Screamin' Eagles - Previous Kings of the Hill

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Desertwinds D7
Tuffy D7
Woof D7
BuffaloWings D7
Spy N28
Athar D7
Undertaker D7
DirtySanchez N28
Beatnik DR1
Keisersosa DR1
Skullhill N28
Aetos N28
Wingman N28

The first one is from Tuffy . . . . The 2nd one is from Wingman.

Tuffy’s first KoTH -

Spent 2 hours prior on Melee just getting tuned up for the veterans of the SEs. Logged on for the big event and I was actually nervous. The three beers did not quell my apprehension. We line up and take off and I am barely able to reach 1500 meters. I’m too worried about keeping the ‘drome in sight and keep losing altitude. Everyone else signals ready and I’m still only at about 1100 meters, but that is good enough for me and I signal "ready". The ***GAME ON*** call comes and I am freaking. I’m nervously keep checking my six and hitting "N" but realize that the nearest opponent is nowhere in sight. I find the ‘drome and head back towards it and visually site 2 engaged targets. Perhaps I should fly away, wait until half the squad is dead and then try my luck later? Ahh, what the hell…I swoop in the on the dogfight. I ‘m too busy to even notice who the 2 planes were. I’m too busy trying to figure out how to target your foe! I only get a few shots in and lose my opponent. I’m at 2000 feet and all I can see is snow and ground terrain and I can’t get a lock onto my opponent. The third guy takes the heat off of me momentarily. I level off, check all around and see no one! I look down and notice Aetos heading back for the ‘drome. He doesn’t look damaged but seems kind of slow. Perhaps it was him who I was engaged with? Perhaps the third guy felt he should give the newbie a break and broke off? Not ignoring an easy kill, I disregard the third guy and dive for Aetos. He’s flying so low that my wheels actually skim the ground as I pepper him with some hot lead and take him down. Feeling triumphant, I bank across the ‘drome field but my excitement of the kill is short lived as someone is on me rear in a heartbeat ("like a bum on a ham sandwich" - LOL!) and quickly turns my ride into a flaming marshmallow. I’m freakin’ out, remembering what Beatnik had told me - "If you ever flame or smoke exit the game as quick as you can or you’ll net everyone." So I’m fumbling for my keyboard and inadvertently cut the engine. Why can’t I find that !%*?!* escape key? When I finally do and return to the field I am greeted with a chat filled with "net" and "I can’t repair" (sorry Sanchez) and "1.5 FPS"! What a bummer, the newbie killed the game! I feel really bad. What a fragile existence we live, when just 5 seconds of smoke can destroy your night. Sorry if my flamer held up the game, but I’ll learn! Anyway, it was fun and hopefully I’ll get my act together for the next one. Is there a keyboard shortcut for the on-board fire extinguisher?!? S! –Tuffy.

This is from Wingy . . . . Wow! 13 SE's in KotH! Nice freakin turn out. Well I want to start of by saying "Salute" to HooDat? and Exhumed for letting us do our thing. We did the climb out to 1500 and of course night came on again. We waited for all the Readys to come in and Keiser gave the thumbs up. Well, climbing up to the heavens isn't working anymore. It is like a meeting ground now for N28s. I first see Skull and start to circle for him. We do one pass and he locks up. As I switch my view to look at him, I see Spy coming in for a run but I don't think he realized Skull was meching. I flip my crate around to get a bead on Spy when Beatnik comes zooming in from god knows where. He gets a shot on Spy, I think and I get a shot on him. Beatnik, without knowing it, turned right in front of me and I blasted him. He went spiraling down for a landing but I was very unwilling to give up my Alt. Good thing because Aetos comes blazing in from China I think, and dumps on Spy. Spy does the drop for a landing and I open up on Aetos. A bit of his lower wing snaps and the death stall comes. Aetos does the slow tumble to the ground. I quickly cycle through to see what is going on and just as quickly get lost in all the targets. I see a few more kill messages pop up and then someone says the FPS just took a drop. Well I see Tuffy on fire but go figure, my game is working just fine. I spot Keiser going off on his lonesome and he types in that his FPS has just gone to $hit. Well, I am on his tail and I think, "All's fair in love and KotH" and open up on him. Poor guys can't do much I guess and goes down. At this point I see Woof coming in on me and he has no wheels. Also DirtySanchez can't get a mechanic to come out to repair his plane. I start a good 5-7 minute battle with Woof. We are just looping and turning. I get a firing solution on him, he returns the favor. Finally, finally, I think he pulls a turn to close to the ground and goes down. I fly back to the drome and see DesertWinds take down DirtySanchez. I zero in on Desert and I get into another loop, turn thingy with a D7. Not sure but I think Desert lost too much energy and the ground was just a little too close. I then think wow, that was a long ass KotH! I level out and get plenty of room since the runway is CROWDED. Land and the fireworks go off. Nice fights and nice flying to all. Once again, KotH is a cool part of this squad. S!

4/12/00

Aetos N28
Athar D7
Beatnik DR1
BuffaloWings D7
DesertWinds D7
DirtySanchez N28
Keisersosa DR1
SkullHill N28
Wingman N28
Woof D7

Here is Wingy's recap . . .

We all assembled on Enemy with only two other pilots. TuffyToodles who looks like might be joining us soon and Artischoke, who was kind enough to let us do our thing. We climbed to deck height and night fell and Game on was called by the Beatnik. Once again, I found Aetos in his trusty N28 climbing with me. We started the dance, I don't think neither of us had the Alt advantage. Twisting, turning, hearing my pilot do that grunt thing he does so well. I was able to get behind Aetos and pump some lead into him. He then does that hammer head move I think and is able to get behind me. He puts some lead into me and I fall away trying to regain the upper hand. Little did we both know it but we just blew our entire Alt (about 3K) during this fight. I am not sure about Aetos but I know I was fixated just on him. Next thing I know, we are about 5 feet off the ground and I get the bead on him. I flail away and he clips his wing and goes down. Before I can even get the Salute up, Keisersosa, who must have been waiting in the wings, starts blazing away on me. I figure, there is no way I can lose him. I have no energy, no altitude, so screw it I am going in for a landing and take my chances on the take off. Well wouldn't you know it, just as I level my crate out, DOH! Freakin head shot from that lucky bastard!!! Anyway, I look around and everyone is on the ground except for Woof and Buffalo Wings. Buff takes down Woof but does a great choo choo impression and follows him right into the ground. So there is Keisersosa, once again the lucky one :) Hail Ke .....whatever S!

4/5/00 - mine is below Wingy's

Wingman sent this in:

"Game on call comes and I am at about 2.5K. I am circling the field and cycling through all the planes. I get a contact that seems about level with me and I hit the F8 key, Skullhill. He is definately leveling off and flying toward me. I swing around and go for the head on pass. We start shooting and then "crack", I know we collided but thought "no way" since I thought there was enough clearance. I start to turn and hit F5 to take a look and see that I am missing part of my tail. Skull looks a bit damaged too but not much. He is below me and looking to come up again. I type in Sorry and he shoots at me!!!! :) Well we go at it again, and I get some good hits on him but he stalls it. He starts the tumble down to earth. I figure, do I finish him off, we all know how an SE can land it and come back to haunt you. However with my damaged crate I figure I should just go and repair. I do a power dive and repair. I take off just as I think Buffalo or Peregrine are shot down by Weed. Weed is just near the drome and spots me taking off. I seem him wing over and come at me. I turn to engage and we do. That damn D7 again. We turn and turn and loop and turn and loop, Weed firing at me, me firing at Weed. I got a few shots in but he definately was going to wear me down first. I am contemplating a landing when I see 3 other SE's join in, TestH, Beatnik, and I think Aetos. Well someone starts firing on Weed and he semi vears off me. I figured well Hell, I am going to at least get a few shots in on Weed :) AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH, Beatnik in his DR1 Tank clips me and I go down!!!!!! After that very quickly a few more SE's drop and it is just Weed, Aetos and Beatnik left. I see Beatnik land and then brag about being repaired. Weed is on Aetos' tail and guns him down. He sees Beat and does some nice bombing runs. This is when I noticed that Beat is behind the entire flight line and has to take off again. Actually he is right behind me. He taxis forward and just gets airborne like 5 feet from my wing. Nice job Beat. However Weed is on him like a Bum on a Ham Sandwich! The Beat goes down, and we Hail the new King, KING WEED."

Here follows my loooooong rendition.

Lots of SE's attending. The field is croweded with planes and chatter. The server although somewhat more crowded, the SE's are still the majority of the citizens on Enemy Among Us.

At our Number 1 drome, there were several other players. The FPS for me were actually quite horrible, about 10-12. The lag was nothing too exciting either, not to mention every hangar on the field was burning.. So at about 10:22pm I popped into the Gold Room and then hopped over to Drome number 2. I find a hangar in tact, and FPS more normal. I send out the call. SE's start rolling onto the new field. You guys are great. With all the chatter clatter flipping by on Enemy, everyone was still able to see the message that we moved to drome 2. This made for a timely line up just after 10:30 pm EST.

There are so many SE's in KotH now that I can't remember who was in what plane. I do remember that the majority were D7s or Dr1s. I think Wingman, Aetos, and Dirty Sanchez were in N28s. I believe everyone else was in a D7, and Peregrine, Buffalo Wings, and Beatnik were in Dr1s. No Keiser this time. (And undoubtedly I will hear how I had a better chance at this since he couldn't make it.)

So we all rumble down the field and  . . . . airborne. I have to tell you that the take off in KotH is a very exciting time. First, the beauty in the game itself at seeing 12 to 14 planes take off at one time is just amazing. And the fact that it is KotH and this is the start of another fierce one-life-winner-takes-all competition is exciting. Every move from here till the end matters! So we all rumble down the field and start the climb out. There are planes going in all directions but everyone seems to be quiet now as the approach to start height is a serious thing. Everyone is staying close to the drome, and this is a good thing. When I start cycling through targets I have to cycle 12 to 14 times to make sure I get through everyone. It was during this climb that I thought about how if I plan on winning, my tactics need to change. Back when there are 6-8 attendees at a KotH, other tactics may be called for, but with all the planes in the air last night, I figured in this kind of messy melee it is time to take the bull by the horns. My usual tactic is upon getting close to 1500 meters I lock on someone. Usually it is the person closest to me. With having to cycle through everyone the whole time, it took TOO MUCH TIME to figure out who was closer. I know if anyone else were sitting there watching me flip my views back and forth so fast that I almost lost track of where I was, that person would get sick. I've watched over the shoulder of other people playing RB3D, and it makes you sick. Only the player/pilot knows really what is going on. Think about it, when you start flipping screens, before you press the button to switch you already expect, or sort of know what you are going to see, and then in a split second you are changing that view back or to another one.

So with so many in the air and everyone starting to call READY, I am panicked as I cannot find who is closest, and I have this paranoid feeling all the time and I am checking my 6 constantly. This is something I usually don't do, because I have a feel for where everyone is. Too many, can't place everyone . . . . . GAME ON call comes from Beatnik. AAAAAAA. What to do what to do. I am flippling through SE's, who is closer, who who who . . . . I figure I can cycle all day long. The only thing that will make this easier is to have less planes in the air. CLICK. I go automatic, I flip to the first plane that "I think" is closest, and charge.

Well this first plane is Buffalo Wings. Dr1. I think I'm a little above Buf. As soon as his plane is near range, I open up. This is Enemy Among Us and there are no penalties for wasting ammo. I swerve after a few bursts, because Buf and I have this nasty habit of colliding. Buff dives that trusty bird. But with no damage on me yet I can dive with him. We are swirling, diving and looping. And then Buff goes into an extended vertical. I am too focused to notice that I am losing power incredibly fast. Because as he goes vertical I get some good shots in and I think I damaged his lower right wing. Then it's stallsville. But the Dr1 and D7 can react quickly to stalls albeit Buf is lower than me at this point.. We recover our stalls but are separated. I can almost see Buf make the quick decision to land and repair. No way, I think. I am this low. I can see tracers above me. Damn it to hell all tactics about altitude, I am gonna follow Buf in. Well as he slows to make his landing, I am peppering him, and OH OOOOOOHHHHH, my Sam Kinison goes off.  A lucky head shot.

At that point I come out of my trance and start taking notes on where the hell I am. I'm over the field, I need altitude, and Wingman, not sure who is battling with him at this point but he is screaming (Screamin' Eagle style) on me. I quickly kick a turn to try and get away. He has speed and an N28 with guns that he uses like a table saw. I'm sweating, my hand hurts. I'm thinking I'm too low and slow. The fight with Buff took it's toll. But quickly Wingy looses speed. We are making some head on passes. Very dangerous. I need more alt, but if I sacrifice turning power for alt, he will get the advantage. The D7 (er F18) comes through and I am pulling ahead. From here goes a terrible follow the leader where Wingman pulls out some incredible maneuvers and I am doing everything I can not only to follow but to not stall again this low.

To my relief, and believe me, this is hindsight is 20/20 talking here. TestH comes screamin in and wounds me. My whole screen goes SPLAT red and I immediately pull off Wingman. Steve McQueen in Sand Pebble "What the hell happened!!??" I wing over in another direction, but TestH is not alone. Beatnik is there too. I need alt, I need room, I need to figure out who is where and what is happening. My screen is pulsating red. Damn Damn Damn. I am checking damage control, but I think I lucked out in that TestH's bullets only hit me. LOL. The plane seems ok, but I make a mental note to watch the throttle.

In my breaking away, Beatnik, TestH, and Wingman get all messed up with each other. I was able to break off, recover some alt, and take a look around. In that time Beatnik and TestH and Wingman are pounding each other. Wingman goes down. Whew. It took 2 D7s and a Dr1 to get him. Now, from here things get hazy. Peregrine comes into this, and Aetos, and I am looking at the field and there are a lot of planes sitting in a row. I have no idea how anyone got there. I have watched and read absolutely NO messages. I was too focused. I swoop in and hammer TestH some. I did this because I had the angle. We swerve and fight, but he goes down. I don't know who got him. I see Peregrine near by and he has damage? Not sure, but he seems close and moving slowly. Not sure if he was going to land for repairs or what but I fire into him and I think he mechs. Then Aetos in an N28 I believe is screamin in from one side of the field. I think he has just taken out someone. I get some shots on him. He goes to loop and I follow, but he actually throttles back and I shoot past. He pulled the Maverick from TOPGUN maneuver. Luckily, and again, I have no idea how he goes down. This leaves Beatnik and me. I think Beatnik has damage and we circle a bit firing at each other but Beatnik decides to repair. He throttles back for that critical ground touch, and while he is low and slow . . . . . OH OOOOOOOHHHHHHH. Another lucky head shot.

At this point my hand hurts, my fingers pluck loose from the stick. I take a deep breath and with one last prayer to the NET gods under my breath I line out and line up a soft landing, hoping I don't slam the ground too hard. A great KotH. I fought as hard and as bitterly as I could, and with luck and a wounded pilot, was able to land and win. Tactics be damned. I went Boelke with guns blazing. Thanks all. S!

3/29/00

3/22/00

Aetos
Athar
Beatnik
Desertwinds
Dirty Sanchez
Keisersosa
Peregrine
Skullhill
Spy
Woof
Weed
Wingman

I don't think I missed anyone. It's getting so I can remember all the numbers who have showed up. My analysis to arrive soon, I hope.

Here is the King's version . . . (thanks for emailing Beatnik).

