first report on tonights NO-ICON event

[Kirin]

Wow - only flew one mission there (it started 4am local time here) but had the time of my (virtual flying-) life.

Because I was obviously a bit short of time I took off premature and flew in front of the main formation. Not long and I ran into the allied main formation. I turned back home with a white-shining dot on my far 6 amongst some black ones. I led them back to our 109s and the 2 formations clashed. After some fierce furballing I was able to pick a P38 (Joemud) off one of my countrymen. The fight went on - looking for enemies - dodging friends mistaken as enemies - shooting down Spits at point blank range when I could see the patches on the pilots jacket. Got 4 kills on the way and thought it a good time to rtb when I saw two planes batteling each other. Since I still had 17 rounds of 30mm left I decided to head back into the fight. I could not make out which was the enemy the chased one or the hunter... Then the latter shot down it's prey. Kill buffer said "victory #1 by Joemud" - great I thought there he is again the dreaded P38 pilot now in a spit. I moved onto his dead six and squezed the trigger. Most of the 30mm missed and I kept hosing him with MGs. His plane began smoking and he pulled down and away --- when I saw the markings on the underside of his wings, followed by a cry on the friendly radio buffer!!! *KIIIRIN* it said... Now I finally realised my mistake - I had shot down a fellow pilot... well that completed my 5th kill and I returned to base to give back my wings...  

Wah - NO ICON is just what flying is about!!! It's been a blast everytime I did it. The thrill, the paranoia, the satisfaction when you get the kill... HT please get the NO ICON setting working; at least in SEA - even if computers aren't as far to give real life visual experience flying with this limitations and without icons is a thousand times better than this billboard shooting...  it adds a whole new dimension to AH!! Now give us a bit more spottable camo and here we go!!!!    

Joemud - I owe you a drink - and I have to work on my plane spotting skills...    


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~Kirin~
 
JG2 "Richthofen"

[This message has been edited by Kirin (edited 05-19-2000).]

[Badger]

I agree, it is one heck of a great environment.

We do need to get those ICONS controlled from the HOST though.  There is still a heck of a lot of guys flying around, by accident or design, with them ON from both sides.    

The tip off is when a friendly flys by and says "Hi Badger"...hehe, or a bad guy drops out of the sky full bore from being a dot with guns blazing before visual range.

Anyway, it is a lot of fun and I think demonstrates the potential of what this type of arena can offer us in the future.

Also, a good bunch of people as well.

Regards,
Badger


[This message has been edited by Badger (edited 05-19-2000).]

[Citabria]

hehe flying as an observer was even fun, I was calling out all kinds of contacts since that was all i could do, I saw a con barelling in on our six from on high and called 666 but it was just seconds to late and we died  

we need those CM tools though  

[Voss]

 

Originally posted by Badger:
The tip off is when a friendly flys by and says "Hi Badger"...hehe, or a bad guy drops out of the sky full bore from being a dot with guns blazing before visual range.
[/B]

Rgr, Badger. I had icons on on my first reconnoiter to test the connect in that arena (it was me that commed you  ). Our function was supposed to be at 10:30 ET, but the Luftwaffe never comm'd us. The general consensus of my squad was that "Boy Scouts Honor" wasn't working.

This is a lot of fun to me, but I want the arena cleared of icons if we continue. It should be nearly impossible to HO on the initial merge, unless they have icons on. I saw three incidents of attempted HO, and one case where my flight had a lone plane bracketed, only for him to turn on whomever was closest. That's a dead give away.

This feels like a good thing to pursue, for the purists. I know not everyone will fly there, but it would make for the closest thing we have to accuracy, IMHO.

 

[This message has been edited by Voss (edited 05-20-2000).]

[HaHa]

I decided to jump up in a bf109. I was flying east looking for a rumooured b17 formation.. so I'm casually flying along. I then "casually" look right, and there off my formation are 4 b17s in formation with a couple p51s escort (around 2k distance  ). So after having a nervous breakdown, a peel around for an attack. I guess that's when the p51s decided I was a baddy and proceeded to engage me. The battle was damn exciting.. it ended with me getting one kill. With no icons you are really forced to get close and personal with guys.. none of this "600yard" shooting business.

