We cannot have a good practice...

Another item to address is not having the team practices as a whole. We cannot have a good practice and have everybody working on the same page if they do not show up for the team practice on Sundays.

This is a quote/cut from another topic.. it has good merit. What the solution is .. I don't know but worthy of discussion.

Personally .. I can't make every practice and on Sundays because of other obligations .. to give AA 2-3 hours of my time really hurts. If I attend a 1 hour practice .. 30 minute break .. then the event .. the the post meetings .. I've got 2-3 hours tied up. I'm also a Ref and just might have to actually REF a match .. Now with the New Pilots training.. and the Air Assassins .. I'm even more involved.

You are dead on .. that its hard to have a good practice without all in attendance.

I do believe that Burton/Zarn can have a practice once a week (not sundays) with Uk/Aussie pilots, and the Joker/Tbar can have a practice with the America's Pilots. I think this is best we can work at for an International group. What we should maybe try for is at our Post Flight meetings with the Officers Core .. that we layout what the practice for the week is. This would allow both groups to be at least focusing on the same type of practice.

Sundays practice should be done per Jokers plan regardless. But maybe during post flight .. we ask the pilots what we need to practice on this week.. ?? We get input from them.. use it for mid week practice .. and then do on Sunday what ever the CO feels we need to practice on that day to prep for the upcoming match..

More input and thoughts from you guys .. cuz.. I don't really have a solution at this time. What I don't want to see.. and at the same time do want to see is: If you arn't at practice .. you don't fly. I don't want to see this because I think it will hurt us, yet I do want to see this to encourage all pilots to attend practice.

I think the seperate practice has helped a great deal with flying skills, and especialy with winging up. And there's plenty to learn and practice in the seperate teams.

I am encouraged that we have so quickly developed to this point where team practice is becoming increasingly important.

The Sunday slot seems to be the one most can make, so the low hanging fruit is to keep that going - match or no match. The Wednesday night LTS practice with USHA sounds good - but for me 02:00 is hard, if this could be brought forward by two hours ( to 19:00 for you guys / midnight here ) I would to attend... even an hour earlier would help, but don't mess with times if they work for you.

T-Bar, I understand where your coming from with your "dont practice - dont fly" rule, but I think thats a tad draconian for now. Its a game, and we are still having a lot of fun here, I dont want to risk a slight change in emphasis and we reach a tipping point and the tone changes. I would like to promote the idea that the sucess we are seeing is a result of the effort we are putting into practice and keep hammering the practice practice practice message, see if that works first.

B

I have said as much in some of my general posts that if you don't practice you don't fly. That's the way it should be. The people who put forth the effort and the dedication to the team are the ones who should fly. When I had my city league softball team that was a rule I instituted. I had one guy that was such a huge power hitter that he could hit the ball well over 700' which if any of you know it is about 200' long than most MLB ball parks fences. So anytime he got to bat, it was just and instant home run for us.

He would sometimes not make practices and I had to substitute him for player that did show up. He didn't like it when he didn't play and it cost us a few games when he didn't play, but the guy who did show up, a second stringer, got better and better.

I can't do this with this team, because if I did, we would only have 4 to 5 pilots flying and the rest would just log off. It's not beyond me to do this, but then again I don't like forfeiting matches. Since this league has started, we have had an outstanding number of pilots show up for our matches. So why can't they show up just and 1 1/2 hours earlier to practice? I do it, and when I can't I let someone know.

We've got a good base of solid pilots right now. My base team is: Burton, Zarn, Tbar, Coldfire, Tango, Talon and myself. These are the guys I'm counting on to pull us through. Now add a few more Like REW, Shwane, Jonny, and CoreyT (Commanche) and we could grow into a really tough team to beat.

Coldfire is coming on real strong with his communications and we need to keep encouraging him. Tango needs a lot of improvement with his communications. He does well when we are flying in teams, but not in the matches. He is a lot like I was when I got into a dogfight I clammed up. Now I'm screaming for help and barking out orders like crazy.

Anyway I really want to work on this HI / LO attack. I think it will be very good for us even if it is just a counter for an aggressive attack squad. I'm think we can do different things with it such as 3 HI 4 LO or 4 HI 3 LO adding other players would just be that more beneficial to us as long as they know that plan of attack.

More input and thoughts from you guys .. cuz.. I don't really have a solution at this time. What I don't want to see.. and at the same time do want to see is: If you arn't at practice .. you don't fly. I don't want to see this because I think it will hurt us, yet I do want to see this to encourage all pilots to attend practice.

I think we are on the same page. I don't want to see it happen .. but at the same time I do.

No way would I vote for something like this as I think it would hurt .. more than help. If we had ample and abundant good pilots .. I would be for a policiy: "no practice .. no fly". Right now we can't say such a thing .. it would come back to kick us in the arse

Sure, we are certainly on the same page.

I think the "graphs" are all heading upwards, better ettendance for matches, better ( but lower ) attendance for practice, and results picking up.

Just need to keep up the message how important practice is, and winning helps drive this home. I think we are nearing another 'tipping' point. Where we regularly have more than 8 capable pilots for a match. This changes things, we will have competition for places in the team, peer pressure to do well, and an obligation to know the drill's and the tactics - in short "obligation to attend practice", if you miss practice the squad will have picked itself ... .

I suspect better attendance at practice will just happen organically, and the "no practice no fly" will become the default, an unwritten, unchallenged, accepted "being part of BSS" rule. And get this, I think as news leaks out on how we are settting our stall out, and results pick up ... I am betting we will attract more pilots, and not rookies ....

Think on that ... whats our policy there ?

For now, I suggest you keep recording the attendance figures, and lets review this in a few weeks. We will be able to judge if we have to enforce such a rule.

B

And get this, I think as news leaks out on how we are settting our stall out, and results pick up ... I am betting we will attract more pilots, and not rookies .... Think on that ... whats our policy there ?

I think I'll make a new topic on that.. its important: Policy on New Pilots.. ..