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    Pacific P-40: IL-2 '46+DBW
    33LIMA
    By 33LIMA,
    Holding the line against the Japanese onslaught in New Guinea!   There's no point disputing matters of taste - as the Latin saying goes, 'de gustibus non est disputandum'. But if there was a contest for the most attractive US WW2 fighter, the Curtiss P-40 would get my vote. Especially the later models with that long, deep radiator bath under the nose, with or without the famous 'sharkmouth' marking. The P-40 is of course celebrated mainly for its exploits with the American Volunteer Group in the China-Burma-India theatre and with the British and Commonwealth air forces (and later the USAAF) in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations. While the Warhawk/Tomahawk/Kittyhawk lacked the high-altitude performance to keep it competitive later in the war, the P-40 made a vital contribution to the middle part of the Allied war effort, adding service in Russia to its many laurels.   There's some great P-40 warbird action here, courtesy of New Zealand's Historic Aviation Film Unit, showing the -C, -E and -N variants:     Up to now, my simulation 'stick time' with the P-40 has been very largely limited to some action in CFS2, made up between Just Flight's 'Pearl Harbour' add on and the user mod package 'In Defence of Australia:   http://www.justflight.com/product/pearl-harbor http://jamcraft.net/DoA_42v2/Docs/RAAF_Expansion_Pack_v2.htm   My appetite for another crack with the P-40 was recently whetted in unusual circumstances. Having in my last mission report castigated the flying sequences in the movies 'Red Tails' and 'Pearl Harbour', I decided to watch that footage again, to see if I still thought it as contrived and inane as I did first time around. The answer was a resounding 'Hell, yes!' I mean, guys on the ground talking to pilots in 1941 on a 'walkie-talkie' to arrange an ambush for Zeros by placing rifles, MGs and a shotgun(!) on a tower? Not to mention that the same two intrepid P-40 pilots had just impossibly arranged a game of 'chicken' between opposing fighters...I mean, why not just jump out on the wing and knock them down with light sabres, which would have been as realistic?   But P-40s feature prominently in both films and you can't help but admire the planes, however silly are the things they're made to do by the total muppets who dream up this sort of nonsense, when the real thing could be just as cinematic.   IL-2 '46 has an outstanding selection of P-40s and includes a USAAF Pacific fighter pilot campaign featuring the type. So that was my sim of choice. The variants available in IL-2 include:   P-40B:   P-40C:   Tomahawk:   P-40E:   P-40M:   With IL-2 - and presumably, this came originally with the 'Pacific Fighters' installment - you can opt to fly the PTO campaign I had in mind with the US Army Air Force, starting with Pearl Harbour in December 1941. I choose instead to start with the next segment of the campaign, during the following year. It was 30 July 1942, soon after Japanese fortunes had been spectacularly and decisively reversed at the aero-naval Battle of Midway. Still intent on isolating rather than invading Australia by seizing Port Moresby on eastern New Guinea, just across the Coral Sea from northern Australia, the Japanese attacked overland, along the Kokoda Trail. Such is the dramatic period in WW2 covered by this IL-2 campaign, with mainly US and Australian forces pitted against the Japanese drive to Moresby.   Here's the briefing for the campaign segment's first mission. And there's no time to lose - it's a 'scamble' to intercept an enemy raid, said to be coming in from the south-west!     I was at the head of a flight of just four P-40Es; and here we are, lined up on the concrete at Port Moresby's main airfield. We're not alone, though; behind us are no less than six Army P-39 Airacobras.     There were quite a few other aircraft parked around the airfield, including some B-25 Mitchell bombers and some more P-40s. But we four and those P-39s seemed to be the only available aircraft for this sortie. All the more reason to get off without further ado, and gain what height we could. As it turned out, that wouldn't be much.     ...to be continued!

