2012 Top Gun (1)

Last Saturday I competed, for the first time, in the JO qualifications for Top Gun, an yearly event for the virtual fighter pilots of this select club. I have trained for about two weeks to get in shape for this and my plane of choice was Fw-190 A-8, mainly for its speed, powerful weaponry and formidable roll rate, this last feature being extremely useful in dogfighting, especially in rapid direction changes, scissors maneuvers and discontinuous flight. The patch version for IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 that we used was 4.10.1, since 4.11, even though more realistic and more difficult, still needs some bug fixes.

As it turned out, there were other pilots that, besides their exquisite flying talent and experience, trained harder and chose better planes (we could choose any plane we wished, propeller driven, ranging from 1940 to 1945) - La-7 3xB-20 being their favourite. A superb plane for dogfights and obstacle race tracks.

So, finding out that most of the competitors had chosen La-7, I entered this competition with a sense of inferiority and lack of self-confidence, which is the worst thing that can happen to a pilot...

14 was the total number of competitors, and the first clash was 7vs.7. My team lost this first clash, but, because of a midair collision that could not be assessed based on the eventlog file, it had to be redone. This time, my team won, even if I sucked at it, being shot down by a La-7, piloted by Mr. Vintage.

In the 2vs.2, I was teamed up by draw with Mr. Eshark, who saved my butt a couple of times and won us two rounds, but eventually we lost to a better team.

In the Gauntlet, everything went smooth, but I had an awful landing and I lost a few points. At this moment, my situation was clear. It was impossible to qualify for the final. Then the 1vs.1 fights came, and I did surprisingly well, forcing one enemy to crash (I almost crashed, too, due to a G-lock), killing another and taking my revenge against Mr. Vintage, through a lucky head-on pass. At that moment, I wasn't aware of the fact that my bullets shot down his engine and he had to crash land his plane, and I was maneuvering like hell for a while, since I couldn't see my opponent at all. After three victories and one kill, my score went up, but I got shot down by Mr. Thor, an excellent pilot, on board a Bf-109 G-2.

Surprisingly, my team victories and the 1vs.1 successes pushed me up to the 6th place, right below the last finalist, making me an alternate if one of them couldn't show up the next day. This thought terrified me a little bit, because I hadn't had time to prepare for all the obstacle race tracks that we were supposed to have. Two weeks are clearly not enough to get in shape for Top Gun... Luckily, all the finalists showed up and I had a sense of relief... I felt a little bit sorry that nobody wasn't allowed to watch the final, though...

Anyhow, I am very happy with my result, made lots of quick saves, which I intend to post in the next weeks. It was a great contest, utterly addictive, which lasted almost 9 hours!... The winner: Mr. PAINLESS!!!