Mike Dora

Thanks TS, I've set the FOV to 27, which seems to give about a 1:1 image. _Now_ at last I can shoot stuff down with an SE! Mike

Does anyone remember the BBC TV footage from Beirut in the mid-Eighties, showing a pair of Buccs "patrolling" between the apartment buildings? Buccaneer had a longer range than a Tornado too. In an early trial of the latter's AAR capabilities, a Tornado was buddy-buddy refuelled by a Bucc on a deployment to Akrotiri. When they got there the Tornado was flying on fumes, the Bucc still had plenty left. There was a school of thought in the Service that we should have "productionised" the Buccaneer that was used as the Tornado radar testbed, and bought a couple of hundred of those instead. Looks nicer too.. Mike

Thanks Peter, Actually that answers my question. The version I am using is the Nov 08 patch, but with your latest flight models for all relevant ac, whether TK or 3rd party, modified again by myself to adust the main components' resistance to combat damage (and also to G effects in certain cases, eg sesquiplanes' lower wings. Setting the latter's G limits to lower than the ac's overall G limit can lead to some interesting consequences during eg hard pullouts.. ) But I'm not going to make any further changes in the near future. As I write, my home PC is in the office with me, on its way to a computer repair facility at lunchtime to try to get the @#$%&^%@* C drive working again.. as of this w/e the blasted thing developed an "error loading OS" problem. Good job I backed up a recent FE configuration. Now I only have to remember where! Mike

Does anyone know what file to edit, to change the default single-mission altitudes? At the moment everything seems to take place below 5000ft, yet the literature on WW1 aviation indicates that they regularly flew a lot higher than that. For example, if I recall right, in his "No Parachute" Arthur Gould Lee compared the performance of Pups vs Albatri above & below 15,000 ft - never mind the absence of breathing oxygen! I've tried editing the "[Altitude]" lines in the MISSIONCONTROL.INI file, but seemingly to no avail. Any ideas anyone? Thanks Mike

Peter, I've been thinking again (bad habit, I know, but can't seem to shake it). When you edit a Flight Model, which sections of the *DATA.INI file do you edit? Is it just the "FlightControl" bit, or the "AIData" too, or the "Dogfight*" sections too, or do you also edit the individual components' parameters? I ask because I have edited all my FMs to adjust the strength and breakability of all the major airframe components, to give what I think is the best trade-off between target robustness, and bits flying off (the vanilla FE model was far too prone to airframes disintegrating after too few hits IMHO). So what I'm thinking, is that if you _don't_ edit the component parameters, it would be relatively straightforward for me to copy in the bits you _have_ edited, so that I could benefit from all your good work while retaining my own versions of the damage effects. Thoughts? Mike

Fair points Peter In fact, after playing 1918 quite intensively lately, I notice that the first reaction of a targetted fighter to bullet strikes (or near misses?) is often to sideslip wildly - which is exactly what V M Yeates' alter ego Tom Cundall recommends in "Winged Victory". Indeed one of the reasons he praises the Camel as a fighting scout is that it "rarely flew in the direction it was pointing", so that an enemy would aim with the wrong deflection. So I'll settle for what we have, augmented occasionally by the excellent work of people like you. Thanks Mike Mike

Does anyone what parameter to amend, to change the location of the pilot's eyes for aicraft in FE? I ask because, while the eye position for some aicraft seem about right (eg SE5a), for others it seems as though the pilot's nose is between the gun butts (eg Camel), with seriously negative results on external visibility. While I do know that there were major differences in cockpit sizes and locations, I have been lucky enough to see many real or replica WW1 ac close-up and personal (inc Camel and SE5a), and so do not believe that the Camel pilot was _quite_ that constrained. Anyway I'd like to experiment with this. Thanks Mike

Peter I have a question about all the extensively-modded FMs you have been developing for the FE community. I haven't tried installing these yet, but do they do away with the sometimes jerky, almost cartoonish changes of attitude of the AI-flown ac? Using the Nov 08 patch, I do find it a bit odd to see eg an Alb DV "instantaneously" changing bank and direction, so that from being in a nice comfy tail-chase situation, suddenly I'm seeing the target ac heading off at 45º (or more) to its previous line-of-flight (with its wings still attached!) Thanks Mike

OK MAKO69 you've asked for this. A couple of studies on an RAF station back in the '60s or '70s, found that as the weight of clothing worn by the WAAFs went down, total flying hours went up! Raised all kinds of questions about the effect of the girls' appearance on the mens' morale, perhaps leading to better motivation, harder work, more flying etc? But no, it just meant that it was summer...