"Well , I’ll take any win, even by Chicken sh*t moves like last night. I had every last server commented out and finally made a KoTH. Wanted to try the Dr-1 but stuck with the ole N-28. (Course the way it went it would be funny to have flown a DH-2.) So the entire fleet takes off , with Weed the lonely road warrior stuck in some God forsaken Motel somewhere in the Heartland. The next room’s headboard a rapping and him without a Joystick-bummer. We make altitude and Skullkill barely zips in when Athar calls the game on. I’m at 3500 feet and cycling through ‘N’ and there where plenty of high flying SE’s,Mr. K,Wingy,Pere,and Desertwinds if memory serves. So lotta action near the field as I tip down it seems like half the squad is at 500 ft or so. Blazing Guns. I start spiraling down to 2500 ft waiting for the pounce or a high battle fight with a dive for repair-but nothing! When I get low enough I dive straight for Desertwinds who is flying across the field at 500 ft, being mindful of the graham cracker wings on the N-28. I squeeze of a couple nice slugs into his fuselage and staying hard on his tail when I turn out and hear a >CRACK<! Seems Wingy & Desert have a collision and I win by default. Not one canvas shred in my crate. Was funny hearing all the Wingman Technique jokes and thanks for the barage. As we all know “All’s fair in love and war.” I will say that these KoTH are escalating into feeding frenzy’s! When I left Enemy last night it was 7 SE’s and only Hawk and Midnight! The Squad has come a long way. Haveta run fellows the shuttle is leaving for Paris and Beatnik has a table at the American Bistro. ~S~

3/15/00

Aetos
Athar
Buffalo Wings
Desertwinds
Keisersosa
Peregrine
Skullhill
TestH
Undertaker
Woof
Weed
Wingman

I haven't written an update yet and haven't checked my email yet. But hope to do both soon.

S! Weed, I'm trying to remember and make sense of the wild blur that was last night's Koth. Having never won, I was not really paying careful attention to what all of you were doing (as individual pilots, not just threats and targets). I didn't expect to be writing this recap. I'm not complaining, though, I'll happily write it every week! I remember there were a hell-of-a-lot of D7s on the runway for start-up. I was on far left and to my right it really looked like a Jagstaffel of Screamin' Eagles turned Hun. The first round started for me as a climbing contest. Aetos, Wingman, and several others were high enough to use oxygen by the time I got close. I remember an crazy diving, looping, turning, head-on-pass-out-of-nowhere dogfight with Weed. He got me with some bad wing damage (or maybe it was somebody else, I wasn't looking). I barely pulled of a rather hot landing and got back up quickly. That first round ended for me with a low altitude stall while trying to turn inside Wingman's Nieuport(?). Then, unbelievably, Wingman misjudged the landing (or something?) and we were taking off for a second go! My second round was basically divided into four intense periods of on-on-one dogfights and furball action separated by three bare-knuckle landings to repair just before my riddled Fokker fell apart in mid air. In retrospect, that is what I did right last night (other than having plenty of dumb luck!), I landed to repair quickly, even if it meant letting a badly damaged opponent escape. Was it Undertaker I had that extended one-on-one with early in the second round? We were turn-fighting for what seemed like half an hour, right over the RR just south of the drome. That was cool dogfighting. I don't know for certain how I managed to end up opposite Wingman as one of the last planes flying. Toward the end, I had been circling and climbing over the drome, firing at every aircraft I drew a bead on. I was trying to at least get some damage on the guys still flying, to keep them from nailing me too easily. Then, it was just Wingman and one other plane remaining (Weed? Aetos?). I manage to damage both while they are engaging each other. One goes down. Wingman remains and seems to want to land, so I try to stay close on him. I hit him with a burst on a pass. He gets a burst in on me. I'm turning ridiculously low and get another hit on him. I lose sight of Wingman. Someone had to tell me on chat I had won or I'd likely still be circling. Glad I didn't pouch the landing! SE_Athar (A.K.A. King of the Hill!)

3/8/00

Desertwinds FD7
Buffalo Wings FD7
Woof FD7
Keisersosa Dr1
Wingman N28
Weed FD7

Skullhill had problems finding the server, and in ultimate Murphy's law fashion, was able to get into the KotH server when KotH was just about over.

Otherwise, KotH was sparsely attended this time, and no doubt was a factor in my chances for winning. Enemy was only able to be seen with the correct IP in your known Server list and the metas commented out.

We all gathered for take off and began our rollout. We all circled the field of battle climbing to our starting altitude of 1500 meters. When Keiser called out the GAME ON call, I could see almost everyone through the "E" rotation that I was constantly switching through. I kept climbing as I usually do to try an evaluate my position in our beloved virtual space. When I sit back and think about it I always marvel at how each of us has to picture ourselves inside this 3D environment and then extrapolate that information about where we are in relation to everyone else. Too funny. But anyway, I'm cycling thourgh all the victims . . . er . . . potential threats when I see that Desertwinds and Woof are having a go at it in their D7s. DW is in the Hun blue D7 and Woof is in the Allied green D7. Similar paints but strikingly contrasting in constants swirling and firing. Then when I cycled back to Buff I see that he is embroiled in his own problems. It seems that Wingman and Keiser have decided to take out Buff. I figure this is a good tactic as Buff has won 2 out of the last three KotHs and taking out the higher threats is always a good idea. But then I see that while Wingy and Keiser are trying to get firing solutions on Buff they are not being picky and are tending to spray each other with led when the opportunity occurs. That is a benefit/hindrance, depending on how you look at it, inside Enemy where there is unlimited ammo.

So as I am watching the trio below I see the message that DW has shot down Woof. Then I noticed almost immediately that Wingman is stuck in mid-air with a HARD MECH as the most likely scenario for him. So see that Wingman is out of the picture and that Buff has some damage and that I have two targets BELOW me I swoop down. Well I swooped way too much and I end up putting myself below Buff and Keiser. DOH! Here Wingman now mechs. I can't believe it either as there are only the 6 of us in there and no one else using Enemy and he mechs. Come to find out when he gets back that he meched so hard that his phone line went dead and he had to reconnect on his second phone line. (I only have one line so it would have been a permanent mech had it been me). Anyway, I manage to stay away from the Keiser / Buffalo fray enough to get some more altitude. I am swirking taking shots at Buff and Keiser, but for the most part I am making sure that no one gets a firing solution on me. Part of staying alive in KotH is dodging or avoiding the blows - naturally.

Then I notice that DW is getting closer to the fray and climbing making sure he has a good height advantage. That is when I decided to take out Buff but when I cycled back to him his whole top wing was missing and for the most part his plane was about to become a feather in the virtual wind. So then I see Keiser below me, I think he may have damaged. I go after him with a vengeance because on Monday during our one on one practice I was able to keep an upper hand over his Dr1 with my D7, um, I mean F16 (too bad I don't have bigfathead guided missles). So I get down to his level and sure enough he makes some Keisersosa maneuver and instead of me being behind him we are making head on passes. Well a collision is not what I have been sitting around for and I try a couple of quick S's and manage to get behind Keiser and get a good long burst on him. Long enough to make my guns jam. Well no sooner than the jam, when Keiser's Dr1 does that sickening extreme yaw and loses all forward momentum and plummets. Now it is just DW and I.

DW is slightly higher than me, but that changes in our about to become 5 minute battle. C\His FD7 against mine. For the life of me in our ever looping and swirling I cannot get a good bead on DW and I'm thinking for the most part that I am safe to, because if we are constantly swirling each other and getting closer on the half circle, then he can't hit me with any lead either. Well sure enough he gets a couple good bursts on me and wounds my outer left wing. Well I know this isn't good but I figure the D7 can handle it, that's when Keiser and Buff start telling me that I should land it and get repaired. I hate that stall feeling and I want to avoid that at all costs, so I manage to land. Desertwinds gets a couple of passes at me but the D7 at low altitudes it not the most precisely maneuverable aircraft and he has a couple of rough passes. I manage to take off but this time DW lines me up real good and blasts me a new one. I figured this might happend and weighed that decision before landing, but there is nothing you can do. If you gotta land you gotta land, so I turn around to try and land again but this time my one whole wing side is smashed in.

As I land it I think Desertwinds must have gotten the killer sights on him "stay on target . . . . stay on target" because as he swooped in for the kill he got too low and wracked himself across the field missing me, but slamming himself into the field and sliding across till he rammed into Keiser too. LOL. It was a good try but I became King by just making sure I landed enough times to keep my crate in good condition.

Good fight everyone and thanks.  Expect to see me in my D7 again.

3/1/00

Keiser wins . . . no update yet from anyone.

2/23/00

Aetos - Camel
Buffalo Wings -D7
Desertwinds - D7
Keisersosa - Dr1
Skullhill - N28
TestH D7
Weed - Camel
Wingman - N28

Buff just sent in this recap. Nice work Buff!

I think February is turning into a banner month for me as far as Red Baron is concerned. I now find myself priveledged to have joined the ranks of those who have won consecutive KotH's. What an honor. But I must say that I worked my butt off for this one. :) When I first got into the server it was all SE's. This was a good sign, but it also meant that any outsider coming in would see immediately where the action was. And indeed one or two outsiders did show up, but they were all cool and let us do our thing. Anyway, the climb out commences and Aetos mechs out, and Desert Winds joins late, but we get 'em in and let them climb a bit. When everyone is ready I give the Game On!! call and the fun begins. Once again, I find Wingman above me, and Weed not far below me. Wingman doesn't seem in any hurry to come down, but eventually I'm too big and juicy a target to pass up and down he comes for a quick strafing pass, but immediately climbs back up again. I'm trying my best to avoid his passes and at the same time gain some alt and eventually we end up pretty much on the level. Now all I have to do is get on his six which I manage to do and I rip him up pretty good. He starts diving for the drome and I let him go because Weed is still hanging around and I don't want to become a big juicy target for him! I break off and start looking for Weed and find him in short order. We start mixing it up and he's handling his plane in typical Weed fashion (in other words, giving me fits), and starts tearing the crap out of me. I pull a high G manuever and RIIIIIIIPPP off comes my top wing and a quarter of my bottom wing. I still have enough control to fly her though so I head toward the drome to repair. Weed starts to follow but breaks off, assessing the situation with the remaining players I'm sure. I land and repair and quickly take off again. Wingman and Aetos are mixing it up down by the drome and I'm able to take off unmolested. They ignore me and I'm able to fly away and begin my search for Weed again. Sure enough, he's taken up residence with the angels and is watching the fracas below. Well, I can't let him get away with that, so I begin my climb up to meet him. He of course sees this and begins to fly toward me. When I reach co-alt I turn to engage and we start mixing it up again. Suddenly on our last head-on pass we collide. Now you'd think after last week that he'd have realized I'm pretty much indestructible on the OTI server in my D7, having survived no less than 3 collisions then, but oh no, he's gotta test my metal plane once again just to make sure. :) Well, you guessed the outcome, he lost, hehe. I watched as his plane did the old death spiral to the ground. I'm left in a pretty good position so I look around to see who's still flying and I spot Wingman just leaving the field. Well, Wingman and I have fought quite a few real good battles in the past and this thing can go either way at this point. In any case I know I have my work cut out for me, but at least I'm starting with the alt advantage this time. This time it's me playing Mr. Cautious waiting for the right opportunity to dive. The time comes and once again we start to mix it up. This time Wingman gains the upper hand and puts enough lead in me to weaken my structure once again. It's almost a repeat of my first encounter with Weed as I pull a high G manuever and RIIIIIIPPP off comes the top wing and a quarter of my bottom wing again! This time though I'm the sole target and Wingman wastes no time reminding me of that fact. Still, I manage to set her down and get her repaired and immediately take off again. Now I'm thinking there's no way in hell I'm going to get enough energy back to overcome Wingman's huge advantage and any attempts I make to climb are just going to be met with a hail of bullets, but I try anyway and amazingly my trusty old D7 pulls herself up into the sky with gusto. We begin the spiral climb dance, Wingman taking snap shots at me the whole way up. I'm flying right on the edge trying my best to get everything out of that bird in the way of alt gain. I know the N28 is a climber too, I just have to climb better. Well, I do, and after awhile I get a distinct advantage. I see Wingman begin to fall off so I kick the rudder to bring the nose down and come in on his six. I glue myself to his tail and get some real good long bursts in on his wings. He dives down toward the field and I'm thinking he's going to attempt to land and repair. He can't pull any real fast manuevers though or he stands a chance of ripping his wings off so he begins this shallow dive towards the hangars. Well I'm right behind him and I let go a long burst and am greeted with the Happy Homer sound. Head shot! By now my joystick has a new set of molded grips from me squeezing it so hard, but I slowly bring my bird around and touch her down for a nice, easy landing. S! to Weed and Wingman, you both put up hellacious fights!

Here follows Wingman's account . . . .

Started out at nosebleed height. Once again (it seems to happen more and more), BuffaloWings and I are the ones closest to each other and that high up. I have the alt advantage and do a few boom and zooms. I get a couple of good hits on him but then my alt is gone and so is my E. I pull a final maneuver and then am thinking a dive to the deck. Buff follows me for a little while and his last burst wounds me. So, I turn and head for the drome to land. He doesn't follow so he can keep some alt. I come in for a landing and TestH is once again firing at me so I can't land. However I do and repair. I take a quick look around and Weed is fighting Buff and TestH is gaining alt. The others were sitting on the tarmac. I take off again and figure that Buff and Weed are to high to fight, so I concentrate on TestH. I gain some alt and head for him. We do a head on pass and start the battle. We turn and twist and flip and flop. I get some shots on him on that upper wing. He in turns gives my tail a few lead weights. However in a high g loop I hear that fateful snap and quickly glance left and right. I am fine so I hit F8 and see TestH fluttering like a wounded duck. I quickly toggle over to Weed and Buff and see they are still fighting. I go in for a landing again to rearm. I take off again when Weed goes down in a collision. At this point I am feeling pretty good. I don't have the alt but Buff is damaged and should be very low on ammo. At this point Keiser starts his inane bantering about my abilities. If I had the time to type, I would have said something about me still being in the air and him on the ground but hey why state the obvious :) Back to the KotH. We do some passes and get some shots in on each other when his top wing goes bye bye. He pulls it out and goes in for a landing. I totally screw up hitting him and he gets airborne again. He is doing a climbing right turn and every once in awhile I get him in my sights and squeeze off a few rounds. I am doing some damage but he then wings over and the D7 can just do some of those tightest turns. I level out and take some major damage. I go in for the drome and my lower right wing snaps off. I come around for a landing when DOH!, he homers me! Damn good fights again though. S! to the King.

Thanks Wingy, for the recap!

2/16/00

Aetos - Camel
Athar - D7
Buffalo Wings -D7
Desertwinds - D7
Peregrine - N28
Spy - N28
Weed - Camel
Wingman - N28

An updated KotH version from the King himself . . .

Well, this has been a banner week for me indeed. First I get #20 in the GW for my Max, then I win the KotH for my silver star. What a ride! Last night was a good night with lots of Eagles making the show. Too bad about our server though. It appears there are some serious latency problems with the cable connection being used. During practice I was flying behind Weed, lining him up for a shot, and at the same time I was getting pelted with bullets. Since he was the only other person near at the time I figured they were coming from him. I wasn't the only one to report such occurences either. Really trippy, but not a good situation to hold a competition in. So the decision was made to move. Enemy was very full, so OTI Lagrande was selected. I don't know about everyone else, but my connection to them was quite good last night. I've had problems there in the past so I was pleased. Of course, we had to deal with the fact we were now on a public server, and one or two interlopers happened upon us, but after we got their attention and explained what was going on they were cool and let us do our thing. We took off and began our climb outs, and of course I'm keeping an eye on as many of you as I can. I've always been amazed at how fast some of you guys seem to climb into the stars and I find I'm well below some of the folks I really don't want to be below, but I'm used to it by now so I just make alt as well as I can. Everyone got pretty spread out during this climb out and at one point the only E contact I have is Weed. After a bit though Wingman comes into the picture doing his angel imitation again, lol. About this point everyone is ready so Wingman gives the GAME ON! call. I still have him and Weed within E contact range, but none of us wants to make the first move. I'm struggling to get more alt before even attempting to engage Wingman, and I think Weed is probably thinking the same thing, so we all just fly around and away from each other for quite a time. Weed calls out "boring", but I know he's baiting me and Wingman. :) Wingman's N28 is faster than my D7 though and eventually he gets right above me. I don't have a choice now so I turn towards him and wait for the pounce. Sure enough, it comes and Wingman makes a diving pass. We go head on and each get in a few hits on the way past. He pulls up and once again is dancing in the stars while I'm struggling down below. After a couple more passes like this I finally get into a pretty good state as far as alt is concerned and am starting to feel better about the whole situation. Unfortunately for Wingman, our last pass results in a collision with him on the losing end. Amazingly, I appear unscathed, but Wingy is doing the spiral death dive all the way to the floor having the outer 1/4 of both top and bottom wings on one side sheared off. With Wingman out of the picture, Weed is the next closest target, so I plan my assault on him. Wouldn't ya know it, it's a repeat of my battle with Wingman, but Weed manages to recover and make it back to base to repair, at least that's what I saw in chat. I don't know what happened to him after that, but by the time I make it back to the field it's down to me, Peregrine, Spy, and Athar. There is also another interloper who has shown up, and I'm not sure if someone went up to keep him occupied or what, but eventually he gets the message and leaves us alone. About this time Peregrine experiences a stick malfunction that takes him down. I'm playing the Weed/Wingman game and staying high while I fully evaluate the situation below. All the taunting is for naught, I will make no move before it's time. :) When it is time though, I swoop down on poor Spy and hand him a Homer (D'oh!). So now it's just Athar and me, two D7's duking it out. Athar is playing it safe and not getting into a turn fight right away, but doing the extend thing. He looks to be in pretty good shape, so I'm not taking any chances either. But wouldn't ya know it, on the last head on pass, you guessed it, another collision, and once again I'm unscathed. My D7 must have been made out of pure Bethlehem steel last night to survive 3 seperate collisions without apparent damage. Not exactly the way I would have preferred to win a KotH, but I'll take it, lol. I still have my landing gear so now it's just a matter of setting her down. A nice 3 point landing follows and it's rockets and machine guns giving Salute! Gee I love that! Thanks to all for battles well fought. KotH rules! Buf

Well once we were able to get on a server that would hold all of us with a mininmum of NETS we decided to have our KotH at OTI LaGrande 3 - Veteran Melee. Unfortunately, Skullhill was having trouble locating the server and showed up just after the first pilot was downed. Sorry Skullhill.

