Free Flight better?

[TrevorsCoop]

Hi this is my first post! Love the forum. Anyway, My grandfather and I have kept pigeons for a while. And we always free-flew them until the hawks figured out where the "goodies" where. And we were loosing a pigeons left and right. So then we locked em up and put the top on the flight pen.
Yet I have heard of people never free flight them. So for pigeons like rollers and tipplers who where bred to fly and all, do the pigeons really care not ever free flying? Like with just the coop and a flight pen, do they become satisfied since thats all they know?