    Red Sun Setting - IL-2 1946
    33LIMA
    By 33LIMA,
    Defending 'Bloody Tarawa' in the Ki-43 'Hayabusa'!   Having enjoyed flying the Nakajima Ki-43 in an island defence mission courtesy of CFS2 and Yoshi's 'Battle of Chishima' campaign, I was keen to see what IL-2 had to offer, in the same department. IL-2 1946 includes the previous 'Pacific Fighters' installment so I opted to use this, combined with Dark Blue World, the premier add-on package for offline IL-2 fans.   If you want to see the real Hayabusa in action, you probably can't do better that this war-time film:     This looks to be a reconstruction for the cameramen of a 25 December 1941 Imperial Japanese Army raid on Rangoon, Burma by Ki-21 'Sally' bombers with a Ki-43 'Oscar' escort. Even though I suspect it has no real combat footage, it's pretty good stuff, and includes some staged dogfights between Hayabusas and a P-40 and Buffalo. There's some impressive Japanese model-making skill on display too but it all gets blown up in the 'bombing'! The real Christmas Day raid on Rangoon is described in some detail in Chapter 7 of Grub Street's 'Bloody Shambles' by Shores, Cull & Izawa and involved over 60 Ki-21s escorted by 25 Hayabusas, followed by another thirty-plus Ki-21s covered by a similar number of Ki-27s and was intercepted by both the American Volunteer Group and the RAF. The defenders reportedly believed they had definitely shot down at least 42 enemy aircraft but Japanese losses are said to have been two Ki-43s, the same number of Ki-27s and three Ki-21s, plus a handful more force-landed; casualties on the ground were more clear cut and were estimated at 5,000 killed.   The Hayabusa also stars in the recent Japanese movie 'For Those We Love', about the Kamikazes, notably in the final climactic attack on a US Task Force. The flying sequences look to be filmed with a mix of scale models, CGI and full-size taxying replicas, and have the odd contrived moment, but they totally put to shame the high production value but inane and inept combat footage in films like 'Red Tails' or 'Pearl Harbour'. This is the link to what I believe is the legitimate official trailer on Youtube (as opposed to the 'unofficial' uploads which include the final attack in full):     As for the simulation equivalent, while CFS2 features the mid-production Ki-43-II (shorter span wing and two heavy MGs), IL-2 '46 + DBW provides virtually the 'full Monty', from the early Ki-43-I with longer-span wing, tubular gun sight and two rifle-calibre MGs, through later versions with one heavy and one light MG; to the Ki-43-II with reflector sight, more powerful engine, two HMGs, shorter span wing and extra intake in the lip of the upper cowling; and the Ki-43-III with separate exhaust ejector stubs.   See for yourself:   Ki-43-I   Ki-43-II   Ki-43-III   The mission I forgot to create a new pilot so I ended up with a rather un-Japanese named left-over pilot! But having created a stock IJA fighter campaign, I was pleased to see that I didn't have to start with the long flights of the Malayan operations but could choose to begin later, in November 1943, on defensive operations - just before the US Marines came ashore in Operation Galvanic - defending Tarawa atoll itself.    I'd picked a starting rank high enough to lead operations, which is how I like it. Here's the briefing for the first mission - and it's 'in at the deep end' with a 'scramble', to intercept an incoming enemy raid. I'd have appreciated some information on the the enemy's height and maybe numbers, but at least I knew they were coming and roughly where they were coming from!     Here we are on the airfield - six of us, lined up and good to go. CFS2 formation takeoffs are in pairs and quite brisk, but while I believe the Team Diadolos patches now support formation takeoffs, in DBW it's as per the stock IL-2 'conga line'.     This is the 'vanilla' IL-2 Ki-43-I skin, solid green uppers rather than my preferred mottle. But my main beef here is that it's late 1943, yet we've been given obsolescent early-model Hayabusas, with the original 980hp engine and just one of the rifle-calibre MGs upgraded to a 12.7mm model. Okay for 1941-42 but not so good for this point in hostilities. I haven't checked but maybe it's because this is a stock campaign and the later model Hayabusas come with DBW. Whatever the reason, it appeared that someone at Imperial General Headquarters was being rather parsimonious with the latest kit. And this, despite the fact that, as the briefing reports, we're believed to be facing an attack. And a massive one at that.   This being a 'scramble', there was no time to waste musing on the shortcomings of our kit. I don't bother with Complex Engine Management and as I dislike fiddling with radiator flap settings (and have on-screen text suppressed, so don't get 'Engine overheating!' warnings) I have set my motor to keep itself cool, as well. This may not be very 'hard core' but it's just how I like it.   So I started up, checked  my controls and set flaps to one notch down. Possibly that is actually the 'combat' setting - the Hayabusa being one plane which really did have combat flaps, apparently needed to meet the design requirement to have manoeuvrability comparable to its fixed-undercart monoplane predecessor, the Ki-27 'Nate'. Anyway off I went, followed at intervals by the others. The IL-2 Ki-43 is somewhat higher-polygon than its CFS2 equivalent although its mainwheels are rather angular, side-on anyway.     It took me a second or so to realise that the green aircraft parked to my left as I took off were not modern Argentine Pucarras who'd badly lost their way in space and time, but typical Japanese dummy aircraft. They weren't the only ones; further down the runway was parked a row of dummy fighters, the far side of which sat the airfield's real planes, sensibly in blast pens. Some nice touches there!   So the mission had begun. Now, where were the Americans? Coming from the south-east, the briefing said, though our flight plan indicated that we should head pretty well due south. Airborne, I raised flaps and undercart and began a turn to the right as I gained height. I could have climbed away from the incoming raid to gain more height before turning south, but orders are orders and they said 'go south'.     ...to be continued!

