Good Morning CKland!

Time for some dweeb stories again, I'm afraid! :-)

The first notable event this last weekend was late Friday afternoon (Finnish time, GMT+2). I logged on, asked the Reds where is the action (they say F15), and headed there (from F8 where I took off). Soon I am over F15, but have no radar contacts. I report that F15 is a ghost town, and head for F14 (which some Reds are attacking, based on their radio messages). But the same thing happens, no radar contacts at F14.

At this time I become suspicious, and I hear several reports of "stealth fighters" on radio... I began to ask people where they are, fly there, but see nothing either on radar or on visuals. Something is very wrong here.

Finally I fly over F15, and began circling there, asking anyone to shoot me down if they see me. And yes, pretty soon I receive some pings (with nobody on my radar or in sight). I hit autopilot, and let that stealth fighter shoot me down. Obviously I was visible to at least someone. I could not make the problem go away despite of several attempts to relog, so I quit for today, hoping things would be better on Saturday.

As I logged on Saturday morning, there is BoB going with about 10 people flying on each side. I turn Purple and join the BoB. We fly the planes of our choice (which in my case means P51D Mustang), and take off to intercept the Golds. Pretty soon we are at 12K alt and meet with the golds. I began tailing a gold P51D and shoot him down, with the message "d999 Crashed!". Oh, what have I done, shot down my squad mate and wingman {{d999}}! :-) I get two more kills/assists, and this round is a clear victory for us Purps.

The second round is much like the first one, Purps are victorious. The third round I get shot down when I am just about to nail a Gold P51D I am tailing. And the next round I get separated at the merge and get exploded before firing a single shot.. The same thing happens to "worr" and "hipi", at least, and we Purps get beaten badly by the Golds. Both of the times I was shot down "devl" claims it was his work, and I have no reason to doubt that.

(Second round of the BoB... Oops, better hold my fire!)

Later on Saturday we Reds attack the Purples at F22 several times, and "d999" and myself have great fun attacking the low Purps from our alt advantage. We keep circling high above F22, letting the Reds that fly P38s and Zekes stallfight the Purps while we pick the odd P51s/F4Us/FWs that try to extend away from the fight and nail them. :-)

I also meet with "gar1", flying a purp FW, and kill him two times in the row. Soon after that he appears high above F15 where I have just taken off, and I can almost see the murderous glint in his eyes as he dives towards me.. :-)

(Here is "gar1" going down...)

At some time during Saturday I am attacked near the Purple F22 by a co-alt Gold FW and P51D. I evade their first pass, and soon manage to get on the tail of the FW. I follow him down, with the P51D following me. Suddenly the Gold P51D (who shall remain anonymous...:-) augers, and I manage to ping the Gold FW enough so he crashes. And "System: fats Crashed" is the message! Wow, I managed to FINALLY kill "fats" in a co-alt situation! :-)

When I logged on Sunday morning, the only member of our squad online at that time is {{Kobra}} ("kjb1"), and he is Green. But he turns Red soon as he hears I am online, and we began to capture fields for Reds. (The "we" in this case means that "kjb1" bombs and captures the field while I stay high and watch. :-)

Soon I decide to fly towards F16, which was Gold at that time. And as I get over F16, at some 17K alt, I see about 10 Gold fighters, all pretty low near the field! Mostly P38s and Zekes, with a couple of P51Ds. I report to all Reds that F16 is a real hornet's nest. I circle above the field a while, not willing to engage the P38s and Zekes.

Soon I see one Gold P51D flying north from the field, away from all the other Golds. I go into a shallow dive towards him, trimming my P51D when I reach 350 IAS, and then continuing the dive. I hit flaps when i reach him, staying behind him, and begin to stallfite.

After I have been tailing him for a little while, giving him pings but nothing fatal (since he still keeps evading me), I see another Gold P51D joining us. "Hmm, I better finish this one off soon!", I think, and pull a hard turn with full flaps. I try to judge the lead I need to hit him at this position, press the trigger, and see beautiful pings on his rear fuselage! And sure enough, his rear fuselage soon disappears, so I can forget him and concentrate on the new P51D. Now, where is he...

(Here is one Gold P51 about to die, and the other closing...)

Ah, there he is, some 800 yards behind me. Well, that is as good a position as any, I raise flaps and turn nose down to pick up speed, and then a hard turn left, lowering flaps as I turn, and soon we are circling each other, with me gaining angles slowly. We are really close to the deck now, near the river north of F16, and I have to ease on the turn to not stall this close to the ground. But he needs to do the same, and so I get on his six.

I fire some carefully aimed bursts into him, see pings, and pretty soon he crashes. Hehe, two kills and not a ping on my P51D! This is fun! I check the radar: no contacts near, a couple of Reds at F16 with a number of Golds. Well, I have about half ammo left, so I begin to climb, staying far enough from F16 so I can see if they start coming my way.

