Be careful what you wish for.

User avatar
Hedgehog
Site Admin
Posts: 1077
Joined: Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:36 am

Be careful what you wish for.

Post by Hedgehog » Thu Jan 10, 2019 11:35 am

VFA-41 is in an unusual and unprecedented position right now.

When we re-commissioned the squadron in July 2018, things got off to a slow start. A handful of 'legacy' Black Aces from the Jane's days convened and decided that restarting the squadron in DCS World was a worthy endeavor. Several of us got the machine cranked up and running again. Sadly, many of the legacy Black Aces who stated that they wanted the squadron restarted immediately backed out, citing a variety of excuses.

So things got off to a very slow start, with most of the roster slots remaining empty, and the squadron only able to muster 2 or 3 pilots for weekly missions. Some DCS World multi-player pilots looked at the website, and responded that the once-a-week participation requirement was extreme. One pilot told me it is an "onerous" requirement. I had to look the word up. I found he was suggesting that expecting pilots to fly a minimum of once a week was 'an amount of effort and difficulty that is oppressively burdensome.'

Seriously? It is the same requirement VFA-41 has had since 2006. But apparently the flight sim world was different now. People want to be members of a squadron without having to actually fly. VFA-41's standpoint has always been: if you don't get in the cockpit, you have no business calling yourself a pilot, and no business being in a flight sim squadron.

There was honestly some discussion that perhaps re-commissioning VFA-41 was going to be a no-go, that we would never be able to find enough active pilots to make the squadron functional and mission ready. It looked like anyone flying DCS in the multi-player environment would only be interested in being on one of the "biggest and best" squadrons, where you can be added to a pilot roster immediately with no actual participation requirements.

But several of us had some experience being in squadrons like that, and found it to be wholly unsatisfying. They are just too huge and unwieldy. You are one tiny cog in a huge dysfunctional machine. When missions were attempted, they were generally a huge, confused mess. That's the main reason we set a hard limit of 12 slots on the VFA-41 roster when we agonized over the Rules & Regs for our fledgling squadron in 2006. Black Aces were going to know that each was a valued and critical member of the team, and that VFA-41 roster slots are valuable.

I had a feeling that there were other "biggest and best" squadron refugees out there, who had learned the hard way what sort of organization they didn't want to be a part of. I just didn't know how to attract those pilots. Some of us tried to get the word out to DCS World pilots to check us out. Some of you found us when you saw a Black Aces server. Maybe it was just a fortuitous time of the year, but something worked and we got a sudden influx of applications from pilots who wanted to fly... pilots who did not view flying once a week as an "onerous" requirement. Not all pilots who applied were offered commissions, but many were and the roster quickly swelled to where we are now... essentially a pile of new pilots who want to fly.

Here's why this territory is uncharted for VFA-41;

1. We've never had this number of new pilots. Historically we might have brought on maybe one new pilot every few months, which meant there were plenty of more senior and experienced Black Aces to help guide the FNG. Note that I'm not talking about skill or ability, I'm talking about cultural indoctrination... the VFA-41 way of doing things... protocols and procedures. How to function as a member of a flight.

2. We only have 2x IPs. It's never been a problem before, but is now a challenge because of #1. Pilots have offered, "Why not just make more IPs?" Being an IP in VFA-41 is not simply a matter of being an expert in aircraft systems. IPs are also tasked with ensuring the trainee receives that indoctrination in how VFA-41 does things. Historically, IPs were required to be at least LCDRs. We don't even have anyone at that rank yet, but we needed to designate IPs in order for the squadron to function.

3. Suddenly, instead of having too few pilots to accomplish a weekly mission, we have a roster full of pilots who want more opportunities to fly missions!

4. We have an unprecedented collection of talent in terms of mission builders! That has always been a limited and critical commodity in keeping the squadron machine running. The challenge now is how to provide a way for those who would like to create missions a way to do so in a manner that we can take advantage of as a squadron. That is pretty much a challenge for the Operations Officer. Mission builders should keep in communication with the Operations Officer so he can coordinate your talent with ongoing squadron operations. If the mission you created is for training, please coordinate with the Training Officer.

5. We have a 24-hr server online! Thanks to Trim for offering his hardware and skill to set it up, we have a resource that we never had before. We're still exploring how to best utilize it.

So, for those itching to fly missions, don't wait for 'someone' to schedule missions for you. If any Black Ace has a mission you want to fly, grab some more Black Aces and and fly it! As long as two or more Black Aces fly the mission, it has specific mission objectives, and is a complete mission that includes a launch (carrier or land-based is OK), an address of mission objectives, and RTB (for surviving aircraft), someone needs to report the mission in After Action Reports. (Use previous reports as a guide.) The report needs to include who flew, enemy a2a kills, ground targets hit, and any traps. Yes, it's easier to wait for a 'senior' Black Ace to setup a mission, but don't. Right now, the more junior pilots exceed the senior pilots in numbers, and perhaps in talent and skill.

The main thing to be aware of, as many of you have already discovered, is that I am not an ace pilot. That's not my job. As CO, I'm more-or-less the ringmaster to try to keep the circus running. I'm not the lion tamer (well, sometimes I have to calm Lion down). I'm not the trapeze artist. I don't get shot out of a cannon. I'm just the guy who directs and supports the talent the best I can. And sometimes the talent arrives in a clown car, but so be it.

So, yeah... be careful what you wish for. I wished for roster slots filled with pilots who want to fly missions as members of an organized squadron. Now that that wish is fulfilled, I now wish I had more time and ability to devote to the daily tasks related to keeping things running and affording all of the Black Aces with engaging mission opportunities. I am confident that we will continue to fine-tune the VFA-41 machine as we incorporate the exceptional talent that the newest crop of Black Aces has brought to the table!
Image