I like Lou's suggestion. I think we can accept June (or July) = February 1915, and it would indeed give us plenty of time to settle in and practice with what settings we want to use before the war turns serious.

I've never flown the training when starting a new pilot.
Does the training advance through WOFF time in days?

Whatever day it is started, keep the same day number on the calendar....but what happens in say the real month of July or June which has more days than February in WOFF? Might be too confusing....for me anyway...unless some one explains it as we go.

Training has morning and afternoon or evening flights. Two flights per day for about one week.

So, any ideas on when to start with training?

Here's how I believe the calendar should look like (it will probably take me about an hour to make the whole year of 1915 like this):

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OldHat, you are missing an ideal opportunity here. Start your DID campaign on June 1 and for the first time ever the days of the week and the dates will actually coincide as they should. 1 February 1915 was a Monday.

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We can certainly do it that way. I admit I hadn't thought of the days being off when I saw Lou's February suggestion.

Would it be easier to keep the months in sync, and just slice off any extra days? For example: June 29, 2015 = February 29, 1915. Since there wasn't a February 29 in 1915, we just don't fly that day. It's not that much different from the periods of bad weather in DiD today.

If we went that route, the calendar for the rest of 1915 would look like this:

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Actually, IMHO, if you make any adjustments at all at the ends of the months it should be to keep the 1915 days of the week aligned with the 2015 days of the week. As example, you would not skip days at the end of June but rather allow Monday 29 June 2015 to serve as Monday 1 March 1915. It would be very handy when you are writing your combat reports and letters home and such to have the days jibe. I for one have always had to refer to a 'day of the week' calculator when doing my write-ups and I would no longer have to do this if we keep things aligned in such a fashion.

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Lou....

Think the moon phases will coincide?
Is WOFF that good? I've seen different phases , but never checked them out.

I try not to fly in conditions involving the moon!

I love to check it out on a morning mission.... and the stars too.

Seeing a moon on takeoff in late fall in the late afternoon is another story.

I don't think the training missions are going to work.

You can only train if you do the auto-enlistment (versus manual). Fine.

If you auto-enlist, 1) you can't control your beginning unit (other than enlisting over and over again), and 2) you can't control your start date more closely to within a three month period.

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For those of us considering a French career I suggest flying from Avord, France to our assigned camp. Avord and Pau were the two major schools at the time, IIRC, and much as I enjoy long distance cross-country navigation it would be unrealistic to have a WWI pilot fresh out of school attempt a six to eight hour trip from the SW corner of France to their assignment in one of the kites of the day. As it is Avord will be three-plus hours by air to any of the likely assignments for a French pilot in February 1915.

Also, might I suggest that the first two or three flights at your assigned camp serve as a 'Cook's Tour' of your area of operation (AO). I often do this when beginning a new career by just ignoring the assigned mission and simply flying up to front and back, making notes of landmarks and such, so I'm not completely lost when it comes time to actually do my job. This by the way was normally done by our RL counterparts back in the day for the very same reason. The CO would have the new recruit take a couple of flights to get familiar with the lay of the land.

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One other idea: Consider doing a 2 day/one RL day from February 1915 to September 1915, if the lack of hostile aircraft make the flying too boring

There will be hostile aircraft around, but I believe the main goal of this DiD is just to survive. I'd probably make 3 pilots at the same time: British, French and German and take turns flying each on a different day for variety to see which one survives the longest.

This sounds exciting and the early air war also happens to interest me even more than the later period, but unfortunately I don't have enough free time to fly two DID campaigns simultaneously.

Hasse: You could always take my suggestion regarding multiple pilots to the next level. Have one in Olham's campaign and one for OldHat's: When you're tired of being shot at, play in 1915 for awhile. When that gets old, go back to Olham's 1917. On the weekend, play both