After submitting a confusing set of options, I’m going to redo the polls here, hopefully more straightforwardly. Please resubmit your answers and sorry for the confusion.
1. We basically have three options for this year’s holiday flight. This question only pertains to this flight.
Please choose one:
The 2026 Holiday Flight will remain completely unchanged from previous years.
The 2026 Holiday Flight will be renamed for @VictorK2, now and hereafter, but will otherwise operate exactly as it always has.
The 2026 Holiday Flight will be replaced by the 1st Annual @VictorK2 Flight to be flown with a target date TBD.
0voters
NOTE: The first two choices neither preclude (nor require) any other event for @Victork2 …it is simply a question of whether we want to rename the traditional Holiday Flight after him, yes or no, or whether we want to fly a dedicated annual flight for him *WITH THIS BEING THAT FLIGHT*.
2. Since option 1 above, would essentially divest this flight from being associated with @Victork2 , I just want to ask one more time, if everyone’s destination choices remain the same.
As it stands, we only have three destination choices put forward, and they all involve @Victork2 .
If you want to save one of these routings for another event, then we need more destination suggestions.
Please choose one:
Travel from your home field directly to @VictorK2.
Travel from your home field to @VictorK2 via Oshkosh.
Travel from your home field to @VictorK2 via Moscow.
Suggest a different destination (Please state which in the comments).
0voters
Don’t know if this makes the options any clearer, but let’s give it a try!
All great ideas. If too close, either fly to moscow to drop a log on red square or fly to Oskosh to get special wheel hubs for his truck. After that fly to Abingdon was it?
Perhaps have it as an aim to get to the destination before New Year’s day this time (as per usual), but for subsequent flights schedule it so we can gather (virtually) for his birthday? Does it need to have a number?
I think ‘The Annual Ace Pullen Memorial Flight’ Has a nice ring to it… ditching the number gives it more of an ‘in perpetuity’ feel to me and regardless of when we do it I am more than happy for it to become a permanent replacement for the Christmas Flight.
For the inaugural destination I think that it has to be his local field? For subsequent flights, I would defer to Els and seek her guidance on what would be meaningful.
Nothing is too close for me - but I can stop at Moscow or Oshkosh on the way
Personally, I would advocate against changing the Holiday Flight to a dedicated Memorial flight, though I would absolutely join in on a @Victork2 stand alone fly in.
My thinking is that I originally thought a nice way to remember Ace would be to dedicate to him some tradition or institution that was part of the Mudspike legacy.
Of which there are, somewhat oddly, few.
But, by changing the particulars of the Holiday Flight, we sort of fundamentally make it not the Holiday Flight any longer.
Sort of like giving someone the hatchet that Washington used to chop down the cherry tree…
Only you replaced the handle…
And the head.
Which, at least to me, doesn’t feel like something Ace would have wanted done on his behalf.
But that’s just my personal opinion. And worth every penny you paid for it!
In any case, at some point we can throw up a poll and see what everyone thinks.
I was thinking maybe do something like the air races or other exploratory flights we we’re doing for a while. Maybe put it in the summer to have it be opposite the Xmas flight?
Also possibly use his username here at MS rather than his actual name. I have no clue if he cared about that or not, but just a consideration. Me personally, even in death I’d hate to have my real name out and about on the internet.
how about dedicated aerial refueling flight ? dont know about Victor tanker for msfs , but there are few options tanker wise for msfs - KC767 from CaptainSim, Vulcan tanker from JustFlight, TriStar from IniBuilds [ in the works ] … maybe others duno
and if somebody is not into the haulers that much there is the aerial refueling utility available for msfs [ never used it ] so one can be at least at the receiver side
I’d say tomcats refuelling and landing and doing the missing man would best fit. I remember a couple evenjngs where Ace would LSO and we were doing carrier traps, he had the best of times. He was good at it too.
Whan Ace introduced me to mudspike he told me that he only wanted his ms name used not his real one. Pre mudspike he had some online bother and didnt want it to happen again.
Would it be cheating to use my work F4J sim. We upgraded the software last week so we have global photo realistic scenary now. No longer the 1982/83 original RAF software limited to 30 miles around EGPD. There is now a bug limiting altitude to 36,000ft. We are working on removing this limit to enable the F4 world record altitude flight to be recreated.
