JFM

I feel the same as you, UKW, although I found them too hokey rather than too nice. Tried 'em, got rid of them. I'll get TeamD stuff, but that's it.

Hello, Just an FYI that Peter Kilduff's anticipated biography Iron Man Rudolf Berthold: Germany's Indomitable Fighter Ace of World War I is now available here: http://www.bookdepos...f/9781908117373 Suggested retail is $39.95 (€31.34, £24.98, as of this post) but it's being sold for $22.69 (€17.81, £14.19, as of this post), plus free worldwide shipping.

Yep, it's up, I was just there seconds ago.

Okay, Ltn d R Hans Müller. Greg pointed out he used that banded marking on J15 Alb DIII, Pfalz DIII, Fokker Dr, and J18 Fokker DVII. Then he added, "don't you have my Jasta 18 book?" I have it, of course, but I overthunk the ownership and thought it was something outside of the book and not associated with Müller. As I told him, perhaps I should have gotten off my arse, opened his book, and looked for myself! I just did now and it took me three seconds to find it.

Sure thing, Ted. Sorry I can't remember the details! I've written Greg and will get back to you once he answers.

I don't remember. I drew that for Greg VanWyngarden, for a Jasta 18 presentation he did at last year's League of WW1 Aviation Historians seminar in CA. I do remember that it's a speculative depiction based on description only. I'll ask Greg and report back.

If so, it seems there are years to go. Meanwhile, for now its still FSX for my civilian simming. Although I'm mostly flying the A2A B-17 these days.

Yes, those two do outstanding work!

I understand, LB10. But since Osprey sells artwork in a manner that disinterests you, barking up that tree is not productive and your walls retain their empty spaces. HD's work is great but he's not the only guy who draws profiles: http://www.facebook....es/166538664131 http://www.thebutter...filesIndex.html http://www.facebook....171168422959139 I'd be more than happy to draw you something, if you have any requests. If interested, send me a PM and I'll email you a full size profile as a preview. I have an artist/printer in Oregon who creates the prints. And, this artist/printer, Michael Backus, is fantastic in his own right: http://www.backusstudio.com/aviation/ Look at his "profiles" of pilots. Incredible.

I can't speak for HD, but I draw my own profiles for my Osprey books. The contracts I sign state that I assign Osprey "...the entire copyright, in all media, including digital or electronic re-use, re-versioning or re-formatiing..." It's not that Osprey is "keeping" artwork from people, as if part of some art-denying-consipracy; it's in the contract. Nobody is forced to sign this contract. Osprey books present one-tenth of one-percent of the airplanes flown in WW1, so there are thousands of planes that aren't in their books that HD could draw for you, if so commisioned. Bob Pearson has hundreds of profiles available for sale. A guy named Dave Douglass draws outstanding profiles, too. You can find him in various sim fora, or over at the Aerodrome. I've drawn some profiles for OTF, etc., that have been done gratis. You have any requests? Here are some samples of things I've done (last Alb is speculative, based on descriptions). Photobucket shrinks these, but the actual sizes are ca. 4000-6000 pixels wide.

Although its unfathomable today, I used to love Camels. I got lucky when I quit smoking because it coincidentally happened when I got the world's worst bronchitis, and I couldn't have smoked anyway. I was ill for three weeks--funny, I never get lung illnesses like that since I quit smoking. My colds today are rare and usually last only a few days. Anyway, after three weeks I was past the worst of it. The only real weird thing was a constant feeling of forgetting to do something. The "something" was smoking. The act of smoking was so involuntarily ingrained in my daily habits that its absence was noticed at even an almost subconscious level. I experienced the same thing with drinking. There have been times in my life when, after a night of hard drinking, or a hard night/day/night of drinking, I awoke the next day from the blackout and didn't know where I was or how I had gotten there. However, my cigarettes and lighter were always right there with me. So, even pickled in booze, the brain makes sure its addictions are sated. Also, I'd always heard how a sense of smell returns to ex-smokers, and boy did it ever! I worked at UPS in Chicago at the time and going through the facility almost killed me; it was as if I could smell everything in every package in that place! I'd run through there on the verge of gagging. However, that was *nothing* to how hyper sensitive my taste became! Even something as bland as 7-Up became an overwhelming taste nuclear explosion that I could not endure. Worse, some of my favorite tastes reached such hyper levels that I had to abandon eating them. Fortunately, this eventually settled to normal and I could resume eating the things I liked (until last year's diet change, that is), although my sense of smell is noticeably better than many in my family who smoke. They remark on this. However, my sense of smell is normal. Their senses of smell are damaged. As an aside, I find humor in the memory of times I lied to people about drinking and smoking. "I'll chew this stick of gum and nobody will know I just had a cigarette." Now that I do neither, I realize that it's impossible to hide either from someone who doesn't drink or smoke.

