Heck

Copy and paste this into the [Rudder] section of your data.ini and see if you like it. I tried to tone down the excessive yaw tendencies. The SE5a was designed for inherent stability, so it wants to correct any yaw motion, and this seems to want to settle into level flight again for me, but without the exaggerated effect from the original. Cldc=0.00010 //Cldc=0.0010 Cndc=-0.0131 //Cndc=-0.0331

Sometimes it turns out to be an MOI problem. This is what I have in my Nieuport 28 data.ini, and I haven't experienced the problems you're having. You might want to give them a try and see if they help. EmptyInertia=436.18,354.89,719.18 Just remember to back up your original in case this doesn't help. No sense changing what doesn't work, because it just confuses the issue later on. Heck

Merry Christmas to all!

Usually some time during 1917, either Bloody April period, or in the Autumn, when things began to turn against the Germans. In both cases, usually for the Germans, sometimes for the RFC, occaisionally for the French, flying another of my favorites, the Spad 7.

Generally, I find myself flying for the British, or the Germans, in First Eagles. I think it's because the conflict between the Royal Flying Corps and the German Jastas over Flanders was amongst the first things I read when I was young, and two pilots became early childhood heroes; J.T.B. McCudden, and Manfred Von Richthofen. I'm American, but I usually don't fly for them. But I blame Red Baron 3d for that, because every time I tried to launch a career as an American pilot I wound up getting waxed, so it kind of put me off flying for them, although, until you asked this question, I never noticed it. And when it comes to particular aircraft, I surprise myself, because I would have thought I'd most consistantly fly my boyhood favorite, the Sopwith Camel, but usually it's a Nieuport 17 or 27 for the British, or an Albatros or Pfalz for the Germans. When it comes to your son flying the same way, I don't find it astonishing at all. He's emulating his dad, and that's a good thing. Heck

Since this is a flight model thread, I'll post this here. I noticed one odd thing about the post Nov patch data.ini's. All of the Thirdwire aircraft have had their alphastall= values lowered by between .5 and 3 degrees with the exception of four aircraft: the three Spads and the SE5a. The new values are all between roughly 6.5 (DFW) and 12.0 (Fok DVIIf) degrees. The Spads were all in the most common 8-9 degree range already, so that's probably why they were'nt changed, and I understand why the Fokker DVII series would only change a little, since they were the best airfoil section of WW1, according to most sources, but that still left the SE5a with all it's bizarre take off behavior as the joker in the pack. So, I lowered each alphastall= value for it by 3 degrees, from 11 to 8, or 12 to 9, depending on the section, and I think it flies much better now, and is consistant with the others. I couldn't think of one good aerodynamic reason for it to be so much higher than the other aircraft, considering it's airfoil, which I believe was an RAF 15, was certainly no more advanced than the RAF 16 used on the Camel, and very much less advanced than the "almost modern" high lift section used on the Fokker DVII's. If my logic is wrong, somebody who knows more about this subject please let me know.

I know what you mean, Bandy. Sometimes I spend way to much time in external view. Even when I wind up out of the fight ("Oh, jolly good. Lead's landed again!), I f6 through the fight just watching. And, depending on the skill levels, I see some really vicious stuff going on. These little virtual creepies like killing each other as much as they enjoy trying to kill me. Like the other night, my Albatros flight was duking it out with some Spad 7's, after the lead Spad killed my engine in the merge, and I returned the favor, when, all the sudden, a flight of Nieuport 27's showed up to shred my fellows. I had just switched off of viewing one of my own being shot to pieces, and it went to a view of the guy doing the shooting, one of the last of the Spads. He must have just killed the machine he was shooting at, because as I slewed the view around, trying to get behind him to watch him shoot, the little head turned toward me as if to say, "What are you looking at." I knew it was time to leave....

I'll raise a glass to that, Tailspin! Now Heavy Handed Hans can really ham handle Handy Halberstadters. No matter what happens to this sim, I keep coming back to it. And IMHO it just keeps getting better. Stalls, spins, mushing in turns, creepy controls, I really get the feel of flying now, which I didn't in many sims I've owned in the past, where it always felt as though I were too much in control. I like the feeling of always being on the edge of control in a dogfight, and that I might lose it, with less than happy results. Which isn't hard for me, because I really am Heavy Handed Hans.

Is Pfalzes correct? I have Greg VanWyngarden's Pfalz aces book, but it only shows a couple, and I doubt Otto Kaus' striped fuselage could be done, because of the vagaries of this model's fuselage and the way it distorts paint or decals in the rear fuselage area. I'm working on a number of new skins, a new ex works, a new lozenge pattern, both with revised tailplanes, and a number of Jasta 10 schemes, although some will be somewhat problematical, like Klein's and Rudenberg's, because of the kinks, twists, and distortions of the model's lod. It isn't perfect, but I'm glad Capun and the ATeam brought it to us, because this was a very important German fighter in terms of numbers, and despite any flaws in the model, or real life, remains one of my WW1 favorites, ever since a classmate named Cheryl, I think, gave me a model of one as a sixth grade secret Santa gift all those years ago...