Once we got started the planes seemed very spread out. When we all called ready and Wingman called the GAME ON, all I could see was Buff, Wingman, and Spy. Then I saw some tracers and headed in their general direction. Wingman was giving Spy some punishment. Spy took some damage and headed dromeward to repair. We were still way up, probably around 6k feet. So I imagine that is why Wingman let him go - so that he could keep his alt. Then Buff comes in and startes going a few passes with Wingman, I figure it is better to dive and go than just hang around. So I put my Camel in a shallow dive and start sprayingbullets at both Buff and Wingman, well no sooner did I make a first pass and I hit the hat switch to look over my shoulder when Wingman snaps part of his wing. He I figure he is done for so I concentrate on Buffalo Wings. We make some initial passes anf then WHAM!!!! Head on collision. I take the brunt of the damage and as far as I can tell Buff takes one. Sie la vie. That is the nature of the net gods.

So as I smak into the turf I restart and look for Wingman. I figured he is already worm food. Well it turns out he recovered on his way down and almost has his crate ready to land. But Peregrine, seeing him in his weakened state pounces with true death from above skill and finishes him off. A deadly and accurate spray of lead!!!

At this point I notice that Desertwinds is down too, I am not sure how that happened. Soon after Aetos joins the ranks on the field. Then it is Athar, Spy, and Buffalo Wings. There is some tight circling going on very near the drome. Athar and Spy are having words, Buff is watching from above, Spy goes down, Buff pounces. he and Athar are sharing lead recipes and snap. Athar loses the best parts of staying airborne and Buff is circling the drome looking for a good landing spot. He brings it down soft and gentle amid the hail of rockets and tracers - S! The new King of the Hill - and now silver KotH star winner. Congrats Buff a good win.

2/9/00

Aetos - Camel
Athar - D7
Desertwinds - D7
Peregrine - N28
Skullhill - N28
Spy - N28
Weed - N28
Wingman - N28

Apologies to Beatnik since he was online but unable to get into the server. Not sure what happened. Very frustrating. And a big thanks to Peregrine, Wingman, and Skullhill for working with and getting Skullhill into the server. Two fine additions to the squad as these gentlemen can, as Athar mentioned, hold their own. Looking forward to having both of you on our wing during the War.

Anyway, we climbed to rdy height (1500 meters). The Game on call came from Wingman. There wasn't any immediate firing but a lot of positioning. Wingman got close to me and we did some tight circling at high altitude - probably around 6k feet. Then I noticed that he had some damage and was trying to hit the deck. I followed him down with my throttle all the way back, but for some reason I was gaining and almost passing him. I must have had some unseen damage on my lower right wing because as I pulled up near the ground it snapped off. Ugh. Now I needed the landing as well.

Both of us pull into the field for repairs. Well no sooner does Wingman repair and take off then I repair and try to take off and we are at each other again. Somewhere during this exchange either the server hiccupped or my connection or whatever, something went sour and when I thought I was behind Wingman he was behind me. HEAD SHOT!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!! Oh well. Right after I end up getting dropped so I was sure it was me. But then Spy drops, and when I get back in others have been killed. Wingman manages to finish off 2 or 3 more, Peregrine? and Desertwinds? and Athar I believe. Still not sure if the server is lagging or not, but over all there were a lot of  planes in the air.

Eventually as Athar goes down, the last surviving SE besides Wingman, Wingman does a fly-by over the field and then gently lands on the field for his 10 KotH win salute. Congrats!

1/26/00

Keiser Dr1
Spy N28
Aetos Camel
Peregrine N28
Athar N28

From Keiser . . . . "Consensus had server performing well to very well.  Most of us had a little jerkiness and random nets.  I netted out twice, the second time just as I was typing the game on call.  Nobody else netted.  It didn't seem to get any worse for me with 5 planes than with 2, so it may hold up to 10 OK"

BTW - I won.

1/12/00

From TestH . . .

Five of us made it to Enemy: Myself, Keiser, Wingie, Aetos and Buff. We flew Koth anyway, probably because after all the trouble, we wanted to just start shooting.

TestH = D7
Buff = D7
Aetos = D7
Keiser = Dr1
Wingie = N28

No synopsis this time since it was so anti-climatic and didn't have the full squad. We will leave it up to you to decide if the Koth counts or not. By the way, I won.

---------------------

Other reports that I have from the KotH is that TestH manhandled several of his kills very well, so I see no reason to hold back the win. Congrats TestH!

1/5/00

Buschlight
Buffalo Wings
Aetos
Keisersosa
Wingman
Weed
Zima

Wingman sent in his version . . . .

Thanks Wingman for that report. Hail King.

12/29/99

Buschlight
Buffalo Wings
Spy
Keisersosa
TestH
Wingman
Weed
Zima

Wingman just sent in his version . . .

What a way to finish 1999. We all climbed and I think everyone knew Bushlight was in space. I kept climbing waiting for daylight to break. When it did about 2 minutes later Weed called Game On. I kept cycling through the "targets" and saw Buffalo Wings a little below me and climbing. Keiser seemed to be hovering near by also. I angled for them thinking I could do a little Boom and Zoom while they turn fight. Well they start to dive a little and I didn't want to lose my Alt. I circle back and not sure what happen but soon Buffalo and Zima were at it. I figure this time I go for it, when out of the corner of my screen I see a plane. Bushlight has come out of his orbit. I turn and we engage. I get a good burst into him and after a few twists and turns he dives for it. With the way KotH has been going, I leave him and then hear the crack! Bushlight's wings are shreaded and I mean shreaded. I am about to give him a S! but remember the landings people have been pulling off so I don't. He regains control and pulls it in for a repair. I was flabbergasted! I circled around to the field since all the action was over there. I still had my alt around 2K and everyone was below me. Buffalo and Zima, Keiser, TestH, Weed, Spy and the repaired Bush were all going at it. I think I saw everyone land and repair at least once this KotH. I kept circling (Zima had holes in his wings and landed it!) It seemed no one could get the death shot. Well then Spy goes down, Zima follows, Buffalo and Bushlight. Keiser, TestH, Weed and I are left. Weed and TestH are battleing it out and I aim for Keiser. Truth be told this is foggy, Keiser goes down but I can't remember how. Now TestH is in his D7, Weed is in an N28. Not sure but I think Weed had the same thought as me. The D7 is a tough bird let alone in TestH's hands. I figure I aim for TestH and any pot shots I get on Weed are a bonus. I get a couple of bursts in both and then Weed just lays into me. Damage is everywhere and a fuel leak appears. Before I flame up I put in for a landing and repair. TestH climbs with Weed and they are busy with each other. I take off and get some alt. I follow in on TestH again and he lands and repairs. I circle around as he is taking off and put a long burst into him. He turns to land right away and Weed and I are on him like a Bum on a Ham sandwich. TestH goes down and I don't know if Weed had lag or what because I got the death message and immediately targeted Weed. He seemed to still be in a strafing run which gave the time to get on his six. I knew he had some damage and I got in a good burst. He angled for the runway and I was still firing. His top wing came apart and I still fired to make sure he couldn't land. Well I think it spun on him and he went down. At this point I notice that the hands are completely wet, my heart was racing and I had dry mouth. Damn! 1999 the year of the KotH! Long live the SE's! The best RB3D let alone gaming squad on the Net!

Thanks for the recap Wing! Nice win!

Here follows my version . . .

This time I showed up on time, sort of, but at least I had the right FM installed. I did, however, also have installed the MSFF stick. Ugh. It felt weird. Not used to it at all, and my first impression was that I was too gentle with it. LOL.

Well we assembled on the LaGrande server because EAU was down. No sooner did we make the call to the line when someone started on top of someone else and everyone got booted off the server. We quickly reassembled making sure to pull our planes up a bit from the starting point. Then we all climbed to 1500 (or higher as the case may be :-) I made the GAME ON call. There were plenty of people on the server and my call may have been missed. The server wasn't too laggy for me anyway, but I was getting only about 17-21 FPS. Almost immediately after the game on call TestH and I started a positioning duel. I missed some of what was happening between everyone else. I guess several others were already battling. And this KotH saw a lot of landings. Yes there are usually one or two, but I know I landed about 3 or 4 times and Keiser landed at least twice, and I think TestH landed at least once, and I saw Buff try to take off from his landing and got pelted by Keiser in his trusty ol' Dr1. Buschlight landed too I think, at least once, but then somehow lost his landing gear. I'm not sure if Spy landed. It was a busy airport.

Busch was tearing up the skies. He didn't have any other choice since he lost his gear it was do or die. Wingman stayed high through most of the battle. It really is not a bad tactic, especially in an N28 which of course has climbing ability like a scared monkey. So if you can put up with all the outterspace and orbit insults - Spy, "I think Wingman has achieved geosynchronous orbit." comments, and other trash talk, it is a safe place to be.

TestH was coming in for a landing, I was following him in. We were still dueling a bit, then Keiser was cutting across my view but my N28 was moving a lot faster than his Dr1. I sprayed Keiser, sped past, got sprayed by his bullets, I fired shots at TestH and then BLINK, Keiser gets netted. Oh the frustration of angry net gods. I've been there before many times, and when in a KotH like this that is quickly getting 20-30 minutes old, it is even tougher to withstand that kind of boot.

Somewhere along the lines Spy and Zima had gone down. Buffalo was taken out by Keiser before he netted. Someone eventually finished off Buschlight without his gear, and suddenly there are only TestH, Wingman, and myself left to scrap it out. Wingman has zoomed down from his lofty perch like a true Screamin' Eagle and he is circling and buzzing both TestH and myself like an annoying bee. I keep switching targets back and forth between TestH and Wingman trying to line up one of them, but the three of us were doing an interweaving conga-line. I was never getting good bursts on anyone. Then suddenly Wingman poors a whole stream of lead into TestH who goes down and he quickly turns on me. I panicked. Suddenly there is this screaming N28 on my tail and I can't shake it for anything. Wingman gets in a notoriously good burst and damages me to almost a wreck. I've no choice. I can fly straight like a drone and get killed or attempt a landing - my only hope. I line up a landing but Wingy is mercilessly pelting me and before my wheels can tough the field, my biplane looks like a coffin with wheels. Needless to say it didn't land straight but if it could have probably would have augered in about 6 feet deep. I salute, hit restart and immediately start on top of someone's plane. Noticing this I quickly hit EXIT, hoping no one will get booted. From the gold room I hear Wingman has landed successfully and has become the last King of the Hill for 1999 with his 8th KotH win. Been a while too, since his last one was from early October. I guess the rest of us are getting a little better. ;-)

Hail Wingy!

12/22/99

Athar
Aetos
Beatnik
Buffalo Wings
Spy
Keisersosa
Wingman
Weed
Zima

Well I showed up late with the wrong FM installed. I was in such a rush to make it to KotH that when I logged on it took several boots for me to understand why I was getting kicked out. DOH!

Finally made it in and all the messages flashing across the screen said MASSIVE SERVER DUMP! Everyone got booted. So this time I was actually waiting on the field when we took off. We all climbed to 1500 and Buff calls GAME ON! From there I don't know what happened to a lot of people since Aetos and I were having a major battle. Damn those D7s are hard to lose. Everytime I thought I'd get a firing solution Aetos would turn/loop/roll hard and end up on my six again. Well eventually my luck ran out and Aetos put a hurting on me. I went in to land my damaged crate. I nosed down and was able to speed away from him. He was following me but even damaged as I was the N28 was rocketing back to the field. I cut the engine and put her down softly. Rumbled to a stop and was repaired. I hit full throttle, my first mistake. I should have seen where Aetos was. He was right on my six lining up a big ol' bomb. It was too late to throttle back and his bomb hit almost square, blowing most of my plane to bits just as it left the ground. It immediately cartwheeled and I was out.

Then Keiser and Aetos went at it. Spy, Athar, Zima, and Beat were all on the ground with me. So we broke out a deck of cards while everyone was busy finishing. Soon Aetos pulls up a chair and we deal him in. Then it's Keiser and Wingman left with Buff. Problem is, Wingy and Keiser have no landing gear. It works out that Keiser is left but can't land. Soooooooooooooooooo off we go again. This time though we are minus Aetos who had to run earlier.

We climb to 500 and say ready. I keep climbing trying to use my N28s advantage. There are scraps all below me. I am making dives on Keiser but using Zoom and Boom to stay away from his deadly turning fire in that Dr1. Suddenly Buff comes on the seen and I'm not sure who it was but one or both of them put a big hurting on me. I have to go land again. This time though the crate is damaged even worse. I thought for sure that the two of them would follow me down since we were sort of close to the drome to ensure my death, but they didn't. Too preoccupied with each other's german machine. This left me free to land. I missed alot during my scrap with them because the only other person left up was Spy. Wingy, Athar, Beat, and Zima were all playing cards again. :-)

Well I manage to land it but I am almost off the field when I stop so it doesn't repair. As I come to a stop Spy is fighting his damaged crate to land and hits the field too hard and cracks up. I start blipping my throttle to get myself turned around and onto the field in hopes that it will repair. I manage to get it done, but it took me like 5 or 6 minutes to do it. In the mean time Buff and Keiser look like they have been having the hardest battle of the night. Both their crates look like they were chewed up my pit bulls and left for dead. Problem is Buff's crate eventually dies and Keiser is left drifting in the breeze trying to maintain control. All this happens just as my crate is repaired and I take off at full strength. Well no sooner do I point my crate over to Keiser, the last SE flying, when his engine flames and he restarts. I win by default. UGH! Another weak win for the Weedster. A fun KotH, as usual, with tons of action, I just wished I'd earned it a little better. S! Gentlemen, and remember, next week's it the last King of 1999!!!!

12/15/99

Buffalo Wings wins in D7

Athar N28
Aetos N28
Peregrine N28
TestH D7
Weed N28
Wingman N28

Buff just emailed this in . . .

