mandrews_2

13 November 1917. In which Stephen Edwards fires his guns in anger for the first time. Went out on a mass patrol (6 planes in both A and B flight), we met a small group of EA. In the ensuing melee, I managed to avoid shooting his flight mates and even managed to hit a few pot shots off at the enemy. He even saw a few hits. Spotting a Alb D.Va down below, he dove after it. It was only as he was approaching it that he noticed that it was already engaged with an squadron mate. Stephen pulled up and circled the action for a minute and witnessed Maj. Parker bring the hun down. Once done, they both turned for home. 15 November 1917. In which Stephen Edwards makes his first claim B flight got the call for an intercept mission. Led by Lt Wallwork, the flight included MacLanachan, Harrison, Napier, and myself. Harrison has engine trouble and turns for home as we gain our altitude (we are only climbing to 4000ft). As we approach the front at about 5000ft, a flight of 5 Alb D.V jump us from above. In the mess, I end up dealing with two of them. Well it started with one. I manage to get the first in my sights and let go a long burst. I see the hits and he spins towards the ground while I watch. I see him pull out, and I dive for another go. I let my attention focus on #1 for too long, and #2 joins the fight. Since #1 didn't seem too interested in sticking around, I turn my attention to #2. We go around a bit, and I manage to get a few shots him as does he. I manage to stay behind him. I think he lost slight of me, because he didn't evade. This gives me time to reload the Lewis and catch back up with him. I close to under 100 yeards and let him have it. I follow him through several maneuvers and a full drum of lewis and corresponding vickers rounds later, I take one last pass and he goes down. I watch him all the way to the ground. By this time, I realize I'm 5 miles behind their lines with not a friendly (or enemy) in sight. I make a bee line for the airfield. I make it all the way back to our field only to discover, its been bombed in the interim. There's not a tent left. We've got some cleaning up to do. Editors note: one of these days, I'll remember to take a screenshot or (heaven forbid) manage a movie.

11 November 1917. In which Stephen Edwards V is reminded that this is dangerous stuff even without a sight of enemy. Flying his first combat mission, 2Lt Stephen Edwards V is assigned to B flight, and their 6 planes take off without incident and head to the patrol area behind friendly lines protecting the airfield at Etrun, NW of Arras. As they approach their patrol altitude, B flight leader Jamie Parker turns to port and heads home. "Bloody Engines" thinks Stephen as 'McIrish' McElroy takes the flight lead. Five minutes later as they pass 11,000ft, 'Harry' Harrison, flying next to Stephen, does the same thing. "Well at least that gives me a bit of room for my dreadful formation flying" thinks Stephen as he continues to follow McElroy. 20 minutes on patrol with the only other aircraft in sight being A flight above. After circling the field and turning to base leg, the plane of Sergeant Lloyd buzzes over Stephen. "Bloody idiot, watch where you're going"; but a moment later Stephen tips his plane (luckily without damage) as he turns to taxi. "Now I'm the idiot. It'll be hard to tell off Lloyd when I make such a stupid mistake myself". Moments later, things turn somber as Stephen learns that Capt Parker had crashed and was killed before he could make it back to the field.

Couldn't figure out how to get an A on the end.

Fresh out of flight school, the young Stephen Edwards V reports duty with 40 squadron. Major Parker tells him to get settled and that he'll need to get in a few orientation flights to familiarize himself with his plane and the area.

When you bring up the joystick properties in Windows, does it show there are 12 buttons?

OK then, count me in. I probably won't last long; but it really looks like fun.

Question: When does the clock start? I couldn't fly my first (and potentially last ) mission until May 31/June 1.

OK forgot to turn off fixed views without TrackIR. Hitting Scroll Lock and the rotations work as I was expecting (not snap back to cockpit center). It's late, it's obvious I'm not thinking clearly, I'm going to bed.

