MsFlights Aerobatic Team?

[Panther]

I talked to Bob (Robert Dunn 2), and it seems the idea of a MsFlights Aerobatic Team is a good one... I was thinking a 6 or 7 ship unique demonstration would be a cool idea in something such as the F/A-18C. The plan would be to go and perform at Virtual Airshows throughout the community showcasing the skill of many MsFlights members while also being an ambassador of MsFlights to other communities, countries and so forth... What are your thoughts?

[Cube]

How bout we Finnish what others have started and do a patriots jet team.

[Panther]

We're moving that here... Basically a continuation with the same people.

[ROBERT DUNN 2]

It has long been our reputation and is inherent in the community's mission statement to endeavor to accommodate activities of Special Interest Groups (SIG's) such as that being proposed in this thread. Based on this, I accepted Panther's proposal and encouraged Panther to seek a consensus of interest within the facilities of our community for such a formation aerobatic group. Historically we have hosted similar formation flying SIG's but those efforts were short lived.

Representation of our community outside this community's facilities, authorization to use our name and likeness and published association with the pilots at msFLIGHTS.net is beyond my ability to grant. Such endorsements and permissions can only come from an evaluation, discussion and vote of confidence of our representative staff. I have agreed to propose to our staff a discussion of such associative authorization after this formation flight SIG has demonstrated the ability to draw the required interested crowd and to conduct its operations in accordance with our participation policies. Included in these policies is the willingness to accept and train new interested SIG members and to conduct open operations. I like to point to our current TacPack SIG as example of the successful operation of such a SIG.

[edd2287]

We have tried allowing this before and it didnt go well. We do not need an official team here and i will be the first to say no to the patriots coming here officially. The contacts the team holds and videos members are involved in is not something i want to encourage here. By all means hang out here and fly formation group flights but i do not want an official team representing us lets not have another snowbirds fiasco. If we wanted a team to represent us im sure we would have asked our long term friends and well respected group when jimi,spins,saint,vindy,pman and razor first came around. Plus 1 for the no thanks crowd. I wish you and your team every success but dont think we want /need anything official it caused a ball ache last time soar21 and some others were allowed to try. All the best Edd.

[N85988]

I think a demonstration team would be great for us. What better way to represent us. I don't know of many other ways to draw the attention of others enough to want to join us. But if we are going to do this, I feel it would need to be ever evolving with new pilots all the time. We should have many other pilots trained to take a position in the formation so that, if one pilot decides to leave the team or needs to leave for whatever reason, we have other pilots who can easily fill in. To do this would require many more published training sessions so that other pilots, not just the chosen team, can practice and train together. Having a team that is flexible like this would be something that we can promote by letting other communities know that we have a program in place where anyone coming to join us has something that they can strive to become, an ambassador that represents someone with little or no flight experience who works their way through different levels of experience, to become proficient enough to become a performer. Our community does this on a regular basis, taking wanna-be pilots, teaching them how to fly, joining group flights, and becoming very skillful pilots, but we don't really have a goal to strive for. To be able to join a group like ours, knowing that there are people here that will take the time to teach me anything I want to know about flying, and maybe some day be good enough to join a demonstration team would be enough to keep me glued here in my seat. We could have different demonstration teams with different skill levels as well. Have a team using low and slow aircraft for that not-so-experienced team, then an intermediate team using faster, higher performance aircraft, and top it off with the top of the line jet or helicopter team.
I think it would be selfish of the senior officers to forbid any such team just because it didn't work before. Maybe we just need a new approach to the idea.

[Travis]

I agree mostly with Edd.
What I don't approve of:
I don't think we should have an official msFlights team. Branding our server name with un-trustworthy people is not a good idea. All it takes is a few wrongs words said and then our image gets tarnished.
Also going to other communities and branding "our" new formation team is also a bad idea. This will come off as recruiting. We will ban people that do this on our server, why would it be a good thing on someone elses. This also gives us a bad image.

Things I approve of:
Using our TS3 server for voice coms in a separate channel like GP 1-7 until a regular and substantial amount of people show up to be formed as a new channel.
If after a few months goes by, and this is heading in a positive direction for our community, then it may be okay to ask to be "officially msflights formation team"
Also when you look at formation teams in real life, The go to communities and perform their airshows, they don't call themselves "Hometown Flyers"
The FSX Blue Angels does this quite well and could be considered as an example of they way this should be performed
Performing on our server to do an airshow isn't a problem at all. If one does happen I would ask the Panther to make sure he is a little more organized and ready for it before he does another one.

Also Edd didn't seem like he was being selfish at all. He was analyzing the question and using past experiences to input his opinion on the protection of our community.