With everyone assembled on the flight line after the big boot-off, Weed calls to begin the climb so we all fire up and start our take-off rolls. Next thing I know I'm taking damage from some unknown source, so I decide to start a new life. Turns out Wingman had collided with me when I warped right in front of him. Oh well, these things happen, especially in Enemy Among Us. Anyway, I restart and begin my climb out, now well below most of the group. The climb out is uneventful, and I'm keeping a close eye on all the nearest targets. I'm one of the last to call "ready", and when TestH is sure everyone is good to go he gives the "Game On!" call. Athar is nearest to me and well above me, and sure enough he begins a strafing pass at me. I roll and tuck as he shoots by, and half loop to come up on his tail. I'm slowly working him down when suddenly TestH comes into view at my altitude. I think he might even have put a couple rounds into me, so I decide I better pay him the attention he's craving. :) I wheel around and begin a head-on pass, fire a few rounds and peel off before we collide. Well, I didn't peel fast enough because we did touch a little. Test's crate took most of the damage, shearing off about 1/4 of the upper wing, while my rig looked undamaged. Test of course disengages and heads back to base hoping to get a repair in. Unfortunately, I think Athar had the same idea and took the opportunity to take Test out of the competition. I'm now free and clear and relatively healthy, except for maybe a bit of diminished elevator response, but I decide to keep my altitude rather than go back for a repair. I start scouting around for the nearest target when I spy Weed coming my way. Sure enough he peels off and makes a diving pass to engage. I manage to avoid but barely, taking a few rounds but not too much. We twist around for quite awhile, each trying to gain the upper hand but neither really succeeding. Finally I'm starting to get the upper hand and Weed decides to peel off and shoot at a couple of other targets coming into view. I let him, and disengage myself, as I don't really want to follow him into a furball. I might point out too that I have been keeping an eye on Peregrine who has taken up residence with the angels waaaaaay above all the action up to this point, playing the wait-see game. Have you noticed how cautious most of us are anymore? You'd think we'd been fighting in a war or something! In any case, I'm still in pretty good shape, so I'm just cruising around and waiting for the next engagement. Next I see Wingman has decided not to get involved in Weed's furball either, and he's breaking off and starting to circle around in my direction. Once again, he has an altitude advantage so I fly away from him in an attempt to gain some alt and at least start on an even playing field. All of a sudden I notice him start to dive, and when he reaches my level I turn around to engage. We tangle it up big time, and I score some good hits on him. Suddenly he tries a vertical maneuver and his plane just starts to wallow. I can tell he's stalled it but I'm thinking he has enough alt to recover. Well, he never does, and his N28 just continues to flutter toward the ground. Wow, I can't believe it! He throws up a Salute! and "good one Buff", and I'm off to find who's left. It turns out to be Athar and Peregrine (who must have come down from his lofty perch during my battle with Wingman) duking it out over the aerodrome, so I start to head that way. For the first time this night I have an altitude advantage, so I watch the battle for a little while on my way in. Peregrine is on Athar's six, so I decide if I'm going to pick one it'll be Peregrine. I make my diving approach and engage and Per and I mix it up. He gets behind me once and pours a healthy dose of lead into my top wing. I'm thinking I'm done for and it's gonna come ripping off any second now, but it doesn't and I manage to get behind him and really let him have it. He pulls a few too many G's in a corner and off comes his wing! I don't know what has happened to Athar at this point, but I fly up and start looking around. Nobody, I'm it. I can't hardly believe it. Turns out Athar ran into a hangar somewhere along the line. Now all I gotta do is land. Piece of cake, I'm damaged but still stable and very flyable. I begin a long approach, laughing at all the comments coming my way: "Come on Buf, I know you can screw up this landing!", "He was flying a hacked FM!", etc., etc., etc. I'm lined up pretty as you please when all of a sudden it happens: The NET MONSTER!!!!!! I can't believe it (well, Ok, I can, this is after all a WON server). My plane freezes and I get the server connection time-out message. ARRRGGGGHHHH!!! It's so bad I had to shut down Red Baron completely because I got an illegal operation message when I tried to reconnect to Enemy. I thought for awhile there I might even have to reboot the PC, but restarting RB does the trick and I get back in as soon as I can, ready to do it all over again (well, not really ready, but willing). When I finally get back in, I'm informed that vote has been taken and it has been decided that I should be awarded the crown anyway. Well, I can't tell you guys how happy that made me, I'm a smilin' Buffalo :) Thanks one and all, it was a most memorable KotH!

Thanks for the excellent recap Buff!

Weed's version  follows . . . .

Some fierce practicing was going on, but KotH time came around and things quieted on the starting line. And then BOOM, we were all booted from the server.

Reassemble and take off. This time everything goes OK, except that Wingman and Buffalo collied on take off and restart quickly. DOH! We all get to ready height and call ready except for Peregrine who shouts out "red eye." Sigh. Anyway TestH makes a last second check and then calls GAME ON!!!

Positioning is very aggressive. I'm flipping through targets and everyone is probably doing the same trying to pick a good target without becoming an unknowing one. Several targets are in my scope, but none that would give me the distinct advantage. Then my selector stops on Wingman, because his plane is pointing directly at mine, and he is above me. NO. This is not my target choice. Quite the opposite, I know I amabout to be his target. I level off, and then shallow dive to pick up speed. We're closer in height than I originally though. So I pulled and spray my guns in his direction before turning back to a dive. We're close to 9K in alt. Just as he passes over me he does a wingover. No problem I think, at this altitude and thi close in height he would have to pull a very tight half circle to get on me. So I start a half roll turn to the left. We end up circling each other a little bit, neither getting the advantage, when in zooms Aetos. Where did he come from. He is spraying my plane. It takes me by such surprise that I immediately dive away. Wingman had held his alt and now Aetos becomes the target of Wingman. Hahahaha, I think. Ganging up on me gets him in trouble. Wingman is peppering Aetos. Well I figure I will return the favor and help pepper Aetos. Sure enough he snaps his top wing. I break off and Wingman breaks off. No sense in following a soon to be dead target when there are perfectly good planes (with KotH minded pilots) looking for you. Not sure how it happend but Wingman must have found another threatening target. I sort of spun away after Aetos lost his wing anyway. Somewhere in all of this the message that Athar shot down TestH comes across my screen. Not sure how or where it happened.

Suddenly my target cursor comes across Buffalo Wings. We are headed towards each other and he is in that awful D7. Yikes I hate those things and I can understand if that crate used to give WW1 pilots nightmares. Well as we are approaching each other and positioning I am flipping through targets to make sure no one else might get in our congo line when I come across Aetos making an incredible landing. He fully repairs and takes off again. Buff is pinging my rear end with shot but I manage to break away as someone else comes into the fray, might have been Wingy. Peregrine is up high still I think but not for long. I see Aetos in a vulnerable position so I go after him again determined to see his crate all the way down this time. Buff must have gotten distracted with Wingman so I am after Aetos, where is Peregrine. Ah yes, he is pelting me while I pelt Aetos. Aetos loses his top wing again and I am (foolishly) determined to see him all the way down. Very stupid since Peregrine is behind me. Suddenly I hit critical and had to get my plane down for repairs. I'm zooming along the strip too fast. Plane is swinging wildly any time I slow down. Eventually it stalls and Peregrine zooms over my exploded hulk.

Buff has been busy though, he shoots down Wingy I think, and Peregrine nailed Athar I believe who almost brought himself in for a landing but ran out of field and hit a building. A tough break for some excellent flying. So now Peregrine and Buff are tearing into each other but Buf has his D7 pulling some tough G's and he is nibbling pieces off of Peregrine. Eventually he wears him down. Peregrine submits to gravity. Buff is all alone in the skies and his plane has not even a scratch on it. He turns to make his landing and then the server boots all of us. This after a tough almost 20 minutes of high intensity KotH action. Ugh. No matter though. Buff had come through this contest with not a scratch and had planted many well placed shots. Unanimous vote carried that he should keep his star.

A tough win by Buff and a class act by all the SE's. S! And Hail King Buffalo Wings!

12/8/99

Keiser wins in Dr1
Aetos D7
Buffalo Wings D7
Buschlight N28
Peregrine N28
Wingman N28
Spy N28
Weed N28

Buschlight got burned right off the bat by getting dumped from the server. Spy and Wingman I think had battled it out with Buffalo Wings. I'm not sure what happened to them but when I flew over the field a little later they were all sitting on it.  Early on I was able to get some good positioning behind Peregrine and while he was twisting away I got lucky and achieved a gray matter splatter on Per. After that I decided to regain some altitude and look around since our battle had taken us quite a bit lower. Keiser was positioning himself towards one side of the aerial field while Aetos was duing the same. Aetos started making some initial firing passes at me. I think I was a little higher than he so I was able to avoid some of it. That's when I think Keiser decided to jump on the wagon and get behind both of us. His lead hit me and Aetos. Then it hit Aetos a little harder and he snapped his top wing. I kept climbing thinking I would avoid the fray and get good positioning. Once again I decided (fatally) against my better judgement and started diving towards the action. I figured with my built up E and Aetos in a wounded state I had a good chance of getting Keiser while Aetos cracked up trying to land.

Well neither happened. Keiser turned away from the field and I burnt up my E trying to catch him, then I turned back to finish of Aetos but I was too late and he landed that miserable looking D7 to get it fully restored. Then I turn back to go head to head with Keiser. Never a good idea, especially when he is in his trusty (deadly) Dr1. Check his last few KotH planes if you think you should run or not when you see Keiser in his Dr1. And now I think he has some missle lock system too. Hey Aetos, did you hear the missle tone lock???

Anyway, Keiser passes me and I get some top wing damage, and maybe I'm wounded too. Can't remember. Whatever, I have to risk a landing since this is too much damage to take on that damned Dr1. In the mean time I am wondering where Aetos went because taking some heat of me would be awesome. But then I think, maybe he wants to put the screws down and cap me while I'm on the ground. Either way it doesn't look good and just a minute before I was at 3000 feet in perfect safety. Sigh. So I land it, get repaired, and start taking off. Keiser whips that Dr1 around quicker than snot and labels me taking off. My right wing is heavy damage. I try to get the field lined up to put it back down again but my 28 stalls and I auger. One stupid dead KotH participant.

Aetos and Keiser go at it. Aetos takes some more damage and pulls off another almost impossible landing for repair. Apparantly all this landing and repairing is making Keiser get bored so on his next pass, and this is quite astounding, because I had Keiser on my screen in F5 view, I saw him line up the whole thing. And "Rockets Away!!!" he puts a rocket from his Dr1 right into Aetos' lap. The plane disintegrates right in front of him. And Keiser wins his 7th KotH, tieing Wingman for most won KotHs. Nice job Keiser! (Personally I think he should reboot before next KotH) 8-P

12/1/99

Beatnik N28
Keiser N28
Wingman N28
TestH D7
Weed Dr1
Athar Spad13
Peregrine N28

TestH sends in this recap . . .

Excellent recap TestH. WTG. Hail King TestH

11/24/99

Peregrine N28

Sorry about the lack of a recap here. It was Thanksgiving holiday. The funny part though was the desctruction of Keiser at the Game On call. :-) Sorry Keiser . . . it was funny though.

11/17/99

TestH d7
Buff d7
Wingman n28
Beat n28
Spy n28
Keiser dr1
Bush n28

A recap from Keiser . . .

Koth 1

The Game On call was made and it so happened that Buff was right in my view so I decided to go after him.  We made a head on pass and he immediately got the upper hand.  I couldn't shake him and he was doing damage with each pass, so I decided to head for the deck and try to get rid of him or repair.  He followed my dive down and was scoring hits along the way.  I tried a few low level evasive maneuvers but it was even tougher now since I had some damage.  I head in for a landing across the runway and I noticed that Test was behind Buff giving him a tail full.  Buff tried to bomb me on the ground and ended up catching his own explosion.  Test went down shortly after, I'm not sure if he caught some shrapnel or just caught the ground.  I was able to repair and took off again, much to the dismay of Buff & Test :)

I was going to be patient and get some altitude but I noticed a very banged up Beatnik heading in for a rough landing.  I chose not to give him the opportunity to repair and unloaded on his already heavily damaged crate.  After that it was down to Buschlight and myself.  We tangled for a few minutes and I ended up scoring a flame shot.  Unfortunately the server decided to burp just as I was coming in for my approach. 

Koth 2

This one's a little vague as I think the intense ending made me forget what had led up to it.  I was engaged with Buffalo again and I think we were the only two left.  Buff was once again proving difficult to shake and was inflicting damage with each pass, so I needed to head for the deck and repair. De ja vu all over again.  The runway was littered with SE's and made a clean approach pretty difficult, especially with a damaged DR1.    Buff was doing a good job of staying behind me as I slowed down and he continued to fire short bursts as he maneuvered me in to his gunsight.  I finally touched down but felt like I was going to spin it out (that bogus view of the front view beginning to slide around to the side).  I decided to go to full throttle and make another pass, but I got too close to somebody and ripped off half of my bottom and middle right wing.  I kept the throttle all the way open and to my amazement, the DR1 started to slowly gain altitude.  As this was going on, I think Buff tried to make another "bomb" run and may have ended up eating his own shrapnel again. So as I take off again, I hear Buff crash and I realized that I was the only one remaining.  Vu da jay all over again again.  All I needed to do was land my banged up crate safe and sound.  I circled around to get a good shot at the runway and aim for a open space between two SE's.  I touched down a little short of the runway and kept my throttle all the way open as I tried to align myself on the ground.  I slowly eased the throttle down and tried to see if I was beginning to spin it in.  I had to play with the throttle quite a bit as I was beginning to slow down too quickly and lose control. My plane went zooming past the parked SE's and I was still going pretty fast.  I continued to throttle down and was fortunate enough to bring it to a stop just short of the end of the runway. 

Thanks for the salutes, gun fire and rockets, I kept thinking/hoping I was going to catch a rocket in the side of the head as I buzzed the flight line. :)

11/10/99

Wingman N28
Bushlight N28
TestH D7
Keiser Dr1
Spy N28
Beatnik N28
Baron Ray N28

My own little excerpt goes like this.  As everyone was gathering on the flight line, my isp took a dive.  The game didn't lag on me but my isp went down.  I tried to reconnect and did.....but only at 9600 bps (thats no typo!)  After sever attempts I finally got a connection around 32000 so I jumped back into the game.  Just in time since the rdy calls were coming in.  I climbed a little and found Baron Ray sitting lower than everyone else.  I am wondering what his game plan is since I always thought Alt was good but I can now see something in his plan :)  We pass once or twice but he is decending while I am climbing so I break off.   I see a fire fight happening and its getting lower and lower.  I target the planes and it is Keiser and TestH going at it.  Keiser has the bead on TestH so I congo line on Keiser.  From like a mile away I head shot Keiser who lets just say is NOT happy about it.  I am laughing so hard I can barely fly.  TestH is after me and I rip my wings off because my eyes were tearing up  :)   Damn that was funny Keiser!!!  Well people start dropping and I will let Buffalo tell the rest....

From Buffalo Wings:

Wow! Great lineup last night. Lots of SE's to shoot at, hehe. And I don't know about everyone else but the new server worked great for me.  Anyway, the initial climbout was abruptly cut short by a collision with Beatnik. I had my eye on him because he was staying close. The next thingI know he flys right up under me and whammo! I think there was some lag involved which caused a slight misjudgement in distance. In any case, no biggie, we just restarted and began another climb out, but a little farther apart this time, lol! S! Beat. Well of course now we're starting at a severe altitude disadvantage,but there are some other late comers that are even worse off than us, so that makes up for it some. I'm doing my usual scanning with the "e" key, trying my best to keep tabs on everyone, and also trying to pick out the nearest threat. The "ready" calls start coming in and soon enough Keiser is calling"GAME ON!". Nobody is really close at this point so I continue to circle, paying particular attention to those above me. Finally I see Beatnik heading my way, but he's way above me. I turn into him and he flys right over, so I turn to follow, trying to gain more altitude along the way.  Pretty soon he turns and makes his initial pass and the fight is on. It's the usual twisting, turning, looping dogfight that D7's and N28's do so well. I eventually get a good line on him and crumple his upper right hand wing, which slows him down somewhat. The other side goes next and I must have hit a critical control surface because he starts a death spiral towards earth. But Beatnik is bound and determined to take some of my hide with him as he plummets helplessly toward the earth, nose up at the sky, firing away at me the whole way down and coming real close to hitting me too. Then the message "SE-Buffalo Wings shot SE-Beatnik down" and that ended the first chapter. S! Beatnik, you are always a worthy foe! I start immediately searching the sky for the next target and realize I now have the altitude advantage to everyone else, at least everyone I can see.  I see a couple of folks going at it below me but then I see TestH all alone and decide I better go get him before he gets me. He sees this and starts coming toward me also. Well, TestH is one hell of a tough cookie on a good night so I know I have my work cut out, but I'm feeling in the groove.   We're both in D7's so it's going to be an even match equipment wise. I'm just going to have to outfly him and make fewer mistakes. Oh yeah, to add to the fun it has gotten dark, and darkness on this server lasts a little while, so we're going to have to try to avoid hitting each other and the ground as well because it's REALLY dark! We fly around each other for the longest time without firing hardly any shots because neither of us is letting the other get any good lines. We're doing high yo-yo's, lowyo-yo's, Cuban eights, loops, Immelman's, you name it. Patty Wagstaff would've been impressed! Finally, finally, finally I come around and lo and behold I'm on his six! Criminy! I let loose and see his right upper wing go toasty (I must've had a thing for right upper wings last night!). I manage to line up again and this time it's the left upper wing that crumples. With that much damage the D7's wings get pretty fragile, and I'm  just waiting for something to come ripping off, but it never does. Instead I think the changed flying characteristics get him and he stalls out and spirals in. What a fight though. S! to you TestH. During our fight I had caught a brief glimpse of Spy rocketing through the battle zone, and at the time I was really trying to keep an eye on him as well as Test, but I couldn't spare too much time away from concentrating on the battle at hand so I lost track. When Test went down I was a little surprised to learn it was just me left and all I had to do was put her down.I gotta tell you guys I really like participating in the "tradition" of the gun and rocket fire to crown the new King, but it's even better from the perspective of being the winner! S! all, and thanks for all the cudos.

