Welcome to the History pages

History of EAF

EAF was founded in 1998-12-16 by Serval and some others from the Netherlands.

"Since I loved playing EAW on-line I wanted to start a group for it. Expecting that it would last 6 months or so. Gizmo, then calling himself Petersen also wanted to help set up the group (you know him, so never much on-line etc). Through newsgroups I met some other Dutch like Striker and Elmar. We figured to start a group called 322: the Dutch RAF squadron. One of the first evenings we appeared on-line with our tag, Camouflage asked us if he could join. We told him no, since we wanted a Dutch only squadron. But his question made me think and the idea for the European Air Force and the structure with multiple squadrons after RAF example: 322 and 331. We figured this way people could be in one team, but maintain their own identity. We told Camouflage about our solution, but he was allready recruited by LLv34. Then we met Erik from Norway on-line and asked him for our new 331 squadron. Quite fast he appeared to be a great help in organizing."

What follows is what I (Mikke) have been able to figure out and remember, there is holes in the story, but hopefully I/we can complete the picture along the way.

From the start Serval was C.O. and Elmar X/O. When Elmar disappeared Erik became X/O instead, and Paddy became S/L of 331.

Some time after the creation of 331 a Czech guy living in Austria called Wez joined us. He wanted to have his own 310 squadron. We set the minimum requirement of 3 people for it and some time later 310 was founded. After some time Wez left and Lector took over.

Around this time SDOE came out, some pilots loved this sim so we decided to support this sim as well.

Some french pilots joined to fly SDOE and 329 was created. Unfortunately all but one french pilot only flew SDOE, and they kept to themselfes. As the interest for SDOE died out, all 329 pilots decided to retire from EAF.

This was a short time after I (Mikke) had been recruited to EAF by Paddy on his birthday (1999-10-16). I can tell a little about when I joined. There was no special training for trainees then, but I did fly quite a lot with the already accepted pilots, mostly Paddy but others as well. I think one of my first evaluation flights was with Erik, a great pilot but I think I managed to do pretty decent against him in that flight, and some time later I was accepted.

Around this time Lector also disappeared and 310 was disbanded.

The squadrons existing then was 322, 331 and 92. 322 was the biggest squadron with 92 and 331 about similar in size.

Phil and Macfly was recruited a few weeks after me and Phil naturally went to 92 and Macfly joined 331. More pilots was recruited and EAF kept growing.

Erik and Meridian was the first T/O's, but Meridian had more or less stopped flying by the time I joined EAF, and I'm not sure I ever flew with him. Erik was busy in real life and couldn't fly as much, so late in 1999 Menden, who later became S/L of 92, became T/O. In 2000 me and Macfly also became T/O's and by this time the principle of having a trainee period for every trainee and minimum requirements for acceptance was in place.

During Eriks time away Bbird was promoted to W/C and made X/O. Moose was the S/L of 322.

As 92 kept growing after a while they had enough scottish pilots that they could become their own squadron, 602. Puffman became the first S/L of 602 and later became W/C of the wing containing 92 and 602. Crater replaced Puffman as S/L of 602 in late 2000.

In 2000 Bear joined EAF, to begin with in 92 squadron, more italian pilots joined and in 2000-11-27 51 Stormo was created as a squadron in EAF.

310 was recreated and Macfly became the S/L.

In 2000-12-01 Paddy was promoted to W/C and I was made S/L of 331, by this time we had managed to recruit Wasp and Zwede (later retired to spend more time shooting really small groups with his benchrifles).

In the beginning of 2001 there was a lot of turbulence in HQ and in 2001-03-19 Serval stepped down as C.O. of EAF with Bbird replacing him.

EAW flying had dropped some as the sim was getting old, and new sims was on the horizon. One that we had high hopes for was B-17 II, and the other was IL-2 Sturmovik. The first one showed itself totally unsuitable for online flying and generally not seen as much of a sim. The second one, IL-2, showed great promise, especially as a demo came out. There had also been other sims, but nothing that managed to replace EAW until IL-2 started to become reality.

But in late october 2001 the big crash came, Bbird decided to break 322 out from EAF, Serval decided to quit altogether. A lot of 322 pilots left for "the other" (non-EAF) 322, but some stayed.

Those of us who was left was without leadership, and the history of EAF could have ended right there. Instead of letting this nice group be broken apart we decided to do something about it, and I was chosen as the new C.O. of EAF. Paddy became my X/O, Macfly became the head of OTU. Bear was chosen as personell and external relations officer.

The remaining pilots from 322 was transferred to a new squadron, 274, and Backstop made S/L of it.

I took over the homesite who had been run (and mostly created by) Serval. Serval was very helpful with getting it up and running on a new server, and we owe him a lot both for the creation of EAF and also after him leaving EAF.

Eventually Serval rejoined EAF for a shorter period of time before retiring from EAF to help create 1.Java.

In the aftermath of the breakup and new leadership, Menden retired from EAF after not having flown for some time. Phil replaced him as S/L of 92.

Puffman, Crater and Growler decided to retire from EAF and instead created 602COG. Macfly took over briefly as S/L of 602, but some time later Scotty was made S/L of 602.

This year, 2003, 51 Stormo was made into a wing with Bear as W/C, the squadrons under 51 is 20 Gruppo with Nepe as S/L, 132 Gruppo with Max as S/L and 155 Gruppo with Italo as S/L.