Soon I am high enough that I dare close in on F16, and sure enough, here come the two Gold P51Ds again! Well, I attack them again, but this time they have a P38 friend with them. I spend some time turning with the 51s, pinging both of them good, but then receive some pings from the P38. I cannot follow the P51s down to see if they crash or not, I just try to shake the P38 lose, with not much success.

Then I notice a Green Zeke diving towards us. Lucky for me, the Zeke atacks the P38 and not me. I get away from the P38, and begin to look around for the P51s... But cannot find them! They are not on radar, nor visible anywhere below, so I quess I pinged them good enough so they crashed (too bad we don't have those "Kill recorded" messages yet).

Now the Gold P38 is running away from the Green Zeke, so I decide to join the Zeke in pursuit. I follow the Zeke real close (he is 300 yards in front of me), and my trigger finger gets itchy.. But, I decide not to shoot him but instead fly by him and try to catch that P38..

As I fly past the Zeke and get in front of him I get a bit nervous... I have no reason to assume a Green Zeke would not shoot a Red P51D in front of him, but luckily he lets me catch the P38 and does not shoot me. I spend the last few rounds of my ammo pinging that P38 and forcing him to turn.

I do not follow his turn, instead I extend away from the fight, sending on the open channel: "Thanks Green Zeke! Kill that Gold P38 for me, will ya!".

I fly towards F9, looking back at the P38 and Zeke fighting... But the Zeke goes BOOM pretty soon, with the message "System: seas Exploded". And the next message I receive is on a private channel: "grdr: That green Zeke is floating down in million pieces.. :)". Oh well, thanks for trying, "seas"! :-)

The Gold P38 follows me a bit but then turns back. I radio to "kjb1": "Is F9 Red?", as I have been flying quite some time and have no idea if F9 has been captured recently. "kjb1" responds, saying that it is Red. "Good, need to land, bingo ammo and running on fumes!", I tell him. He responds: "Running on fumes in P51D? You must have flown for half an hour!". I respond "Well, it takes some gas to kill 4 Gold 51s in one flight :)" (well, I felt like gloating a bit, can you blame me? :-)...

Luckily F9 is clear, so I get to land my kills, having only about 2% fuel left when I land. Well, that was a neat mission!

I take off from F15, which is attacked by a high Purple FW. It looks like "gar1", but I cannot be sure.. He attacks me, and I have to dive away from his attack. Luckily he misses and extends up, so I can extend down and hope the other two Reds can deal with him. I fly above the field and begin to climb when I see that FW being kept busy by my fellow Reds.

Soon the FW turns towards F22. I am at co-alt and begin to follow him. He is about 7000 yards ahead, so I cannot catch him unless he turns. At this time I notice a high Gold P51 nearing F15. Decide to ignore him for now, and send: "Purp FW otw 22 from 15... gar1?". This is greeted with "gar1: hehe...maybe". I am about to ask if he is bingo or damaged or something, when my distance to him suddenly begins to close fast. He turned around, cool! :-)

I turn a bit to the right (I seriously don't want to headon an FW!), push the nose down, and do a low yoyo to the left when he gets close, taking care not to spend too much E in the manoeuvre, and soon find myself on "gar1"s tail. He tries the "rope-a-dope" climbing stunt, but this was exactly what I expected, and I am close enough (about 400 yards) to follow him, and can even ping him in the process!

He stalls and begins to dive, with me close in behind.. I ping him good, and then "System: gar1 Crashed" greets me. I feel like gloating a bit again, and send "gar1 finished.. :)" on the Red channel.. With "kjb1: Sure he is, he was dealing with Pate! :)" being the response! Hehe.. (thx kjb1!:-).

Okay, now the Gold P51 was forced to come down by "t-ya", flying a Red Zeke. I began to tail the 51, who sends a message on private channel: "grdr: Lose the Zeke, and we'll have some fun!". Well, sure! I ask "t-ya" to stay away from the Gold P51, and he agrees (thx, t-ya!).

I have a really fun fite with "grdr", which takes so long that "gar1" is back with us, near F15, when I finally ping "grdr" so that he sends "grdr: Good fite!" to me. I stop shooting at him, taking that comment as an acknowledgement that I won, and just watch from side view how he tries to land (and ditch) his obviously damaged P51D. However, I forget to check six, and suddenly hear "ping..ping..BOOM!", as my P51D explodes around me. Well, must have been the FWs cannons to explode a P51D that fast! :-)

Later on Sunday the Purps have a "free-for-all" fite at F15, as the frag is off. I join them, but I am not quite sure if I like that kind of everyone-against-everyone fight, especially as I cannot see what planes they fly (as everyone is Purple we only see callsigns), and as the P51D is not that good a plane against co-alt Zekes and Spits.. But, as an experiment, it was great fun! :-)

(That's the closest I ever got to get "-cf-" in our free-for-all...)

That's it this time time, folks! Let's go back to my WB page...