I am months and months and months late to this thread, but what an enjoyable read! Congrats to all involved. To add my 1.5 cents, I know it can be tough at times. I quit smoking (cold turkey,1.5--2 packs/day) in 1999 (I did the math once and it was something like $18,000.00 that I would have spent on cigarettes had I not quit when I did--this makes buying flight sims and associated products quite easy to do), quit drinking in 2001 (cold turkey, after years of surfing a Crown Royal tsunami that made the Japan tsunami look as if a gnat had alighted upon a drop of dew)--neither so much as a single puff nor drink since--and in April 2011 decided, much like you, Lou, that I needed another lifestyle change, because temporary diets and bike riding weren't working and my weight had crept to nearly 200 lbs. I weighed 135 when I graduated high school (I'm 47 now) and I'm the same height. I agree, 135 was too thin--Paris Hilton could have kicked my ass--but 200 was too much. The mirror said so, my clothes said so, my heart said so. So I radically changed my diet--diet as in what I eat every day, not what I temporarily eat to lose weight--and joined a fitness "bootcamp" that I attend three days a week. Today my weight fluctuates between 165-170. Look good, feel good, am healthy, setting a good example for my kids. I haven't abandoned all the food I love--a slice or two of pizza now and then is just what the doctored ordered, and I'm working on getting some Nussecken from Olham--but generally eat raw fruit/veg during the day and sensible dinner. Portion control, too. "Eat fruit/veg on a dinner plate and dinner on a salad plate." Again, congrats to all. Well done and keep it up!

Awesome.

I don't know those guys from page eight; never heard of them. So, believe me when I say that I have ZERO agenda with my next question: How do you know they aren't spies? I'm not saying they are, don't misunderstand. My question is not a rhetorical challenge and has nothing between the lines; it's just a question. Since I know nothing about these guys, please tell me how it is known they are not spies. Again, no agenda, just trying to learn more from you guys who know more about this than I do and you seem very confident they aren't spies. Just want to know why.

Hi, Olham, That's the book I just finished. It's been edited and is now being laid out and I think will be available in January. BTW, there is an Albatros DIII photo on that cover on Amazon. That cover is just a thrown-together WIP and won't be on the actual book. This is part of their "Air Vanguard" series and focuses more on the machine than would a book about a unit or various aces. They wanted some combat thrown in there, too, but mostly it's about the plane(s). Table of contents includes Introduction, Design and Development, Technical Specifications, Operational History, Conclusion, Bibliography. I believe it was 20,000 words, 50-some photos (some new ones, yes), two 3-view illustrations (front, profile, planform) and three profiles that I drew, five drawings of various features drawn by another artist, and two outstanding battleviews done by Simon Smith. This is the first of three other books like it that I'll do. The next slated book is about the Alb DIII/DIII(OAW). BTW, Jon Guttman has done one for the Sopwith Camel that I think will be out in October.

Thanks for the heads-up about your FSX scenery, Dimus. Going to grab it now. Thanks for the link, too, Olham.

Yes, during the period when the EV was grounded it was officially decided to designate all single-seat fighters as "D" and drop use of "E" and "Dr." Thus, EV became DVIII. Iti, I have some Fokker DVIII photos but nothing stellar and no good detail closeups, I'm afraid. Just several Jasta 6 lineup shot, a few isolated machines here and there, etc.

