Visit your opponents' crash sites or places, where you had to put your kite down

[Olham 164]

After a fine fight against some SPAD VII from Escadrille 75, we got jumped at by no less but 9 more of them.

There were obviously several aces in that squadron, and they kicked our butts.

I was forced to put my damaged Albatros down near a country road east-southeast of Sivry-sur-Meuse.

That was between the villages Moirey-Flabas-Crépion and Beaumont-en-Verdunois, at the road D125,

as I could see in Google Maps. I could even walk along the site with that golden Google mannikin from

Google Street View, and so I took a picture.

Now it is a ploughed field in Google, while I landed on a meadow. But the invironement looked much like

the real area in OFF. I love checking, where something happened.

 

If you note the longitude and latitude from the inflight map, you can type that into Google Maps, and you'll

get the site where you had been in OFF. I love it!

 

 

Edited February 8, 2012 by Olham

[gaw 5]

Ol......you need P4 bad......gotta admire your curious mind though,,,,it's odd to think an old crash site might be a Le Grand Mac drive thru today....keep up the good work!

[Olham 164]

"Vott? P4?? OFF course I need P4! (Blubber ! Boil !! Steam !!!) Le Grand Mac??? Iss zatt enemy code?"

 

Yes, call me crazy - but you like it, don't you? Want more?

Here comes another crash site I just checked.

The combination of a WW1 victory site with this modern style photo text brings it so close, it almost makes me shudder.

I mean, after all, the events like that are only 95 years ago.

 

 

Edited February 8, 2012 by Olham

[carrick58 23]

Olham amazes me. I cant even fine the crash sites in the game much less GPS

[Olham 164]

Dead simple, really, Carrick:

 

1. If you are over the crash site of an opponent's plane, you pause.

2. Then you open your inflight map.

3. Now you read the data for longitude and latitude in the top right corner of the map.

4. After flying, you write them into the search frame of Google Maps and press "Enter".

5. There you are!

 

This is a great feature in OFF - these data do constantly change with your course - and they work.

Fly over a big lake, note the data and write them into the frame of Google Maps.

You will get a map of the area, and most often, there will be a similar lake in it.

Looks even better in "Satellite View". Zoom and, and you see where you've just been.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Olham

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Nice touch m8

[Bullethead 12]

Lucky for you the field wasn't plowed in 1917 :)

[Baldric 42]

Fun idea, Olham. Will try that next time I actually shoot something down....I am r u s t y

[Olham 164]

Lucky for you the field wasn't plowed in 1917 :)

Yeah, indeed!

 

Well, when you're gliding down, you can often still determine, where you want to land.

Somewhere should be meadow.

But then it may look better from higher up, and could be full of holes at closer sight.

I think it was MvR who had once picked such a bad landing spot.

[Bullethead 12]

The ideal landing spot is next to a nunnery, especially of the Flagellant Sisters

[Capitaine Vengeur 263]

Actually, the countryside may have changed much in some areas of the front. My native countryside of Champagne, southeast of the city of Reims, was at the time of WW1 a backward area regarding agriculture (the geogriphical name of this part of Champagne was and actually is still The Lousy Champagne). The soil was too thin over the chalky substratum to be used for anything else but extensive breeding (Champagne had been known as a big producer of wool since the Middle Ages). The landscape mostly consisted in bare pasture with outcrops of chalk, scrubs, many anemic woods, very few roads between scarce shabby villages far away from each other, no hamlets and exceptionally rare isolated farms. Such a poor landscape can still be observed on sat views on the hilly ranges and in the many military camps in the area (which have been settled there during the 19th Century precisely because the soil was unworthy for agriculture). The revolution of fertilizers and mass mechanized agriculture has changed everything, making this area one of the main French agricultural regions. Now the landscape is made of large, flat, fertile open fields as far as the eye can see, with very few residual woods, still largely under-populated. That's what can be seen on the present sat views, far away from what the airmen on the front of Champagne could observe.

[Olham 164]

I have crossed twice through the Champagne, when I traveled through France, and I liked it.

As you say, the farms are still far apart from each other, and I found space, and the modest beauty

of a less god-spoiled landscape. My native homeland, Ostfriesland, has a similar charakter, though

it is all flat heavy and rich clay and marshes. You need an eye for the details to enjoy it.

 

Here is a photo that always strikes me - it tells perhaps something about the space and loneliness

in the Champagne - a French soldier's grave that has remained untouched since the Great War.

 

 

 

Here is a site I just found about the Great War in the Champagne:

 

http://www.greatwardifferent.com/Great_War/Defence_in_Champagne/Defence_in_Champagne_01.htm

.

Edited February 10, 2012 by Olham