Worst Navigation Error Ever

[Bullethead 12]

* NOTE: This is a result of a warp going BADLY wrong.

 

Marienbourg Internment Camp

5 Jan 1917

 

Well, here I am. Looks like I'll live through the war, and better here than in a German POW camp. At present, I'm still too frozen and shaken by yesterday's events to consider escaping, and besides, I'm only just breaking the ice with the German aviators who are also interned here. I really want to hear about the view from their side of the hill before I leave.

 

Anyway, as to how I got here. Well, it's a long, sad story. Yesterday morning we were tasked to escort some other Fees from 18 Squadron to bomb a rail yard just SSW of Douai. The day before, all ops had been cancelled and they should have been yesterday, too, what with the horrific snow storm the whole time. And therein lies the cause of the problem.

 

My ground crew, instead of daring to ask me to provide them with booze, had apparently become so desperate as to drink the alcohol in my compass. To compound this, they had replaced it with water, which naturally froze solid. I didn't notice this until the glass shattered from the expanding ice, which alerted me that I was BADLY off course (IOW, while warping I finally glanced at TAC instead of the outside view and realized that my distance from home was over 200 miles and still increasing). I hadn't noticed before, due to the heavy snow flurries and trying to keep an eye on the horizon while wiping my goggles clear of ice every few seconds. Given these distractions, I thought I'd been doing a good job holding course.

 

At this point, I saw a sizable town in the near distance, so I headed that way to read its name off the water towers. It was Dortmund, Germany . I'd have recognized it anyway from the famous breweries I'd visited before the war. Well, nothing for it but to follow the roads back in approximately the right direction, given that the compass was tits up. (IOW, I used SHF-W to set my airfield as the next waypoint and warped again). Unfortunately, I'd only loaded about 75% fuel. We crossed the SE corner of the Netherlands but it soon became apparent that we'd never regain the Lines. So, given the choice, I decided to head back to the neutral Netherlands intead of landing in occupied territory (IOW, the warp quit when I was down to 9.5% fuel and I was left to my own devices).

 

 

 

I had to fly low due to the continued snow storm, but that helped in finding the border, which in this area is marked by a small river.

 

 

 

By now, I was down to about 3% fuel. However, this part of the Netherlands is heavily forested. I circled lower and picked out a field that looked perfect--in fact, it looked like an airfield and there were even some tents there. However, just before I set down on it, my observer's emphatic gestures made me understand I'd circled back over the river and was about to land in German territory. So, I gunned the motor at the last moment and recrossed the border.

 

Just as I was giving up hope, I spotted a large cleared area in the forest ahead. Even better, it had a snow-free road running across it, so I could reasonably expect somebody to come along fairly soon and take me someplace warm.

 

 

 

However, as I got nearer, I saw that this wasn't a clear field at all, but that it was studded with tree trunks cut off half-way up. It was a trap obviously designed to lure airborne invaders to their doom! I had no idea the Dutch was so forward-thinking; from my seat in a Fee, there's absolutely no threat of such an occurrance at present and I can't imagine it happening in the future . Anyway, there was thus nothing for it but to land on the road, even if it squiggled around somewhat. I went in first to make sure it was safe while my flight circled overhead.

 

 

 

It turned out I'd landed not far from my favorite place in all the Netherlands, Chimay, home of the BEST beer made in Europe. Those Trappist monks sure know their beer. And the best part is, this internment camp is close enough to get supplies from there. So like I said, I'm in no hurry to leave.

[Olham 164]

You know, Sigmund Freud would say now:

It was not a navigation error. Your subconscious navigated you exactly to Chimay.

[77Scout 3]

I had this once. Warp took me way off to the northeast in just the same manner. Fortunately I was German :)

 

Happened on a bomber escort mission also. The bombers were just flying around and around at the meeting point (Waypoint A). Now I generally never use warp, but eventually I got tired of flying around and around waiting so I finally hit warp. Boom...I was gone to the ends of the map.

 

Hmmmm

[Olham 164]

Only had a strange warp once. Brought me to the Ardennes.

No problem for a German Albatros, but I was pretty much irritated.

But that was long before the Super-Patch. Never had it happen again.