Thanks for the story Buff.

10/27/99

Keiser Dr1
Buffalo Wings D7
Wingman N28
Buschlight N28
Beatnik N28

From Wingman . . .

Thanks for the update Wingman!!!

10/20/99

Baron Ray:N28
Beatnik:N28
Buschlight:N28
Keisersosa:Dr1
Spy:N28
Weed:Dr1
Wingman:N28

KotH 1:
Well the first one is kind of blurry as a couple dropped and a couple were shot down. It ended up with Keiser and me dueling our Dr1s. I actually had the initial upper hand as I had a whole bunch of altitude on him but I wasted it all and he did some excellent maneuvers that had us eventually doing head on passes and we collided with mutual destruction. D'oh!

KotH 2:
I think this one went similarly except Keiser netted and then Wingman shot me down and then on his approach to the field the server booted everyone!

KotH 3 or 4?:
Well this one was another true furball with some vicious lead spraying in all directions. Several of us stayed up for quite some time. My Dr1 took some unusual damage. I think my middle right wing was crumpled a bit on the end and although none of my control surfaces were hit the plane tended to yaw wildly to the left. In the end my slightly damaged Dr1 was able to take out Wingman's hurt N28 and then Spy's almost crippled N28. I think Spy tried to stay away while his plane was in that condition. A smart thing to do to wait until only one of us was left. Anyway, after his top wing came off and he cartwheeled along the dirt I lined up a landing and almost lost it with that wild yaw. I was thinking the whole time "Oh no, can't have another KotH!" So I revved up the engine and thought about making another pass. But suddenly the engine rev corrected the yaw and I quickly set her down amongst the firing salute of bullets and rockets and of course the hilarious, self bombing.

Thanks for the salute, but with all the server lag, NETS, and such it felt like a dirty win . . . . but I'll take it. 8-) The interesting thing I've noted here, is that I've won 3 of my 5 with the Dr1. (cough cough).

Till next time . . . . . .

10/13/99

Aetos:D7
Baron Ray:N28
Beatnik:N28
Buschlight:D7
BuffaloWings:D7
Keisersosa:Dr1
Spy:N28
TestH:D7
Weed:Dr1
Wingman:D7
(I think these are right)

From Wingman . . . . .

Once again KotH is just too cool."

Thanks Wingman for that update.

10/6/99

Athar:D7
Beatnik:D7
Buschlight:D7
Keisersosa:Dr1
Spy:D7
Weed:D7
Zima:Dr1

We all climbed to starting height pretty quickly. The D7s and Dr1s climb well. The climb to 1500 meters was very interesting as I came across several of us maneuvering for position even before the game on call. A good tactic and one that makes for interesting positioning. Everyone was very good about staying within sight of the drome and I was able to run through all the targeting acquisitions from beginning to end trying to judge my position in relation to others. Several times I found myself  near Beatnik and Athar. Personally I try to avoid everyone on the climb up  so that I can focus on a single target when the game on call arrives. But I was unable to do that this time. I guess it showed as I was one of the first out of the fray. However, all this positioning was very interesting to watch and take part in.

Keiser gave the GAME ON call and we were off. I eventually did find myself near Beatnik so I tried my best to get behind him. His D7 was matching mine move for move and we were circling each other well. Beatnik had gotten some shots in on me. Then out of the blue Keiser comes flying into the fray to snap a bit of my wing off with those deadly Dr1 guns. Although I have this damage I retarget to him and forget Beatnik. Keiser knows I have this damage and is doing all these high G turning dives and turns. I think he is trying to get me to rip my wings off. Well I'm too smart for that as I am throttling back on all my dives, but D'oh, the D7's stall point is different, especially with damage and I get it flying to slow and stall. I spin for about a thousand feet to finally recover, but Keiser is right there following his kill down and sprays me with a coupe de grace and I auger. BOOM!

Shortly thereafter I am joined on the flight line by Buschlight and then Athar. Beatnik screams out "Look at me I'm a mono!" hahahaha. I thought he might try and land and repair but then I remembered we were having trouble getting the base to repair (although it had no visible damage) before KotH. So he probably said screw it. Not sure who followed up on Beatnik anyway (Keiser) but someone put some more lead into him and he went down. Then it was the 2 Dr1s (Keiser and Zima) and Spy (D7) left.

A loose congo line formed and Keiser was in the middle. Although he was chewing up Zima, Keiser was receiving damage from Spy. Eventually they all wore down, first Zima and then Keiser. By the time Zima went down Keiser's plane looked like a kite in a lightning storm. And although he tried to stay low, which I thought was gonna get Spy to snag his wing on the ground with that D7 (gotta remember oppposite rudder in tight turns with those things) he never did snag it, and Keiser went into the dirt.

Spy did an incredible high speed landing that took his plane right between all of us on the flight line and he was honored with the now traditional post-KotH salute. Way to go Spy! S!

9/30/99

Athar:D7
Aetos:N28
Baron Ray:N28
Beatnik:N28
Buschlight:N28
BuffaloWings:D7
Keisersosa:Dr1
Spy:N28
Weed:D7
Wingman:N28
Zima:N28

From Aetos . . .

SE-Aetos

Thanks Aetos for the excellent recap!

[Weed version] Well we started almost right at 10:30 EST after Wingman decided to finally restart his plane after driving it around the perimeter of the airfield. Keiser had the call and we all climbed up to 1500 meters. Eventually the GAME ON!!! call came and we were off. I have eto say that the KotH of last night contained some elements that weren't typical. Picking your fight was clearly on everyone's mind. I don't think I've ever seen such jockeying for position with a dozen one man teams out there as I did last night.

When the bullets did start spraying it was with cold and deadly accuracy. I remember seeing Beatnik and Buff going down. Keiser too with Wingman on his tail and someone else on Wingman's tail. After circling around trying to gain some altitude and see who was left I netted. Spy netted too. When I came back it was Aetos against Baron Ray. Aetos finally won out after he and BR circled each other for what seemed like 5 minutes. BR's plane was badly damaged so 'm guessing Aetos had the advantage with the ability to make tighter and faster turns without ripping his wings off. After Baron Ray spun in Aetos quickly landed his crate under the no traditional firing salute of his fellow SE's. Congrats Aetos and Hail the King!

If anyone else would like to share their version of the KotH, please email me.

9/15/99

Wingman: N28
Buffalo: D7
Test: D7
Spy: N28
Athar: N28
Buschlight: N28
Keiser: DR1
Beatnik: N28

Well this morning found two updates to KotH. They're good, so take the time to enjoy 'em. HAPPY FRIDAY!

First from Wingman . . . .

Thanks Wingman! And this one from TestH . . .

S! to all SE's on a great KotH.

9/8/99

Aetos - Camel
Baron Ray - N28
Buffalo Wings -D7
Buschlight - N28?
Peregrine - N28
Spy - N28
Weed - N28
Wingman - N28
Zima - N28

An update from Wingman . . .

Thanks Wing!

I was shot to ribbons by Buffalo Wings during the first KotH. And we collided during the second KotH. I was totally amazed at the tough competition in both KotHs as Peregrine and Zima battled it out in the first one. I'm not sure what happened to Zima during the first one as to why his plane spun in suddenly.

As to the second KotH it was a great showdown with Wingman and Buschlight but then Busch stalled or something and went nose in. Wingman who had to take off again during the KotH with an unrepaired plane was able to land his wounded crate to win. S!

9/1/99

Aetos - Camel
Athar - N28
Baron Ray - N28
Beatnik - N28
Buffalo Wings - D7
Buschlight - D7
Keisersosa - Dr1
Peregrine - N28
Spy - N28
TestH - N28
Weed - Dr1
Wingman - N28

Here's Keiser's account . . .

S!

Thanks for the excellent recount Keiser!

8/25/99

Aetos - Camel
Baron Ray - N28
Beatnik - N28
Buffalo Wings - D7
Buschlight - D7
Keisersosa - N28
Spy - N28
TestH - D7
Weed - Dr1
Wingman - N28

From Wingman . . . .

8/18/99

Aetos - Camel
Buffalo Wings - Fokker D7
Buschlight - Albatross D3
Keisersosa - N28
Spy - N28
Weed - Dr1
Wingman - N28

We all took off to proceed to 1500 meters (starting altitude). Soon the ready reports started to come in and Wingman called  "GAME ON." As I was flipping through targets - er squad mates, I noticed that Keiser and Buschlight had already started making passes on each other. I could see tracers just on the other side of the drome field. I was watching those two go at it when I decided I'd better start scanning for planes again. It wasn't a moment too soon. I scanned on to Buffalo Wings who was starting a Death From Above dive on me. I quickly focused all my attention on this attack and flew like a mad man. I had to twist and turn every which way. Buff was not coming loose. He was determined to take me out. Well during this fight I noticed Buschlight goes down. I can't remember who got the credit. I tried some tight skid turns to get away from Buff, but the D7 hangs with the best of them, so then I proceeded to do some climbing stall turns and finally after like the 3rd one the D7 faltered just a bit and I was able to come around on Buff and lay a good stream of lead into his wing. Another couple of turning loops and it snapped off stalling his plane. Whew. I was already sweating. Then when I started to scan for another plane I saw Keiser falling like an upside down frisbee with no topwing. Stalled or collision or what I have no idea. I saw Wingman, Spy, and Aetos were still in the air and fighting each other so I started to climb to get some altitude. That fight with Buff took us all the way down tree tops.

As I was climbing I heard a crunch and I guess Wingman collided with one of those two. Not sure which as Wingman definitely suffered the worst of it and the other planes looked ok. Then a shot burst wounded one of my wings. I quickly put in for repairs. I think Spy did too. I took off slow and lumbering but was able to stay away from the bullets. Spy was switching between firing on me and firing on Aetos. And Aetos was flying that Camel like a madman turning right and then left and then right. Then I'm not sure who got the shots in as we were all flying haphazardly trying to aim at all the targets when Aetos decided to put down for repairs. Well he makes it and tries to take off again. Spy goes for a bomb run and I am right behind him firing shots at his 6 the whole way in. As he passed Aetos who is revved up for take off, I switched my target to Aetos and as he takes off I pelt his left wing but good. So he decided to do a quick circle and land again. This is really the smart thing to do cause in the Camel that kind of damage is certain death anyway. I only say this because Aetos later said he should have stayed in the air. I don't think so. If it were me in the Camel with that outter wing damage I would have put back in too. Anyway, he cuts it too sharp or something and cracks it up on the landing. What I hadn't noticed until very late in the approach was that Spy had him all lined up for a shot or bomb or I don't know what, but Spy wrecked it up but good as I saw his fuselage go sliding along the field. I'm not sure how it all happened but I had become KotH by accident I believe. Overall though, I thought the fights amongst all of us were very good.

Good flying guys!

8/4/99

Aetos - Camel
Athar - N28
Beatnik - N28, D7
Buschlight - D3
TestH - N28
Weed - Camel
Wingman - N28

From Wingman . . .

KotH #1 - Climb, Game on, Beat rolls, Lag, Net. Stupid Stupid Stupid. Weed last survivor but Nets. [OK, it kinda goes like that. I think Wingman snapped his wings off. Towards the end I was chasing TestH who eas employing boom&zoom tactics against my Camel. Eventually I his engine flamed and when he restarted he started on top of someone and we all netted. Since there was no landing, the KotH would begin again]

RestartKotH #2 - Climb, Game on, Weed rolls, Wings come off. Stupid StupidStupid.TestH last survivor but crashes on landing. [Well this one was sort of similar to the first one, but instead Test kills me and upon landing he spins it in. I believe he had some wing damage, so KotH # 3 begins for the night]

RestartKotH #3 - Climb and immediate game on. Hit TestH, he rolls, my wing comes off. Land but use up too much runway and run off. It won't repair. I gently throttle up and down and use full rudder to come around and move to the runway. It repairs! I take off and tackle Athar. Not sure but I think he stalled it. Weed is on Beat and never sees me coming. Weed goes down into the dirt and I basically take Beat down but I think Weed did most of the work. Now, the wife is complaining, baby needs to be carried up stairs. Still can't believe I am the last person but still need to land. Haven't flown for awhile. I gotta land but realize too much speed. I circle and same thing. Now I am just plain nervous. I circle around and cut speed but still just to high but I still go for it. Land, land again, wheels seem to be on ground, cut engine. Whoops bounce up and basically just fall straight down onto wheels and grind to a halt. Jump out and pray to the Beer gods and run to put baby to bed.Wheeew! Just a weird, interesting KotH from my view point. It was exciting on this end.

Thanks for the hurried report Wing 8-)

7/28/99

Baron Ray - N28
Buschlight - N28
Buffalo Wings - D7
Keisersosa - N28
Peregrine - N28
Spy - N28
TestH - N28
Weed - Camel
Wingman - N28

OK. I may not get all the facts straight so bear with me. If I get some wrong, let me know. You see I was flying with one of my brother's looking over my shoulder. I was trying to explain to him, not only RB3D, but how KotH works. In the long run I think this worked to my advantage.

We all took off, on the SSC Melee server, as the test server Buf was running just couldn't handle the numbers. Too bad too since having our own KotH server would be totally awesome. As it turns out SSC was mostly empty and the couple or three RB3Ders who popped in let us be. S! to those guys.

As we all took off, a great site BTW, I was explaining to my brother how KotH works. We all climbed up to 1500 meters and started calling ready. Peregrine was couting hands and said game on. Well at this point I had been trying to avoid everyone and started flipping through targets (er squadmates) in an effort to point out who was who to my guest. Well in doing this I just kept avoiding contacts. Then the horizon lit up a little ways off to my right. "What's that?" he askes. I explain that I can see tracers over there from the cockpit here. So I cycle through my targets and see that it is Wingman and Buschlight going at it. I think Peregrine may have been in the mix, not sure. Then things start happening fast. Buf calls out that he's killed himself. Not sure what happend but secretly I'm glad that I won't have to deal with the D7. (Sorry Buf). Then Buschlight goes down. Wingman gets the credit and gives a S!  Then two people go down, Baron Ray, on heavy medication from some earlier dental procedure in the day, and Spy. Spy may have meched not sure. I then see Keisersosa and Peregrine have wounded each other. Peregrine heads for the deck to repair and Keiser hangs out at altitude blowing me garbage about being in orbit. Well seeing as he has some damage, and Peregrine is not in the vicinity, I swooped down. We circled a few times but I got some lucky shot on Keiser. His plane stalls and he starts to fall. And he has a long way to go. We are at like 5K feet or something like that. Then he recovers and I follow him. I'm sure he's debating whether or not to land, but the drome is not readily close, so he decides to come after me. I get more shot in on him and he stalls again and crashes this time. Meanwhile Wingman has been shot down, by TestH or Peregrine, again I'm not sure. Then TestH and Peregrine are fighting it out right over the field!!! I climb a little to see what will happen and then Keiser again trash talks me about being too high.