    Red Sun Setting - CFS2
    33LIMA
    By 33LIMA,
    Flying for the Imperial Japanese Army in Yoshi's 'Battle of Chishima' campaign!     Having recently had a lot of fun spending more time with CFS2, one campaign I was keen to revisit was 'The Battle of Chishima' by Yoshitsugu 'Yoshi' Nagata, which I'd last enjoyed maybe 10 years ago. My original interest in this campaign sprang from an interest in Japanese WW2 warplanes. One of my favourite 1/72 kits 'back in the day' was Revell's Nakajima Ki-43 Hayabusa (Peregrine Falcon). I had my model painted up just like the box art, silver overall with wavy green camo on top and yellow leading-edge prop warning panels. By pulling off the two-bladed prop you could remove the engine cowling to reveal the radial engine, the cockpit canopy could slide back and I even managed to make the undercart retractable (albeit they didn't pivot, but could be manually pushed in place, either up or down. My kind of kit!     The real Hayabusa was very popular with its pilots despite being rather underpowered, under-protected and under-armed by the standards of the time, even it first entered service in 1941. According to Osprey's 'Dogfight - P-40 Warhawk -vs- Ki-43 'Oscar' ' only 40 were in service by the date of the attack on Pearl Harbour and the first models had a two-blade fixed-pitch prop and just two rifle-calibre machine guns. However, its superb handling and manoeuvrability reportedly endeared the US-dubbed 'Oscar' to its pilots and it was certainly more modern that the even more manoeuvrable but slower, spatted-undercart Ki-27 that it supplemented then replaced as the IJA's premier single-seat fighter. Vulnerable to enemy fire it may have been, but it was no pushover.   CFS2's Hayabusa is, I believe, the Ki-43IIb model with more powerful engine, stronger, shorter-span wings, some protection for pilot and fuel tanks and two heavy MGs, in full production by October 1942. Although it's one of the Artificial Intelligence-flown planes in CFS2, this is one sim that has no shortage of freeware and payware mods, including ones to make the AI planes flyable. The only catch is that some of these come with no cockpit so you just have external and 'gunsight' views (with the reticle hanging in a clear sky, not what I'm used to but great for gunnery and a good view!)   This time around I wanted to fly the Hayabusa in both CFS2 and IL-2. The former is first up for a mission report here at CombatAce and features Yoshi's Chishima campaign. Chishima is better known to Westerners as the Kurile Islands, which stretch in an arc from the north-east tip of the Japanese mainland all the way to Russia's Camchatka Peninsula, just across the northern Pacific from Alaska. In mid-1943, US air raids began to probe the Japanese defences in this region and it's these relatively small-scale tussles that this mini-campaign represents. There's a set of five single missions designed to be flown in sequence, which is fine by me as I can live without the rather excessively goal-oriented CFS2 approach to campaigns. The Chishima missions aren't all intercepttions: for example the third mission has you providing air cover for a submarine whose engines have failed. Here's the link for the campaign:   http://simviation.com/1/browse-Missions+%26+Campaigns-85-2   And here's the brief for mission number one. It's short and sweet but you get the picture! There's no indication of the enemy's strength, but I was leading a flight of no less than eight Hayabusas so, sensibly or otherwise, I was feeling fairly relaxed about the odds. Given that the local air defence set-up was liable to be a tad primitive, I suppose the limited 'int' is perhaps realistic! We were operating from Kitanodai airfield, which was on the island of Paramushiro (see pic of the real airfield here: http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/P/a/Paramushiro.htm ) and was apparently used as a base by the 54th Sentai.     The sim crashed if I tried to open the map (it's on the 'Advanced Info' tab) in the briefing screen so without further ado, I kicked the tires and lit the fires, and consulted the map once the mission had loaded. Here it is. The enemy bombers - as in, the red plane icon - are evidently targeting installations on another island just across a narrow channel from our sea-side base. Sensibly, you can see that the only mission goal is to survive; there's no silly requirement to destroy at least a fixed number of enemies.     And here we are, good to go. I've always liked this camouflaged natural metal finish on the 'Oscar' and the CFS2 version, though designed for the AI, is fully up the the high standard of the CFS2 player planeset, complete with animated parts like extending flaps and wheels which bounce on their oleo legs as you roll on the ground. Bring on the Yanquis!     ...to be continued!