[Hangtime]

I had a heluva time with HO's.. can't tell if they's comin or goin. All my deaths but one were in HO's I thought were dead 6:00 AOT shots.

Pickin out who to shoot was not hard.. when he gets to what looks like guns range I'd snap on full zoom; and if he was manuvering it was easy to pick out the spits from the 109's. 205's were easy. Very diffrent cammo.

Of course; being in a P51, I had no friendly fire incidents.  

I's suggest enemy/friendly icons of some sort at double gun range.. the zoom ain't very realistic, and my human eyballs can easily distinguish real aircraft plane types in the real world at 2000 yards. A red or green dot would suffice.. becoming vis at reasonable aircraft type recgnition distances (d3.0??)so we don't need to use and (struggle with) the zoom keys would be nice..

Had fun.. and we killed lotsa LW stuff. Was like a smorgasboard.  

Salute! All of you who flew!

Hang

[Kieren]

Well, WRT HO's possible without icons...

Yes, they are. 19" monitor here, 1024. I can see quite well.  

Got caught in a couple 51 sandwiches tonight. Good fights! I knocked a couple down, but inevitably was taken down by the survivor. It wasn't all the Allied way, Hang.  

[Rude]

Salute to all of you....great fights!

Had a hard time seeing plane shapes tho....hard to tell change of direction.

Was great fun nonetheless

I got that feelin I was tellin you about hang

Rude Out!

[Beegerite]

The Musketeers took off from 22 in <5> B-17s
It was awesome cause we knew that friendly collisions was on and we had to carefully maneuver into formation.  Man you had to hear the RW chatter with no icons, straight out of 12 O'Clock High.  I was fortunate to evade all the bogeys on the way to 4 and was able to take out my assigned target the northernmost fighter hangar.  After the 180 turn I dropped my second salvo on the tower but met my end I suspect at the end of HaHa's bullet stream.  No Icons, the way to go.
On the subject of No Icons.  HT c'mon turn them off at the source.  Till they do so, if you "suspect" somebody has them on just put out a reminder on the chanel. We've got to assume that everybody in there is honorable.  Damn! What kinda sick pup would keep icons on when everybody is supposed to have them off.  And, please, no suggestions to turn them off just cause you think somebody or other has them on.  Just go to MA and enjoy the billboards passing by.
I luv it!
Beeg
 

Originally posted by HaHa:
I decided to jump up in a bf109. I was flying east looking for a rumooured b17 formation.. so I'm casually flying along. I then "casually" look right, and there off my formation are 4 b17s in formation with a couple p51s escort (around 2k distance   ). So after having a nervous breakdown, a peel around for an attack. I guess that's when the p51s decided I was a baddy and proceeded to engage me. The battle was damn exciting.. it ended with me getting one kill. With no icons you are really forced to get close and personal with guys.. none of this "600yard" shooting business.

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[CavemanJ]

This is from a couple of days ago, but it was in the SEA turned HA with icons off.  It's a film of a B26 raid going to take out hangers and a luftwabble base (and is why the B26 is now used as a standin for the JU88 (they say it's because they dinnae want id conflicts, but that's what the radio is for   )).  This is the second such raid, the first hit A4, forcing the LW to fly from A3, this one hits A3.

 http://www.rivertown-computers.com/cmj/4-b26-lolvl-ha.zip

[Hangtime]

Rude...

LOL!

Kirien.. it wuz from where I sat.  

[This message has been edited by Hangtime (edited 05-20-2000).]

[Ripsnort]

I was supposed to be on Kirins wing during his 'mission'..after the first turn, we lost each other!  Had fun, as I have all week, except I have this tendancy to look in my rear view mirror while driving an automobile WAY to much!

We need icons set up similiar to what WB's had, no icons for enemy, and friendly icons up to , say, 1/2 mile.  