Thanks. And that's exactly why it's always been my favorite era.

I will. Thanks. There'll also be more.

This is what I have in a notepad file on my desktop, Bandy. ".Description of aero coefficients in flight model data files by Wild_Elmo OK, here is a list of the various aerodynamic coefficients (the 3 or 4 letter variables that start w/ the capital C) that are used in the flight model data files. I've also listed a couple of other variables for the hell of it (Xac and DeltaStallAlpha), but I'm going to limit this discussion primarily to the aerodynamic coefficients since this is how the model generates all of the forces and moments on the airplane. CL0 Lift coefficient at zero angle of attack (AOA) CLa Lift coefficient due to AOA CD0 Zero-lift drag coefficient CDL Drag coefficient due to lift (induced drag effect) Cmq Pitching moment due to pitch rate (pitch damping) Cmad Pitching moment due to AOA rate (aero interaction between wings and horiz tail) Cyb Side force due to sideslip Cyp Side force due to roll rate Cyr Side force due to yaw rate Clb Roll moment due to sideslip Clp Roll moment due to roll rate (roll damping) Clr Roll moment due to yaw rate Cnb Yaw moment due to sideslip Cnp Yaw moment due to roll rate Cnr Yaw moment due to yaw rate (yaw damping) CLiftdc Lift due to control surface deflection CDdc Drag due to control surface deflection Cydc Side force due to control surface deflection Cldc Roll moment due to control surface deflection Cmdc Pitch moment due to control surface deflection Cndc Yaw moment due to control surface deflection DeltaStallAlpha Increase in max angle-of-attack before stall Xac X-location of aerodynamic center First thing to realize is that the coefficients are normalized by various dimensions of the aircraft, so they don't represent the absolute value of the force or moment. So for example, for Cnp, the actual yaw moment due to roll rate is found by mulitplying the coefficient by: (Dynamic pressure * wing area * span^2) / (2*Velocity) There is actually a very good reason for this, but I'm not going to go into it. The important thing to understand is what force or moment is being generated by what." Using this; p10ppy's fe data.ini analyzer (a great tool that I absolutely love), a judicious amount of trial and error, along with an MOI spreadsheet I created that utilizes the information from the data.ini analyzer, enables me to generate data.ini's that I'm happy with, and allows me to change data.ini's that I don't particularly like. I don't post them, because they're uniquely my own, set up to my own tastes, based on the reading I've done. And I don't change TK's at all, except the known problems, like typos, ie: a missing digit in a coefficient, etc. Right now, I spend about 30% of my time with this sim playing with data.ini's (more when a patch comes out; sometimes just to see how all this seems to work), 30% flying (and getting shot up periodically), and 40% now doing this, my latest affliction: Hecht Heldmann Both these are unfinished. When I'm done, if anyone wants them, I'll upload them.

I was very hesitant about posting a reply here, because this subject is so touchy, but I think the basic problem that TK has with WW1 flight models is us, the WW1 flight simmers. We are a very opinionated group, and I don't think many will disagree with that statement, although it seems a little odd that people should have such strong opinions about aircraft where we have so little empirical data available, and the empirical data available was collected with instrumentation that can only be described as archane. We are basing our reactions to this flight sim on opinions and statements we have read from pilots of the time in most cases, and sorry few opinions at that, but modern pilots flying accurate reproductions (and I mean by accurate, aircraft like Dick Day's Camel at Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, which was built from original drawings, and flew with a rebuilt original Clerget) have a completely different take on these planes than we do. I've never seen anyone here mention Frank Tallman's wonderful book, "Flying the Old Planes." But in the forward to that book, an author mentions that although some of these aircraft's climb rates would equal a modern Cessna of similar power, everything else in a WW1 dogfight took place at the pace of a "dreamy ballet." I've read modern pilots who've flown these aircraft say that what was referred to as a roll during WW1 was actually a flick roll, where the pilot intentionally stalled his plane, and then kicked the rudder to make it roll, because these modern pilots were unable to get them to do an aileron, or slow roll. Compared to the way even modern light planes fly, they had terrible flight characteristics, because they had sloppy, inefficient, flight controls, and sloppy, inefficient airfoils for the most part. The Fokker D-VII had the most modern airfoil shape of just about any WW1 fighter, but even that airfoil was similar to one from the 1920's, not the 1930's. But, at the time, pilots felt that some of these planes handled like a dream, because that's all they knew. Today, the best of them would be considered an aircraft you'd avoid flying if you had a choice. And even at the time, opinions of the most famous of them varied. It wasn't just the Camel that was loved, or hated by the pilots who flew it. Number 24 Squadron was apparently so incensed with their SE-5a's handling that they had their fitters and riggers reduce the dihedral to make them more manuverable. And very few pilots actually like that Lewis Gun, because you were trying to manhandle a 28 pound machine gun in a one hundred mile an hour slipstream. Fine idea that. I guess the upshot of this long rant is that when it comes to flight models, it's all just opinions in the end. And I've always found TK's opinions to be just as valid as any of ours, because at least TK's trying to work within the laws of the aerodynamics he's presented in the sim. And the only criticism I have of the post patch flight models is that now, to me, they roll too quickly, based on what I've read over the past thirty years, but I realize that that may differ from what others have read over the course of their lives, so I'll just happily dig into those data.ini's and change those roll rates, now that Wild_Elmo has explained to me what aerodynamic coefficient does what. I don't think anyone will ever come up with a patch that corrects things, so to speak, because the opinions here are so strong, and based on so little real information.

