CH AP T ER 3: F E A R O F D EA T H

“We only thought about going out and getting drunk when we got back from the mission - we never considered
the fact that we might NOT be coming back.”
S/Sgt Leonard J. Hurley, 305th Bomb Group (H)

“I was always scared--that was what made me move quick.”

Major Robert S. Johnson, 61st FS, 56th FG

Death, in the online game, means nothing. And then again, it does. The simple fact that you
can respawn immediately and go on out to repeat the same mistake over and over again
without permanent penalty makes for a warped world when it comes to pilot behaviour. On
the other hand, no one likes “dying” for the inconvenience, disruption and confidence-
degrading of it. That said, some guys just don’t care and even regard dying as an expedient to
avoid a troublesome and tedious flight home. Others will go to any length to avoid virtual
death – by any means necessary including “hugging the ack”4 and even “yanking the cable”5.
Fundamentally, however, players usually rate success higher than failure – if they
didn’t, what reason would they have to play? In the online game, fear of death is thus a
highly individual choice – whether to immerse yourself in the overall experience or to simply
regard the game as a simple diversion, a sort of physical “twitch” exercise.
Death means failure. Death does have a meaning in the game insofar as it gives the
enemy a shot in the arm, insofar as it increases the odds against your remaining team mates,
insofar as it depletes the available aircraft for your side (when attrition is modelled, as in
WWIIOL), insofar as it forces you to spend time trucking back to the fight etcetera. But the
most important thing about death, which escapes most pilots, is that it reveals your errors.
Death is a learning experience which few takes to heart. Instead, the thing most flying
cadavers feel is anger. You get mad – or rather, hopping, screaming, wall-punching, monitor-
crunching mad – when you’re shot down, a rather disagreeable sensation if it happens with
any regularity, yet this anger is a good thing if you stop to think about it. You shouldn’t get
mad at the guy who shot you down, or curse the tree that collided with you (heh), but thank
them for the lesson and scold yourself for being such a dummy that let it happen in the first
place. And then work to avoid death by that cause in the future.
Flying as if your life depended on it gives the game a whole new meaning. Whereas
you would normally hop into any fight, you now pick your fights carefully and learn to
appreciate the dread and fear experienced by those who literally laid their lives on the line.
Your situational awareness improves, you learn to check your six more often, you learn to
maintain energy and positional advantage, and you may even learn how to fight as a team.
Death is the result of sloppiness and abandon. For the purpose of this book, we will
assume that the pilot is imbued with proper fear of death, or if you will, an abhorrence of
failure.
The pilot must not, however, fear death so much that he becomes paralyzed or that
he fails to capitalize on advantageous situations. There can be no gain, no improvement,

4Circling in the protection offered by friendly anti-aircraft batteries.

5Voluntarily disconnecting from the internet game through unplugging the network, the anonymous
disappearance being preferred over public humiliation.
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