For the 56th William Tell 08-01 we'll be honoring more than 50 years of USAF William Tell competitons, by flying as closly as possible, the 5 profiles from the real 50th anniversary William Tell held at Tyndall AFB in November 2004. This years competition will be a "re-do" so to speak of the last William Tell that was not completed.

    William Tell is the Air Force's premier air-to-air gunnery and missile meet. It began in 1954 and is usually held every two years. No competitions were conducted from 1966 to 1969 and in 1990. The naming of an overall winner began in 1980. Starting in 1996, teams stopped competing as units, instead they represented major commands, the Air Force Reserve, the Air National Guard, and foreign air forces.

    This year the 56th VFW William Tell will follow the real life USAF 50th anniversary competiton as closely as possible. Our William tell is strictly an air to air exercise and features aerial gunnery accuracy, 2vX guns, all aspect IR and radar missiles, ESCORT, CAPS, and INTERCEPT's, in multiple demanding mission profiles. A Top Gun & Top Team will be named for each of the profiles flown and after all results for each profile are tallied 100 points will be awarded for each Top Gun & 200 points for each Top Team. These points count toward both final team & individual totals. At competition completion the results will be tallied for award of overall William Tell Top Gun & Top Team..

    If you're wondering what your team should do for practice....well just take a look at the paragraph above. Polishing up those BFM and ACM skills and knowing your weapons and getting to know your wingman in the air are great places to start. The more practice you can get as a team the better.

    Engagements will be run using the standard 56th OF 4.5 install for Falcon 4.0. This version of F4 can be downloaded as an entire install folder via the 56th FTP server.

    You can find mission and event details, WT history tid bits, and team listings/standings, on this sites main page. The William tell site is a constant work in progress so check back from time to time and see what's new. Pictures, movies, more history and perhaps some training aids, will all show up here sooner or later. All competing teams please visit the ROE page on this site for further info pertaining to competion rules.

    Good luck & happy hunting to you all, and I'll see you in the air.

Thumpper