Wandy

Wandy F/A-18

WandyF/A 18C

Wandy - F5

Hi Folks, This was an awesome event from my perspective (even though I was pretty useless) and I just wanted to thank the organisers and participants and offer one or two comments. 1) Got up at 3.40am for this and cost me some points with the wife but no regrets at all. My first time participating in red flag, or indeed any DCS tournament. Thank you very much 104th for organising and the participants. For a "headline" event like this I think you're spot on for prioritising stability vs features("real" GCI). And obviously you're time is on a volunteer basis so thank you very much for this. 2) Obviously blue side organisation was lacking compared to red, and it always will be. Looks like microvax and blackam are looking into this which is great. I'm personally very happy to follow orders/suggestions from GCI/squadran leader. But here are a couple of suggestions that might make blue a little better a) Add some brief teamspeak usage guidelines/recommendations in the Red Flag advertisement/briefing. I saw there were 8 challanger TS groups but wasn't sure which to join? Didn't want to intefere with any established squadrons. I was also unsure if I was allowed to talk to GCI since he was in his own TS group, and with 36 other pilots obviously we can't all talk at once. Should I have done a whisper group just for GCI? Is the protocol to talk with the squadron leader first? Is there a squadran leader? etc. As a noob last thing I wanted to do was get in the way of others. b) Also in the briefing maybe publish a proposed briefing timeline. e.g. as a rough guide, in reality things will merge but at least the rough intention is there. Perhaps this is too formal/disciplined, but doing anything in DCS requires a fair amount of discipline! e.g maybe something like this: 17:40 - public briefing for red and blue 17:45 - join server, check loadouts 17:50 - blue team(challanger) only briefing, form TS squadrons. 17:55 - comms check. 18:00 - Permission to start engines. 3) I thought happy did a great job as GCI and his communication was very clear. He must have been a busy guy!! Even with the god view I do hope a human GCI stays as without that I assume there is even more chaos...:) I did get confused when happy asked group one to hold at the mountains, but then our lead just kept flying on. Maybe there was a comms issue. Anyhow, please take my comments from the perspective of someone doing their first red flag. And I would be super keen to particiapte again just as it is now. Absolutely fantastic hearing all the accents of folks from around the world, amazing time we live in where we have the technology to do this. Cheers Andrew (wandy)

Wandy Mirage 2000 Australia