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FALCON 4.0: Operation "TIGERSPIRIT"
By Dr. Stefan "Bluefire" Linke, Tom "Tiger" Moelter, CAG of the 1st G.U.N.S. "Richthofen" and Jeff "Rhino" Babineau, C/O of the 209th "Deltahawks"The Deltahawks
To describe the history of the Deltahawks, one must go down deep into the scene of flightsim enthusiastics and wrecked technology freaks in the world of LAN flying. Wonderful thing technology. It has allowed us all to experience in some fashion what others go through when they are called upon to perform difficult missions for their country. The reality is we don't suffer any of the fear, anxiety, heart break and physical duress that these jobs entail. Just the FUN!! It is with these thoughts that my buddy David "Wolf" Lanphear and I began flying Falcon 3.0 via the modem. We were wargaming buddies from an advertisement placed at a local hobby shop. We had many wonderful Friday nights battling each other over Europe in the 40's. Really, we spent most of our time battling the rule books. Computers changed all that.
We had flown Falcon (the original) at my house a number of times. Mostly we just tried to outscore each other. We got greedy/bored one day and that's when Dave and I happened to notice that Falcon used a null modem hookup. He surmised that there was no difference to the serial port what type of modem there was and we tried Falcon over our "state of the art" 2400 baud modems. It reminded us of Alexander Bell's famous experiment. Except ours went like this, "Did you fire yet?" "Yes." "I don't see anything." "Well I fired." "Where's the missile?" "Hold on, it's almost left the launch rail." Our experiment worked but the technology had not yet arrived for us to fulfill our dreams. Then came Falcon 3.0.
Highest End flight equipment of the 209th
Holy mackerel. Luckily I was not part of the great online scene at that time to be worried about things like "release dates." As far as I was concerned, a game came out when it was ready. Not much has changed except that now some games come out before they're ready. We are also blessed by raving "release date" police. I thought I'd join for a while but I found it more constructive to delay a needed root canal. David and I flew via modem frequently. Our usual Saturday event was as follows: mow lawn, campaign. We also began our first foray into "how much money can I spend on a nerdy computer hobby." My 486 couldn't handle the ground map in full detail...upgrade. We can't communicate very well...get another telephone line. It would be nice if I could do more things with my joystick...buy a Thrustmaster. My throttle control sucks...buy a throttle. What ever the problem is, cashink, cashink, cashink (insert cash register sound here) throw money at it. Our government does. We were having great fun but we wanted more.
I entered the wonderful world of on-line at CIS, AOL, Genie. It didn't matter. they had this strange concept called "customer support." Amazing that I could interact with the software designers. This was great. I could ask all those questions that I had pondered forever and get an answer. "Why do those pesky SA7's kick my butt...at 25,000 ft?" "Oh, I guess we over-modeled those didn't we?" More importantly, I was able to become very knowledgeable about these programs thanks to some wonderful customer support. Most noticeably Gabe Turk and Marisa Ong and Spectrum Holobyte. Every question, no matter how absurd was answered. Every raging venting assault was calmed by either a tactical suggestion or their admission of a bug. I kept all of it with me. But I had other plans, to find more flyers. CIS had a list in its library. PILOTS.TXT. My first thought? "I wonder if there are any pilots in there?" BINGO! A list of pilots and their e-mail addresses and ...their area codes! I could search and find a pilot that was in my same area code. So, of course everyone in the 209 area code got an e-mail. I received 2 responses from the three that I sent. One gentleman lived in Fresno, a two hour drive, and respectfully declined the offer to form a squadron. Another, Jim "Animal" Konecny happily informed me that he had been wanting to do the same thing for months and better yet, he knew 3 other guys!
Within a week we had 5 guys frothing at the mouth to form a squadron. Dateline: 4 December 1994. The meeting is set. The local computer clubs normally meet at a place called Naughty Nick's. No, it's not a strip bar or a porno theater. It's actually a pizza place geared toward teenage entertainment. It was a standard place and we went. Wolf and I walked in to meet Animal and Jon "Joker" Perkins. There was so much conversation that night. We had a lot of talking to do and it did not look like it was going to happen in between fire engine sounds and birthday announcements on the PA so we left over to another new squad mate Ed "Fixer" Krager's house to continue our meeting. We discussed mottos (which we still don't have), patches (arriving soon), competition, chain of command, rank, standard operating procedures, etc. After the beer ran out, we left.
Rhino (C/O, 209th) desperately protecting our B-52s against invading fishbeds
I am not sure when we decided on the name, Delta Hawks, but is was just a natural choice. We are all aware of the power and majestic quality of the Hawk but Stockton is known for its Delta waterways and inland sea port. The Delta Hawk ominously lines the roads as you approach our city. She is a beautiful bird and I am proud to call myself a Delta Hawk. Through our on-line activity and our personal contacts at software stores we began to generate more members. Slowly at first and then all of the sudden a big boom. I have noticed that the squadron seems to grow in spurts. We may not pick up a new member in 3 months and then 1 month will have 4 guys show up. This is a tough thing to do, Being a member of a squadron. It means that you have to pick up about $2000-$5000 in gear and haul it to someone else's house and hook it all up to fly for awhile and then do it all again when you're done. It can be hard work.
Being a musician for so many years it did not really bother me because that's all you do anyway and you have to do it around drunk dudes. But with everyone in the group, it is well worth the effort. I have met some wonderful guys because of this hobby. Lou "Yoda" Mayers, Rene "Mig 59" Borromeo, Manual "Manchu" Trevino, Ken "Grizzly" Webb, Dan "Crash" Crenshaw, Bob "Tango" Fakes, George "Gshock" Josol. The list gets bigger each week I surf the net. Network flying is nothing like solo flying. The game changes so dramatically. And finally the technology has allowed us to feel more of the experience. The days of playing all by yourself on your computer are over with. The technology has now allowed us to have a wonderful social gathering much like the days when our parents played canasta and Yahtzee with our neighbors. This is the age of a global community where a man's mind and ideas is far more important than the color of his skin or his country of origin. Wonderful thing, technology.
