There seems to be a lot of new faces joining the forums lately (including me), and many are either brand new pilots or fairly inexperienced. I'm sure that there is always a regular turnover, but I imagine that the number of new members will only increase as the agreement with TFS, eventual Steam updates and, somewhere down the line, the release of the TF5.0 all helps to generate interest in Cliffs of Dover.
The steep learning curve of CloD is universally acknowledged and I see that there has in the past been an organised "ATAG flight School" that has presumably slipped by the wayside. As it stands the current advice to new pilots wanting assistance is "ask on Teamspeak, everyone is friendly and willing to help". This is without a shadow of doubt true, but as a method not without some problems. Clearly some very good friendships have been formed on the ATAG servers and when everyone is having a good time and chatting freely it can be very difficult (sometimes literally getting a word in, but also in terms of social awkwardness) to be the new person butting in for help.
For a few days I've been thinking about an idea based on my own experiences of learning to fly on the ATAG server. Obviously everyone is different and no two people will have the same levels of skill, transferable experience and confidence. Some people will be willing to throw themselves in at the deep end, both into the banter on Teamspeak and the nearest furball. Others (and I include myself here) might be more reserved about joining in the chat and their ability to fly and fight. Aside from some initial instruction on the controls and advice for getting airborne from Lolsav and Highseas, I found that engine management in normal flight was reasonably straightforward to learn given some time and practice. The problem comes as a new pilot when you try applying this to dogfighting and find yourself flopping around the sky like a landed fish and stalling rather than executing the perfect yo-yo or scissors that you can visualise in you minds' eye.
So what am I proposing? This would need the involvement of some experienced players to help get things going, but my idea is effectively a training team to guide newbies through air combat manoeuvring. Rather than a timetabled event or formal instruction, it would just take the format of a panel of players willing to offer their assistance. Someone wanting to practice their ACM could then approach one or more members of this panel, either on the forums or whenever they see them in-game, knowing that they would be willing to help. My idea is for these volunteers to help new pilots build their skills without the fear and inconvenience of being shot down until they feel confident enough to go out and wade into fights on the main server. Ideally some of these new players would themselves go on to become the next generation of trainers. As we experience waves of new players it could be a good way to group people with comparable skill levels that go on to regularly fly together. The ATAG bomber server would be a good place to do this, probably the sightseeing airfield in London as it seems to have the most aircraft types, or any other remote airfield that won't interrupt normal play on the server. If it isn't already available, perhaps a 109E-4 could also be added to the available plane types from this particular airfield?
At this stage I'd definitely be a beneficiary rather than a particularly useful trainer but nonetheless I'm happy to put my name forward should any other new pilots want some non-threatening combat practice… just shout me on Teamspeak if you see me playing.
So... I guess now I'd be interested to know what the rest of you think. Could this work? Has it already been tried and failed? Anyone interested in helping make it a reality?
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