For Bino -
The original members of what became the Arabian Knights started out as a group of college friends who wrote their own simulator in the early 90's. They were known as the Sim Guild. The fruit of their labor was published as 'Flying Circus'. When they flew interactively they had an 'SG' prefix and callsign.
Their informal enterprise gradually became SimGuild Inc. and they took up office space above an internet service provider - Sirinet (Sirius Systems Group-Lawton, Oklahoma). When Sirinet's owner, David Maury, came upstairs to see what was going on, the SimGuild guys quickly hooked him. Maury offered to support the internet venture. He eventually became AKDoc. Flying Circus had a highly regarded 3-year run.
The Arabian Knights squadron was the first squadron formed in Red Baron I by AKCobra in 1992. Our traditions can be traced to that time. Some of the original Simguild pilots were members. AKCobra and AKCurly were truly our founding fathers. Where did they get the name? Nobody knows for sure, but there was a pretty cool Howard Hughes Film from 1927 called "Two Arabian Knights" and in my mind it's a prime suspect.
AKCurly is a revered member of the Arabian Knights. He is a professor, and mentored several of the SG founders in their student days. Because of the persistence of then student SG_RedBaron, Curly enthusiastically became a flying combat simulator addict.
It was AKCurly that brought the Arabian Knights to the first Aces High Beta. So we are among the oldest squadrons in on-line combat simulations and one of the first squadrons in Aces High. Over the years in Aces High we have enjoyed the camaraderie of some great sim pilots...some will remember AKNimitz, AKDogg, AKKaz, and AKHoopy. Some of you have also met our legacy pilot, AKRaven, who calls Nimitz - 'Dad'.
That's our story as best as we can reconstruct it. We fly. We don't document much.
Sorry for the number of paragraphs, Zack.
