I started FC'ing gangs out of necessity way back before I should've been doing it, because no one else would. Half of anything is want-to, as my Father told me. You want to raid -A- headquarters? Then you form up a gang to go raid -A- headquarters. As long as everyone doesn't get derped along the way, before long you are an FC.
I was lucky. I had some great teachers along the way. I mentioned a few of them in my post yesterday, but a few of the others are now heads of Alliances (or at least in Command structure) for Nulli Secunda, Morsus Mihi, -A-, U'K, you name a major Null Sec Alliance and I've probably flown with or against someone in there. For all its faults and failures, Providence was a breeding ground for PvP - on all sides of that fence. A unique set of circumstances that we aren't likely to see again.
So I FC'd a lot. Small gangs and huge fleets of destruction. I can still clearly remember the first time someone turned control of a 200 man fleet to me, the FC had to go AFK and he asked if I would take them home. Gulp. Oh sure. It turned out to be a cake walk that time, but I can remember being extremely nervous. I was little more than a rookie and probably had 20 million in my wallet, driving a fleet worth billions.
Over time I became much more comfortable driving bigger gangs and fleets than I did smaller ones. This was the nature of Providence, like much of Null, it wasn't hard to form up 20-30 people at a moments notice. When I did fly with 2-3 people we didn't really need an FC exactly, we'd usually just flew together. So the small stuff became more casual than formal.
During the past eight months that has been the general state of things. If we do fly under an FC it is usually someone with more Low Sec experience in flying smaller gangs that takes over. I've been more than happy to let that happen, it makes total sense and was a good learning experience. But people come and go and the Alliance is changing, new Corporations, new pilots and new levels of experience are coming to the table. All good, but if you want to raid a neighboring system then you need to form up to raid a neighboring system.
So the old FC muscles need to be worked on. And the only way to do it is to do it. So last night I took out a small group of Cruisers for a quick jaunt. We'll be doing that more as the weeks go along. We had fun, but we mostly managed to get caught in the middle of a Back to Yarr/SP DR drop and we lost a few ships without any kills to show for it. Gotta start somewhere.
And this is just my own perspective of course. The rest of the Alliance will be working and doing and killing as well. Plus we'll always have our friends to fly with when the mood strikes us.
It would have been nice to have had 100 ships at my command last night, we could of mopped the floor with those two fleets. On the other hand, there is something to be said for doing it yourselves - just you and a few of your brothers in arms.