About the squadron
We are the Australian community hub for 1940 - Arcade Shooting Game — a crew of pilots, coaches, artists and event runners who turned a shared obsession with arcade dogfights into a working support squadron.
Three mates, one bullet curtain
It started in a Brisbane garage in 2023 with three players who kept meeting in the same endless-mode leaderboard. Someone made a Discord. Someone else made a ladder spreadsheet. By the third month there were eighty names on the sheet.
Today we run the Australian community: coaching new pilots, designing liveries, hosting squadron nights and keeping the intel current every patch. The game stays free and the skills stay sharp — the hub exists for everything around the screen.
We remain independent: the developer makes the game, we make the community around it — and occasionally get thanked in the patch notes, which never stops being a thrill.
From rookie to sky marshal
Every pilot climbs the same ladder — here is how the community recognises the ascent.
Recruit
First sorties. Learns the graze.
Pilot Officer
Campaign cleared. Joins a clan.
Flight Lieutenant
First boss solos without a continue.
Squadron Leader
Top-100 ladder. Coaches newcomers.
Sky Marshal
Cup champion. Name engraved on the tag.
The squadrons we run with
Squadron 409
The founding Brisbane crew — ladder climbers and event regulars. Runs the monthly meetup bracket.
Blackout
The late-shift squadron — night-owl pilots who fly the graveyard slots and hold the endless records.
Roo Crew
Regional pilots — Darwin to Hobart. Proof you do not need a capital city to run a ladder.
The story so far
Milestones worth a frame
Winter Cup champions — twice
Merlin and Vulcan held the tag for consecutive seasons.
Wave 61 — national endless record
Set live at a Brisbane squadron night, verified on stream.
620 members and counting
The largest Australian community for the game.
Where the hub is heading
State meetup circuit
Quarterly events rotating Sydney, Melbourne and Perth — the Brisbane format, on tour.
Creator program
Shared tooling for streamers and video makers covering the game.
National championship
A proper offline final — regional qualifiers feeding a live grand final.
How the game sounds at volume
The audio team recorded real warbirds and layered the mix for phone speakers. We keep a dedicated channel for pilots who play with the volume up — most of us.
Real recordings
Actual CA-18 Mustang engine runs, layered for small speakers.
Adaptive score
Music reads wave density and thins before boss blooms.
60 fps standard
The combat layer holds sixty frames on budget phones.
Accessible audio
Mono mode and haptic cue mirroring built from community feedback.
Who keeps the engines running
J. M. Callahan
'Merlin'
'Palette'
'Tex'
About the hub
The squadron has a seat open
Download the game, join the Discord, and say g'day — the rest of the checklist handles itself.