Hi everyone. I'm a disabled vet and single father to a mildly autistic child and I decided I deserved a little something for myself to keep my sanity. I've been flying flight sims ever since a triangle was supposed to be a representation of an F-15. I've always wanted to try the more serious stuff but never allowed myself the time as I was always too "busy". I downloaded DCS years ago but never got around to playing it, 2 of those years was because my gaming rig was down so getting that back up was step one. For various reasons I was relegated to the Tflight HOTAS system, I snapped the sticks off of 3 of the PS4 versions I kept my older PS3/PC version which is apparently a stronger unit. I had all but stopped flying as it just wasn't as fun with sloppy inaccurate gear, years and years of studying allowed me to piece together several options on how to arrive at a quality set of gear. Some recent surprises in my bank account took something that was going to take a year or two into as long as it took to stock the item. Now I have the tools, Rift CV1, MFG Crosswinds, Winwing panels, X56 throttle because I got tired of my chain getting yanked around by stock dates for Taurus throttle, VKB gladiator mk2 for WarThunder/IL-2 and Gunfighter 3 F-14 edition, and of course the heatblur Tomcat. Now I'll just need to purchase 1 desk mount per month to really get it there but I'm hoping my "rigged" setup will work better than setting HOTAS on my desk at an awkward angle.
As to why I wanted Strike Group two over all the others is for one reason, VF-154. I have what I'm sure people will think is an interesting story and one I can promise is a ONE time event in the Navy, For now I'm going to keep it as short as possible and if folks are interested I'll share the rest of it. I was an HT aka Hull maintenance Technician, an engineer which are generally known as snipes. Now you have hole snipes and fresh air snipes I bet you know where I fit in there. My first ship was the USS Kitty Hawk and VF-154 was our Tomcat squadron. I was also the number one attack team leader for the ships Flying Squad aka fire department. I've loved the Tomcat since I was a little kid thanks to the Final Countdown, my favorite movie btw and the movie the Philadelphia Experiment the cats role in that was smaller but they sure do make their presence known. I did multiple "Hook up" jobs for the squadron, and being the attack team leader it made me the most junior person that could sign off fire fighting and other damage control quals that everyone had to have signed off and if it took too long you could be denied liberty ports and be stuck on the ship. So about 5,000 odd crew aboard and maybe 6-7 people that can actually sign the quals meant they were pretty grateful when I would swing by the ready to see if any new folks needed training. They got timely and quality training and I got to hang out in the squadron ready room. On our 2002 deployment and my last on the Hawk the squadron had a gunex coming up, 2 days before they were set to do it one of the birds was down, cannon didn't work. The cabling that connected to the cannon, sent the firing signal and supplied the power had broken. It was an original part and no replacements existed, if they couldn't magically do the impossible and make that gun fire they'd be disqualified. The squadron skipper decided to think WAAY out of the box and came up with a crazy idea, he figured I could braze it together how not his problem it was my problem. I figured it out my assistant and I made it happen and the squadron won the exercise. I couldn't get a ride underway because of my position in the Flying Squad, hell I was one of the few O- on the ship and I was forbidden to donate blood because it could leave me weakened at a critical moment. So my ride would have to wait until after cruise and squadron tempo slowed down. Well my new orders came in and I had to transfer so I never got my ride.
This initially started out as a quest to find a Black Knight pilot that was on the same deployment who could make good on that ride, hey top quality sim in VR with an actual Tomcat pilot is miles better than nothing lol. Or atleast a Black Knight F-14 pilot from anytime they flew the cat. Or the ultra slim but would be really cool if the actual pilot of the bird I fixed was here. From there I figured hell why not try and join the squadron, after all I was an Honorary Black Knight. I'll be submitting my application next.
Topic: Looking foward to the experince (Read 1009 times)