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74th vfs 'The Flying Tigers' to close shop. 'An ode'


Heli Shed

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Greetings all.

 

It is with weighty heart and deep regret, that I must take this opportunity to respectfully inform you; the community, of the impending closure of the 74th vfs 'The Flying Tigers', after a final member 'Fly-in' on the 28th July 2013 at 1930 hrs and a final gathering of 74th members in Duxford at the beginning of August, to drink pints of port, beer through the eyeballs, slaver all over the barmaid and plenty of sandbag pulling to remember simulated attack runs as if they belonged to each of them for real. A truly marvelous way to leave the 'ED DCS building'.

 

The 74th has been going now for nearly 4 years and in that time we have lifted our ethos of 'Pride in Excellence' above the parapet for it to be slamdunked by some, but respectfully nodded at, by most. We have had over 800k hits to the site, over 1800 subscribers to our YouTube page with one set of tutorial videos reaching over 10k individual viewers. We have over 900 registered individual and regular users of our website. We have run open workshops for the Blackshark and the A-10C for Basic 'newbie' introduction which have always been well attended and received. On many occasions, we have opened our metaphorical door with warm smiles and open arms to anyone who wanted to fly on our servers (LYNX and PUMA) and enjoy the camaraderie and friendship on our TS server with our members, informally or formally, structured and organised co-op or H2H, 24 hrs a day 365 days a year - with lonewolfs, other vfs's or just ourselves!

 

At our peek, we were a 18 man, very dedicated and fairly serious bunch of guys, who enjoyed the formality of organised training, structured advancement, dedication, commitment and loyalty to one another. Utterly enjoyable, always achieving and a bloody good laugh too. The natural 'flow and ebb' of Dynamic personalities in any VFS has seen some great members leave and some lesser ones booted. 'That' is the nature of the game with the 74th. Have your principles and stick to them. Unless of course, you want a less formal environment (a commune, the most popular format), in which case, it's probably a little harsh to be!

 

We weren't for everyone. We get that, and make no apologies for our elitist attitudes about it. But we retained the right to be so, because it's how we wanted to be. Quality was the name of the game for us, regarding membership. Quantity was not. Our Missions were reflective of RL Mid 80's threats and stratagem, as was the required actions by pilots in the KA-50 and the A-10C.

 

Our members make up a cross-section of Professionals; Senior Soldiers and Officers, Airline Pilots, A Studio Artist, Sim Software producer, developer and author, Clandestine indiv's to name some. If you know them, you know them! if not......................................

 

You couldn't just 'join' the 74th by changing your Tag in Teamspeak, you had to undergo what was the 'first' formal Training Academy after the A-10C was released in Beta, be 100% selected by peers that were already members and undergo a candidacy period that was reflective of your ability in the pit and therefore the relative effective hours you had racked up, all the while being mentored and advised by 74th members and our CIP's. At the end, a final assessment, more often than not viewed by up to 50 people from the community in general, but on several occasions, to the relief of the candidate, 74th members only. Still, a nerve racking experience and a real sense of achievement upon completion. Not one person who has gone through this would deny this as fact. Brilliant!

 

Some didn't make it, 'Thank you' for trying. Seriously - 'hats off'!

 

Our SOP's met fun with reality half way, so that the 'fun factor' was never dampened by a required directive, to stick one's head in a plethora of meaningless trype of 25 pages, all just to take off together, smartly, or engage targets. Our tactics were/are sound and our documentation easy to follow, straight to the point and regularly updated.

 

We have always supported ED, their products and incentives and in the background, TFC. We have been guests of honour at RAF Duxford and had some fantastic past well known ED Tester members and developers of the community adorn our ranks. Bengo the first XO, Ells our first FI to name the two of the most influential. But....things move on.