Ace so badly wanted to fly our F4 with Obi. Sadly he still has a few years to go to meet our insurance requirements (14 yrs). As soon Els can get the family over I will let him fly the 738 (12 yrs). The F4 when the insurers are happy.
OK. So, as it stands, we have only one destination put forward, Brize Norton (wasn’t it?) via Oshkosh.
Alternatively, there was the suggestion made, a bit tongue-in-cheekily I’m going to guess , of going to Moscow, perhaps in conjunction with a stopover in the UK.
And while I don’t think we have ever gone to Russia on a holiday flight, you could certainly argue that there are few regions in the world more in need of a gesture of peace or goodwill towards your fellow human right now.
Any other suggestions? Otherwise it’s going to be a brief poll!
EDIT: Saw the interest in refueling/carrier ops/fly over.
Maybe, if we all end up (or just show up for those not all that inclined to fly MSFS) at @Victork2’s doorstep somewhere around the Solstice (for those who do not celebrate Christmas) we could congregate for a flyover all at the same time.
The choices then would be Home-Oshkosh-UK or Home-Moscow-UK
Or just UK, though that would be a short trip for some.
I had a look back through some posts and @scoop mentioned that Ace learned to fly at Enstone (Enstone Airfield - Wikipedia) and then continued his training with Vale of White Horse Gliding Centre (Google Maps)
I will be flying something that I am sure would give him a grin into UK airspace and then taking a Eurofox into Enstone and the Gliding club. It was Ace who suggested the Eurofox to me not long after I joined Mudspike as something to cut my teeth on with X-Plane 11, because he had gained his tail-dragger endorsement on one.
I think we ought to keep the Holiday flight as it is.
We could instead make an annual Victor2 event. It could be on his birthday, the day he joined Mudspike, an important day to him and his family, or another day.
What to do?
My thinking is something that he would have loved to join in on. To be determined when the time grows near.
Since he had a very wide range of sim and game interests it could maybe be turned into a 2 item event. Not at the same time and depending on what it is, maybe split over 2 days.
Some may not have a particular game or sim, or the time is not available for one or the other.
I was trying to make the choices value neutral and trying to do it on my phone which jams all the choices’ words together.
And once I posted it, it wouldn’t let me edit it.
For some reason, this posting software hates my iphone!
So,
-“Transition” means we convert the Holiday Flight to a Memorial Flight, eventually centered on @Victork2’s birthday.
-“Retain” means we fly the Holiday Flight as we traditionally have, although we would still call it the ”12th Annual @Victork2 Memorial Holiday Flight”…which hardly makes things any less confusing!
And that’s already assuming a few things right off the bat which, if asked, would turn this poll into an at least 4D Tesseract likely destroying the fabric of space/time itself.
Yes, that is very true in a manner of speaking. But, again, there are probably at least 16 choices and permutations and combinations here, which I just decided to try (unsuccessfully) to narrow down.
It seemed that no one objected to naming the Holiday Flight after @Victork2 when I asked in the OP, so I went on the assumption that this was acceptable to everyone.
So the main question, in my mind, was whether we would have a Holiday Flight (still dedicated to @Victork2) AND a separate event centered on something like his birthday or whether THIS IS THAT FLIGHT and there would be no more stand alone Holiday Flight.
If the Holiday Flight becomes the Memorial Flight, then we’re done with that part of the discussion. If, however, the Holiday Flight remains separate, then there remains the possibility of organizing a entirely new event, which is not within the scope of this thread.
I understand that calling the flight, regardless of what people want to do with it, the @VictorK2 Memorial Holiday Flight muddies the water as it makes it sound like an “either/or” proposition.
That was never my original intention however, which was simply to suggest that we name one of the only standing Mudspike edifices after @Victork2 in memoriam and not to preclude something else be done for him at some future date.
All that said, I’m going to try (when I get on a real @&$% computer) to change the poll as it seems that I should have included the question of whether we rename the Holiday Flight in the first place as an option!
- but I can stop at Moscow or Oshkosh on the way 