    CFS3 ETO: Spanish Civil War
    33LIMA
    By 33LIMA,
    La Guerra Civil Espanola in the CFS3 ETO Expansion! The Spanish Civil War, fought between 1936 and 1939, foreshadowed the monumental clash that was to follow between fascism and communism, with the Italians and Germans backing the Spanish nationalists and the Soviets backing the republican side. For all that, this was a distinctly Spanish affair, the product of a deeply-divided society. Matters came to a head in 1936 when the Left, having secured a narrow electoral victory, nevertheless pressed on with a radical programme. Divisions deepened and political violence spiralled. The Right responded with an attempted coup, led by elements of the army, which failed in places like Madrid the capital, culminating there in siege and massacre at the Montana barracks. These events set the tone for the long, bloody and vicious civil war which ensued, won in the end by the nationalists under Franco.   Air power played a key role from the start. Fanco's leadership was established after the revolt's original leader, General Sanjurjo, was killed when the DH Dragon Rapide carrying him back to Spain crashed, supposedly from overloading with all the personal luggage the 'Jefe' insisted on bringing. Later, Hitler commented that Franco should set up a victory monument to the Junkers 52 transport, the type having flown in from Spanish North Africa colonial troops who helped secure, then advance, the nationalist cause in mainland Spain.   In the actual fighting, the German Condor Legion despatched to Franco's aid played an equally important part and tested out many tactics and weapons that would be used to good effect in WW2, including the Ju87 Stuka, the Bf109 fighter and the 88mm flak gun. The devastating Condor Legion air raid on the Basque town of Guernica became infamous, and was one of many air raids on urban areas in which civilians suffered badly. The Italian Regia Aeronautica also contributed 'volunteer' personnel and aircraft, while the Soviets supplied the republican side with some of their own latest military hardware, including I-15 and I-16 fighters and SB-2 fast bombers. Thus was the scene set for some of the fiercest air operations in Europe since the World War.   If you want to 'fly' in the SCW, there are several options, including the venerable Luftwaffe Commander (which actually runs on my Vista 64 machine) and the Strike Fighters SCW add-on, available at the A Team Skunkworks, under 'All inclusive installs', which looks great and I'm looking forward to trying out:   http://cplengineeringllc.com/SFP1/[link]   This mission report features a different option - the CFS3 ETO Expansion. Amongst the Expansion's many and varied additional aircraft is a decent selection suitable for this conflict, all in appropriate markings. From a quick look, this comprises:   Nationalist: Messerschmitt Bf109E Henschel Hs123: Fiat CR-32 'Chirri' Breda 25: Savoia Marchetti SM 79: Cant 501 floatplane Junkers 52 bomber: Fiat G50   Republican: llyushin IL-15 'Chaika': Ilyushin I-16 'Mosca': Grumman G23:   ...plus some aircraft captured and repainted eg the CR-32 and the Il-16. the main gap seems to be a bomber for the Republican side; the Soviet Tupolev SB-2 fast bomber would have been ideal.   Although the Expansion doesn't feature a CFS3-style dynamic campaign for the Spanish Civil War, there is a good set of single missions which enable you to fly in - and against - the appropriate aircraft in Spanish skies, for both sides. And stock CFS3 covers much of northern Spain, no messing about here with mere map segments.   The mission   Before firing up the ETO Expansion, I used the supplied 'spawn selector' to set 'stock spawn mode' and then the 'era selector' to start the ETO expansion in '1936 to spring 1940'. To be honest, I've not yet worked out exactly what difference this era selection makes, as planes from different eras seem to be available no matter which is selected; I suspect it's a way of getting around a CFS3 limit I've forgotten on the number of installed planes, which in CFS2 was 90, if I recall right.   No matter; thus prepared, I opened the list of Historical Missions and selected the first one labelled 'SCW' - titled 'Air conflict over Llanos airfield'. This assigned me the role of a fighter pilot in the Nationalist Air Force, flying an Italian Fiat CR-32 biplane fighter and leading a formation of six.   