http://home.comcast.net/~clipper-108/AIAAPaper2005-119.pdf

File Name: ME109E 2 JG3 File Submitter: Heck File Submitted: 2 Oct 2008 File Category: Axis/BF-109/ME-109/Ju-87 This skin represents 2/JG3 during the late Battle of Britain period. The scheme is the later RLM 74/75 Gray upper surfaces with RLM 65 lower surfaces. The nose and tail have been overpainted in RLM 04 yellow for ease of recognition. Lots of information is presented in the readme, please read it. This skin, and all from this series I'm going to present, makes extensive use of Russouk2004's .psd file. All the detail work; panel lines, rivets, weathering, etc., is Russo's. I am indebted to him for allowing me to use these parts of his file without restriction. I painted the underlying camouflage and created the decals, which include numbers for 16 aircraft and kill markings up to thirty kills. Hopefully, someday, I will possess one third of Russo's skill at creating detail work, until then, I'm grateful he's allowed me to use his, so I can at least get a start in skinning. I hope you enjoy this, and the others to come.... Heck Click here to download this file

You can find the Gotha here: http://cplengineeringllc.com/SFP1/ You have to write Capun an email requesting access. His addy is capun1950(at)yahoo(dot)com. They're a busy group, so it can take a little while for them to respond. Heck

The D-III Pfalz is located here: http://cplengineeringllc.com/SFP1/ You have to write to Capun at capun1950(at)yahoo(dot)com to get permission to access the downloads. It may take him a while to respond, so just be patient until you hear from him. Hope this helps. Heck

Wow! Love that lineup shot. Great work, Warlord. Thanks for all your hard work. Can't wait to get home and download. The Circus has arrived! Heck

My best guess is that the nose of his aircraft was the same color as the fuselage. One site I found identifies the third aircraft in this photo as Wolff's: http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/9500/j11ajc1.jpg You can't see it well, but it appears to be the same color as the fuselage, even though the photo is black and white, although, that's just my guess, and others may have a different opinion. That is, if it is Wolff's. I've seen another site identify the same plane as Allmenroder's, and the elevator does seem to be white, so, more likely, it's his. If it were up to me, I'd go with the only concrete information you have, and that's the painting. Thanks for all the work you're doing. Heck

Couldn't find a profile, but I found this painting. Don't know if you've seen it already... http://www.starduststudios.com/Richthofen_Flying_Circus.htm

Just downloaded and tried them out. Nice work! Thank you! Especially glad to see you did Allmenroder and Lothar Von Richtofen. Now we have a good complement to all the green tailed Jasta 5 Albatros D-Vs done earlier. The more Jasta skins the better!

You got it. You can use the Albatros DVa template to guide you as to what parts are what, and from that make a scheme where the struts are unpainted, if you prefer. I was just about to put one together myself, but your version is exactly what I had in mind.

The type of scheme you're talking about could be easily created by cutting and pasting parts from the Jasta11 bitmaps over the GermanCamo1 bitmaps to create a red nose and tail, but leave the fuselage natural varnish. Can we post altered TK bitmaps? If we can, I'll brew one up. Heck

Very nice touch, Gumpy. Both versions. Thank you. Heck

I fly the BOB terrain in WOI patched all the way. Some aircraft are a little wayward (He111, Me110, etc) and need to be fixed, but I get no terrain crashes, just the funky I'm buried in my airfield because there's a hill problems (sorry can't remember which fields right now), and some, my wingman wanders about aimlessly after I take off, but I had those back in the day with this terrain, so it's not a WOI problem. I point it at the WOI supplied cat, and had to edit the enviroment.ini up to latest standards to fix some water problems. Many of the flight problems are MOI related, I think because so many were created for normal flight model, not hard. I'm not a flight model guru, but I've been trying to stamp out flight model problems with my BOB aircraft, I just don't have a lot of time to devote to it right now, because of real life issues. Heck