CaptSopwith

He is! He's been sitting in mothballs for the duration of my first semester of PhD studies, but he's still there - waiting in the wings. How's things on your side of the pond?

Great looking skin Olham! I too immediately thought of Hartmann's craft when I saw the nose. I'll happily use it - as I'm still using your "R" design for my old Wilhelm Roth campaign!

As always my friend, nice find. Really enjoyed the video - it was a nice break from grading!

Here's an ode to the flight sim hobby we all know and love - and to the great community that springs up around it. This one is for all of you. Enjoy and feel free to comment!

I've often felt I would acquire a greater appreciation for what trench life was like if I were to volunteer for a few days of re-enactment. Living in a trench, sleeping in the cold, it has to be bloody awful - and that's when you aren't being bombed, shot at, or gassed... The ability of the human mind to comprehend such things... I wonder if we ever truly will.

Hi guys. Just did a little writing on my humble blog (read by about 8 people!). Here's a write up I did on Call of Duty that wound up turning into me singing the praises of flight simming yet again. Hope you like it!

Thanks for the replies guys! I meant to write back about... oh a month ago! I appreciate it!

I feel a bit late to the party chaps, but I couldn't help but notice Widow drop my name in his list of members and I have to say, I'm touched! I feel like so much of a lurker most of the time - PhD duties and the general insanity of my life over the last year has left me posting sporadically at best. I'm actually spending my evening grading papers, watching The Blue Max, and fighting the urge to set it all down and go up for a mission - which I know will blow an hour away in a heartbeat! I read the boards every day - even when I have no time to post. Now, with a laptop and an iPhone, I can sit in my nearest coffee shop and check in on my comrades in arms. I've been fortunate. Ever since I found internet access back in 1999, I've been lucky to be on a good board. First it was Delphi - where I met folks like Shred, Pol and OvS (where the devil is he btw!?) then I moved over to here and found the rest of my good friends - Olham, Widow, Slarti, Hellshade, the list goes on and on. You guys are a great bunch and at times like this - when real life is, in all honesty, kicking the crap out of me - you keep me sane. Cheers and another round on me!

Just came across this on Youtube. Too good not to share!

Hi Von Baur. FSX will likely be the last, traditional flight simulator from Microsoft. After the release of FSX, Microsoft disbanded the Flight Simulator team. The new project from Microsoft is Microsoft Flight. The website is here: http://www.microsoft.com/games/flight/ although information on the game is sketchy. I'd say that if you can run FSX, pick up a copy, it will likely keep you busy until Microsoft Flight is released to market.

Keeping an eye on the news today - Hurricane Irene has been churning up the East Coast of the United States for the last day or so. I checked the handy OFF pilots map that Olham keeps updated and realized that there are a large number of us in the storm's path. I hope everyone is well - Irene doesn't look as serious as many originally feared. How is everyone?

Yikes Shiloh! Those photos looks pretty hair-raising! Glad you and your loved ones are okay, but my condolences on the loss to your town. Thankfully, you can always rebuild. Just glad everyone is okay.

So far so good from the sound of things. Keeping my fingers crossed that that continues. Be safe everyone!

Best of luck Widow! I echo the group by saying it couldn't have happened to a nicer chap. I hope the job's enjoyable and who knows, perhaps you'll run across the occasional Snipe along the way? Cheers!

Safe and enjoyable travels Olham. We'll keep the light on for you!

Thanks Olham. I understand. In that case I'll buy you a frothy cream soda!

Olham, my friend, you are a gift to the community. Your consistent finds of great historical websites, photographs, and in this case, fantastic video, is one of the things that keeps me checking the OFF forums daily. To see a DH2 in flight is amazing - I need to go to New Zealand. And I need to go to Germany! Something I hope to do in the coming few years. If I get my shot at hopping the pond, I'll have to look you up and have a pint with you. Thanks again for your contributions.

Nice find Olham! I'm enjoying the website - if I'm not mistaken, is it commemorating an anniversary at Johannisthal field?