The mission was an air start, flying on the northern front. This was one of the country's few industrialised regions, where the Spanish coastline meets the Bay of Biscay. It was October 1937, over a year into the war. Our task was described as a Combat Air Patrol  - a piece of (originally USN WW2?) jargon I dislike to see used out-of-context - what other sort of patrol are combat aircraft going to fly? Anyhow, the briefing helpfully described our patrol as part of a 'Nationalist Air force attack on Llanos airfield', which is on the coast between the towns of Oviedo and Santander. Looking at the mission 'Assignments' tab, I could see that we were not on our own. Our order of battle for this mission comprised:   - six SM81 'Pipistrello' bombers (a type I missed when looking up the available planes, so not listed above - it's a 3-motor bomber like the SM79 but with fixed undercart); - six Breda Ba 25 biplane army co-operation planes (what their role was, I have no idea, but I'm relieved not to have been flying one on this trip!); - another flight of six CR-32 biplane fighters, like my own flight.   The default loadout gave us a pair of small bombs. These, I kept: I reckoned that we could always ditch the bombs if we encountered aerial opposition. And if we didn't, we should hopefully do some useful damage with them, down below.   Here's the briefing. As well as our flight (yellow aircraft icon), you can see other icons representing what I take to be other flights. Friendlies are blue; enemies red. I'm not sure why there appears to be an enemy airfield well out to sea (red crossed runways icon, there's one just off the top edge of the map in this screenie); maybe it's on a small island. Anyway at least I was now able to orient myself.     And here's my mount. The CR-32 was apparently one of the best of the pre-WW2 biplane fighters, lightly-armed but highly manoeuvrable; a good match for most enemy machines iin spanish skies and seemingly superior to the mediocre Heinkel He-51s which formed the fighter component of the Condor Legion until the early Messerschmitt 109s were rushed into action to replace it. The Fiat is a neat bird, sleeker than the later tubby radial-engined CR-42 and she looks the part in her ETO Expansion incarnation, complete with Nationalist Spanish camouflage and markings. I'm not clear whether my unit or my machine's 'skin' represented one of the Italian 'volunteer' formations or an indigenous unit flying the sleek Italian fighter, but no matter, she looks like a typically racy Italian job.     And here's the 'office'. In flight, you'll notice the benefits of the extra power if you've been used to the biplanes of Over Flanders Fields; one being that your wingmen keep formation better, recovering more quickly during course changes, instead of drifting well wide and being left behind. Even if they still look rather far away, thanks to the CFS3 'wide angle lens' look, which tends to distort things, especially in the external, 'spot' view.     Below us were the hills of northern Spain. Having flown over this area often enough on holiday trips, the topography looks to be captured fairly well, although the textures are to my eye a little green and lush for the region and the field patterns and hedgerows look more northern European.     Turning on aircraft labels. I was a little bemused to find we were all apparently Germans. Strange, as I don't think the Condor Legion flew Italian fighters in Spain, unhappy though they may have been with their Heinkels. Perhaps we were on an unofficial exchange programme...yes, that must have been it.     I turned on the CFS3 Tactical Display and cycled through target types. It picked up a flight of aircraft some distance to our left. Part of our attacking force...at least I hoped so. I kept a better watch in that direction, just in case, even though such use of the 'TAC' was a bit naughty - lacking radios, we should not have been able to get any help from a ground controller in locating stuff we couldn't see for ourselves.     I considered for a while orbiting to let the other friendly flights catch us up, but we seemed to have been awarded the dubious honour of going in first so I kept on my way. As for the actual flying, I had trimmed elevator to keep my kite's nose from dipping at a fast cruising speed but the torque kept pulling down my left wing, which I contented myself with correcting without resort to aileron trim.  And what were we flying into? 'Light air opposition' the briefing said. Were the Republican pilots going to come out to play, or were they not, I wondered? So far, the six of us seemed to be on our own in this particular patch of sky, and at least until we'd dumped those bombs - preferably upon something deserving of them - I was quite content for it to remain so.     ...to be continued!