Well if I was smart I would hae stayed there because going into a circle fight with TestH and Peregrine in N28s would normally be suicide. However I notice that Per has wing damage and TestH is trying to get the advantage but Peregrine is keeping him at bay, sort of. So, I decided to swoop in. TestH seemed to be behind Peregrine for the most part so I thought with a swoop in onto TestH and then into Peregrine and then up again and I'd be safe.

This sort of works. I get some shots in on Test, but Per banks away, so I actually cleared Peregrine's 6. He lands to repair, TestH is now looking for me, and I blundered my speed away and have to stay lower than I wanted to be. Test makes a pass on Peregrine, I shoot at Per too and try to hit Test while I'm at it. Peregrine takes off and both TestH and I are behind him pummeling him. Not very fair but then King of the Hill is some of the most ruthless flying I've ever participated in. Poor Peregrine gets too much damage and spirals in leaving just TestH and myself.

What a battle.   Circling and positioning. I had stopped telling my brother what was going on as  KotH was taking my TOTAL AND COMPLETE attention. The adrenaline was flowing and my hands were sweating. I got some lucky shots on test. Enough where some damage appeared. Test goes to land, and repairs. Mean while I am trying to drop bombs on him. I keep doing figure 8's in the Camel thinking that each left turn will be my last but I am trying to be as gentle on the controls as possible. Test takes off again and his slow take off gives me great position and I wound him again. So he lands again but this time too far off the runway  to repair so he has to take off again and land again to get repaired. It's a short turn around flight but he gets it done rather quickly as I am fumbling for position and a firing solution.

As he is gliding to a stop to repair I drop a bomb  and hear that horrendous ripping and shredding sound. The bomb tears off his upper wing. I thought for sure that would kill him, but just as his plane stops, it repairs. DAMN! TestH takes off once again and we circle and duel fervently. Head on passes that were making me cringe as I though for sure we would collied. AAAAAAA!!!! I was getting too tense on the controls. But still getting in lucky shots. Eventually TestH went down but the last two minutes of our duel are a blur as I was totally focused on controling the Camel and trying not to become a target. A great fight.

I know it wasn't a balls out win for me as I avoided most of the melee for the evening but didn't someone say that prudence is the best part of valor - or something like that. Anyway. Thanks for the great KotH! S!

7/21/99

Athar - N28
Baron Ray - N28
Buffalo Wings - D7
Buschlight - N28
Keisersosa - N28
Peregrine - N28
TestH - N28
Wingman - N28
Weed - N28

From Buffalo Wings . . . .

Well, you asked for it, so here's my account. When game on was called, I had several SE's sighted around me, but the closest was Baron Ray below me. He was climbing like crazy to get up to me to engage, and when I determined nobody else was going to come swooping in and shoot my butt I turned to engage him. We duelled for several minutes (he's getting good, I'm not going to teach him any more of my tricks), but I finally got in the winning shots. I immediately started looking around for other targets, only to discover there aren't any in my vicinity, so I head back toward the field because that's the only place I'm getting any contacts. Eventually I see Peregrine and Weed still in the air fighting it out. I see Weed is badly damaged to the point of no landing gear, which means he is pretty much toast. Peregrine still looks healthy though, so I train on him. I think he downs Weed before I get there, but when I finally do engage it's just me and him. He gets a few good shots in on me and I return the favor, and eventually he heads back to land and repair with me in hot pursuit. He lands and I go for the bomb shot and miss. I'm damaged too and don't want to engage him when he's in a fresh N28, so I set down right after the bomb drop. I'm heading right for a plane on the runway and attempt to correct to the left a little but get no response from the rudder. By this time it's too late to punch the throttle and attempt another go round, so I end up dying in a big collision and since Peregrine is already on the ground he is the instant winner. Once again I am my own worst enemy! Oh well, I'll get it right one of these days. - Buf

It tough to land with all those downed planes sitting on the tarmac. It makes landing a tricky endeavor later in the game.  A tough way to lose Buffalo Wings. S! And thanks for the post.

7/7/99 - 10 contestants

Aetos - Camel
Athar - N28
Baron Ray - N28
Beatnik - N28
Buschlight - N24
Keisersosa - N28
Peregrine - N28
TestH - N28
Wingman - N28
Weed - Camel

From Wingman . . .

We are all doing the climbing thing and I think this time people stayed closer to the base. I had Peregrine close by and was watching him,then as I was cycling through the contacts I saw Beatnik coming on my six (now the game on call hadn't happen yet). I turned and swooped and got on Beat'ssix, probably not an honorable move, but was keeping higher than him. He spots me and types "Very funny Wingy" when Peregrine calls Game on. I was in the middle of typing a response to Beat when this happened and he pulled away. We turned and tumbled and I was able to get a few shots in before he pulled a great manuver and I would have ripped my wings if I followed so I broke off. He was dropping Alt fast so I figured I would keep mine. Lookout here comes Peregrine head on. We both squeeze off a few rounds and turnt o meet again. WAMMO, collision!! I switch to F8 and Peregrine is done for. I take in my damage and am only missing lower left wing. However, I am spinning like crazy. I pulled it out and drop for a landing. "Thup,Thup Thup Thup", Weed is trying to get me to spin it on landing but I have no idea who chases him off. Repair. Take off and gain alt. I see Weed at the end of the Congo line and I jump him. He goes for a landing but damage in a Camel...... This is when others joined in and I think Bushlight or someone else goes down and it is just me and Beat. Flash over to new drome. We climb to 1000 and circle waiting for judgement on Baron Ray. Beatnik keeps me laughing with the "lets do it daddyo"chat macro. Finally we go at it. Beatnik pulls some of those moves that I would like to know how but finally I get extremely lucky and grey matter is all over Beat's cockpit. Baron Ray joined in the fray at this point. He and Beat must be practicing together. S! Ray, those slow flying barrel rolls were tough to follow. A few times I almost augered it into the ground.Finally I was able to wear Baron Ray down and went in for my landing."Thup, thup thup thup thup" Beatnik didn't know I was still in KotH and obviously wanted revenge for the head shot :) He laughed and then I was able to land.There was much rejoicing on the tarmac. Guns blazing, rockets soaring,I choked up.

p.s. I haven't really flown since Thursday, just a little here and there. Man, I was sweating from the competition and adrenaline rush. If this game is starting to wear on you, take a break, come back and its like"this is just way to cool! S!!!!!!!!

Thanks Wing.

6/30/99

Winner: Peregrine

Players:

Test N28
Peregrine N28
Buffalo Wings D7
Keisersosa N28
Baron Ray N28
Spy N28
Beatnik N28
Athar SE5a

From Keiser . . .

I had some net problems early on and actually netted just as we started to climb. Everybody did a great job of lining up at 10:28 so we could start right away. I got back in quickly and climbed up to 1000 so we could all start. Everybody was contained pretty much over the base so there were a lot of "E" contacts near by. When Test called "GAME ON," I happened to have decent starting position on Athar and forced him into a turn. That SE5a FM doesn't allow much of a turn and I was able to get some quality shots to slow him down. He made some very aggressive diving turns and I had to be careful not to rip off my wings. S! Athar. I'm not sure, but I think he tried a landing and didn't quite make it. After that, I noticed that either Beatnik or Baron Ray was in a long fall with the top wing wripped off and wasn't enjoying the long ride down. At this point, I started to engage Test, but he netted shortly after and sorry to say he lost his shot at a repeat title. The field was narrowed to four. I actually had altitude on the other three. This is where I made a classic mistake and I'm ashamed to admit it, but I actually thought about it before doing it. Buff, Pere,and Spy had a nice little furball going and rather than wait it out, I decided to dive down and try to get rid of somebody quickly. Well just as I'm going in, Pere shoots down Buff and is moving in behind Spy. I misjudged my approach and ended up right between Spy and Pere, instead of being last in the chain. I should have bugged out, but I decided to try and dispatch Spy quickly. I got some good shots on him and forced him to make a repair landing. Instead of trying to finish him, I broke off because I knew Peregrine was probably lining me up good. Just as I was about to break off and try to lose Pere, he lets fly a well placed burst from close range and flames me. S! Peregrine. Spy got repaired and took off to engage Peregrine. They had a nice low altitude turn and burn that lasted a couple of minutes. It seemed like they were each getting some shots off, but Peregrine landed a couple more bursts and Spy finally went down. After much taunting and a long approach flight, Peregrine eased down his N28 to claim his title. Afterwards, most of us headed over to AC to do some squad flying. The huns needed numbers so we hopped in to our DR1's and DV5's. It went pretty well and the SE's definitely made our presence felt. There was pretty good communication between SE's and we did a good job of waiting at base for at least one wingman to arrive after being shot down. We should be able to do pretty well in a mini-war if we can have 6 or more SE's flying together like we did. S!

6/23/99 Competition, which included the following contestants:

Athar - N28
Beatnik - N28
Buffalo Wings - FD7
Keisersosa - N28
Wingman - N28
TestH - FD7
Peregrine - N28
Spy - N28
Weed - N28

From TestH . . .

First off let me say that the fps rates were jumpy and ranged anywhere from 23 to 50+ during the entire fight. It made for difficulty flying and 4 SE's dropped due to the lag problem. The first person I saw was Buffalo Wings flying really, really, really, high. He was also in a D7, like me, so my attempts to climb up to his altitude were futile and only led to several near stalls. I spotted a melee with at least 3 other planes and left Buffalo Wings to his own devices. I don't remember the other two SE's in that furball, but Athar was there. It was his bad luck to catch my eye as he flew through the melee. I latched onto his N28 and peppered his wings. After that I just tailed him and waited for the inevitable...Snap! I didn't even watch him spiral down because other SE's were in the area. That was when the mass drops started to occur. It's a real shame for those SE's who netted and didn't get a fighting chance. This is the only blemish on the KotH last night. Well, I hit 'e' several times and didn't see anyone else flying so I landed. Then Beatnik shows up and I have to take off and do battle with him. Now the fps turn to crap and Beatnik's N28 is jumping all over the place. Once during the fight his plane moved foward, then back, forward again and finally ended up behind me! Holy fps Batman. I think Beatnik had lag problems because he made a jumpy landing.Overall an interesting night for KotH. A default win for TestH!

WTG Test. I was thrilled just to have the competition. To have so many SE's there makes it that much better. Congrats!

6/9/99

The contestants gathered in the Enemy Among Us server. Everyone flew exceptionally well.

Beatnik - N28
Buschlight-N24
Baron Ray-N24
BuffaloWings-D7
Spy-D7
TestH-D7
Wingman-N28
Keisersosa-N28
Weed-N28

Here is Keiser's recap . . . . .

"Where to begin?? Great participation last night, S! The only down side to that is that I wish we had that kind of presence in the War because we would definitely kick some major ass.

First off, I'm amazed at the level of tension that the KoTH competition brings. When last night was finally over, my hand was cramped up from holding the joystick with a death grip and I was noticeably sweating. I don't think I could have hacked it in the real war, virtual is tough enough.

When I got the final "Ready" call and was able to make the "Game On" call, I really didn't have anybody in decent position and no idea if I was being pursued. With nine planes in there, it was definitely tougher to maintain situational awareness. The first plane that I encountered was Spy in his D7 and fortunately he was below me so I was able to get a good angle on him. I put some quality bursts in to him and in his efforts to evade, his top wing popped off. My first thought was to follow him down and try to put him away, but I figured it was better to keep altitude and pick a new target. I'm not sure if Spy crashed from that or not, but I don't remember seeing him after that. The next few minutes are pretty foggy and I think I was switching back and forth to mulitple targets because I was starting to be hit myself.

The next battle I remember is with Buffalo Wings and it was a great one. I think Beatnik was engaging both Buff and I which made it that much harder. Buff was flying that D7 with a vengence and I was definitely on the defensive most of the time. While we were engaged, I started to notice other planes being shot down and the field was beginning to thin out. Buff was slowly wearing me down and damaging my plane with each pass so I decided to land. (one of my multiple forced landings Ugh!) If I remeber correctly, Buff tried for the mercy kill and ending up crashing in right on top of me. I thought for sure he was going to take us both out, but somehow I managed to only get damaged....again. I repaired for a second time and took off to try and gain some altitude. Thanks to Wingman for the Table Talk as I saw a message pop up on the screen "Watch out for Keiser, he's just trying to gain altitude" (Bastard!!!) :). Somewhere in here I had another landing where Weed tried a similiar finishing maneuver and spun it in. (I was unaware of this one & didn't even know how close I had come to a Weedy death)

At this point it was down to me, Test & Baron Ray. We were all three engaged but I was concentrating on Test because I knew Ray was damaged. I don't know what happended but I saw Wingman say "And then there was two" so I did a flyby and noticed Ray was on the ground with everybody else. This was it, a shot to repeat against my old nemesis Test & his trusty D7. After reading Test's account, I was glad to see that I wounded him early because I didn't feel like I was able to get any decent shots off on him. He was doing a great job keeping that D7 behind me or as I was trying to evade, he would break off a bit and gain some space for another pass. I was getting frustrated and by this point, a little burned out. I decided I needed to repair because it was just a matter of time before he would get me. More time passes......same results.... I land again. Damn that Test! At this point, I'm feeling like the only thing I can do is try to fly him in to the ground because I wasn't doing a good job of getting him in my sight. I tried increasing the frequency of my rolls and keeping low to the ground in hopes that he might stall it or spin it in. Neither ocurred and I was again getting chewed up slowly but surely. Yet another landing was in order, and that is when Test went for the big blow with a bomb shot. Luck was again on my side and Test blew himself up. (I had an unbelievable sense of realief and still can't believe that a game can provide that level of tension) S! to Test for some great flying in a pressure situation. S! to all, as I know I'm leaving out a bunch of micro battles with each of you that all added up to a great KoTH.

So to net it out...I was forced to land a whole bunch of times and got three guys to kill themselves trying to kill me. Educational moment for the KoTH.....Sometimes we are our own most dangerous enemy."

Thanks Keiser!

Here's TestH's recap . . . . .

"What a night! Most of it is a blur so I wanted to get down some thoughts before they disappeared entirely.

After Keiser called GAME ON, I flew around for a bit over the base looking for targets and being careful not to fly under anybody by accident. Finally, after a few minutes I spot Buschlight in his N24. I got behind him and put a couple of hits into him before that darn N24's turn radius started driving me crazy. Several times he cut inside and peppered myD7. All the while I'm looking behind thinking that another SE is coming up ready to take advantage. Finally, I decide discretion is the better partof valor and bug out low and head towards another furball.

Of course, luck betrays me and I find myself head-to-head against Weed. Weed is a crack shot and takes the opportunity to hammer my wings,which then promptly leave the fuselage on the first turn to the left. But TestH luck changes and I'm low to the ground and manage to land with full opposite rudder. Whew! In true sportsmanship, Weed salutes my landing even though it deprived him of a victim.

I take off and find myself engaged with Baron Ray, then Buffalo Wings and Keiser. I lost track of Keiser and thought I saw a msg saying he went down. Unfortunately, I was mistaken because he had only landed. Anyway,what happened after that I don't know but I took severe damage from Keiser(of course) and landed again. I took off quickly while Keiser was busy dispatching Buffalo Wings or BaronRay. Now its just me and him (shades of last KotH). In typical Keiser fashion, his first burst wounds me and shreds one of my lower wings.Great. Oh, well, better make the best of this before the wing rips off. To my surprise, the wing holds and I manage to gain position on Keiser and begin to pepper him. Round and round we went. Darn N28 has an incredible roll rate and in the hands of Keiser is a beast. That roll rate and my poor shooting saved him several times. Finally, I see Keiser start to land so I follow him in and decide to end this with a well placed bomb. Ooops! Bad idea - I'm not Peregrine. I drop the bomb and promptly blow myself out of the sky. The groans of the SE's on the flightline could be heard around the world! Keiser was safe and sound on the ground and chewing bubble-gum. I then noticed my hands were shaking and sweat was on my forehead. What a tense battle! S! Keiser - King of the Hill."

