AAC P-40 Shoot Out

To help test a pilot’s skills, one of the AAC events is to have a pilot climb into one of the available Curtiss P-40 Physical Flight (PF) aircraft. Their first act is to navigate the runway, follow the proper signs, request and receive permission to launch from the Air Control Tower.

Once in the air we all had to circle around in formation to test our ability to keep up with each other. This isn’t as easy as it may seem for different planes will be flying at slightly different speeds which you had to adjust periodically.

Once everyone was in the air, there was a count down, 5…4…3…2…1 and our dog fight began! The rules are simple; last plane flying wins. Now, one thing about flying physical flight planes, is not only are they harder to control, but in mouselook mode it’s just forward, throttle, reverse and fire with the mouse, PF offers more of a challenge as you’re having to control movement and throttle with the keyboard while trying to fire with the mouse at the same time! You practically have to have almost Octopus like dexterity. Judging from the amount of people crashing into walls, they hadn’t mastered that yet.

Planes fell to the ground one by one, until only two were left. It was Red Squadron Lead Gokyu Ugajin vs Kaori Juliesse Lead of Green Squadron. The two twisted and turned, bobbed and dodged, overheating their cannons with rounds and rounds of bullets but still couldn’t shoot each other down. For over ten minutes the pilots tried to ground each other.

In the end though, Kaori hit Gokyu’s ship with a round of tracer fire his plane could not withstand and the smoking hull made its way to the ground.

Kaori Juliesse was the victor of the sky this time, but she better watch her tail flaps as pilots don’t forget when the next challenge comes round.