    Simply the best - the SSW DIII
    33LIMA
    By 33LIMA,
    Flying the German Air Service's premier fighter in First Eagles 2

     
    The Siemens-Schukert Werke's DIII and DIV are described with some justification in Gray & Thetford's 'German Aircraft of the First World War' as 'Without doubt...the best German fighters to reach operational status'. The first SSW D-type (biplane scout/fighter) was basically a copy of the French Nieuport 11 with a German engine and a conical spinner. But the DIII was a wholly-new machine, a barrel-shaped fighter built around the powerful Siemens-Halske ShIII rotary engine. Early operational deployment in Spring 1918 ended with the aircraft being returned for modifications to correct serious engine problems but - joined by the DIV version with a reduced-chord upper wing - the type was back on ops during the summer. The Siemens-Schukert was highly manoeuvrable and had an outstanding rate of climb with excellent high-altitude performance. They served with Jastas 14, 15 and 22, the Marine Jagdgeschwader and, in the home defence role, with Kests 4a, 4b, 5, 6 & 8. Their work in the latter capacity inspired a member of the Independent Force, formed to mount 'strategic' bombing missions into Germany, to pen the following appreciation:
     
    'It's not the Pfalz or the Fokker Scout
    It's the Siemens Schuckert that we worry about
    They do fly high, with the beaucoup speed
    We can thank our stars that it's the pilots they need!'    
     
    The plane and the mission
     
    First Eagles is one of the very few sims ever to have featured this outstanding warplane, courtesy of the A Team Skunkworks. Public assess to their functional download pages is by email application only and once granted, care must be taken to observe the site's download and usage rules, but it's very worthwhile as the A Team's collection includes some excellent and essential WW1 types like the Sopwith Pup and Triplane.
     
    http://cplengineeringllc.com/SFP1/
     
    In fact, as the A Team acknowledge, their SSW DIII is based on that featured in Illusion Software/Silver Wish Games's Wings of War. You may remember that when released, this neat little WW1 air war game's great-looking planes and excellent landscapes and envirommentals had many simmers attempting mods to make it more sim-like. Sadly, these didn't get far beyond unlocking all the flyables and killing off the deadly rocket armaments, but it was still great fun and a highly professional and well-produced package, well worth a blast if you can track down a copy:
     

     
    Back in FE2, I wanted to play a campaign mission so opted for Ojcar's 'must have' Armchair Aces month-by-month campaign set. In the FE campaign creation screen, I cycled through those for Flanders in the last months of the air war till I found a staffel flying the SSW DIII - Jasta 14 (which really did fly the type) in October 1918, flying from Masny aerodrome, north of Cambrai and west of the larger town of Valenciennes.
     
    When I kicked off a mission, I found that the weather was awful - a few patches of blue sky visible but mostly cloud, rain and general murk. Not for me. I don't much mind bad weather in Over Flanders Fields, but only because - apart from the clouds themselves - it doesn't really hinder your visibility. In FE and in RoF, more realistically, bad weather really does clobber your visibility. It also makes for dull screenshots, because your plane is dull and unlit (unlike OFF, where the planes in bad weather look bright, like they've been spot-lit for a movie). Another problem with bad weather in FE2 is that you're stuck with it for the campaign, as it inexplicably lost the original FE's ability to vary weather, in-campaign. Anyway being stuck with murk is not my cup of tea, really.
     

     
    So I edited the campaign's data file in Wordpad, replacing the starting (and in FE2, unchanging) weather - 'INCLEMENT' - with 'BROKEN'. That did the trick. Things looked better, and there was no murk to blind me.
     
