So...

[Mar]

Greetings. I am a friend of Kippy's way back from the Aces High days. I hate typing big paragraphs, so I'm going to copypasta my intro to Redshift from when I joined the 8th. The difference is that I became an IP in the 8th, and I graduated college.

My name is Mar, and I read some of your posts in the Cadet Mentors thread. I understand that you offer a very thorough training program. I would be very much interested in such a program. I understand that you are unwilling to train someone who is not motivated to complete the training.

The ONLY problem that I've had with my motivation to learn all aspects of simulated aviation combat is that I'm rather shy. I have a difficult time reaching out to people that I don't already know. But I've had enough. This is something that I've wanted ever since I was a teenager, and now changes are happening in my life. I'm starting college for the first time this fall. I'm already taking a certified online computer course. I'm pushing myself harder than ever before to learn new things. When I saw what was being talked about in the Cadet Mentors thread, I could put it off no longer.

I've always loved flying, even though I'v only ever had the opportunity to do so in games and simulators. I also love fighting in the air, because it forces me to use every bit of my skill, and to squeeze every last drop of performance out of my machine. But the passion to become the BEST I could POSSIBLY become at flying and fighting began with a story. You may have heard of it, Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War. I played it so many times on my PS2 as a teen that I lost count. I'll tell you more about it later if you want because this is already becoming a wall of text, but there's just one more thing about me that I wanted to tell you about.

I played a game called Aces High for... well, I lost count after six years. It's a WWII aviation combat simulator. Not like DCS, the buttons and switches and etc. aren't modeled that way in Aces High, but the flight models are. Dogfighting was a very steep learning curve in that game, but I did it. I became one of the best dogfighters in that game because I wanted to. Because I loved it.

Unfortunately, my friends in that game moved on, the Training Arena became less and less populated, and the overall mindset of the playerbase moved farther away from loving the fight itself and more towards "I just want to kill people" than I had ever seen it. So I left, not without regret.

I took a break from flying. But now... now you can take my signature literally.

[Mar]

Did I mention that I beat Redshift in a dogfight? ;)

[Reaper]

Thanks for the intro Mar, welcome to the v57th!