Thanks TestH for the excellent recap. I have to add that on one of Keiser's landing's I got greedy and try to plaster him with lead. Well after passing inches over his head I made a sharp turn to the right and tipped my wing too low, catching the ground, and cartwheeling into oblivion.

6/2/99 KotH

Participants:

Buffalo Wings - Dr1
Peregrine - N28
Wingman - N28
Keisersosa - N28
Spy - D7
TestH - D7
Athar - SE5a
Weed - Dr1

Here is Keiser's recap.

It's a bit more one sided then Wingman's take, but I wasn't looking at it from the ground up. Doh!

KoTH 1 - My perspective, I was staying close to Wingman at around 2000 waiting for the go sign. In the vicinity lurked Peregrine and Test, with Buffalo Wings slightly below. When Weed gave the Game ON call, I was directly above Buffalo and decided to dive down on him. I don't think he had me targeted because he didn't evade until after my first burst. Since I was coming directly down, I had a very short window of opportunity. I shredded a good portion of his right wingtips before passing under him and he immediately went in to a steep climb. We were doing some tight vertical loops trying to get quality shots off at each other when I noticed Test was on my 6. Buff had gotten a few shots in to me, but I wasn't detecting any damage. Before breaking off Buff to defend against Test,I got one more good pass in on him and he appeared to be heading for the deck for repairs. With Test on me, I couldn't follow him down so I hoped for a crash but at least I knew he'd be out of commision for a while. Test was right on my ass at this point. We had a good duel going on  or several passes and then Peregrine decided to join in the fight. It was at this point where I had both Test and Peregrine lined up for a double head shot, and then I netted out. Talk about lucky! Server Crash

KoTH 2: Finished the quick climb to 1000 and soon after saw the Game On sign. For some reason, this one's a little foggier as I think there was more planes in a tighter area and consequently more confusion. I think I had shot somebody down (Spy I think, not sure) when I got my top wing blown off (think it was Peregrine, but maybe Test). Fortunately, I was fairly level when it happened and down to abou t250 feet altitude. Whoever shot my wing off either broke off or was broken off,and I was given the opportunity to land which luckily I was able to do. As I was trying to land, I think Weed bought it which left only Test and Peregrine. As I was repairing, I locked Test in to the D key and then found Peregrine and I saw that they were dueling. I took off again, and decided to gain some altitude and see how things played out between Test and Pere. They were going at it pretty fiercly, with a lot of climbs and twist and dives, etc. Neither appeared to be gaining an advantage, and some text messages starting flying about how long this was taking. I decided to engage the battle, for better or worse, and try to end this thing. As I was diving down, Peregrine was breaking off to repair so I decided to go after Test. I think he had a fair amount of damage from previous battles and from Peregrine and I was in a shiny new N28. I put a few rounds in to his wing and I think his bottom right section snapped off which caused him to spin in. By this time, Peregrine was just starting to settle down on the runway, so I circled above waiting for him to take off. As he started to roll, I throttled back and came in from behind. He took off quickly and performed a nice hard turn to the left, which didn't allow me to take advantageof my position. I knew it was important to try and get him early so that he couldn't gain full speed or altitude. I turned to follow him from above and was able to get a good angle on him, he turned sharply to the right and exposed his cockpit. I was lucky enough to get off a clean burst and got the headshot. Long note, but a lot goes on with that many planes involved.

Thanks Keiser!

Here is Wingman's excerpt.

Here is my little excerpt from KotH.

KotH1: We all take off and I have Keiser locked as the closest person but lower than me. I then see Buffalo Wings come in and he and Keiser start dueling for position waiting for the GAME ON call. I figure, OK I will watch this, see who becomes the attacker and I will swoop in. Now I have locked Keiser on Shift+D and as luck will have it the first E key after that is Buffalo, otherwise with so many of us in there it takes a few seconds to toggle through us all. Boom, GAME ON call comes, they pass once, no shots, pass again and machine gun fire rips through my speakers. No one has shown themselves as the hunter or hunted when hey, is that a plane off to my right. Spy comes in from no where,but I don't think he sees me either. He is at my alt, so I turned and locked him in, I get about 3 bursts off when we start to twist and turn and AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH, I forgot to throttle down in the excitement, SNAP lower right wing comes off. As I am cursing Spy, because he did it to me. He pulled a couple of great moves that just stressed the hell out of my plane. I dove for the field to land and repair, thinking NP. Well I couldn't have botched a landing any better. Thats it, DEAD. As I sit here and smack myself in the head on how stupid I was, the landing field is getting crowded with SE's. Keiser mechs and when he returns the game spawns his plane right on top of Spy's. Well, the game assumed a collision and then just took a big dump. So somehow Keiser manages to restart the game, (not that I was going to complain).

KotH2: We all take off to 1000 meters, I find Peregrine, same as above! I snap the same damn wing and botch the freakin landing again! Oooohhhh I was hot but....what can I do. As for everyone else seemed to be some good battles. I know Peregrine crashed on landing once, Athar did a great job bringing in his shot up crate (I think Keiser had done it) in for a landing. At the end it was Per?? maybe Buffalo, and TestH and Keiser. Keiser did a good job of climbing above the fray, looking for his kill and then swooped on TestH to blast his already damage wing right off. I guess....I hate to say it.....Hail Keiser.S!

Thanks Wingman!

5/24/99

The contestants gathered in the Enemy Among Us server:

Peregrine in an N28
Buffalo Wings in his Dr1
Baron Ray in an N28
Buschlight in an N24
Weed in an N28

The Enemy Among Us server had about 15-20 people in it. And although those flyers were not at our KotH drome it did make for a laggy server. I think Baron Ray had some lag troubles as the following recap will illustrate.

The 5 of us started our climb to deck height (1500 meters). Peregrine, the last king, was to make the GAME ON call when everyone signalled ready. We all get to deck height, call ready, and there is no message from Peregrine. It turns out he was on squad chat and did not realize you cannot see squad chat in Melee servers. During this time though, Peregrine made a pass at Baron Ray and I am not sure if he shot at him, thinking the game was on, but Baron Ray went down in a hurry. I never saw a message stating that Peregrine shot him down. No big deal though, BR hops back into his N28, we clear up the chat issue and we are off again to the races.

Baron Ray climbs up to 1500 and when he calls "rdy" Peregrine gives the "GAME ON" call. Now Buffalo Wings had been staying relatively close to me, and Peregrine had moved over to my neighborhood as well. Buschlight was a little lower in altitude and I am not sure what happened to Baron Ray again, because as soon as he was near, Peregrine, I think, one bullet shot him down again. That is why I think he was having some net problems.

Anyway, it looks like Peregrine is going to make a pass at me. I start a shallow dive and then keep my nose up in a banking climb. I want to keep altitude on this pass. Buffalo Wings is in area and take the opportunity to rake Peregrine as he is headed for me. This works well for me too as I flip over, sacrifice the altitude just gained to get behind Buffalo Wings who is behind Peregrine. Well Peregrine looses part of his lower wing and decides to head straight for the field. And I mean straight. Straight down! I thought for sure he would snap off his other wings but he didn't. Buffalo Wings went screaming after him. He was not about to let Peregrine land and repair.

Well no sense in staying up high I thought, and Peregrine repaired was not something I wanted to see either. The old king must be dethroned. :-)  Buffalo Wings followed him the whole way down and the whole time pelting him. Eventually Peregrine levelled out to land but I have no idea what condition his crate was in then. I was too busy making sure I did not snap the wings off of my own N28, and I followed BW's last pass on Peregrine with my own machine guns spitting lead. Peregrine could not level it or hit the field going too fast to land and cracked up trying to land and repair.

Now Buffalo Wings had just become my same altitude enemy whereas before we had pelted Peregrine. Buschlight was somewhere above us but I could not see exactly where. BW and I circled several times and just when I was thinking the lower altitude was to my advantage, WHAP, Buffalo and I hit. His plane was completely schredded and the net gods looked favorably on me in comparison since I only had right wing strut damage. Right about then Buschlight comes swooping in and we start a series of head on passes. Buschlight handled that N24 well. Very well. We fought for another 4 minutes or so. I contemplated landing but I didn't think I would have a chance with the way Buschlight was turning that thing around on a dime. A few more passes and some lucky shots and his left wing, having taken some damage, stalled and he went down.

I landed shortly thereafter. A good KotH competition guys. Thanks to everyone.

5/9/99 - Cool pics attached to the end.

A smaller group but an intense King of the Hill competition. Spy, TestH, Peregrine and myself all squared off in Enemy Among Us. I think we had the server to ourselves.

Spy was in a DVa
TestH was in a D7
Peregrine in his trusty N28
I was in the ol' Dr1

We all climbed to deck height (1500 meters) and it was a quick "GAME ON!" call. But in the beginning that was all that was quick. There being only 4 of use, we all were gauging each other's position and height advantage. I was constatly flipping between the other 3 and determining which "target" was going to cause me the most trouble the soonest. We all circled about for about 2 or 3 minutes and then . . . . suddenly it all seemed like we were converging on each other directly over the drome at somewhere around 2000+ meters. A spray of bullets shoots out just into my view, I hear some tearing. I target over there and TestH has ripped a few into Spy. Spy rolls and dives away avoiding further damage, TestH is in hot pursuit. I am looking for Peregrine now and although I think he is above me and heading towards me I have some time to watch the other two. There are some hard banks and another dive with a sharp pull and SNAP! Spy pulls his top wing off. TestH immediately concentrates on reattaining any altitude loss and quickly gets himself back up to the height Peregrine and I are at. I see an opening and dive on TestH. He is close enough and climbing, I must have the advantage. I spray him with a couple of shots before he turns away. It looks like I barely even touched him. He is turning on me. Peregrine is zooming in now and I think his angle is allowing him to make a pass at BOTH TestH and me and he fires on both of us. This is where I start to get really confused since I have to keep switching between Peregrine and TestH. I feel like the monkey (HUN) in the middle. Apparently there was a squad meeting before I got on the server. 8-)

Anyway, TestH turns in on me and gives me a steady stream of lead across my upper right wing causing it to snap off. The Dr1 turns into a set of flopping car keys and plummets downward. TestH is looking good here as he has downed both Spy and myself. However Peregrine is functioning with little if no damage and TestH has been buffeted at least one time from me and possibly once from both Spy and Peregrine. I was wondering if TestH was going to land it here and repair or try to roll his kill ratio right into Peregrine.

They quickly target each other and start their approaches. A head on pass, then some turns, a roll by Peregrine, a high banking maneuver by Test. Each is getting shots off. I can't really tell who is landing their shots or not. They passed each other at high speed and then at opposite ends of the field turned for another pass. Then suddenly I heard a snap and TestH has lost his bottom right wing. It didn't look good as this caused a violent stall and started him spinning downward. A spin that he did not recover from. Peregrine circled once and brought his Nieup in for a perfect landing. His first King of the Hill star. Congrats Peregrine! And WTG Spy and Test. It was an excellent battle all around.

Peregrine and Weed face off.

TestH, Peregrine and Weed fight for position.

TestH lines up Weed in his sights

Weed suffers structural failure (no wing and no elevator - is there even a rudder?)

TestH sufferes wing loss. And plummets . . . .

5/2/99 An interrupted KotH

It all began in Enemy Among Us with 8 SE's but an interloper who refused to give us 5 minutes alone made things difficult.

We all reconvened there again later, after much running around and minus two contestants: TestH and Beatnik. The rest of us, Peregrine, Baron Ray, Buffalo Wings, Keisersosa, Wingman, and myself took to the skies for a much delayed King of the Hill.

Wingman was in his N28.
Buffalo Wings was in his Dr1.
Keisersosa was in a Dr1.
Baron Ray was in an N28
Peregrine was in the German N28
I was in a Dr1 also.
TestH had been in a Fokker DVII and Beatnik had been in an N28. Sorry guys.

We all climbed to the fighting deck and called ready. Wingman gave the "GAME ON!" call. I was trying to stay clear or make sure that I maneuvered carefully to avoid bad positioning when the bullets started flying. To be honest I don't remember how it all unfolded. I think Peregrine and Baron Ray were off to one side having a classic one on one. I noticed Wingman heading towards me so I tried to pay attention to him. When he finally dove on me I was already spinning away. We had several passes and I think I put a couple of shots into him. Keiser came over at that point and started firing at Wingman also. And then they collided. BOOM! Keiser crashed to the field without one enemy bullet hitting him. I got the kill for Wingman as he fluttered to the ground. Someone, not sure, shot down Buffalo Wings. Was it Peregrine? I can't remember. All I knew at that point was that I was still alive without having received a head shot. I think this had been the first KotH in about 3 that I was still alive after 5 minutes.

Well Peregrine starts to hunt me down. We are heading towards each other, Peregrine is slightly above me. I am watching him approach me through the F8 view. Since he has the altitude advantage and therefore the speed advantage I am flying on an even keel with my nose slightly pointed upward waiting for him to make the first move. Peregrine did not rush. He calculated his dive. Just as he passed overhead he dropped his left wing in a knife edge maneuver to try and come up behind me. But, since RB3D allows me to see this in F8 mode I was waiting for something like that and started a tight circle towards Peregrine. We twisted and turned with several passes and although I think we were both getting off shots I must have hit something because Peregrine broke away heading in an opposite circle. That was when I was able to get behind him and start whittling away at the N28. Eventually it wore away and Peregrine went down. So for this unconventional KotH, I was able to stay on top. Thanks to everyone for sticking together trying to find some private practice grounds on the internet.

4/25/99

Well after another rocky start for KotH (the east coast metaserver was down) and only 4 of us online in Enemy Among Us, we decided to start the competition.

Peregrine, Keisersosa, Wingman, and myself all lined up in N28s. The competition was going to be fierce. We all climbed up to 1500 meters (rather quickly in N28s) and immediately called "ready." Wingman, being the last king before Buffalo Wings, called out "GAME ON!"

And the contest was afoot. I was quickly scanning among the three of them determining their position in relation to me. Peregrine and Wingman were close to each other and a decent distance away from me. Good. Keisersosa was closer but not too close that I wouldn't be able to vie for position. Not as good, but still ok.

Well just as I am determining all of this, Peregrine and Wingman make a head on pass. And I know they were thinking about the new collision rule as they passed. No restart option here. The one crate you take up is the one crate you get. So they start a circling duel and firing on each other. I check for Keiser again and he is a little too close for comfort so I start trying to follow his six.

Now this next part all happens in about 6 seconds. I start maneuvering to get behind Keiser, he sees this and starts a maneuver to evade. Distant gun fire is rattling my speakers as Peregrine and Wingman are slugging it out. Keiser rolls and pulls aways, stressing his wings. I am committed now and have to follow. He does it again but the other way, I am following, diving like a screaming eagle. Death from above baby and I am the delivery man. Well, at least I thought so for about 1 second. From out of nowhere, I see a shot hit my upper wing. One shot. I was like, "Hey, where did that come from?" But I could not even finish my thought, the next ten shots went through my big fat head! Yes my head. Peregrine had my brains splattered all over the cockpit, but since I was 3000 feet in the air I am sure they were sprinkled all over the place by the time my plane hit the ground. In fact I think it took longer for my now unmanned N28 to zoom into the ground making a spectacular impact crater than it did for me to compete in the whole contest. I was dead longer than I was alive while the plane was flying. Ugh. Not to mention this is the SECOND KotH in a row that I have been shot in the head. That does it, my next pilot is going to slouch. I am going to change my name to SE-TurtleBoy.

Ok, so after my once again perfectly untouched plane with a big fat beheaded corpse flying it goes into craterville, someone bagged Peregrine. I think it was Wingman. When I changed my view to Peregrine, he was missing his top wing and slowly spinning to the ground. BOOM! Serves ya right to change your target. 8-P

Hey Per, can't you give Wingman a head shot once in a while?

So Keiser and Wingman face off and it is a good duel, but Wingman ends up chipping away at Keiser's N28, which eventually loses a big enough piece to send him spinning to his death. They were much lower now and I am not sure if more altitude might have allowed Keiser to right his plane and land it. Probably not. Either way he was to low and the plane augured.

Wingman landed what appeared to be an untouched N28 perfectly and AGAIN reigns as King of the Hill! Congrats.

4/23/99 The King has been declared. Congrats! Buffalo Wings!