    The weather sorted, my first mission was a defensive patrol, behind our side of the Lines, down south to Bonvais, the far side of the town of Cambrai. Two aircraft were allocated to the mission but as I usually do, I opted to pick three to accompany me, selecting Vizefeldwebels Neumann, Heim and Josten from the bottom of the staffel roster screen.
     
    Here we are on the grass at Masny. The SSW is one of the relatively few FE planes not to feature individual aircraft markings, and although there is at least one different skin available, I elected to stick with the stock one, with a snake-marked brown fuselage and 'lozenge' pre-printed fabric wings. As usual with FE planes, there's plenty of animation - wheels, pilot, control surfaces, the rotary engine and even the cocking handles on the MGs. And provided you don't have shadows turned off in the plane's .ini file, you get dynamic self-shadowing (in the cockpit as well as outside if you have the sim's graphics/shadows option set to 'high' or better).
     

     
    As usual, FE kicked off the mission with my engine just having started and my prop picking up speed, which is arguably more realistic than the ground-crewless self-starting featured in other sims. In the external view, I paused to let the others take off and then opened the throttle. There was little swing and once my wheels were off the ground, I decided to go for broke and perform an immediate test of my machine's renowned climbing abilities. I yanked back on the stick and up she went, cocking a snook at the row of Fokkers parked outside the canvas hangars to my left. Off to a good start, at any rate!
     

     
    ...to be continued!

    The Pfalz DXII in Rise of Flight
    33LIMA
    By 33LIMA,
    Taking on the RAF in the Fokker DVII's Bavarian competitor

     
    This campaign report is designed to do two things.
     
    Primarily, it's intended to showcase the Rise of Flight Pfalz DXII, flown in career mode using (almost) the latest version of Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator (PWCG). I found out after flying this mission that PWCG's now up to Version 15.6, but the changes since my version (15.3) seem mostly cosmetic.
     
    The second reason for this report is to celebrate the miraculous recovery of my trusty 8800GT graphics card, which had started displaying artifacts but was restored to health - I hope for some time - by literally 'baking' it in an oven to re-solder possible decayed connections. I'm not making this up - Google it and see for yourself!
     
    To digress a little, the recent PWCG improvement of greatest interest to me is the increased flak.
     
    In First Eagles/FE2,  fairly often, you get warning of the presence of other flights when you see flak bursts tracking them. So I find it is quite often possible to spot other planes at a respectable range, without resorting to visual aids like 'radar screens', target boxes/pointers or labels. Combined with decent rendering of more distant planes, this has two big benefits. First, I often see aircraft I might otherwise have missed. Second, I see them far enough away to make a plan to deal with them, following Mick Mannock's advice that all aircraft should be assumed to be enemies until proven otherwise. In OFF, the flak is also a good indicator of other aircraft, althoigh the planes themselves are not visible as far away as they generally should be.
     
    In RoF, a big issue for me, flying 'aids off', has been how often enemies in the vicinity remained invisible unless our flight more-or-less blundered into them. If I didn't miss them altogether, I'd come upon them suddenly, with no opportunity to do any of that interesting patrol-leading stuff: stalking them, getting my flight into a good position, then timing and leading my attack.
     
    PWCG not only enables you to select a rank high enough to lead patrols regularly, turning the player from drone to tactical decision-maker; recent versions have increased levels of flak, so that it can now provide the patrol-leading player with the target indicator that flak so often was, in real life. At least, that was what I was hoping I'd find out, flying this mission!
     
    The plane
     
    As for the Pfalz itself, though a competent design, the DXII inevitably suffered from being compared to the contemporary Fokker DVII. The sturdy, agile and easily-flown Fokker was the plane the German fighter pilots wanted, to replace their outnumbered and increasingly-inferior Albatros DVs or Pfalz DIIIs. Anything less was regarded with suspicion. In 'Wings of War', Baviarian Rudolph Stark - by then in charge of Jasta 35 - told it like this:
     
