Remember this?

[Stephen1918]

I've been slowly converting all of my FE1 installs into FE2 and I came across this from 6 or 7 years ago. (Yes, I'm bragging.)

Edited Monday at 06:41 PM by Stephen1918
typo

[whiteknight06604]

this looks a little different from the DaVinci flyer I have. Looks great.

[VonS]

Nice to see the Da Vinci Flyer again, Stephen. I have your variant installed with the simpler tail - video link included below.

Cheers all,

 

Edited Monday at 10:36 PM by VonS
Embedded link.

[Stephen1918]

I kind of went down a rabbit hole with the Da Vinci flyer after VonS made a better FM for it. (Thanks, by the way.) I made several versions of the flyer, one had a musket and one dropped bombs. I started thinking of a whole Renaissance alternate history war. I made a Da Vinci tank and some 15th Century cannon; I started working on ground objects for a terrain; I started making decals for different factions. Then I realized that all you could do was fly around and look at it. It would be very hard to shoot down an opponent with a single shot musket. So I abandoned the project.

But it's still fun to fly. I spent this afternoon flying it around.

Nice video!

Edited Tuesday at 02:33 AM by Stephen1918

[Coupi]

Very pretty model !!! 

[Flanker562]

I mean it's probably the oddest dogfight I've seen ever in a flight simulator.

[HvitiVikingurrin]

On 6/23/2026 at 5:27 AM, Stephen1918 said:

It would be very hard to shoot down an opponent with a single shot musket.

Perhaps a shotgun would have done a better job! As for “air-to-ground” operations, given the level of grenade technology at the time, such a “flyer” - much like a pigeon - could only have defecated insultingly on the heads of the poor landsknechts.

 

And here, by the way, is the answer to the question of why we need highly detailed models (which in other cases can slow down the game). They’re needed for free flight - for the sheer pleasure of it and to admire the external views - as well as for creating great screenshots or videos.

Edited yesterday at 06:20 AM by HvitiVikingurrin

[gterl]

Hudson Hawk

[whiteknight06604]

hey a box of iron darts opened over some troops could be very effective. as for air-to-air options would be limited, crossbow blunderbuss etc. but rate of fire would make them rather limited. maybe some sort of organ gun but weight would be a severe issue. possibly a "roman candle" type of weapon or Chinese style firework rockets? ground troops might counter these flyers with similar rockets or kites lol 

Edited 3 hours ago by whiteknight06604

[Stephen1918]

I had one that could drop two Fliegermaus (Gr16) grenades which worked well against ground troops.

To get better dogfight action I like your idea of rockets - perhaps a couple of Le Prieur rockets?