DH.2 by John 'Aladar' Dawson
 
FM by the incredibly helpful and talented Charles
 
Well folks, this is my first airplane for the SF engine, and I'm hoping it'll live up to the hopes of the community. It's been alot of fun, and I hope y'all enjoy it.
 
Read the Readme.txt please.
 
EDIT:
 
Thanks to BigBouncer, who posted a great tip for increasing FPS. If you don't want to redownload the file, open up DH2.ini in the readme and change CastShadow=TRUE to Castshadow=FALSE
 
It aughta improve the FPS. :)

Cambrai, November 1917
================
 
A campaign for First Eagles.
This is a historical campaign for the Flanders terrain in First Eagles, to recreate the air battles of late-1917, the time of the debut of the tank, at Cambrai. It follows on from my previous release, "Bloody April" 1917. It requires a standard install of First Eagles, plus Edward's Flanders terrain, and some extra add-on aircraft. There is a TXT file which explains all that is required.
The campaign uses a variety of appropriate late-1917 aircraft, and every mission will provide extensive aerial action, with large numbers of aircraft from different squadrons going about their various missions along the Front.
 
The aircraft which operate in this campaign are the:
 
BE.2d
Bristol Fighter F2B
Nieuport 24bis
SE.5a
Spad XIII
Sopwith Camel
 
Albatros D.III
Albatross D.V
Aviatik C.2
DFW C.V
Fokker Dr.1 triplane
Gotha G.IV
Pfalz D.III
Zeppelin Staaken
 
 
Historical Background
=====================
By November 1917 the British Army has been continuously on the offensive in Flanders for four months, in bloody battles at Ypres, Messines and Passchendaele, and most of the German Army reserves have been drawn there. A bold stroke was planned well to the south, in the direction of Cambrai. The Army, spearheaded by a new secret weapon, the tank, would make a major push.
 
In the air, the start of 1917 had been a difficult time for the Royal Flying Corps, culminating in the disastrous "Bloody April", but by the end of the year, the tide had turned somewhat. Newer machines, such as the Sopwith Camel, SE.5a and Bristol F2B fighter, were coming into service, which were a match for all German machines except for the new and deadly Fokker Triplane.

BE-2A
4 Squadron, RFC 1915
 
Formed in August 1912, No.4 Squadron was sent to France in mid-August 1914 with a variety of aircraft including the BE-2A. Re-equipped with the BE-2 in 1915, an later the 2d and 2e. In June 1917 it was converted to R.E.8s, which it used until the armistice.
 
Full credit to Gramps & Charles for the original texture skins. I have retained the engine detail from the original skin.
 
Enjoy
 
LloydNB

Camouflage skin for the Nieuport 17a with a single wing-mounted Lewis gun,
August 12, 2007 by ShrikeHawk
 
This is posted with permission from Monty CZ and whiteknight06604 who are the authors of the
original skins. The really good-looking details (wood, engine, fixtures, etc.) in the skin are
entirely their work.
 
I wanted a skin for at least one of my Nieuport 17s (I have three) that has camouflage paint.
This skin is for the N3 Escadrille 'Cigogne' in 1916. The camo is standard two-tone for French fighters
at the time. I didn't make it pilot specific so I omitted any text on the side.
 
I found the profile here:
http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww1/f/113/21/0
 
Cheers!
 
ShrikeHawk

Worn Airfield texture for Flanders Terrain.
August 12, 2007 by ShrikeHawk
 
First of all, kudos and credit to Tailspin for coming up with the idea for a "worn" airbase
and also for finding the right file to edit.
 
I had 3 objectives in mind when making this texture.
 
1. Create a used, rutted look for the airfield that has yellowish-looking grass and muddy, exposed earth
patches where planes have repeatedly landed.
 
2. When close to, or sitting on the ground, the texture must look more complex with details to
give the flyer a greater sense of motion near the ground. But this should not be too prominent at
altitude. This was achieved using filter effects and applying graphic "noise" to the texture.
 
3. Lastly, I wanted the texture to "blend in" more with the background. This was difficult because the
surrounding tiles are not the same at every airbase. So I attempted to visually breakup the edges of the
texture a la camouflage so that the edge of the airbase is not readily discernable. On close
inspection, you can still see the edges. But not so clearly when viewed at an oblique angle.
 
Note: I expect this will not look so good with the standard Verdun terrain. In my Verdun terrain, I am
using Edward's replacement tiles, which I highly recommend. This texture works well with Edward's
replacements.

Here's a new "worn" or "used" look for the airfields in First Eagles.
 
You can do anything you want with this file...just give me some credit...dammit!!
 
Enjoy,
 
Tailspin

Alternative FM for the default SE5a
07/30/07 by ShrikeHawk
 
I love flying the SE5a in a dogfight. So nimble and quick!
But...in slow-speed maneuvers and actions that require good
rudder control (i.e., landing, strafing) the plane is waaaayy
too squirrely. After rudder input the plane oscillates terribly
and it's very hard to keep the gunsight on target. Also, on
landing, the slideslip is extreme! The plane does not sink to
the ground as it should even when the engine is a 0%. At least
this is my experience.
 
So after endless tinkering, I finally have the SE5a flying the
way I expect it to. Now the plane lands much as the other
aircraft do. The landing requires more area but it is reasonable
now. It still responds a lot to yaw input, although moderately,
but will not oscillate at all after counter rudder input.
You can actually hold the gunsight on target with minimal effort.
 
This mod addresses other concerns than what peter01 is doing with
his alternative FMs. But when he posts it, I would highly
recommend using his FM. If you want to use this mod "and" peter01's
at the same time, please PM me and I will post a combination.
 
p.s. Thanks to Peter01 for the tip about the cnb parameter. That was
the last bit of info I was looking for.

Thicker, Fuller Clouds for FE
07/30/07 by ShrikeHawk
 
I felt that the default in FE looked too much like faded white blobs
and not nearly enough like clouds. So I set about to change it.
 
My intention here was to make more robust-looking clouds with a higher
density and a greater "presence". I also wanted to create the more
complex shapes that clouds can form. The kind that makes you lay in
the grass and imagine what animal shape the cloud is.
 
I increased the random factor for the clouds as well, so scattered
clouds can be almost as dense as the default broken clouds and then
again the clouds could be very sparse. So you never quite know what
you're going to get. I like that better.
 
I wanted to fix Inclement Clouds too. Realistic or not, I felt that it
was too featureless and too muddy gray. I thought the cloudlayerbottom
didn't match the stormy gray of the horizon clouds. So I created a new
CLOUDLAYERBOTTOM5.bmp that I think fits the look of a stormy sky better.
 
I have increased the particle count in the clouds a lot. This is a big
reason for the thicker clouds. In defense of TK, I think he had the
default clouds the way he did because it would keep the framerates high
for most machines. This is a guess. I have not seen a framerate hit on
my machine (2.80Ghz CPU, @750Mb RAM, GeForce 6800GT 256Mb VRAM), but it
is possible that some machines may get an FPS degrade with this mod.
 
Have fun!