Hello guys! It's been far too long! I hope all is well this summer. I've relocated to my new city and I'm about to embark on a PhD program in a matter of weeks. During my downtime I've been catching up on my movies courtesy of Netflix and I finally got around to watching The Red Baron. Wow. What an awful, awful movie. I thought Flyboys was bad, but as an historian, this one particularly irked me. Manfred von Richthofen is shot down twice by Roy Brown, who is apparently his nemesis? He's romantically involved with his nurse - which I can go with - except that she's there, in his bathrobe, to watch him take off the day he's killed? Then there was the date-movie interlude where Brown and Richthofen roam the Flanders countryside discussing the idiocy of war like two internationalists - the type that wouldn't have really existed until after World War II - talking about the meaninglessness of boundaries and class. They do realize that Manfred was a Baron, right? The most irksome part had to have been the portrayal of Lanoe Hawker. I've always had a fondness for Major Hawker - a slender, nervous man prone to fits of depression who, in spite of these frailties, led 24 squadron admirably before being hunted down by Richthofen. And in the movie he's a fat, bearded, screaming lunatic who yells every time he opens fire in his... SE5? Hawker was killed piloting a DH2. I understand that it's Hollywood, except for this: The actual story of Manfred von Richthofen's life would have made a perfectly remarkable movie all by itself. Whereas Flyboys was just wrong - completely wrong - The Red Baron gets just enough right to be unbelievably frustrating. The paint schemes of the Albatros fighters (a plane which never even appeared in Flyboys) are completely correct and yet, Hawker is flying an SE5 in early 1916. The German planes looked accurate to me, where as the Allied planes are a hodge podge of greatest hits packages. HP400s numbering in the hundreds bombing trench positions like pre-historic B17s? An Re8 involved in a dogfight with a Spad 13, a Nieuport 28, and a Fokker Dr1? Really? I had to work to finish this movie. The tragedy is that, if you actually took his biography and made it, verbatim into a movie, it would be an amazing script. Shot in the head while attacking two-seaters, downs Lanoe Hawker, commands one of the best fighting units in history... etc. It goes on. What they managed to do was butcher the history of the Great War (which, it's nice that the trenches finally appeared, nearly an hour and a half into the film) and actually manage to make a snoozer of war movie out of one of the greatest combat pilots in history (I counted what, three dogfighting scenes?). What happened to this movie??? I know I'm about three years late to this conversation but I had to get this off my chest.

LOL! Or something like this? PS: I love this movie. Saw it as a kid and I've adored it ever since.

I completely agree Olham. For someone who isn't familiar with MvR's life story, The Red Baron is probably a pretty good popcorn flick. The action scenes are decent enough, the CGI is exceptionally well done - again, if you don't know the aerodynamic limitations of WWI era machinery - and the love story is good enough to keep the saps hanging on. But for the history student, who knows MvR wasn't shot down by Roy Brown when he received his head wound, who knows MvR wasn't anything remotely related to a pacifist, that MvR wasn't "a rebel," that he suffered the losses of his comrades as much as anyone, that Field Modifications were not only known of, they were accepted by men like Antony Fokker... it goes on and on and when you study this sort of thing for a living, it makes you pull your hair out. As I said, his actual, real, well-documented life (this isn't King Arthur we're talking about here) would make a phenomenally good movie and as The Red Baron shows, the CGI would be good enough to do it. Why they failed so spectacularly - particularly considering that this was a German studio - simply escapes me.

That's just cruel Rickety! Talk about insult to injury!

Good thread idea Lewie. This used to be on Youtube but has since been taken down for reasons surpassing understanding. I've used this clip many times while teaching my students on WWI. Seems to bring the topic home to them. http://sonicbomb.com/xv1.php?vid=ww1_ht&id=548&ttitle=WW1%20-%20Hell%20in%20the%20Trenches&s=80&w=700&h=400

Hi Gents! The Beast is back up and operational this evening - having been returned from Staples (the nearest and cheapest repair shop around here) for the sum of $120. Thanks to Al, from right here on the OFF boards, I was able to procure a power supply to replace the faulty 400W unit that Gateway installed. The technician, Keith, said that the thing was a beast to get into the machine, but it's blazing along now! And just to show some proof of the repairs working (thus getting my OFF and, even more importantly, my work computer back up and running), here's a few screenshots from this evening. I should also take a moment and thank Olham for creating this fantastic skin for my German pilot, Gerhard Roth. Gerhard has been out of action for the last few months, but I think it's time to take that beautiful Albatros back up and do some flying! My thanks again to Al. This community is fantastic, and this act of sincere kindness once again reminds me why I've been a part of it for so long. Drinks are on me, and Al, shoot me a PM for the shipping costs so I can cover you! Cheers Guys!

Amen Lou, I'm nursing a hot cup of coffee myself right now.