CAP for next Saturday?

[Elington]

What about a pure fighter (spit + P47) session next Saturday February 5th 20:00 UTC (15:00 EST). Let's say a 1h30 CAP, 18000ft, KNUW-KNUW above the OrbX PNW scenery. Simple flight plan with just waypoints, we compute on the fly.

[Norforce]

[MTFDarkEagle]

If I might give my 0.02, we stick to our regular flight as usual, but do a CAP on a different time/day.

My 2 cents.

[Killratio]

Agreed, in my experience once set plans get altered, interest starts to wain and attendance drops off.

I'm up for another time though...

Darryl

[Gypsy Baron]

Whatever is decided, count me in!

I can crank up the B-17G, P-47 Razorback or the Spitfire as the situation dictates

[Elington]

Agreed, in my experience once set plans get altered, interest starts to wain and attendance drops off.

I'm up for another time though...

Darryl

OK OK it's just that it was my feeling that some ("some" not "all") of the people interested in multiplayer flying with the spit do not really enjoy our 3+ hours sessions with the bombers. Darryl you didn't get the files but they require about 5 hours of preparation every week (get and translate the weather, choose the waypoints - for multiple groups sometimes, check the departures and approach, compute and adjust timings, assign parking places...). I won't complain - I like to do this - but it's a bit useless to do this work and try to force our "hardcore" approach on people who just want to have fun around an airport for an hour top (which is fine too don't get me wrong!).
That's why I was proposing, for next week, to "split the peer in half" (French expression ) and that we might fly a flight plan still, but a simpler CAP-kind one, and at fighter speed to stop the whining about the B-17s' air speed!
Ron, Lukas, I'm not giving up our world tour!
Another possibility is to have multiple sessions for different styles. Lewis just set this multiplayer section, let's use it. We coul also have the B-17s and fighters wanting to fly the escort follow a detailed flight plan, while some pilots are populating the destination airport?

Well all ideas are welcome, there is definitely plenty of fun to have in multiplayer with the A2A models, whatever the flying style!

Happy flying,
David

[Lewis - A2A]

You could just have fly in's.

Select an airfield/port (maybe one of Ians for the Spit) and say server open at xx:xx time for a fly in to Hornchurch. touch and go's flying in from airfields dotted around, etc.

I use to exclusively fly from Humberside to Duxford in the Baron when I use to venture online with a group. The group were based at Humberside but regulary I would fly from Duxford to Humberside, simulating flying home from an airshow

[Sayuuk]

You could just have fly in's.

Select an airfield/port (maybe one of Ians for the Spit) and say server open at xx:xx time for a fly in to Hornchurch. touch and go's flying in from airfields dotted around, etc.

I use to exclusively fly from Humberside to Duxford in the Baron when I use to venture online with a group. The group were based at Humberside but regulary I would fly from Duxford to Humberside, simulating flying home from an airshow

Great Idea!

I need to be honest, our long flights where too long for my taste

Climb+Descent: 1h
Enroute (~straight ahead): 2h+?

I'd love to do shorter flights (~1.5h, so we get a total of around 2h).



I am hereby offering my help in flight planning for those flights on a regular basis.


A few notes:
- to set a bad example, I won't be there this weekend
- everyone can post suggestions as to the route for the next weekend, these may be mailed/posted until Tuesday's afternoon, so there is enough time to plan.


I will be opening a new thread in this forum for this specific type of MP flight today


Thanks for the idea

Stefan

[Kilstorm]

David,

I know how much work goes into these MP sessions and want to thank you for all the great work your doing.

As a new comer to the group, I would like to make a few suggestions that might help out or not. If any of my idea seems to take away from the groups goals, please just keep in mind these are only ideas to offer and let you guys decide which ones you like and which ones dont apply.

I feel we should continue with the long haul MP group flights on Saturday like how they have been going. The only changes I would like to state would be to help the new comers like myself.

Those changes would be to create squad's so that the teams stay together week after week allowing the squad to get to know each other and work as a team. We could ask for volunteers to be Squad leaders for each squad and they would help out the new comers into thier group.

Additionally, use sub channels on TS so that each squad has their own channel so they can talk to each other independantly so its not 17 people all talking at once. This will be helpful for take offs and enroute to the meet up point and then once the different squads meet up everyone can join the same channel. Perhaps someone who knows TS and set it up and tell us how to use the different features of TS which would allow this kind of thing cause I know we can be on sub channels and yet still talk to everyone as well.

I'm all for doing missions and in a second will list an idea or two but first in foremost it would seem that if we were acting as a squad we could learn how to fly together with each other in formation first, then work on manuvers and then we could fly missions (either together or against each other) and it wouldnt be mess with everyone just flying solo and not working as a squad and using team work.

If the Squad things works and we have squad leaders, then David you could set up the MP event as far as objectives and the squad leaders could formulate the details of departure times and routes to arrive at the meet up location. Otherwise David your gonna get burnt out doing it week after week.

One idea for the MP flights would be to have thehost (in this case David) come up with a lat and long location..a drop zone if you will. Then use navaids to reference that spot. Finally only give one squad part of the navaid info and another squad the part.

For examples:
Squad A gets a VOR Heading from a VOR
Squad B gets a NDB radial from a NDB

When the two groups form up they work together to arrive at the drop zone. Perhaps they fly the the NDB Radial or they fly the VOR radial but when they work together they arrive at the fix and could use something like snapper to capture the Lat and Long of the fix. Any planes holding bombs could drop their bombs at that time as well. After they land they could post their lat and long and see how it compares to the actual fix to see how the group did.