    '1 September 1918. We are to have more new machines. Everyone is pleased...but their joy is soon damped down, for the machines...are not Fokkers, but Pfalz DXIIs. What is a Pfalz DXII? No one has ever heard of such a machine, no one knows anything about it. We decline to take these machines...we are told...there are no more Fokkers to be had. All right; we'll have the Pfalzs...the sight of them does not inspire confidence...with a multitude of bracing wires...the whole thing looks like a harp. We are spoilt for such machines. No one wanted to fly those Pfalzs except under compulsion. Later their pilots got on very well with them. They flew quite decently and could always keep pace with the Fokkers; in fact they dived even faster. But they were heavy for turns and fighting purposes, in which respect they were not to be compared with the Fokkers. The Fokker was a bloodstock animal that answered to the slightest movement of the hand...the Pfalz was a clumsy cart-horse that went heavy in the reins and obeyed nothing but the most brutal force.'
     
    My own references on the type are the old but valuable Profile Publication and - highly recommended - the more recent Osprey 'Pfalz Aces of WW1' which features other types like the DIII of 'Blue Max' movie fame.
     
    If I recall right, Pat Wilson's Western Front Patch for Red Baron 3d added a Pfalz DXII but if you want to fly one in a modern WW1 sim the choices are First Eagles or Rise of Flight. The FE Pfalz is from the A Team Skunkworks and it's a fine rendition, a great bird that looks the part (seen here with the fix that corrects the slightly offset wheel hubs and a great skin, by Quack I believe)
     

     
    Having read Rudolph Stark's book many years back, I was keen to add this plane to my Rise of Flight hangar and take her for a spin…literally, as it happened. While the Pfalz seemed a tractable enough mount, I found she was a bit more prone than , say, the albatros, to spin out of a tight turn...and to keep on spinning, all the way down, until stopped by something solid. I have to admit that spin recovery is a bit of a bugbear for me in RoF, generally. The classic advice for a WW1 pilot on spin recovery was to centralise all controls and pray. This doesn't work so well in RoF. For the DXII, even the classic modern technique - power off, opposite rudder, nose down - seemed not to work, quickly or at all, for the DXII. Happily, RoF pilot's notes are available on the sim's website and these include spin recovery. As described in the notes for the DXII, this is counter-intuitive - rudder (and aileron) INTO the direction of the spin. Practicing this in 'free flight' mode is recommended, before entrusting your virtual life to a campaign. Though PWCG by default renders your pilot less liable to be killed, best not to take chances, eh?  Anyway here's that handbook:
     
    http://www.777studios.net/ROF_Guides/P12_Hanbook.pdf
     
    The man, the unit and the mission
     
    First challenge is actually getting to fly a DXII. Unlike FE/FE2, RoF models mixed squadron establishments and in Beta Career, starting as a lowly NCO pilot, I was liable to get allocated a Pfalz for a mission or two, then get moved onto a Fokker. In real life this would have been most welcome, of course...but not for this mission!
     
    Using PWCG, I decided to transfer my Jasta 11 Fokker triplane pilot, Richard Satchel, to Jasta 32b. Pfalz being a Bavarian firm, its products tended to go to Baviarian units such this. I opted to fly with it in August 1918, at which point Jasta 32b was based at Roucourt/Bohain airfield, between Cambrai to the south and Lille to the north. We seemed to be entirely equipped with the Pfalz so it was a simple matter to use PWCG to generate a mission. I was allocated a patrol up to the Lines, then north for a stretch. I was the leader and was allocated my preferred three flight-mates - Leutnants Wolf, Borngen and Balmer. So I accepted the mission and picked it up in RoF, in the usual PWCG fashion.
     

     
    There seem to be few skins available for the DXII so I just went with the default one and here were are, lined up and ready to go, with my machine bearing the blue leader's streamers.
     

     
    I don't bother with 'complex engine management' so it was a simple matter to check the controls and start up, at which point my virtual pilot gave a hand signal for the flight to do likewise. Once all props were turning I opened up the throttle and after an initial swing, my Pfalz bumped and rocked over the grass airfield and was soon airborne and climbing away.
     


     
    Our base was quite close to the front and for safety's sake, I climbed away from it initially, to gain some height. All seemed peaceful so I swung around and set course on the first leg of our patrol, which would take us west and into the thick of whatever might be waiting for us there.
     

     
    ...to be continued!

Portal by DevFuse · Based on IP.Board Portal by IPS


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