DCS Cinematic "Last flight:" A tribute to online friendships- lost and found.

   / @redbravo65   (RedBravo65s youtube channel. He was a big fan of DCS- hence why I chose DCS for this video.)

Many of us take for granted that the online friends we’ve spent hundreds, if not thousands (upon thousands) of hours with in game are always going to be there to log on with us for one more kick at the big mission; one more lap around the track; one more quest; one more flight.

On July 8th of last year a friend I’d made while hosting a private DCS Server (The Firehouse) over a decade ago passed away. I left DCS quite a few years ago and we lost contact but he’d come back into my gaming life a few months earlier playing another title with a small community I established. We were anxious to get him back in action since he had to take time to heal from a recent surgery. During his down time we talked about getting back into DCS and flying together again. We were both eager to get after it and I dusted off my fancy HOTAS controller and TrackIR setup.

His wife reached out to his discord contacts on July 11th, sending a gut-wrenching message to a few of us to let us know he’d passed away suddenly and unexpectedly: “…He greatly enjoyed many, many, many hours spent playing DCS and chatting with his friends on Discord. Thank you for being a friend to RedBravo65.”

RedBravo65 was delightfully positive and loved his time in game- maybe even as much as we enjoyed having him play with us. He had a “no enemies” disposition- a quality that I recognized in him immediately. Red was the kind of guy who could get adversaries to put their differences aside for a moment in a fashion reminiscent of the Christmas Truce on the Western Front in 1914.

This cinematic sequence takes place in no particular time period, in no particular region and instead exists in what I refer to as a “parallel multiverse.” Some of the creative decisions I made were simply because “I wanted to-” and I don’t believe any of those compromise the intent of the video.

The tail code is significant- RB was his gamer handle initials... which were predominantly how I knew him. GH are his real world initials, 65 (believed to be) the year he was born and 7/23 was the month and year he died. The black bars represent that he passed away.

Please take a moment to acknowledge the friendships you’ve made online. Enjoy them while they last and don’t take that time for granted.

Special thanks to the technical guidance and voice talent in various languages including English, Russian and Mandarin Chinese:

“Sweetest” (US Navy AWACS)
“EinsteinEP” (NATO AWACS)
“SchwaBAM” (Tugboat- 41)
'“Kingspade09” (Tugboat- 36)
“Kevlarburrito” (Senior Officer, NATO)
“Dano” (English Command- NATO)
Qin “Turkey” Liu (Mandarin- Chinese Aircraft / Command)
Uncle "Capybebra" Izya (Russian- Radar operator)
Mike Krylov (Russian Aircraft / Command)
“CruddierHydra” (Traffic)
“OELMuvun” (Handy Wind Crew)
“Whiteatom” (Technical advisor- merchant coms)

MODS:
Liveries by REFLECTED
Codename Flanker SU-30