Immersion? You've got to be kidding!

[Canvas Wings]

I don’t know if any one else has noticed this before…

Nov 10^th, 1918. As Oberleutnant Eric Sietz I was flying a DVII with Jasta 6 in my last sortie of the war. Like the greater conflict, it hadn’t gone well. After a successful bounce of three Spads from Esc-94, our 3-man sortie was in turn jumped by four more Spads -from 153, I think; I’m not sure, it got pretty busy.

To make a hair-raising story short, I soon found myself alone, out of ammo, about 20 klicks (say 12 miles) on the wrong side of the Sushi Bar and pursued by the two remaining Spads. Worse, not to mention other damage, the tip of my upper right wing was peeled back like a Hershey Bar wrapper. A third of my lower right wing was gone; ribs and spars were sticking out in more directions than Picasso’s picket fence.

I spent the next 20 minutes or so fish-tailing a forest a hundred metres up, inventing startling new obscenities for the Spads, the ground gunners, and even the damn trees. Again, to shorten things up, young Sietz fluttered across no-man’s land to a tiny little hay field, considerately ploughed it for the local farmer, and then wrapped his nice new Fokker around a large tree-less trunk. He walked away much older, if not wiser, and lived to kiss some fraulein on Armistice Day; probably the same farmer’s daughter.

 

But the weird part was this; while frantically scanning the ground to avoid those Allied-sympathizing spruce trees, I noticed, as I crossed a small clearing, my shadow. It’s not something I pay much attention to normally, but my radar was on hyper alert; (I really wanted Sietz to live to see if there was some special end-of-the-war video. [There isn’t.]) So even though it was distant and small, I thought the shadow looked odd. I hit pause, centred it, and zoomed right in… and damned if my shadow didn’t have the top wing peeled back and the lower wing tip gone, complete with the ribs poking out.

I actually felt the hairs on my arm stand up. Immersion, hell! – It was more like a Twilight Zone moment. For a second I was afraid that if one of the Spads nailed me in the game, my real life heart would stop. Gawd, I love this sim!

PS . I have a screen shot to prove it wasn’t Combat Stress Syndrome- but I’ve never taken the time to learn how to attach that to my post. There’s a freakin’ war on!

[UK_Widowmaker]

Great Stuff CW

[+Olham]

Indeed! Good description for "immersion" here.

[Hauksbee]

Immersion, hell! – It was more like a Twilight Zone moment.

OFF does have a way of coming up on your blind side. I still think back to the time when I hosed down an enemy fighter at nearly point-blank range, and, as I tore past him, engine roaring, guns clattering, fuselage straining and creaking...and I thought: 'Did I just hear that pilot screaming?'

[+Olham]

They do indeed scream sometimes - the Pup pilot yesterday did.

Makes you goose skin, doesn't it?

[Rugbyfan1972]

They do indeed scream sometimes - the Pup pilot yesterday did.

Makes you goose skin, doesn't it?

 

Olham,

 

You are right it does give you goosebumps, but the one that really stuck in my mind was on RB3D when you shot a plane down at low level, and you saw the pilot jump out and heard a blood curdling scream followed by a meaty splat as he hit the ground.

 

Thanks

Rugbyfan1972

[Duce Lewis]

Rippin Tale there Canvas Wings!

Spads are the worst to try and outrun/outfox

You must've used some devilish manuevers to work your way back to your lines

[Fliegenhund]

The bug bit you too. I have said it on many threads but no sim has ever grabbed me like this one, and I have played alot of them. Truly a phenomenal game, especially for historic and realism nuts like me.

[Broadside uda Barn]

A couple of times I've had pilots (and gunners) jump right in front of me as I'm on their six. Never hit one, tho I've swung wide to miss them.

 

anyone ever hit a pilot with his plane?

 

I vaguelly remember hitting falling pilots in RB3D while they were falling....