I was born in Sydney, Australia and am still here 40 years
later. I first saw WB's when I took some time off work in 1995. Was a regular on comp.sys.ibm.pc.flight-sim newsgroup and kept seeing all these incredibly in-depth discussions on flight physics to do with a game called WarBirds. It seemed good so off I went to the local PC Game store and asked for a copy of this Warbirds game. They looked at me blankly. Kept checking around and eventually worked out it was an online game :). Got the bug bad within a few hours and started as a buffer in WB version 1.09. Ranked Top 5 most of the time in that period but got the fighter jock bug bad so switched to fighters. Main ride back then was F4U-1d, Ki84 or P51D. Started off by setting up the Escort squad of SilberWoelfe and did that as C/O. During that time I trained and brought a lot of new players into the game and my Squad, which I enjoyed doing and still do enjoy. August 1997 I joined VF-17 and had a ball with the F4U-1d. Version 2.0 saw some major revisions to the Hog which handicapped it severely. The F4U-1d FM was becoming tiresome for many and they found it hard getting kills in it, let alone keeping it in the air at times. A few of us were able to keep the squad together during that bad trot in 1999. At the end of 1999 I decided to take 12 months off work and spend time with the family. A few months earlier I decided I'd try and push for an Asia/Pacific Training area so applied for that role but iEN decided against that TZ at the time. Then again in January 2000 they asked for Trainer Applications and this time I was chosen. Since then we average about 6-10 people per session in the Asia/Pacific Training Area and have been swamped quite a bit. That is good of course :-) By mid-2000 I felt like a change from VF-17 as the squad was growing stronger and stronger plus squad time was becoming a problem for me. Joined the 352nd in September 2000 and am enjoying it immensely so far. Despite not having a specific squad time it's rare I fly alone due to the turnout and numbers in squad. The name btw? No, it's not the car ;-) It's actually from Audie Murphy the US WW2 hero and actor. Back in my late teens I was in Officer School, 7 years younger than anyone else in my Course and the youngest to get to that stage of the Course. We had some Vietnam vets with us [boy did I learn some serious stuff from them.. stuff you never forget] and after an embarrassing night-time defence [long story] these 2 guys christened me Audie. The much shortened version is basically I made an SLR sound like an M60 and the attack on our position was abandoned as they thought they'd run into a second MG placement [we umm.. only had one MG in the platoon at that stage]. As a youngster I did plenty of embarrassing things in those 2 years but those stories are for another time ;-). Here's me with my Grandfather about 20 years ago. He flew as an Artillery Spotter in World War One using one-way crystal radio sets. Was at most of the bloodbaths of WW1 and survived, both his brothers did also, though his best mates didn't. He ended up marrying the Scottish sister of one of his dead mates. Amazing guy and there was a book released about him last month. In it he told the stories he never told his family and it was fascinating reading. He died in 1996 unfortunately at age 96 [he was born just after midnight on 1st January 1900]. -Audi
P-51D-10-NA 44-15513 "Murphy's
Miss" flown by 2nd Lt. Phillip "Audi" Cunningham
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