CaptSopwith

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.

Good Evening Gents! Mind if I pull up a seat at the bar? I've been gone far too long. First the good news: I will successfully finish my MA History degree next week! I've defended my thesis, checked the boxes, dotted the i's, crossed the t's and I'll be graduating at the end of the first week of May. Also good news: I've been accepted into a PhD program in history with full funding! My work continues! Now the bad news: In February I went down with walking pneumonia and I'm still recovering. My engagement to a woman I was crazy about, and had dated for over two years, ended spectacularly a few weeks after I posted here last. (A comment about diamond size started a rapid spiral to the ground, in flames...). All of this means I have been horribly neglectful of my friends here at the OFF boards. If someone doesn't mind, I could do with a stiff drink (as I've discovered a certain taste for Jameson and Rum and Coke over the last few weeks). It's good to be back... now if I could just find someone to put out the smoldering wreck of a kite parked outside!

LOL, not sure how it would work if it was all in the same glass. And no, WF2 and I have not crossed paths, even in the sky. ;) I'll be specializing in Modern German History (ie: 1870-1945).

Well, this isn't good. Last night, while using my computer, the screen went black, the PC emitted a three-beep code from the motherboard (the cheap Gateway manual doesn't discuss what the three-beeps mean), and I couldn't reboot. Every time I powered on I got a three beep code. I tried unhooking the HDD and that worked. This morning it's working, sort of. But for the last week it has consistently locked up - requiring a full power off and on to get it working again. I've already replaced the hard drive and the video card in this system. Is it possible that the added pull of power on the 400W supply from the two hard drives and slightly better video card could be causing this, or is this more terminal than I can afford? I'm a broke graduate student guys, I can't afford to have my computer conk out right now... Any ideas? System Specs: Gateway Fx7024 Desktop Windows 7 Professional 2 500GB HD Nvidia GeForce 9800GT 3 GB RAM Intel Quad Core Processor @ 2.3ghz

Thanks for the great comments guys. It feels great to be done! I'm doing much better this week than when I originally posted my thoughts. Once I get my machine back up and running, I'll be on here much more often. Also, I've met a new girl - who happens to play flight sims. You never know what kind of surprises life is going to throw your way. Cheers!

Thanks for the kind replies chaps. I've run several performance tests on the rig, including the old mem86 test and they all come back clean. The computer exhibits the following symptoms: random lock ups, random restarts (I haven't caught one yet while I'm in the room) that leave me at the windows boot screen (which also locks up half the time). The machine also shows a blue screen of death on boot, and then there's the worst part - the screen goes black, gives a three beep code, and is completely locked. We stress tested the hell out of the machine - and it never cracked. Which leaves me to conclude it must be a power supply issue. I've contacted Al about his remarkably gracious offer. Here's hoping I can sort things out. Any further thoughts guys?

Yeah, the three beep code on the server is a bad memory issue... I did the power supply calculations and apparently, this Gateway is woefully under powered at 400W - in fact, with the base setup the system came with, it was drawing 30W more juice than the PSU could give.

Bletchley - your continued service to the community knows no bounds - and is highly appreciated! You have refined and fine-tuned an already fantastic campaign engine. I'm greatly looking forward to adding yet another Bletchley folder to my MOD directory. Well done, mate!

In honor of a post I read some years ago on the old Flight Sim Forum called Morning Ride, I felt the need to share something that happened to me the other day... There are a million things that make working on a college campus the greatest job in the world. You are surrounded by professors who represent the greatest minds of your generation. Libraries are filled with millions of books and they're within walking distance. If they don't have what you're looking for, they find it for you: free of charge. Knowledge is truly at your fingertips. You're also surrounded by young people - with their dreams and aspirations and their un-trampled idealism. To be honest, I never truly noticed the people until I went for a bike ride last Friday. And I wasn't even on campus. I was cycling in a nearby park filled with people, young and old; kids, grandparents, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters, boyfriends and girlfriends; all mingling in the first warm day any of us had seen in months. The day was beautiful; the weather so achingly perfect that it felt like years since I had truly felt alive. It's amazing what a little Vitamin D can do for you. Typically, when I ride, I put on my iPod, crank up my electronic music or some Soundgarden, and cycle as hard and fast as I can. It's a fantastic work out - especially for those of us with flat feet who value our knees and consider running an activity best left for survival purposes only. Cycling, for me, is also usually filled with numbers: average speed, distance covered, and of course, time. Only this time, I loaded the wrong playlist, and rather than driving beats, much more mellow stuff filled my senses. It was my first ride since last summer, when I cracked up on a dirt bike trail and broke my wrist. I didn't realize how much I missed cycling until I was out there once more, in the sunlight, enjoying the process of riding again. It was then that I began to notice the people around me; their faces, their expressions, the sounds of their conversations fluttering in and out of hearing distance as I rode by. Instead of seeing them as moving obstacles, I felt an odd sense of weaving into their lives for a few fleeting seconds, rather than weaving around them. For the first time in my life - perhaps a sign that I am all of my twenty-nine years of age - I began to wonder about them rather than me. Were they happy? Were they taking in the beauty of the day after so many long, dreary months of winter? When I would pass an older couple, I'd wonder: how long were they married? Was it their first marriage? Had they been teenage sweethearts at one time? Or, was it a second, third, or fifth attempt before it was too late and time ran out? When I weaved between two college kids: likely a boyfriend and girlfriend out for a cheap date at the park (those are usually the best kind), I knew from their expressions: both of them would remember this day - the sunlit afternoon in the park - ten years from now. How they'd feel about it then would remain to be seen. I steered past a little girl on a three wheel bike - a pink version of the black big wheels I rode up and down the streets of my neighborhood twenty-five years ago. Mom and Dad were behind her, filming her adventures with their smart phone. I bet one day she'll watch them when she's home from college on Christmas break. And there, in the background on a black mountain bike - I'll be zipping by and giving her a wave. It was an odd feeling. Rather than my usual misgivings and general irritation with human beings - their perpetual let downs, problems, shortcomings, and deceits - I couldn't help but hope the best for them. Maybe it is a sign of getting older - even if it's only the very first, and faintest visible signs of it. Or as every elder has ever told me: Youth is wasted on the young. Here's hoping I appreciate mine before it's too late.

Hear Hear Royce!

@ Bletchley, I'm also having the same problem. That said, once the link is fixed, I'll be trying this one out! My thanks to you for working on this, I'm sure the mod will be a blast!

Very true Olham. Samuel Barber wrote one of the most haunting pieces of music ever. From an historical perspective, I like the film Conspiracy. I thought it was very well done, and well acted - not over the top. They let the document breathe and the meeting speak for itself. There is actually very little fanfare in the film - no music until you hear Schubert at the end. I would show it to students, if that gives you an idea of how I feel about it.