Application: Zenatsu, Yet another FNG.

Hey Zen,

congrats on that DD214, I think you have come to the right place we have some great guys here and a pretty good program to get you up to speed. The Huey IMO is the best helicopter to learn to fly on because it has the least amount of systems, once you learn the Huey you pretty much just need to learn the systems for the other aircraft. 

To answer your questions 

1. Are there any Required modules?
   • No. We fly with all the helicopters though so some missions you may find that you can't participate in because we aren't flying the Huey. However, we usually try to set up missions with two different roles attack and lift, the usual pairs are KA-50/MI-8 and UH-1/sa-342. Just from experience most people end up with all of the helicopters, but it is definitely not required. 
2. When are typical Training and/or Operational times?
   • We usually fly based off of East coast time around 2100 with formal training flights on Tuesdays at 2100 and missions on Thursday at 2100. The times and dates vary but that has been our most consistent time schedule as of lately, however we have a lot of members that will hop on to our servers at any given time to fly. 
3. On a scale of Call-of-duty to Real life. How much do you guys go into Military Simulation?
   
   • So when we do our actual training or missions we try to get as close as possible. We have a pretty comprehensive SOP and probably the largest library of documentation you will find. If you are wanting the most authentic flying experience you have certainly found the right group. I think most of our pilots will tell you that flying the helicopter is the easy part, that learning to fly tactically and as a team is much more difficult. We do have our pilots go through what we call readiness level (RL) progression which will help you get up to speed pretty fast.
   • With all that being said we do have a lot of pilots hop on to one of our servers after hours and fly casually.
4. Do you guys use "Simple Radio"?
   • YES! we have tried other radio software and simple radio proves to be the best solution.
5. Would you fight 100 duck sized horses, or 1 horse sized duck?
   • depends, are we playing by Ant man rules because if a duck sized horse retains all of it's strength and speed then the answer is not only no, but hell no I will fight the duck all day long. 

Looking forward to flying,

Eagle_Rising

Also check out our discord https://discordapp.com/invite/a8ajtK?utm_source=Discord%20Widget&utm_medium=Connect

Hi Zenatsu and welcome to BSD!

I believe I sent you some information and links to read that might answer your questions ( I think I did but it was early in the morning and I was waking up so let me know if I just dream this). 

1 There is no required modules and missions are usually trying to use at least two modules each time (attack/transport). UH-1 is the most commonly used module although it is not exactly the most capable, but it is popular here. We do have pilots who are exclusive on Ka50 or SA342. If you can fly one UH and one AH, you should be good to fly most of the time anyway.

2 We are flying trainings and missions during weekdays starting 2030 or 2100 EST (I believe you are living east coast too from your profile). Trainings/Missions usually last 2 hours (sometimes 3). We do have flights during the weekend, but they are irregular. We have 2 servers running 24/7. One for trainings and scheduled missions, and one running a persistent campaign where you can jump in whenever you want. Just hop in our Discord server and ask if anyone is available to fly with you.

3 We have real life helicopter pilots in the squad; civilian, EMS and military (army and navy). We have a training program that is largely based on the army RL one. It's always difficult to please everyone but we are trying to push toward real life procedures without becoming a pain in the ass for everyone. We understand that not everyone want to spend half the day just to prepare for a flight, even though this is what happened IRL, but most of our pilots are looking to learn from the pros and are fine not firing a single round during a mission rather than jump in a hot chopper and shoot everything that moves.

4 We are using Simple Radio. SR servers are running 24/7 on our 2 servers.

5 Definitively one horse size duck.

Regarding your transition, I really don't know what this involves regarding your free time. We all here have a job and family, so we are not free to fly anytime we want. That's also the reason why our flights are taking place during weekdays and in the evenings. We are mostly looking for some commitment from our members. We have instructors who will spend their free time to train you and they are not doing this just for the fun of it. Once you become operational, we want to see you taking part in the missions, proposing flights, eventually starting to build some simple ones. Are you telling us that you will be available to fly for two months then leave?

OK. Eagle beat me by 10 minutes...

haha sorry didn't see you online. 

 Thanks for the answers Eagle! I think you guys also play on the other maps, so I should look into getting those... maybe.

I'm probably gonna stick to NATO, and skimp out on russian craft, they're not really my style.

Bad, you did send me some information, which helped me find the post that had the application format (It's buried if you try to look int he normal forum), but they didn't really answer the questions I had

especially the horses or duck question, that's super important you know!

Well, it's mostly more of what duties I get stuck with, that might make me miss a week or two. But once I hit that final stretch and I start officially clearing (getting the paperwork set-up, and out-processing myself), I'll immediately have a whole ton of free-time. yay me!

So quite the opposite, I may be a bit spotty for about 2 months, and then I have more time to spend in the group. Currently there's nothing projected, aside from a 24-hour shift I might haft to do on a Wednesday or Thursday, for me specifically that will take me out for a long period of time.

believe it or not the MI-8/MI-17 is used by NATO countries. Including the U.S.!!

I do believe it. I rode in a civilianized mi-8 in afghanistan. I got to ride in all sorts of helicopters on my deployment. That was awesome.

ya and we have all of the IRL U.S. Army documentation for it so there really isn't any need to try translating a bunch of Russian documents to fly it realistically. I really wouldn't count it out, it is a complex aircraft but really is fun to fly. 

Totally need pictures of your flight in the Mi8! 

We are flying a mission by the way tomorrow. It's on PG map though. But you are welcome to join if you want.