[Bullethead 12]

I had this once. Warp took me way off to the northeast in just the same manner. Fortunately I was German :)

 

1st time it's ever happned to me and I've warped nearly every sortie since whenver P3 went live.

 

The only times I don't warp are 1) when I'm in a SPAD or Pfalz, because of the way warping robs you of the altitude essential to those types, 2) in 1918 during the Kaiserschlacht, when you can't warp even if you want to because there are always "enemies nearby", and 3) on lone wolf missions where you have no waypoints at all. Oh yeah, and back in my one and only bomber career, I never warped when I had bombs aboard because either I wanted to stay low to avoid trouble (or see the ground on crappy days), or I was gaffing off the boring recon mission and its waypoints to bomb the trenches instead.

 

As a general rule, if the next waypoint is more than 10 miles away, I'm warping. And I'll warp if it's closer than that if my glass has gone empty during the sortie so far

[Bullethead 12]

It just occurred to me that Chimay is really in Belgium--it says so on the beer bottle label--even if my atlas shows it inside the Dutch border. I know there are some Belgian enclaves just inside the Dutch border a bit further NW of where I landed--is Chimay in another such place? In that case, I must surely have landed in free Belgium, not the neutral Netherlands, so instead of being an internee, I'm sure to be repatriated by an ally.

 

Damn the bad luck. I was hoping to sit here drinking excellent beer for the duration

[Olham 164]

The art of beer and cheese!

 

http://www.chimay.com/en/intro_58.php

[Hasse Wind 46]

Heh, I once had an even worse navigation problem. At least you ended up in Holland - when the warp went bonkers in my case, I found my flight of 4 N.17's over the North Sea, EXTREMELY far away from any friendly coast. The closest shore was in Germany, and we didn't have the fuel to make it even there, much less to England or Northern France. So in the end we ditched down in the water and either drowned or froze to death. It must have been some kind of a North Sea Bermuda triangle that pulled my flight out of warp speed to meet their death in the icy waters.

 

Fortunately I've had only one such disaster during all the time I've had OFF, so it's not something that occurs regularly. But it taught me to always look at the map when using warp...

Edited September 17, 2009 by Hasse Wind

[VS816 0]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh  Chimay.........now there's a place to spend a few days....................hic.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

I think I will 'Warp' to the Jingling Gate PH tonight..and have myself Interned until closing time, with some Old Speckled Hen this very evening.

It seems the only logical way of raising a glass to Pilot Officer Bullethead on his misfortune?

[Olham 164]

Have a pint on me too, Widowmaker.

 

Hasse Wind - next time remember the island of Helgoland.

Just big enough to land there, and inhabited - the Friesen would have brewed you a "stiff Grog" or three.

(Half Rum, half hot water, and sugar. May not bring your senses back, but that wouldn't matter then anymore).

[Bullethead 12]

Hasse Wind - next time remember the island of Helgoland.

 

I dunno. Helgoland was rather heavily defended in WW1. It had impressive anti-shipping batteries including twin 30cm turrets, which are probably the only thing there that airplanes wouldn't have to fear. There were a dozen or so 28cm coast defense mortars which could easily have been pressed into service as flak, plus of course some dedicated 8.8cm Flak L/45 guns and numerous MGs. Besides all this, Helgoland was the main U-boat base in WW1 and there was always a flotilla or 2 of DDs and/or TBs there, too, each of which had some minor AA weaponry. And, of course, a base for those nasty seaplane fighters.

 

So all in all, approaching Helgoland in an Entente airplane in WW1 would have been pretty risky. And assuming you survived the defenses, the town and gun batteries took up most of the surface so it would have been hard to find a place to land.

 

Not much trace of this remains today. Helgoland was of course heavily armed in WW2, also, so naturally got carpet-bombed. If you look at it in Google Earth today, outside of town it's just 1 big field of huge, overlapping bomb craters where the batteries used to be.

[Olham 164]

The British even tried to blow the whole island up - with no success though.

 

I had overlooked, that Hasse Wind flew Nupes then - I thought he always flies German crates.

[Check Six 2]

Worst ever navigation error??

 

Hmm...never heard of "wrong way" Corrigan then???