The Fighting History of the 24th Fighter/Bomber Squadron

-- Part A --

"I was cruising at 15,000 feet in my P-51 northeast of Airfield C83, doing close to 300 knots with the throttle wide open, when the call came out over the radio. A pilot was in trouble. He had a bandit on his six and couldn't shake him."

In June, 1996, America Online offered an open beta of the game "Air Warrior" where average people could, for a couple of hours a week, pretend to be Chuck Yeager, Pappy Boyington, "Tex" Hill, Richard Bong, Adolph Galland, and Saburo Sakaii, or any other famous World War I, II, or Korean War flying ace. Pilots flew some of the most famous aircraft in history: Hellcats, Corsairs, Zeroes, Messerschmitts, Spitfires, Mustangs, Flying Fortresses, and so on. Every night there was a vicious battle for control of the cyber skies.

"The pilot's name was Mav - that's what registered in the radio's callsign box - and he was down low by the BeeCee River, low on fuel and ammo and bleeding energy fast."

In the World War II scenarios, there were two theatres ("arenas") each representing Europe or the South Pacific during late 1944. Pilots were assigned to a country (A, B, or C) geographically divided by water. During the initial months of "Air Warrior" on America Online, incoming new pilots were disproportionately divided amongst countries A and B, with a select few either defecting to Country C or being assigned there by chance. It was typical for most of the fighting to take place near the eastern edge of the map where A and B shared a common border and where two airbases were in very close proximity to each other. Unfortunately, C Land occupied the western portion of the European map. If a C pilot wanted to fight, he often had to take a fifteen minute plane ride to the combat area and was usually outnumbered and low on fuel when he got there.

"I pointed my nose south and went into a shallow dive. I could be there in five minutes, but it could very well be four minutes too late for him. A few other pilots radioed that they were on their way, but they were still too far out of the combat zone to be effective. All we could do was hope that Mav could dodge the bandit just long enough for us to get there."

Online gaming is unique in that 1) you are fighting against another thinking, strategizing, and crapping-in-my-pants human being rather than a mindless drone that's been programmed to respond to certain player actions and 2) your wingmen are thinking, strategizing, crapping-in-their-pants human beings rather than mindless drones that have been programmed to bang their guns at the first sign of the enemy. Naturally, with all these intelligent beings thinking and strategizing, they want to try to avoid crapping in their pants and the best way to do this is to work as a team. Hence, it was only logical for squadrons to begin to form.

"I arrived on the scene first and immediately went into a steep dive, guns blazing away. I don't think I hit the enemy plane, but I did manage to distract him long enough for the rest of the C pilots to arrive. Mav bugged out for C83 and I followed him in since I was now low on fuel myself. When we landed, Mav invited me to join a squadron he was forming and I accepted."

Joining a squadron is a pretty strong commitment, since once that player's id has been registered in a server he is not permitted to change countries. On the other hand, it gives a pilot the advantage of numbers - he will always have a wingman available (assuming that there's a fellow squad mate flying at the time) and on designated squad nights the group can do a considerable amount of damage against an unorganized enemy. It also gives each pilot in the group access to knowledge possessed by other pilots in the group and can increase the rate at which a rookie pilot can hone his flying skills. Most squadrons have some form of training program for their pilots. Its not unusual for the top-scoring pilots in an arena to be current or former members of a squadron.