 

When I returned from Afghanistan in Oct 2012 (the 3rd and final tour), we said we would review our stance for ED's DCS in January 2013. We felt that ED was loosing its way, its direction, its stratagem. P-51? Huey? Third party developers that seemingly were taking an e-on to develop? (no offense or malice intended), poor FPS on PC's 1000 times more powerful than Apollo 11? Instability of MP and increasing pings? The infamous Nevada Terrain? The constant re-write and bug hunting for Missions 'after' a patch was released? 74th members falling out with other members of the community, on the infamous ED Forums? some resulting in being banned or warned (4 members)?

 

But, we as a vfs, reviewed and decided to stay. It is now 6 months to the day (yesterday) of that review and it has not passed muster. I honestly believe that had ED stayed with their proven sales and loyalty winner; Blackshark and A-10C and refined the MP existence by a dedi server and therefore MP reliability, dynamic self generated campaigns (think Falcon 4.0), self generated AI threats, a different and updated graphic engine (not endless promises but actually delivered) etc etc, this post would not exist. c'est la vie.

 

Notice that I have changed the contextualized 'ownership' from 'we' to 'I'.

 

I resigned from the 74th last night and offered the position to any member who wanted to take up the reigns. In doing so, the website, Server management and presence, Youtube, Livestream, Mission designing and bug hunting, training, SOP Management, weekly events, liaison with the community, Teamspeak, forum management and a million other things that go on in the background, by a very small section of any vfs (me and two others), would need to be taken over. Those of you who run a vfs, in whatever guise, informally or formally, probably know only too well what i'm talking about! After leaving the British Army (Infantry) in December after 26 years, my time is even less my own, meaning I cannot commit to the very hobby I began years ago.

 

The general feeling amongst the 74th members right now, is that it is 'I' who has instilled the 74th ethos into them from the off. They 'own' it now, sure, but no me = no 74th. I'm so very, very, sorry about that to the members of the 74th. Genuinely and sincerely. Should have seen that coming. I didn't.

 

Most of the members agree with me completely in my stance. some will remain flying as lonewolfs (please.....extend your hand of friendship to them) and some are dropping the sim completely. What is not in contention, is that they all want us to stay together and enjoy each others company and camaraderie, in whatever simulated guise that may be.

 

That reason alone is more than enough to say 'Thank you ED', let alone what you have given us over the past 4 years; outstanding sims with constant development striving toward perfection. Bottom line? time for us to part, no hard feelings. Definitely not. 'I'.......simply ran out of time.

 

Thank you very very much everyone, members of the community, Moderators, Testers & Dev's, Modders (Mustang, Ricardo & Diveplane to name a few), Mission and Script designers (Grimes, Dragon, Grebes and Speed) and other fine VFS leaders, be your vfs formal or informal, 77th, 51st, 104th, 3Sqn, 44th, 159th, Shrek, STP, to name some................ from a group of greats.

 

It's been a real blast. We had fun didn't we.

 

warmest and fond Regards.

 

'T'

 

74th_Tyger - Wing Commander (UK)

74th_Javelin - Executive Officer (UK)

74th_Bast - Chief Instructor Pilot - KA-50 (Can)

74th_Sloth - Chief Instructor Pilot - A-10C (UK)

74th_Zax - Senior Flight Officer (UK)

74th_Mosely - Senior Flight Officer (USA)

74th_Krueger - Senior Flight Officer (UK)

74th_Sharpe - Technical Pilot (UK)

74th_Baron - Technical Pilot (Ger)

74th_Lunatic - Weapons Instructor (UK)

74th_Danny - Flight Officer (UK)

74th_Gryphon - Flight Officer (UK)

74th_Leysard - Flight Officer (Swiss)

74th_Lion - Flight Officer (Italy / UK)

74th_Lynx - Flight Officer (UK)


Edited by Tyger
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  • ED Team

Sad news

 

Had some good flights with you guy's

 

Wish you all the best from -=Shrek=- squadron

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I will still you see you guys and hope to as well! ! I'm from the US, but I enjoyed the atmosphere when playing on your severs. Learned a lot and Thanks !