My apologies to Ranger Bob, as I had just finished off a spitfire, he zoomed in from of me, I pursued, and shot him down...whats wrong with that you say? Well, he FLEW FOR THE SAME COUNTRY AS ME! LOL, we laughed about it.

<S> all of you~!

[Badger]

Hey ripsnort....

Don't feel bad.  After seeing a big blue F4Uc move slowly from my 9 to my 11, I tried making 2 different IFF calls on both channel 100 and Knights country channel with no reply.  I then radioed intent to shoot him down as I thought he might have been a "bish" interloper who had wandered into scenario.

I bagged him as he dropped tanks and began a dive into a huge pile of dots near friendly base 38.  Turned out to be allied F4Uc from my side.    

hehe...then wasted 15 minutes of game time trying to explain what was going on, because he thought I had done him wrong....ughhhhh!

Another important reason to get CM tools in place that besides dealing with the icons, permit restriction of aircraft and countries from being selected.  It would also be nice to have a PAGE display as one enters arena, so that the CM can setup and describe the configuration that's currently playing.

In spite of the rough edges, I have found it really enjoyable.

I also like the different caliber of pilots and personalities than one generally finds in the MA.

I watched some amazing flying last night on both sides, but saw a few engagements involving guys like yourself, Kirin, Hangtime, Sundog, Citabria and Rude to name a few, where there was some particularly awesome virtual flying.  I need to get some lessons from these guys.  I had a great scrap with BigJim....man can that guy maneuver a 205...<salute>

hehe..even my squaddie Kieren banged me on the head with one of his flippers in a great bounce, while flying for the dark side.

bonus....nobody asked "what is a rudder for?".....hehehe

Salute to all....

Regards,
Badger

The New Baby Harp Seals

hey Voss....thanks for letting me know, but actually, I was referring to another friendly who said "Hey Badger!" a few times .        Even funnier, I got the following as well from yet another allied pilot: "Badger 6666".....hehehe......  They must have seen my handsome "Galland" like profile and flying scarf protruding from the cockpit, smoking that huge cigar as a way of identifying who I was.      



[This message has been edited by Badger (edited 05-20-2000).]

[Udie]

 I had one of the most exciting flights ever last night.  I was in a 190 winging with Ripsnort who was in a 109g10.  I was at abot 15k while he was slightly ahead of me, starting his descent into a furball ahead.  All of a sudden I see a p51 about 1 mile at my 1:00 diving on ripsnort.  So I call his 6 and start to manuver towards the p51.

 At about this time I start to think "hmm I wonder if he has a wingman too".  So I check my 6 to see a p51 at about 400 yards parked on my 6    I split-S just as he oppend up w/ those 6 .50's.  I started my pattented negative G "please God I hope this works" manuver when I started taking hits, and lost my left aileron.  I dove towards rip and made a pass at the 51 on him, but this guy was on me GOOD. I finaly had to dive for the deck and was able to shake the 51, but I had to leave the fight to do it.  I looked around and the sky was clear and peaceful.

I have a feeling that was hangtime and his wingman. They bounced me the flight b4 that too and hangtime shot up my beloved a8.  I'll get you hangtime! and your little dog too! er... wrong movie  and your little cat too!  

BTW, here are a couple of things I've noticed in the last week.  My flights seem to all take 45 min to an hour now. The big thing is all the plane detail I notice now. I am actualy watching the plane instead of the icon.  I can clearly see the bullet stream from the wings on a spit or from the nose of the 109 or 38.  The plane detail up close is awesome.  I like no icons up close  

Udie

[Voss]

 

Originally posted by Udie:
I have a feeling that was hangtime and his wingman.

...various snipped stuff...

Udie

Yep, that was us.   We had to let you go, the other element that you missed called high cons. One 109 ended up ditching before we could finish him (gee, that should be a kill) and we egressed after an unidentified con (maybe Japanese? wtf?) hit my stbd wing tank.

The heat was great!   I was so busy keeping tally on my wing, that a lot of cons got away.

I still want the option in the MA, so we don't lose anyone, but it would be nice to put a day or two per week in on an arena like this.