I'm currently enjoying tweaking FE until it is "just so", so I have another question for the more experienced modders. Which file should I edit, to get the correct pilot ranks for British aircrew? Right now the sim is showing modern (ie post-1919) RAF ranks such as "Flying Officer" etc, which is not right. Until 30 September 1919 the Service (yes, I served..) continued using Army ranks. So, which file should I (unpack and?) edit to insert the correct RFC/1918 RAF ranks? Thanks Mike

Thanks both In the end I edited the ViewList.ini file, to make the close, standard & wide views 60 degrees, 90 degrees and 120 degrees respectively. That works for me. Mike

Thanks both. Done, fixed, much more realistic. Now the chaps have proper chaps' ranks.. Mike

Thanks Wrench, but - I just unpacked "FlightData.cat" in the "Flight" folder, and I can't find an "RanksRAF.LST" file. It seems to skip direct from "PARTICLESYSTEM.INI" to "REDCONE2.TGA". What am I missing? Am I looking in the right place? Mike

Thanks both Bleddyn, when you edited for the Snipe's seat, what ****cockpit.ini/CockpitSeat001line did you edit, "Position" or "Offset"? Because to be honest I found the debate over these two just a little confusing. Thanks Mike

I wonder if anyone can help with this frustrating problem? After a long lay-off (>2 years), I recently tried to run CFS2 again, only to find that it won't start. I get as far as the very first splash screen, then that goes away and then an error message comes up. My system is running Windows XP (but I've tried the alternative compatability options), with DirectX 9.0c, on an NVidia FX 5500 card. Any ideas anyone, anyone else had CFS2 start-up problems? Thanks Mike

Did anyone ever find a solution to the problem of missing rudder stripes (eg Camels) and wing roundels (eg RFC SPAD VIIs) introduced by the "November Patch"? Thanks Mike

Thanks P10ppy, That fixed it, with a couple of further minor mods. I also included a copy of Tail003.tga relabelled to Tail021.tga in the objects/aircraft folder, to give me RFC tail stripes (I worked out that Tail022.tga would give US Signal Corps Aviation Section only). Fixing the RFC SPAD VII took a bit longer, but in the end hacked that too. The solution was to amend its decals.ini file, replacing each occurance of "FilenameFormat=RFC/D/insignia" with "FilenameFormat=SPAD7/RFC/D/insignia" - seems that the Nov 08 patch calls for just that little extra precision in addressing, by including the name of the aircraft folder in the decal address line. Thanks again Mike

See attachment for another Goering quote, with response...

It was Waddiington, 1969 I think (got this from two sources, one from a friend on attachement there that year, then heard it myself on attachment there in 1974). Waddington Wing had wholly converted to Vulcans B2, only Vulcan B1 left on base was the fire practice aircraft. Thing was, stood on its stilt-like legs, it didn't give the Fire Section very realistic practice at getting people out of a crashlanded Vulcan - this would surely be on its belly. Aircraft's hydraulics were long u/s, so they couldn't do the obvious thing - jack it up, raise the undercarriage, then lower it to the ground. So all gave it some thought, and S Arm O came up with an innovative solution. He could use this then-new stuff called Miniature Detonating Cord (MDC - it's long been used in most Brit aircraft canopies to shatter the glass a microsecond before the bang seat goes through it). On the day of the great spectacle, whole station turned out to watch. Because MDC was still new, and S Arm O wasn't quite sure of its capabilities, he calculated the amount required then tripled it. Wrapped MDC round tops of all three undercarriage legs, installed fuses, checked all the fuse lines, retired behind the sandbag wall a couple of hundred yards away, then closed the contacts. He'd only forgotten two things. Vulcan undercarriage legs were made of magnesium alloy. And although the aircafts wing fuel tanks were empty, they'd never been purged. Result was that a couple of blazing 15 foot magnesium candles were rammed through huge tanks full of kero vapour... Fire Section got their "realistic" practice after, though rather more realism than they'd expected. Huge triangular scorch mark was visible at Waddo for years afterwards...

Is anyone else suffering from missing rudder stripes on Camels and the SE5a with the new patch? Any solutions suggested? Also, I have to say that I'm not too sure about the accuracy of having _only_ a blip switch to control rotary engines - most of them did actually have a throttle, the blip switch was an alternative method of cutting off the ignition, most commonly used on approach and landing. Mind you these are somewhat nitnoi issues - FE is a marvellous sim overall, especially given its "open" design (anyone doing a DH4, DH9, Hannover CLIIIa or Halberstadt CLII? Would _love_ to see those!!) Mike

'fraid not Rab, It's a fell dreich day the noo For all our non-Scots readers, one of the advantages of being a Scot is that you can communicate in clear with a fellow Scot and nobody else has a clue what you're on about - call it an alternative form of comsec..

Greetings Rab So far we have a 100% Scottish thread, is this a record? I'm an Arbroathian, though now living in New York. But I notice that you don't list the DH4, is that because it's already available somewhere, or because (horrors) you just don't want it yourself? The basis of my wishlist is quite simple. We just need all the ac that appeared in the Biggles books.. Mike

Hello All I have just "discovered" Bortdafarm's file aimodv1.zip, which seems to have been around for a couple of years. This includes some amended ac_DATA.INI files which change the AI parameters, in order to increase the fluidity and variety of the AI tactics and maneouvrability. However I have a question. If all fighter types have the same AI parameters, does that mean that they will all have effectively the same maneouvrability, so that eg a SPAD XIII and a Fokker DrI will be equally maneouvrable? Mike

Thanks, I'll give them a bash. Mike