Monday Night Free Flights
 

I'm going to start hosting regular free flight matches again. I miss it dearly and I've had people ask about starting it up again.

Every Monday I'll open up a private lobby around 7:45pm EST and Ill start the match at 8pm EST. If you want in, just send me a message requesting an invite. If the room happens to fill up, ill do my best to let you know we are full, and ill try to get you in when there is room. If you miss us when we start at 8, ill stop the match atleast every hour to pick up new people as needed.

Things we do in a free flight match:

Formation flying: Bombers, bombers and escorts, patrol flights. If you've mastered shooting down bandits and are looking for a new challenge in IL-2, formation flying is a lot of fun.

Airshow: Show off a little. We usually do this toward the end of a match because it rusults in many many fireballs.

King of the Castle: One pilot goes out and circles the Castle at Dover horbor. Challenging pilots depart from RAF Manston one at a time. The losing pilot will RTB and signal Tower to send out the next victim.

Tower/ATC: While it may not be necessary for smaller turnouts, having someone keeping traffic organized makes free flight that much more fun. Before each match we'll designate some one to run ATC. Communicating with the tower can be as formal or as simple as you want. Just make sure you request taking off and landing. Otherwise, things can get a little "fiery". Also, One of the guys in my squad made an approach plate for RAF Manston. To keep things simple, we usually land and take off from runway 10.


In order to keep things fun and running smooth, we'll set a few basic guidelines:

1. No random shooting!!! If you plan on doing combat stuff, dont engage planes below 3,000ft unless you've designated an area of the map for dogfighting. That way, hopefully, there aren't any innocent casualties.
2. Request take-offs and landings. No need to be formal, just let tower know.
3. Dont hog the Comm. If there's a lot of people in the room, all trying to talk over each other, things get frustrating quickly. Tower and the pilot they are in communication with, get priority. If you are part of a flight, feel free to open up a party so you guys can communicate freely.
4. No fireballs!!!. NBD if you do crash, but just try to keep it to a minimum.

Ill be streaming the matches on a justin.tv channel here: http://www.justin.tv/shmodmediadept and you can see what we're up to at the moment. Here's some footage from previous free flight meetups.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjWmLQGEJVg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZKpmcCU9Oc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIGczkTo0Zw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH3BIGRIloo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cusf0zfkUQg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgVrAIcAE-Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5HUHHMneSc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUl5Ih5t_1A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m4-UbGnVvs

Now these were fun and i also miss the dearly!! Made for some great games and teamwork. I've lost all my save data so have no unlocks, though i have my trusty Hurricane back :D

If im not seeing the other half then i'll love to be part of this. I'll know by tomorrow if im free.

I up for this. Sounds epic. :cool:

Im down. is this PS3 or XBOX community though?

i am in once i get a workable stick. but i wont be able to join in until 10ish..

We're on the xbox, guess I should gave mentioned that initially. I do own the ps3 version too, so if somebody gets something going I'll join up.

There's a group of us that regularly do formations or recreations on PS3. Normally on a Saturday night at around 10pm GMT. We had a good couple last week including a heinkel raid on Canterbury and a Stuka raid on the radar at Dover. Anyone is free to join, headsets make things easier but if you're willing to listen and follow your team then there's usually no issue. We do get the odd 'dunno what's going on here types so I'll fly and IL10' when everyones in he111's or hurri's but for the most part they're great fun. We also run races- see ariel deathrace thread for track details that can be an absolute riot and a little different to the norm. Anyone who's interested drop myself or one of the other regular PS3 guys a message and we'll provide further details.

Sounds like great fun Draux, I will try and be in attendance monday. So you just opening a lobby that we can join through the games Lobby system?

I'll set it up as a private match, so you need to PM me to get an invite. I've found that opening a public room causes confusion. Nust send a pm, my GT is draux.

Just been watching some of the videos you posted... i remember those games well, especially the mass Spitfire MkII flight we did.

I think i will play some IL2 tonight, try and get some of the unlocks back, no doubt i shall be needing them.

Count me in Draux, T42 Sherman will also be up for this!:-P:-P:-P

i'm in also...

If this is xbox i'm in, my GT: TheGoaltender94
Im on most of the time these days (Mostly playing Operation Flashpoint and Bad Company 2, but i still find time to fly). I wont be on this weekend and next week for sporting reasons but after that im free.

Ok monday night the girlfriend is out with friends so im free for the night, so im in :D will be flying a wide choice of either...