For those who want to fly fighters and practice Dog fights if only for maneuver practice, we can do that on a different day like Sunday. One thing we could do for that is offer two different theaters. A European Theater and a Pacific Theater. This is only for meet up times since we are pilots from around the world. So perhaps the European Theater is a time frame that works best for Europe to Australia and the
Pacific Theater is for the USA to Hawaii and Alaska pilots. Come up with two time frames and let the pilots host and/or join in which one works best for them.

Well I'll shut up now. Look forward to next Saturday and you can put me down for a B-17 for the group flight.

Nathan

[Killratio]

OK OK it's just that it was my feeling that some ("some" not "all") of the people interested in multiplayer flying with the spit do not really enjoy our 3+ hours sessions with the bombers. 5 hours of preparation every week (get and translate the weather, choose the waypoints - for multiple groups sometimes, check the departures and approach, compute and adjust timings, assign parking places...). I won't complain -

David,

Sorry, didn't wish to completely pour on cold water..just meant that people invariably resent (after a while) if something that was (or was becomming) regular gets changed on them.

If all B-17 guys said.."great, let's have a week off and fly Spit's. I'll be there"... fantastic. I'll be there too. But if you lose a guy this week for that reason, and next eek he has a family commitment etc, then the odds he will ever come back go down dratsically.

I would think an approach like "this week will be business as usual but how about next week we do this? " it is less risky?

Anyhow, all ways up I will be there if at all possible. I did have my doubts about the Spits making it (no plan survives contact with the enemy sort of thing) as your fuel calcs certainly required a "perfect" use of the Merlin. But fly-ins whether to an airfield or meeting at a rendevous along the way....may be a great way to get Spits involved at a more managable "pace".

Anyhow..sorry again if i seemed to be dismissing the idea out of hand!! Not my intention at all.

Darryl

[Elington]

Don't be sorry! On the contrary this is an open discussion, which is always good. What I'm sure of after 22 sessions with Ron, Lukas, Romain and many recent newcomers is that multiplayer is definitely great and worth the work to set it up properly.

I think it's good that Stefan proposed to organize a different kind of sessions which widens the range of activities for the best of all.

Thanks Nathan for your suggestions. I must admit that we were a bit overwhelmed with many pilots joining (or not really joining if it didn't fit their taste I guess) since we switched to the new schedule to accommodate Americas, Europe and Australia simultaneously (Saturday 20:00 UTC). When we started it was not really possible to have multiple sessions which would have been dangerously close to solo flying . This to say that when I was writing only one "welcome e-mail" every 3 weeks I could explain in length what we were doing and that we're definitely open to new ideas, flight planners and navigators!

So to conclude I will go back to my beloved E6-B straight away to prepare a new flight plan for the slow flying B-17s for next Saturday, business as usual as you say Darryl . Then with the ones attending we'll have plenty of time during the cruise to discuss about Nathan's suggestions!

See you Saturday,
David

[Gypsy Baron]

Long flights, short flights, low and slow, fighter CAP...I'm interested in them all.

Having spend a good many hours doing scenarios back in the days of Air Warrior when I was
the Buff CO and dedicated many hours to preflight planning and organizing, I know what an effort
it is to keep something like your current MP sessions going on track.

In AW I was used to spending and hour in the "ready room" as we prepared for a mission and
then 3 hours in flight, assuming I didn't get shot down. This was three times a week for a month
for each Air Warrior scenario. So long missions or multiple days/evenings are nothing new to me

I've also flown my A2A B377 from KOAK to PHNL, real time. US East Coast to the UK, real time.
Multiple real-time hops on an around the world flight.

OTOH, I do enjoy a good romp around the virtual skies in something that can climb in excess of 3-4K fpm
and allow me to "turn & burn" casing another pilot or two in a dogfight situation.

I really enjoyed my first MP flight last Saturday and the challenges it presented in linking up with the B-17's and
staying within range of them as if on a wartime escort mission and getting back to the group after chasing a
mythical Bf-109 or two away

So, barring a real-life commitment from time to time, I'm in for the MP sessions as they come.

Paul (aka Gypsy Baron...my online persona since Air Warrior days )

[VulcanB2]

Hi,

I think we stick to flying the B-17s and the odd fighter escort on Saturday evenings. I like short fun flights but the longer flights give you the chance to talk, get stuck into a bit of navigation, and is slower paced so more relaxed.

If you want to set up another time for flying fighters, then count me in!

Sorry I haven't been around for the last couple of flights - I've been busy with work, and this weekend I'm busy with study so I'll be unavail again.

Best regards,
Robin.

[Killratio]

David,

I'm definately in for this saturday if you like. YPPH to XXXX I presume.

I know the area like the back of my hand, so what I can do is fly the Spitfire with you guys on the flight plan and then just divert to a field of my choice. Ron has seen me "spin away" into the distance before....(and yes, Ron, I enjoy it just a little too much!!)

So provided you are happy with this, I'm in, 0300 and all!

I assume you will track coastal around the south west and then east? I'll have a look and see what my practical range is and what is near by. I have all the WAC charts for Oz and also the OzX scenery with FTX as well, so lots of options,


regards


Darryl

[Elington]

Hello Darryl, let's go back to the "historical" thread for the B-17s to avoid any further confusion!
http://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtop ... &start=420