4/21/99

The King of the Hill competition was very different last night. I really have no idea how you guys want to score this one. First off I think we had more attendees than ever before. However, unbeknownst to all of us I think Dieroc's cable modem was starting to have some hiccups. At first Buffalo Wings and I could not see the whole list of planes. We both rebooted and rejoined and I think during all of this, Dieroc may have even restarted the server software. But I don't think there were any problems with any of our PC's, but instead probably some difficulties with the cable modem. No big deal though. I also want to apologize to Buschlight. I saw you in Enemy Among Us when we were all there before Dieroc's server started. Then we all left. When I went back to find you, you were not in there. Sorry about the mixup. If someone does not have the current password to Dieroc's server, send me and email and I will get it to you.

Now before we vote on the KotH, here is how I perceived last night's events. Maybe Buschlight, Baron Ray, Peregrine, or Sparticus can make an impartial ruling since they were not participants.

The new incident that will probably merit some kind of ruling inserted into the KotH rules was a collision. But here is how it all ran down . . . . . Spy, Dieroc, Wingman, Keisersosa, Buffalo Wings, Beatnik, and myself (seven of us) started the climb for the KotH. There was an array of planes last night too. Spy and Dieroc were in Alb D3's, Wingman, Beatnik, and Keiser were in N28's, Buffalo Wings in his trusty Dr1, and I was in a Camel. Most of us were right at minimum deck level (1500 meters) when Beatnik popped into the server. He hustled into his N28 and started to climb. Although we had all about called ready except Beatnik, he was having connection troubles, because he dropped. At this point the KotH had already been delayed almost a half hour due to all the various reasons. So we decided to just do it. Wingman called Game On and the game was afoot.

Now one of the rules is to try and stay in sight of the starting aerodrome. Positioning yourself to an advantage with 6 other "enemy" planes in the area is no easy task. One of the cool things about our KotH competitions is that it improves your situational awareness skills. I was scrolling through targets and trying to figure out everyone's position in relation to mine. The shooting started. Wingman and Dieroc were making a head on pass. Spy and Buffalo Wings were circling each other. Suddenly things started picking up pace. Wingman turned onto the tail of Dieroc. These two were a little below me and close, so I turned to get on the tail of Wingman. Being at the end of the congo line in RB3D is a good thing, if you can manage it. Wingman was chewing up Dieroc fast and I may have gotten a blast on Wing, but Dieroc's wings snapped and Wingman quickly turned to get me and at this point Keiser turned onto the tail of Wingman also. In a turning duel that I was losing, Wingman snapped off his now predictable 10 bullets and gave me a grey matter splatter out of body experience. My beautiful Camel went down with no damage and a red pulp in the cock pit. I think Buffalo Wings also shot down spy at this time. I did not see that battle so I do not know how it all sorted out. Wingman had been rather chewed up by Keiser while trying to get me. So I believe he headed for the field to try and repair. Dodging Keisersosa's bullets all the way down but sustaining some damage, Wingman tried to land his wounded N28 for a repair. I didn't see how, but he flubbed it and the landing was all wopperjawed and he became Keiser's kill. At this point, Buffalo Wings was preparing his coup de grace to become King and Keiser was reorienting himself to find his last competitor. I have these pictures of the approach. They started to circle and made a couple of excellent passes. I was really enjoying the chess match of these two when it happened. A head on pass proiduced a collision. Well at least it did for Keiser. I saw his plane blow apart to pieces and flutter in a death spin. BW's Dr1 was OK and he continued on. I guess the real questions are, did BW experience a collision or a near miss? Did anyone else besides me see and hear the crack of the collision? And ultimately, how should we treat collisions? It's one thing when it happens between the last two flying, but what if it happens when there are still 5 or 6 of us in the air? Ugh. What a mess. We tried to have an impromptu ruling where those 2 squared off again, but that is when the cable modem decided to give a final heave ho and we were all dumped. Oh well, it was a lot of fun. And I have no idea how you guys want to treat this one.

4/14/99

This week's KotH comp saw three amigos standing off. Peregrine, Wingman, and myself. An interesting plane match up too. Peregrine in a Camel, Wingman in an N28, and I chose the Camel also. I was very concerned to say the least. Peregrine has become quite adept at handling that Camel and Wingman is literally lethal in the N28. Not to mention I don't think I've ever fought a Camel or an N28 when in my own Camel.

Well we started off according to the rules. Each of us heading in a different direction and climbing to 1500 meters. The Camel does not climb as well as the N28 and by the time Peregrine and I were ready and Wingman called "Game On!" he was a good 700 - 1000 feet above us. I thought for sure this was going to be a short short competition. With his energy advantage Wingman would leave us like burnt toast.

In his exuberance I think, Wingman dove hard. I could almost see the evil gleem in his eye and the spreading grin as he dove wildly to bounce me from on high. It was almost as if his plane had a banner trailing it that said "Death From Above!" But he dove too hard and his lower right wing snapped off. Hahahahahahah, I was thinking. That was easy. So I switched my focus over to Peregrine who had to be close I figured. But what do I see. Peregrine is high tailing it to the deck. Like his name sake he has wings bent, speeding like a locomotive on rails trying to get on the 6 of . . .of . . . . Wingman? Yep. Wingman has brought his broken N28 under control and is going to land it. Obviously he wants to get it repaired to take off again. UGH! Who made that rule? Damn!! Damn !!!

I didn't know what to do. I was at around 3500 feet looking down. Peregrine was making his first pass at a landing Wingman. I could see the tracers and the faint sound of machine gun fire. Do I stay here with the friendly altitude or zoom down hoping to kill Wingman and use my Energy advantage to get Peregrine. Well I took the dumb course of action. I swooped down. Never. Never. NEVER give up your altitude.

By this time Peregrine had made a couple of passes at Wing. I think he damaged him but Wingman had not stopped yet and was about to get repaired. That's when I came screaming, SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAMIN' in on him. Both guns spitting death in long bursts. I could see the shots hitting his plane. If only I could get a head shot. Head shot. Head shot. Dammit I want a head shot. But no luck. Although his engine was running and even caught flame, he shut it down quickly, came to yet another stop and his plane was repaired. REPAIRED. Oh the horror of it all.

I turned to find Peregrine, I was in a hurry now. Peregrine in a Camel and Wingman about to take off and me losing all my energy.

It turned out that we had quite a longer battle from there. Low level flying. Me scared at all times about my left turn in the Camel. A twisting, turning, swooping, diving, climbing , changing target furball. Suddenly Peregrine went down, my plane was battered, but Wingman had damage too. I couldn't risk landing to repair. He would do the same thing. AAAAAAAAAAA. My wing snapped and I plummeted into the field. Wingman once again wins the KotH title.

Here are some of the pictures he took AFTER the competition.
Here I am chasing Peregrine

Here Peregrine turns the chase around on me.

Peregrine is tenacious. I can't get away.

Finally I make a head on pass.

Ah. That trusty right hand turn in the Camel. Nothing like it.

A nice look at some of Buffalo Wings artwork.

Wingman parked at the hanger, getting yet, another repair.

4/4/99 KotH competition . . .

Updated 4/5

Keisersosa's version . . .

Wingman took the lead as last weeks winner & we took the usual climb up to 1500. Attendee's were Beatnik, Buffalo Wings, Dieroc, Peregrine, Wingman & myself. I started out on Peregrine from about 1700 and he took a 90 degree nose dive down to 200 feet trying to rip my wings off. I was only able to get a few shots off during his spinning dive but fortunately I throttled back enough to keep my wings on. We had a short low level dogfight and I was able to get some decent damage on him. I think I took his wing out and felt confident he would crash, so I broke off looking for another target. Peregrine did end up crashing. I was looking around and saw Wingman coming down in a steep dive with his top wing ripped off. He was coming in for repairs and it didn't seem anyone was on him so I went in after him. I got behind him as he was approaching the field and starting firing on him. I think I was scoring some hits but Beatnik came in and forced me to break off. I broke off Wing and engaged Beatnik. I think Dieroc and Buffalo were out at this point, I'm not sure what happened to them. As I was pursuing Beatnik, Wingman was able to repair and took off again. It only seemed like a few seconds and Wingman was on my tail. It seemed like Wingman and I concentrated on each other while Beatnik flew around and took pot shots at both of us. I was taking damage from both and I assumed Wingman was also. Wing and I were performing some tight low level turns trying to gain an advantage when I think Beatnik and Wingman collided. Wing went down from the crash and I was able to put a few more in to Beatnik before he went down as well.

So ended the brief reign of Wingman and the beginning of the Keisersosa Age. A temporary winner may be named next week (in my absence) until my return on 4/18. Salute!

From Wingman . . ..

Now remember this is from my persepective. Beatnik, Dieroc, Keiser, Peregrine, Buffalo Wings, and myself were the KotH contestants last night. We all climbed up to 1500 and I gave the "Game On" call. I was circling watching a few tracers when I spotted Beatnik turning for me on the same altitude as myself. We came at each other head on, guns blazing, when WHAM. Drove myself right into him. Of course in the random collision thing, my plane was demolished while Beatnik looked pretty good still. On the way down, I was still in controll but lost my entire top wing. I was amazed but I landed and repaired. It was at this point I saw Peregrine and Buffalo sitting on the tarmac. Not sure what happen to them but they were watching the game. Sidenote, Kieser tried to get me on my landing but had to veer off since he was being shot at. I took off and I think Beatnik or Keiser got Dieroc, so I joined in the fray. Keiser, Beat, and I were unwilling to become a congo line. So it was a lot of turning and twisting and shooting. Unfortunatly I forgot about that little law called gravity and met Mrs. Earth really quick. Not sure what happened to Beat but the message said he left and when he came back he said he crashed. So Keisersosa with great flying and aim became the new King of the Hill.

3/28 KotH competition . . .

Here follows my rendition of the KotH from last night. If anyone else wants to submit their rendition, send it along. (Oh BTW, I've been meaning to post some KotH rules. Look for them soon. We can all vote on which ones to keep.)

We had quite a group participate in this week's KotH. Baron Ray, Buffalo Wings, Peregrine, Keisersosa, Wingman, Buschlight (who had the disadvantage of showing up a little later - connection problems?), and myself.

It all started out innocently enough. I think everyone was in an N28 except for myself (Fokker DVII). Everyone attained the engagement deck of around 1500 meters. The ready calls started coming in. And once again, all too soon, THE GAME WAS ON!

I found myself staying above the fray which started almost immediately. Wingman, Peregrine, and Keiser started the all too familiar RB3D congo line. I did not want to get into that mess so I circled a couple more times all the while looking through my left wing hat switch to the planes swirling below me spitting hot lead. Then all of the sudden Keiser and Baron Ray (I think) went down. The congo line has been interrupted. There was a small "where am I know" pause. I figured this was the time to swoop in. I targeted Wingman who was on Peregrine's tail. I hammered him. Ok, so I got off a decent burst that seemed to distract him. In fact I saw him break off his target to swoop away with some wing damage. I naively thought Wingman was done for. I clicked my E to get the next target - foolishly. Wingman swooped around and like a buzz saw (in fact I think his new call sign should be BuzzSaw) put the most amazing burst through my right upper wing, sawing it completely off. I think it took him about 15 bullets to accomplish that. I quickly broke away hoping he would target someone else. And although he did, the messages were coming across [Wingman shot down this guy], [Wingman shot down that guy], [Wingman is shooting down everybody]. It's one thing to be the last survivor and thus claim King of the Hill, it's another thing to personally kill every one on your playground. His killing spree was systematic and calculated. Man am I glad you're on our side. (Small note here: I never saw the message for Buffalo Wings. Did you get shot down or did you get dropped by the server?)

In the mean time, I landed my wounded plane to try and repair. However the drome was damaged (although it looked ok from the air). I could not repair and took off again figuring a bloody death (in KotH games) is better than a broken plane on the runway. So I took off again and must have been the pity to all watching from the runway. "The fool's going to . . . . I mean the sherriff 's going to do it!" The next thing I knew Wingman had a candygram for MONGO with my name on it. <CRUNCH> And then it was final. All hail Wingman, our newest King of the Hill!

Updated 3/23. Here follows Buffalo Wings synopsis (via email) . . .

Hi Weed, You asked for details of the final duel between Peregrine (heretofore known as the "Crown Prince of the Hill") and myself, so I will give them from my perspective (by the way, I would just LOVE to hear Peregrine's side of it!). When the contest started, I was fairly distant from everyone else. I could target everybody, but not see them. I started flying toward one of the targets and before long began to see tracer streaks in the distance. The battle appeared to be above me, so I started to climb. By the time I reached the fray it had dropped below me, so I circled above waiting for a chance to drop in behind someone. I did not see Weed go down, but heard the unmistakable sound of cracking wood and tearing fabric indicating someone had sustained structural failure. I steered my crate around and ended up behind Peregrine who was totally wrapped up in filling Kaisersosa full of hot lead. I got off a few short bursts at Peregrine, who seemingly ignored them, so I probably missed. I saw Keisersosa flame and almost immediately Peregrine peeled off and turned his full attention on me. Oh my, I thought, this is it, make it or break it. A lot of turning, rolling, diving, looping, and a few unknown manuevers followed. Amazingly, I managed to get the bead on Peregrine a few times and really let him have it. Toward the end, he adopted the "boom and zoom" tactic, using his speed advantage to get way out in front of me then turning back and attempting to down me "joust style". His bottom wing was in shreds, and I think he was afraid of doing a Weed and losing a wing. On the last pass I may have dealt him a blow to the engine because all of a sudden he slowed and began a turning fight (you might clarify this for me Peregrine). By this time all I had to do was line up on him and unload, which I did without hesitation. When I finally heard the crunch of the crash, I was ecstatic. It had been a long and grueling duel to the death, and it could just as easily have been me making that awful crunching sound. I want to thank Keisersosa for taking Weed out so early as he always kicks my butt. And to my proud opponent Peregrine, I say Salute!

Thanks BW! It really was a lot of fun. I am looking forward to knocking you off that Hill. LOL.

Participants for this first King of the Hill competition were Buffalo Wings, Peregrine, Keisersosa, and myself. We all climbed up to 1500 meters. I took up the Fokker DVII, and Buffalo Wings flew the Dr1. Keiser, and Peregrine were both in N28s. All too suddenly the game was on. Peregrine was closest to me and coming across my field of fire. I targeted him and pursued. As I came within range I let go a burst. He rolled and dove away. Right then a stream of lead flew by me. Quickly checking my six brought the alarming image of Keisersosa in my view. I rolled and dove the other way, Keiser is pursuit. At this point there was lots of turning and twisting, and I remember doing several loops. I don't think I had taken any damage and I was alternating between targeting Keiser and Peregrine. Although I scrolled past Buffalo Wings in my list it seemed he was circling patiently. After spraying Keiser with a few good volleys, I was determined to deliver the TKO punch. Keiser rolled to his right looping into a 90 degree turn to his left. I attempted to follow this maneuver when <SNAP>. My top wing was gone. Just like that. Although I still has some very very small amount of control I was too heeled over to correct it to attempt a landing at the airfield. Keiser followed me down unloading his machine guns. Just as I went into the dirt, I had Keiser on my F8 view. As he zoomed past my broken crate I saw on his immediate six, Peregrine. A quick and deadly burst from Peregrine through Keiser's carburetor. And we all know how well that much oxygen mixes with plane fuel. Keiser's engine burst into flame right in my view. Keiser was too low to and too far from the field to either put it out or land and he went down flaming. So then Peregrine and Buffalo Wings were dueling. Somehow the battle ranged rather far from the drome we were at, because although I restarted and sat on the field, I could not target either Buffalo Wings or Peregrine. I sat there for a good 3 or 4 minutes wondering what was happening. I finally decided to take off to get a view, although the rules say you can only restart and not take off, but hey, I wanted to see the battle for myself. That's when the final message came in: [SE-Buffalo Wings shot down SE-Peregrine], thus making BW the first Screamin' Eagle - King of the Hill and winner of our first award ever. The KotH gold star.

I apologize for missing the last half of that duel there, so if either of you would like to fill in the blanks, please drop me a note and I'll post how it happened here.

If you have any comments, questions, or see typos, please let me know. Drop me an email. Weed.