The Spitfire MkII or the Hurricane!! Hmmm.


Hurricane :D

keep this rolling for awhile...going to be away for a week or so. should be ready ( and gnashing at the bit) to get in the air after that...

I plan on making it a regular thing.

Glad to hear this will be a regular thing! My wife planned a dinner party for tonight and I can use flying virtual planes in front of the tele as an excuse :(

Sure you can! Sleeping on the couch ain't that bad. I seem to wind up there a lot.

Any idea of the plan for tonight? Bearing in mind i've got the minimum amount of unlocks. Im looking forward to it, i've missed the good old free flights. What time roughly GMT?

cheers.

Cna we start a little later so i can come in. I think we should do...Battle Of Britain flight. With STUKA's, SPITS, HURRICANES, BF-109's, HE-111, That british bomber i forgot the name of.

Will be a couple of hours long no doubt so plenty of time for you to come on and join in :D thats how it usually worked.

And anything is good for me, i'll jus tmake do with whatever unlocks i have. I have the DLC so do have the P47 which i might use.

And the british bomber is the Blenhiem

Yes. Actually i got a better idea. How about as our first little "GO" hear we do just an airshow. Whatever plane you want. Pairs are fine to. We will get more technical from their. But im not in charge

Thats it. Thank you.

It usually involves doing some sort of routine anyway when we all fly, its just getting on the ground which can sometimes cause a problem because the odd player might get bored and wreckless.

We had it at one point where 3 of us (british guys) flew in formation with a Spitfire Hurricane Blenhiem.

Started off with a 3 bird formation fly over, then once in the distance the spitfire would then fly back and do his own routine over the airfield, towrda the end of his routine he would fly away and the Hurricane (me) would then do my routine, i would then finish and fly away to rendevouz with the spitfire, as i fly away the Blenhiem comes in and does his routine.... once he's finished he would then fly into the distance and we would finish how we started by having a 3 ship formation fly over.

Much like a typical BBMF display to be honest. Worked well.

Sorry i couldn't make the first flight. I had some family issues to take care of.

Don't worry mate, i couldnt make it either. I didnt realise that the time they posted it for was so late in GMT. It was at 1AM our time, thats just to late for me unfortunately, i have work commitments etc. Was really looking forward to some free flight :(

Maybe us Brits/Europeans will have to start our own one sometime. Shame really because Draux and his guys are a really good bunch to fly with.

Maybe with some mathimatical work we could make it so we get one good time. I better start practicing because i've been out of the air for a while, at least in Vintage war planes. I have spent more time flying the Seahawk and Cobra in Operation FLashpoint providing Medevac and Air-Suport to my buddies on the ground. Really fun especially when you know the guys our talking to and you have somewhat of a set plan.

Which operation flashpoint?

I used to love playing the original on the pc way back in the day, flying the helicopters was what i was good at. I used to love providing support for the guys on the groud.

On topic though, i hope we can all sort something. Would be good to get us all together, especially as i spent a fair few hours yesterday playing through the single player game again trying to unlock as much as i could haha

well foz if you need to shoot someone down for unlocks let me know. i should be free again later next week. got a new stick and itching to see how THIS one holds up. i can be on early to mid evening your time on thurs, fri, or sat...

Yeah, it works out too late for me to Foz, (at least it does week nights):sad:

Thanks for the offer, i appreciate it. Its jus tthe sore task of going through it all again knowing you already had them once... it hurts haha.

We'll have to get all us Europeans into a room together, arrange a free flight of our own sometime. Just randomly set one up?

You guys didn't miss much anyway. I stayed for about 30 minutes and it was just people messing around crashing a lot. Maybe it got more organised after I left, but as you said by then it was too late for me too.

We'll try and arrange for an earlier time then so us europeans (and anyone else who's on at the time) can all fly freely etc.

Let me know when Foz! :-P

Short notice, but its weekend... anyone fancy one tonight?

Right i've played through the campaign, unlocked everything upto the P51 thus far, till have single player missions to do though. Have a few different planes to chose from now which is better than it was.

Will keep working on getting some more in due time :)

If anyone gets bored and fancies a free flight tonight before 12am (GMT) then give me a shout, i'll be online.

how's this monday looking? summer's over and i am getting more free time. want to fly....who's in? be on 10/1030ish est....

If you can, hop on at 8pm est. There will be 8-10 of us on at that time.

work until 2130 but will jump on as soon as i get home ... maybe you guys wikk still be on.