Hi! Yesterday was a very interesting CK night for me, so I decided to write a story about the events. This is my second story so far.. Let me know if you want me to stop posting these! :-) Well, the day began with 4 purps, 3 golds and me (red) online. The only red field was F8 (F14 and F15 were purple), so I had no choice about where to take off. And, as soon as I got my red P51 airborne, there comes a purp P38... I hoped he would be aiming for the field, but no, he attacks me.. And down I go, naturally, against a high-E P38. I stay on HQ for a while, hoping he would take the field and end the war, but that does not seem to happen, so I take off again.. And the same thing happens, he shoots me down just after my takeoff. Hmm, this does not seem to be a happy day for me.. However, at the same time "tm_t" and "_red" have been running a "mini-BoB" between F23 and F24, so I join them instead, becaming a purp. 3 planes on each side, we fly FWs and golds fly Spits, and we go to fight... Within 20 seconds there are three Spits airborne and three FW wreckages on the ground.. Oops.. Flying the FW felt like flying with a blindfold on! :-) The next round we have Spits and golds have FWs.. And this time after the battle all three of us are airborne, with me getting my first ever kill in a Spit! The next round was F4Us both sides, but my shell account machine gets rebooted and I get logged off.. By the time I get back on, the BoB is over as there are only 1 gold and 2 purps left. Well, time to get back to being a Red... A purp was trying to have me duel with his Zeke, but I refused (I don't think it makes sense to duel a Zeke with a P51). But he says he will switch to a P51, so I have to accept the challenge. The battle is pretty short, and I notice he kept spinning pretty often.. I ask if he has actually flown the P51 before, and he says no.. :-) Oh well, I have to admire his attitude, dueling me in a plane he has never flown before, so we decide for a rematch, this time both of us in Zekes (yes, I know flying a Zeke is against my philosophy, but I had to make an exception here!:-). I take off from F8, noticing a green Spit overhead.. I radio the spit, telling I am not hostile and am on my way to a duel. He responds, saying that he would like to know the result of my duel (and, he writes this in Finnish! Cool, more of us Finns online!:-). So, we meet at 10k and begin our duel. I was pretty sure I was gonna lose so I had no need to prove anything, which is probably why I won the duel. I kept blacking out all the time, and I could do the most incredible manoeuvres in the Zeke! Felt like I was flying a rocket ship or something! Sheesh! Talk about a wimp plane! Well, just after my duel opponent goes down, another purp Zeke attacks me. I duel him, too, and his plane soon explodes! Heh, I was feeling quite proud of myself at that time! Not a scratch on my Zeke, and two dueling kills.. I head home to land and switch back to a P51. Yet another interesting thing about the Zeke.. When I was landing it, I did like I usually do with a P51: Get almost above the field, lower flaps, lower gear, get STRAIGHT down and at the start of the runway pull back, having the speed at a nice 150 ias at that time. Now, with a Zeke, I was at 250 ias at that time! And before I noticed it, I was over the runway before I even touched down! Well, yet another mistake on the way: I thought I'd turn the plane around on the ground (as I do in a P51): Hit full throttle, and kick rudder (left in P51, now right) down. And guess what, the stupid plane jumps UP and lands upside down on the ground! Sheesh! :-) Well, at that time the green Spit drivers asks how my duel went, and I said I won.. And now he wants to duel me! Gee, how come everyone is suddenly duel-crazed? :-) Well, we climb to 15k, he in Spit and I on a P51.. I know I am not very good against Spits (when they go vertical on me I can only look up in awe how the Spit climbs..:-) so I am rather cautious.. He does the climb stunt a couple of times, and I manage to turn away from his attack after that.. And then he suddenly dives to the deck! I naturally follow (yes yes, I know.. :-) and now we are both at the deck and begin to turn.. I am dead, I think.. However, our turnfight was pretty interesting. I have flaps 2 notches down, engine at 70%, right rudder down, and i pull as tight as I dare, the stall holl blowing like crazy all the time. I look at him at right-up view, and his Spit stays at the exact center of the screen.. Weird.. We go round and round at least 10 times, until I finally get greedy and think that if I just can pull A LITTLE BIT MORE I might get onto his 6.. I pull teeny weeny bit more, get immediately into a spin, and have to fly straight and hit full throttle to recover. With the obvious result that he is now on my tail, 400 yards away. Game Over. I lose my elevators and bail, no sense prolonging the inevitable, he did beat me fair and square. I tell him that I thought I could turn pretty good against his spit, and he agrees, saying that I should not have followed him down! He is right, of course... But it was very fun! :-) He wants to do it again, this time he in a P51D, too. We both climb to 15k, heading between F8 and F9. When we meet, I get easily onto his tail, but then he begins to do a strange vertical scissors-type of manouevre (Split-S followed by Split- S followed by Split-S...) which makes me almost lose him. Not quite, though, and of course he cannot continue that forever. We are soon at the deck, and begin to stallfight. I ping him slightly, and he crashes (probably not because of my ping, though). He wants a rematch, which suits me fine. I have almost full ammo, so I just climb from where I am, and he from F9. Again we meet at 15k, I get on his six just as before, but this time I know what to expect and stay on his tail much better. Shoot off his elevators, and down he goes. I *still* have about 75% ammo and 10% fuel left, so instead of dueling more (well, I think our duel was a two-out-of-three already, right?) we head towards the purple F16 together. No purps there, however, and I have to return to base to refuel. Later he becomes a Red and we harrass the purps together, which is fun. I was very disappointed with the purps at this time, they flew nothing but Zekes and P38s, and were playing field capture.. Quite unlike the purps I have known to respect! :-) I also somehow found myself to exchange messages with four other players (on private channels... I want more radio channels!! :-) so that at times I was typing so much I had to stop fighting... And then I noticed "fats" in his gold FW above me almost too late to veer away from his attack! Luckily another red came to my rescue... :-) All in all a very nice night at CK! Had to end when the lady living nextdoor knocked on my door and wanted me to come out to admire the most beautiful auroras on the night sky we have ever seen! (Now, can anyone end their post with a more off- topic sentence? :-) Patrick "pate" Aalto ap@jyu.fi http://www.jyu.fi/~ap/