History of F.i.t.S. Society

Over the past thirty years, many historical wargames have come and gone, and quite a few have been forgotten, as well. There have been a few big sellers that have enjoyed great and lasting popularity, becoming "classics" in their own right, and deservedly so. There are a few other games that may have never enjoyed widespread notice or runaway sales, but which have nonetheless endured due to a particularly devoted following. The DAWN PATROL® game (originally entitled FIGHT IN THE SKIES) is certainly one of those. In fact, not only is the game still played despite being out of print for almost ten years (a situation that will hopefully be rectified with a new 8th Edition to be published in the future), but it also boasts its own club! The FIGHT IN THE SKIES Society, with over 100 members, dates back to 1969 -- and its player magazine, the AERODROME (now a quarterly), has published more than 120 issues since that time. What is it about this amazing wargame that accounts for this remarkable record and the loyalty of its small but devoted following? As the games creator, I was asked to address this question and discuss the history of the game for the readers of MARS, and I hope you will find my story to be both interesting as well as illuminating.

Not every game is born of some great inspiration, but this one was. The 1966 release of the motion picture "The Blue Max", starring George Peppard, James Mason, Jeremy Kemp, Ursula Andress and Karl Michael Vogler was the impetus. This stirring movie and its incredible aerial combat scenes made quite an impression on this fifteen year old boy who also enjoyed wargames, and it wasn't long before I was experimenting with some rules for a game that would feature the planes of World War I. The first playing pieces were 1/72 scale plastic models made by Revell, Airfix and Renwal -- the Fokkers, SPADs, Sopwiths and whatever else I and my friends could find at local hobby shops in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area. The playing "board" was the square-tiled basement floor of my parents home. The rules were developed and recorded as we went along, making adjustments and changes with the input of the players. It was grassroots gaming in its purest form, and it was great fun -- so much so that we spent the better part of two summers playing the game, creating fictional pilot personalities, and enjoying exciting dogfights while crouched over the plastic models, pushing them across the floor and yes, even crunching one or two under our feet from time to time!

(Excerpt from Dawn Patrol web site printed here with Mike Carr's permision)

To read the entire history please visit the Web site below

Dawn Patrol Beginings

I first became interested in World War One aviation by reading Snoopys the Flying Aces adventures on the comic books pages. I was probably around 9 or 10 years old. As time went on I started building WW1 aircraft models, I must have had five or six 1/28th scale Fokker Dr.I's in various color schemes. My favorite one being Warner Vosss. When I was thirteen, my older brother brought home a game from Avalon Hills called "Richthofens War". We would play game upon game the first few months he had it. As my brother was seven years my senior, he would prepare campaigns and we would relive 1917/18 all over again. Of course he would win most of the time. But I didn't care, I was living my dream, I was a WW1 pilot.

Many years later a friend of mine got me back into gaming and I went looking for WW1 aviation games. After going through about six different titles, I ran into Dennis Elliott at Mich-Con in 1992. After playing a few games I was hooked and the rest is history.

I created Jasta 6 shortly after becoming involved in Dawn Patrol and the FitS society. The first few years we would play at least once a month. But as time went on and lifes responsibilities creped in, we started playing less and less. My goal with this site is to re-ignite local interest in gaming Dawn Patrol and establish our once a month get together once again.