 

-will

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Well Tyger I am sorry to hear the news. Your squadron as a whole will be missed much by "OUR" community. I want to thank you all for letting me be a small part of your VFS as a friend who let me in a little. I dont feel that the presence of the 74th will ever be forgotten. Good luck to all of you .

 

your friend,

Matt. aka 44th_Bolt

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Wish you would all reconsider, as I was contemplating seeking membership, but alas, my words could do nothing to sway you from the looks of it.

 

I too have been playing DCS since the beginning, and while ED may not be PERFECT, they are doing a DAMN fine job. They are making great sims, at little to no profit, that keep us going in a gaming market where hardcore sims are few and far between. I have been playing since BS 1, and I haven't lost interest at all. The third party developers just add interest in my opinion, and I really enjoy the Huey. The multiplayer still has bugs, but look at the scale of the undertaking DCS world really is. It rightly should take years to perfect, and even if it remained as it is today I would still enjoy it. So your leaving this sim. Where will you go? Find another who is committed to doing what ED has done for us already. They will continue to receive my support, my interest, and my use of their product, because I will not let my beloved genre die, and I will support any dev who works as hard as ED does to provide us with such a great product. As for the third party devs, yes, it takes a VERY long time to make a study sim, and I do not see anything unreasonable about waiting.

 

I hate to see you guys throw in the towel, but I feel like many of you will be back if you even leave.

 

Good luck

 

P.S. I have to admit, leaving or not, posts like this really tarnish the game to the all to valuable new comers, I wish you guys had opted for a quiet goodbye, but it is what it is. Again Good luck

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Good luck Tyger, sorry to see you calling it a day, maybe the 74th will morph into another entity. Also thankyou for you superb training vid's and excellent technical and tactical information. 74th Doctrine will remain in the ether for a long time and will help budding sim pilots. You should be proud of your achievements, and as a retired Infantry soldier, Reg Army of 30yrs, i can fully see where your coming from. Good luck mate and best regards.

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Salute my good man! The DCS has lost another great contributor. I hope we will see you back in the cockpit. Your tutorials for the A-10 / KA-50 will ring on for years to come. So you wont be to far away in spirit!

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Tyger, Thx for the Video's they where the best!!

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It's been a pleasure watching you guys fill the room when it comes to DCS squadrons. I always admired the way you guys ran your outfit, publicly. Thanks for your time spent producing A-10C tutorials and for your representation of flight simmers in general! Hope we still see all of you around.

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It's sad to see the 74th disband, but real-life sometimes cuts into the things we enjoy doing most. I'll never forget meeting up in Duxford, and my time as a member of the 74th.

Thanks again for all your hard work and long hours behind the scenes (website, forum, mission creating...), the 74th couldn't have been what it is now, without it. Your level of commitment is unsurpassed.

It was a blast for sure.

Also want to thank you for creating a place where my path of life intersected with that of the other 74th members. It was enriching.

 

B

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Sad to hear but fully understand your decision.

 

I enjoyed our flight together on Tuesday and was looking forward to flying with you all again in the not to distant future. Hopefully that will still be the case.

 

All the best to you all.

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

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Adieux mes amis...

AWAITING ED NEW DAMAGE MODEL IMPLEMENTATION FOR WW2 BIRDS

 

Fat T is above, thin T is below. Long T is faster, Short T is slower. Open triangle is AWACS, closed triangle is your own sensors. Double dash is friendly, Single dash is enemy. Circle is friendly. Strobe is jammer. Strobe to dash is under 35 km. HDD is 7 times range key. Radar to 160 km, IRST to 10 km. Stay low, but never slow.

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Sad sad news Tyger but I see your problem.

 

I honestly believe that had ED stayed with their proven sales and loyalty winner; Blackshark and A-10C and refined the MP existence by a dedi server and therefore MP reliability, dynamic self generated campaigns (think Falcon 4.0), self generated AI threats, a different and updated graphic engine (not endless promises but actually delivered) etc etc, this post would not exist. c'est la vie.

