This is a US Army Air Force role-play set during World War II. Your character is a member of the 317th Fighter Squadron of the 325th Fighter Group. We will run this RP with a round of posts on the ground doing whatever fighter pilots do on the ground and then a round of posts on a mission fighting the Germans. And Repeat.
I am not interested in lengthy character sheets, just the basics. Your starting character may or may not be your ending character. You may only have one character at a time, with an exception. If he dies in combat or is shot down and becomes a Prisoner of War then you can start a second or successive character. If by chance he does become a PoW, then you can write posts about his experiences in Stalag 7 if you are interested. If not, focus on the new free guy flying P-40s, P47s, or P51s depending on the time period. If your character is being escorted out of occupied territory, you can write that story as well. Remember, it could take several weeks before he gets back home.
I’ll follow the timeline of the 325th Fighter Group which started in New York and Rhode Island in 1942 and then first saw combat in the Mediterranean in April 1943. The squadron flew many missions between this first encounter and the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, mostly in the Mediterranean and Italy. We will not attempt to reproduce the lives of the men who flew these machines 80 years ago but fill our characters' lives with our imaginations.
Each Squadron is authorized eight aircraft initially but may be bumped up to twelve at some point in time. Also, as aircraft are lost or Non-Mission Capable (NMC) for maintenance, all the authorized aircraft may not be available for every mission. If a pilot dies, but his plane is replaced before the pilot, then we may have aircraft but not enough pilots.
With eight aircraft available per squadron, this means we’ll have at best 24 aircraft for the group. If twelve aircraft are available per squadron, then we’ll have 36 aircraft for the group.
If your character survives, living for a lengthy period, he can get promoted and moved into positions of responsibility. Everyone starts as a Second Lieutenant (2LT). Time in service with the unit is all you need to be promoted to First Lieutenant (1LT). Displaying Leadership ability, taking care of your comrades, and helping to instruct new squadron mates will get you promoted to Captain and expected to lead a flight of four aircraft. The squadron commander is a Major and if you stick around, exercising good leadership decisions your character may be promoted to that rank and given responsibility for one of the three squadrons in the Group. The Group commander is a Colonel, and his Executive Officer is a Lieutenant Colonel. They each fly an airplane not in one of the three squadrons, which technically bumps the number of aircraft up from 24 to 26 and from 36 to 38 if they are all Mission Capable.
Checkertails is the nickname of the group because each aircraft has a black and yellow checkerboard pattern on its tail like the one in the image above.