[Splithorse]

I think it would be selfish of the senior officers to forbid any such team...

In what way is it being selfish? You know, this way of trying to gilt trip us into doing something just plain pisses me off and for that reason, among others, I say no.

[N85988]

First of all, let me start by saying that I'm not trying to "Guilt Trip" anyone into doing anything. It upsets me just as much when someone says we shouldn't do something just because "we tried it before and it didn't work". If we keep doing that, no one will ever be doing anything anymore. Don't give it up. Learn from it and move on...try it again. And I am not targeting any one senior member for being selfish. What I am trying to say is that those members who have been here a long time and have seen something fail, whatever that was, shouldn't automatically try to keep us from trying to form a team to represent us just because of what happened in the past. If you tried something in the past, and for some reason it didn't work out, learn from the mistakes and move on. Don't just forbid it because it didn't work before. Try it again, try new people, or try new maneuvers, or whatever it takes to get it right. We do have alot of fun with this community, but we can do more.

[Jcom]

For the tenured members upon us; Remember what happened last time we did this and had an air boss?

[Kalo]

By all means feel free to organize a aerobatic team on our facilities. However I don't see a reason for msflights to have an "official" team. As others have stated it's a bit premature to represent msflights in the wider community. To first see how well organized you could become, I encourage you to organize events here with like minded enthusiasts.

[N85988]

For the tenured members upon us; Remember what happened last time we did this and had an air boss?

For the non-tenured members upon us: Please fill us in on what happened last time...

[Storm]

Though I have zero personal interest in sim display teams, I'm not against others being part of them. However, I feel "official" teams are both unnecessary and divisive. Why?

The answer is that we don't need extra ambassadors. We are all ambassadors when we visit other communities, or host cross-community events, or provide temporary emergency facilities such TeamSpeak to other groups. As a result, we're already in good standing with other communities and display teams would not help. We also already regularly attract new members to our community without display teams. And on the minus side, the "official" tag sends a misleading message because that's not what we mostly do here, and "official" perhaps implies that there can be only one such team or that others are unofficial.

I understand that some have a need to belong and to represent, but why not let's just all do what we enjoy doing without labels?

[AIRWOLF]

I agree with Kalo and Storm.

[edd2287]

Ok here is the questions i think we should ask ourselfs before we comment further.

1- Do we need an official formation team?

2- Do we still encourage formation groups to use our facilities anytime?

3- Are the team approaching us respected and trusted members of Msflights?

4- How will this add to the workload of the staff and MA's?

5- How have previous experiences affected our current way of thinking?


My personal answers to the above. Not the Msflights.net community opinions.

1- I feel we do not need and official team to represent us just as we do not have an official tubeliner group or any other division out there representing us in the wider community. We participate and host cross community flights for that purpose.

2- Absolutely we encourage anyone with a passion for aviation to join our corner of the internet. However msflights was founded on a small group of hobbyists that flew group flights together initially on Microsoft flight but progressed to other sims as time passed and audiences broadened as part of that many people have set up small groups of particular flights to indulge there passions for example the ATC section,Storm stalkers,Military,Bush pilots,Virtual airline. These are all in house groups and none of them are aimed at being outside representatives of our community. There is an option to set up a group on our forums for people to join if you so wish.

3- This is a tricky one. The group approaching us at this time have had some serious problems we had to deal with and one of there members (I believe has now left) is a well known troll on youtube who disrupted many servers. There flight lead features in his videos engaging in those activities. So from my personal opinion no they are not a respected and trusted group and many times in the past these groups form here for the intention of recruitment and we actually lose member to there teamspeak servers more often than we gain new ones. We do host airshows and invitations are open to all communities. So flying here as a group is encouraged just not "an official thing we do".

4- We have seen in the past the workload this has produced and it proved to be more than it was worth. And now with the member badge thing it will double the previous workload. Remember the staff here are volunteers who also come here to fly we do not come here to work. As i say many times we are here to help if need be but if that workload becomes so large it stops me flying the i will leave the badge on the table.

5- We as a group have tried many times to incorporate teams of formation pilots here it never works quite how the teams expected due to the nature of the group here. Please remember one of those teams was mine a few years back and it worked for a short time then many others decided they didn't want to fly that aircraft or manoeuvres and went and created there own team. at one stage we had 4/5 and to be honest they caused alot of trouble and tarnished the msflights name (mainly the snowjets). I could see this happening and took my team out of here before those teams damaged the reputation of mine (The FSX Red Arrows).


Though i think formation teams are great and i do encourage and enjoy watching a team progress i do not feel we would benefit from an official team in a way we wont benefit from them just being here and flying as another one of our niche groups.
Hope this clears up my thoughts and hopes you process yours.
Edd.