 

I agree that ED should have done more to supply a dedicated server and of course a more stable engine. Also the constant rewriting of old missions to be compatible with new updates became an overwhelming problem for me as well, I just stopped making missions. Now that is said I truly love the new Mission Editor and the resent changes but hesitate starting on a new mission designing venture. I wish there were a mission porting/check tool that could read all previous missions and fill in default values on new features and just by a click make them compatible with all features on the new version of the sim.

 

I resigned from the 74th last night and offered the position to any member who wanted to take up the reigns. In doing so, the website, Server management and presence, Youtube, Livestream, Mission designing and bug hunting, training, SOP Management, weekly events, liaison with the community, Teamspeak, forum management and a million other things that go on in the background, by a very small section of any vfs (me and two others), would need to be taken over. Those of you who run a vfs, in whatever guise, informally or formally, probably know only too well what i'm talking about! After leaving the British Army (Infantry) in December after 26 years, my time is even less my own, meaning I cannot commit to the very hobby I began years ago.

 

I started the 139th wing in Norway and we are now up to about 20 members and somewhere from 4 to 12 flying in advanced missions using SOP developed by our own team with much input from the 74th documents. When I started this wing I had the idea to keep flight time up and admin time down but the demand for administration and new services rises with the member list. New members are eager to start work and have ideas that are very welcome but demands more administration work that other members don’t see. I have delegated some of the responsibility of the forum and have completely locked down the forum for spammers; there is no spammers’ active on the forum for months now so it’s obviously working. The TS3 server is also shared responsibility with two others so that administers itself and is working good. I have not allowed file sharing on the TS3 server so there is no admin with that, there are other good sharing methods available for each member.

 

Why can’t you also start delegating some of your workload and do more flying? Demand that members contribute more so you can have more free time?

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Thank you everyone for the kind comments.

 

Hijack, with respect, if the problem was that easy it wouldn't be a problem and i implemented that basics of vfs management a long time ago.

 

It is not the workload and the delegation of tasks to 74th members that is the solution. I eluded to the fact that 'I' simply do not have the time nor the appetite for the sim anymore due to the points mentioned. What i wasn't counting for was the humbling response by the majority of 74th members. No me = no 74th.

 

So, sadly, we continue to close shop. Despite some people thinking we should have done it quietly, we think quite the opposite! We have many friends in the community and have worked hard to contribute as best we can to everyone, in time and resources. Not for notoriety, but because it was the right thing to do for the DCS line and the community from the 74th. P51 is not for us, nor is the FW or any other model, no matter how accurate or wonderful the experience. We were set up as a KA50 and A10C A2G vfs. Bust. Those models are being surpassed (there is always development) by the melding of CA, FC3 and other models. This is simply brilliant for the choice of airframe and to a certain extent mission design that is tailored for specific models, but thats not what we're about.

 

The bottom line HiJack is that we've had a fantastic time, recommend the DCS series to any new pilot to enjoy, because they will. A lot! We however, have been 'flat-out' for 4 years (not a little after 1) and been in complete support to ED and are hungry for other things with less admin time involved, with less reliability and stability issues. In essence, plug n play. 'Time' is a natural commodity that none of us have enough of, me personally, even less. Thats just the way it is.

 

Best regards to the 138th.

 

T

 

Dear mod. Would you please move back this thread to the community news section. It IS community news and hardly multiplayer news. I would appreciate it kindly. Thank you.


Edited by Tyger

 

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Also the constant rewriting of old missions to be compatible with new updates became an overwhelming problem for me as well, I just stopped making missions. Now that is said I truly love the new Mission Editor and the resent changes but hesitate starting on a new mission designing venture. I wish there were a mission porting/check tool that could read all previous missions and fill in default values on new features and just by a click make them compatible with all features on the new version of the sim.

 

Without getting off-topic of Tygers thread, could you start a thread regarding this subject in the mission editor bugs section and post more specifics of the issues you typically have in this regard?

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