpin]

Search for vuduvince on youtube I believe he released his first of 6 vids of the night

Unfortunately, you may notice that Vudu's video doesn't show all of the .target commands we were discussing in Part 1 and 2 of the films, as it appears to stay on the 325 yard bullet pattern the whole time.  So you aren't actually seeing all the bullet dispersion patterns we were discussing.  In other words, what you'll see won't coincide exactly to what I'm talking about in the course.  

That said, the purpose of the first section of the course is to demonstrate how to see what your bullet stream(s) look like at various ranges and how the bullet stream(s) are affected by convergence settings.  If you listen to the distances (.target commands) being discussed, I think you can still get that concept out of the films 1 & 2.

<S>
Ryno

[Ratsy]

Kingpin - 

I've just finished watching your Gunnery Course on Vudu's YouTube library.  Filled up a dozen Post-Its.   

For years I've relied on 'luck' for any air-to-air success and I lacked the imagination to invent anything more than rudimentary drills for offline practice.

Your series talks to fundamentals and building confidence.  It's smart to practice, but damned hard to practice "smart".

Thanks for the effort of doing the course.  It has helped me greatly.  I have a method now for making better use of my practice time.

Ratsy

[Kingpin]

Kingpin -  

I've just finished watching your Gunnery Course on Vudu's YouTube library.  Filled up a dozen Post-Its.  

For years I've relied on 'luck' for any air-to-air success and I lacked the imagination to invent anything more than rudimentary drills for offline practice.

Your series talks to fundamentals and building confidence.  It's smart to practice, but damned hard to practice "smart".

Thanks for the effort of doing the course.  It has helped me greatly.  I have a method now for making better use of my practice time.

Ratsy

Thanks for the feedback Ratsy.  That's great stuff to hear!  I couldn't agree more with your point on "practicing smart".

I believe very much in the saying that "Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect." (Vince Lombardi)  Cal Ripken Sr. is attributed with expanding the thought to: "Don’t just practice. Practice right, and you’ll do things right in the game. Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect."  I bet Cal Jr. heard that a lot growing up, and it probably helped make him a great ball-player.

To continue the baseball analogy: if you ever played little-league, hopefully the coach didn't just start hitting ground balls at you and hope you figured out how to field them.  A good coach would first show you the fundamentals of how to field a ground ball, and then start hitting them at you.  But much of our early experiences in Aces High are like a little league kid jumping into a game (sometimes against pros!) and hoping to figure it out, without really knowing what to do.  Unfortunately, that means a lot ground balls getting by you and taking a few bruises in the process as well.  It can be frustrating.

So, what I'm trying to do is come up with a methodical approach to gunnery, where you first focus on basic fundamentals.  It might seem boring or tedious at first, but I have found some of these fundamentals are an eye-opener, even for experienced players. I've had veteran players discover flaws in their stick setups they were unaware of, just from running through the exercises in the basic course.  These fundamentals such as understanding your bullet stream, convergence settings and gunsight; flying smoothly to the shot; shooting while unloaded (when you can); thinking "aim small, miss small" and flying to set up the proper sight picture before pulling the trigger are all things I feel are important before even starting to practice shooting.  

I'll glad you took the time to review the videos and are putting them to use in your practice.  Hopefully this initial stuff lays a good foundation for you and will pay off in more accurate shooting.  I'll also keep you in mind when I start offering more advanced shooting courses later.

<S>
Ryno

[bozon]

the test is shooting to hit the bottom half of the left engine nacelle (only) on a Mossie VI in order to shoot the landing gear off but no other parts, then repeating that on the right side engine nacelle, without shooting the Mossie down.

As the self appointed president of the Mosquito Preservation Society I thank you for your work on educating corsair players in methods of how to not shoot down a mosquito. 


But seriously, I just wanted to thank Kingpin for making this course happen. It is extremely valuable to the community and in welcoming new players to the game/community. It is endeavors like this and members like Kingpin that make this game and community so great. We need the occasional blast of positive attitude to wash out the usual petty whining that a new plays may encounter when entering these boards.