OK so LateralLimit will allow your head to move outside the cockpit side; but there is an interaction with TrackIR that I'm still trying to figure out. With TrackIR disabled, I can Ctrl-Shift-Backspace past the cockpit edge; but trying to rotate your head (shift-right/left/up/down) to say look down, it snaps you back to the cockpit center. With TrackIR enabled, the sim/trackIR won't allow movement past the cockpit edge. I'm going to keep trying; but it appears a quick F4 (my current workaround) will be staying in my bag of tricks.

Didn't seem to work. I hadn't thought about my TrackIR setup getting in the way though. I'll keep trying.

While we are on the subject of the cockpit view. One of my complaints is that I can't seem lean my head out the side of the cockpit for a better view while landing. Is that controlled by the "LateralLimit" setting on the same line? I'll probably try it anyway.

So I was assigned to RFC-24 before they were activated, and thought I'd take the opportunity to get a handle on the DH-2. On today's free flight mission, I went down the Thames to do a little sight seeing and came across this bridge next to Parliament. Kicking myself for forgetting to fly under/through the Tower Bridge. Looks like I have to fly one more mission before I fast-forward a couple of months and get into the action.

Yeah, I'm still seeing an occasional issue with the flight leader not wanting to take-off first (still only at 1.06). Once I'm off, he takes off and catches up/leads.

I don't do the training missions anymore. I just happened to get assigned a non-active squadron this time around. My current pilot has about 4 hours flight time, and I finally feel somewhat comfortable in the DH2. For me, this means I can (1) fly the darn thing (my first pilot stalled making the turn to base leg and died); (2) trim the plane so I don't have to keep pulling on the joystick while flying; and (3) can do a few aerobatics/spin recovery. Normally, I use QC free flights to do this; but when I got the assignment, I thought I'd log the flight time.

Perhaps this statement belongs in the "Wish List" thread; but I'll make it here. I wish there was a "Mixture Control All Engines" or "Mixture Control All Selected Engines" command available in the "Bind to Axis" list of the Key/Controller Mapping utility. The current list is tied to Engine1 - Engine4 individually. This is what triggered my initial confusion.

So I was just flying a mission in a Caudron G4 and found I couldn't climb or catch up with my flight leader. Looking at the RPM gauges, by adjusting the mixture I could get the left engine to ~1200rpm; but my right engine was only getting 900rpm. Both engines were showing 100% health (so no engine damage). On a lark, I turned on auto-pilot and immediately the right engine RPMS started climbing to 1200 like the left. Is there something I'm missing (separate mixture controls) or is there something going on with the G4 engine management?

Good guess @Burning Beard. That's it, I need to select the second engine. Works great with the keyboard, now to figure out if I can control both engine mixtures together using my HOTAS dial.

OK A bit more information from a couple of QCs. In the G4 cockpit, I only see one of the two mixture controls move when I adjust the mixture, and I can kill the left engine (never the right) by cutting back the mixture too much. QC flight in a Gotha shows similar behavior (al least with the mixture cut out).

While testing the mapping of lower/raise lewis gun to my joystick buttons, I made an interesting discovery. If you have full autopilot on (Ctrl-Shift-A), the lower, raise, and reload of the lewis gun is deactivated. Certainly, realism wise it might make some sense, after all there were no auto-pilots in these planes; but if you're that much of a stickler for realism, you won't be using auto-pilot anyway. So I ask: Is this intentional? If so, why are you allowed to unjam your guns in full autopilot?

But you CAN fire your forward facing guns when in full autopilot (Ctrl-Shft-A). That's why I asked if raise/lower/reload was turned off intentionally -- it seemed inconsistent. It would be quite reasonable if the rule was "if you're in full autopilot, then then autopilot controls the airplane and any pilot controlled guns". Anyway, it's not a big deal and isn't terribly relevant in practice.

Might I humbly suggest that this thread get pinned. I've been working my way through the various forums areas looking for a nice FE2 mod-ing intro and here it is.

Please tell me the 621 is not for the same reason I ended up with mandrews_2