puddle posted 04-06-99 10:58 AM            

I'm curious as to how much practice most of us put in. I do a lot of good old fashioned "woodshedding" off line with planes that I expect to be flying for scenarios (i.e., I'm living in a P-40 these days preparing for New Guinea) and I'm very fortunate to have -rube- close enough that we can go head to head a couple of times a week if we want - usually in the wee hours of the morning so we can tie up our phone lines for voice comms too. (My k/d ratio there puts me in mind of the National Debt, but at least my evasives are getting better and it's almost the only time he'll fly anything but 4th FG rides) I guesstimate that I put in three to four hours practicing for every hour spent on line. Not that it keeps me alive but hope springs eternal and as they say, practice makes perfect. I try not to let a day go by without launching the FE at least once.

I ask because some of the things I've read here and in the arenas make me think that there are quite a few who do all their practicing on line, as musicians say "rehearsing on stage". For me that would be both prohibitively expensive and verrrrrrry embarrassing.

-puddle out

mmouse posted 04-06-99 11:17 AM            

I spend most of my online time in the training arena (ave. 12-15 hrs per week) and 4-5 hrs per week offline.

Offline, I practice mainly my gunnery techniques: approach to target, lineup, fire discipline, etc. (Also my landings which are abysmal!)

Personally, I like having someone there to help critique my techniques, which is hard to get from drones.

All that online training time has begun to pay off now. I finished last tour with 14% gunnery (I've only been in WBs for about 4wks now)and average about 1 kill every other sortie. (Which for a relative newbie is pretty good I think).

Now my time is occupied with the 25H for the upcoming NG scen.

mmouse

*Pale Riders*

"Who is General Fail E. Ure and why the heck is he trying to read my hard drive ?!

dadi 4th FG posted 04-06-99 11:23 AM            

Howdy Puddle. Rube has mentioned your name before

I used to and still do practice offline allot...mostly for gunnery and nailing down certain manouvers real well. Try performing manouvers using External views. Very helpful. TA is a great place to learn from the best and ask questions. Also your more than welcome to attend the 4th FG training sessions in the PD. Tuesday nite 10:00 EST.

good luck...

daddy... baby steps(G)

Kekule posted 04-06-99 01:02 PM            

The majority of my offline time is spent practicing dive bombing and missile attacks on ground targets. After many cumulative hours of dive bomb practice, I can faithfully hit targets on-line, as long as ack or the enemy doesn't get me first. Off-line I practice both on enemy fields with live ack, and friendly fields when I don't want to be shot down. I still need work on my air to ground missile attacks, but getting better at taking out big hangars at least.

In WB 2.1, the unlimited ammo option offline included unlimited bombs and rockets. Made for great practice runs. In 2.5 the unlimited ammo option only applies to guns/cannons.

*sigh*

| Kekule |

Lizking posted 04-06-99 01:35 PM            

No wonder I suck so bad. I haven't played ofline since the first week I d/l the game. I use DOA for ACM and Gunnery practice and OJT for everything else.

Lizking

ooops, I forgot, I have been practicing for Operation Chastise offline, flying a heavily loaded b-17, 50' off the deck doing dead reckoning navigation with no f1 view at night

Alleycat posted 04-06-99 01:40 PM            

Hey!

I practice (yes trainers still need to practice <G> ) Offline alot!

I tend to do some acro work to hone my stallfighting work and do alot of gunnery, its mostly inverted practice and such to nail down those shots without having to take the extra time to rollover to hit someone.

Alleycat

Warbirds Training Staff

WB:==ac==

Daff posted 04-06-99 01:48 PM            

Hmm occasionally I'll go offline and practice..often it's because of some specific maneuver, other times it's because I go offline to test things (speed, climb, etc) and end up doing some practice..

But..the main part is online..I highly recommend early war for "training".

Most of the guns are weak enough that you can take some ping and still survive.

Also, the planes are very responsive and you can do all kinds of weirds stuff .

Daff

janneh posted 04-06-99 01:50 PM            

Usually I don't practise.

Sometimes I go offline and just kill nme's.

Not any specific gunnery or acm practise.

Oops, I found myself practising offline bombing with JU88, don't tell Skrew- <G>

janneh

Ram1 posted 04-06-99 02:37 PM            

Hey guys:

I practice offline on gunnery issues. For the planes I fly I like to try different convergence settings and then see how the tracers react so I can judge my lead. I also like to work on shooting while inverted, this can become a life saver for you once you learn how to do it.

Never can get enough gunnery practice.

=ram1=

airbss posted 04-06-99 04:53 PM            

will practice certain moves offline since there is no point in paying $2 an hour to train online by yourself. Almost once a week I will duel other squad members in the practice arena especially over rw. In this way, you can try maneuvers and new concepts out against similiar and dissimiliar aircraft.

But heck! The best training ground is sometimes the MA. If your not nursing your kill ratio the final test for you maneuvers, in the end, has to be the main arena. I learned many a cool and sly move in there .

Dslick posted 04-06-99 04:56 PM            

I sit in a cardboard box decorated with crayons and make airplane noises.

Dslick

Gryf posted 04-06-99 06:29 PM            

I practice offline with gunnery a LOT (5+ hours a week) and it makes a world of differnce. During this time I look to perfect the setup and shot so it is a 1 pass kill. You leanr exaclty how to line your shot up. Make it a high speed pass from an oblique angle with a closure of 200 yrds per second to make it interesting. No loitering behind the drones for a kill

Michael Weber

=Gryf=

CO Rogue Gryffons -BYA-

Deadman posted 04-07-99 12:15 AM         

Id like to see imol model target hardness offline accurately. Its very hard to practice offline when you know that the target online will be much harder to kill and therefore a near miss offline which kills the target prob wont work online.

also its almost useless to practice straffing since it only takes 3 bullets to kill some ack offline. why would it be so difficult to either have a selector for target hardness to toggle between easy mode and realistic mode. Or just make it the same off or online? (or am I just ranting?)

I used to just launch h2h and fly solo since the target hardness there was more accurate but now with the new 2.5 this isnt an option since it wont let ya launch without someone else connected to ya (thanks a lot imol)

Spitfire posted 04-07-99 12:28 AM            

3 letters, H2H cant get enough of it!

nopoop posted 04-07-99 11:28 PM            

For practice I die alot. Try different things, refine others. Main hurdle is patience and it can't be practiced. It's a mind set that comes and goes. When I have it, I'm not half bad, when I don't, please reread the first sentence.

nopoop from the EZ Targets

If you can't kill us, your not really trying

Keep your streaks and your score in your pants where they belong

If it doesn't make you laugh, your taking it way to seriously