Apologies

[HagarTheHorrible]

I know it's not really needed, but i'd just like to apologise to the Spad pilot that, not only did I shoot at (fracticide), but then to add insult to injury bumped into as well.  I'm sorry I don't know who it was.

[Thad]

That's what all double agents say. ?

[HagarTheHorrible]

VR, in many ways, is superb but sometimes it does mean, when you commit yourself to an attack, that it can be a bit of a punt (guess) as to who is who especially when it comes to snap shooting.  With no chat, or labels it’s also difficult to make a conciliatory gesture,

[Wolfram-Harms]

Well, Hagar, if you'd be flying in real life, you wouldn't want to shoot at your own friends, would you?
So, if in doubt, you better not fire. 

In WW1 crates it is quite useless anyway to fire at an aircraft, when you can't even recognise, what it is.
The trick in those days was to go so close that you could read the opponent's altimeter. 

[Archie]

Well after shooting at him, then bumping in to him, you might as well have finished him off with a flare to the face. ?

[HagarTheHorrible]

1 hour ago, Wolfram-Harms said:

Well, Hagar, if you'd be flying in real life, you wouldn't want to shoot at your own friends, would you?
So, if in doubt, you better not fire. 

In WW1 crates it is quite useless anyway to fire at an aircraft, when you can't even recognise, what it is.
The trick in those days was to go so close that you could read the opponent's altimeter. 

 

I expect it happened more than anybody would care to admit (stories of ex-American football stars in Afghanistan and silver stars spring to mind).  VR is brilliant, but it does come with compromises one of which is visual clarity.  Diving down on a pair of circling opponents, to hopefully take the heat off a friendly, it is often necessary to position yourself in such a way that you fly to an expected point in the sky that will coincide with a shooting opportunity, BUT will involve having your target out of sight until the last seconds.  The trouble with that and the lack of clarity afforded by VR is the gulf between committing to a course of events and pulling the trigger.

 

As to collision, I put that, in part down to latency issues,  while not obvious, certainly at my end, earlier in the evening I’d had a “coming together” with some stupid Fokker, when visually I’d manouvered to avoid, successfully so, only to crunch wing into undercarriage.

 

 

 

There’s nothing quite like the smug, self satisfied,  “cheesy” grin of being saved from a tight spot by an opponents fracticide or coming together.

Edited March 11, 2019 by HagarTheHorrible

[BMA_Hellbender]

This is one of the reasons VR is not for me (yet).

[Wolfram-Harms]

Hagar, when you'd come to rescue me, I'd have a 50/50 chance of survival - do I get that right?