Let me be clear that I have not studied Fokker DVIII victories personally--although there's nothing to study, really--but my understanding is the E.V that Olham mentioned is the only victory for the EV/DVIII. I'll ask GregvW about that, though. Meanwhile, if somebody has more information about this I'm sure they'll chime in here and set us straight. A "what if" scenario sounds cool. Here's one: Show an E.V coming to land with the wings still attached and the engine running. I'm just riffing. I'm sincere when I say I think the EV/DVIIIs were dead sexy, and as regards flight sims I love to fly them. I'm sure what you create will look fantastic. I'll get back to you about photos.

Hi, iti, Sounds cool! But, what is your plane going to be doing? Not shooting anything down, hopefully, since it had zero recorded victories. The E.V that it replaced only had one that I know of. Dead-sexy airplane, though, to admire while three-pointed on the grass. My understanding is the wings and ailerons were fully covered in plywood, sans fabric. There is a datafile for this plane that may have useful photos for you: http://www.windsockdatafilespecials.co.uk/25-fokker-dviii-157-p.asp I have photos of this make/model so I'll dig through them and see if there is anything you could use for detail.

BTW, regarding the photo's date, the DVs showed up in May 1917. In this photo there are few-to-no leaves on the trees. I.e., sometime during/after latter October 1917.

Great photo. I've written Greg for more info about it. Meanwhile, as Bullethead said, Albatros was aware of the speed advantage of the rounded nose sans spinner. They didn't ignore it, though, because they employed it with their D.IX, D.XII, and C.IV designs. However, none of these machines reached production. After the D.Va, Albatros was done with their own fighter production and began building Fokker D.VIIs. As far as what's going on in the photo, IMO it's nearly impossible to determine based on a millisecond of time frozen in a photo. Any one of a zillion things could have gone on outside the frame.

I just saw this post at SimQH. That aerial photo supposedly taken by Boelcke is hilarious. War is interesting/insane. You can try to kill a man--wounding him in the process of trying to kill him--but when you fail and are nice to him afterwards, you are "chivalrous."

Hello, all. Please, itihofom, call me Jim. "I posted this same image with the exact description to a dozen other sites too." See how it propagates? I am in lockstep agreement with post #25. For me, it's not about the "art." If you don't want to alter your work to reflect what actually happened, that's fine. I could give a FFA about that. It's about the caption/description and the Law of Primacy. Here's a roaring mistake (your caption/description) that you know about but refuse to fix. Instead, you are content to just let it seep misinformation across the internet. Meanwhile, betcha dollars-to-donuts there are all sorts of "oohs and aahs" on those other websites in reaction to the work, while everybody "learns" from the captions that 2+2=5. Since you won't, I guess I'll have to track down those other websites and let the people know the answer is really 4. (Out of curiosity, has anybody else on the other sites said anything about Lothar's plane being wrong?) Many may not even care. But for those such as I, who for years swam through First-World-War-information's Feces Creek before I could sort out fact from fiction, that will get them one stroke closer to the clearer water. I practice what I preach. I'm not an artist but I dabble in computer-drawn airplane profiles--which every artist will quickly and gleefully inform you is not "art"--and in the past I've removed profiles from online display for reasons of mere uncertainty, let alone error. Even with a caption that revealed speculation about the colors/markings of the plane in question, there are some I decided to yank down. To remove the risk of misinformation was more important than any "atta boy!" they might have received. I won't belabor the issue--which assumes I haven't already! The positions have been declared. I respectfully disagree with yours, itihofom, as you do mine, so we now agree to disagree. Nothing personal; next time I'm in Frankfurt, perhaps we can have lunch. I love what you created--again, my favorite aspect is the good sense of altitude--and hope to see more. In future, if you ever have a question about anything you are going to paint, or want some reference photos that are bigger than some grainy 2x2" shot in a book, it'd be my pleasure to help out. If I don't know an answer, I can find someone who does. Or, just ask here! Many guys here know a helluva lot more about different aspects of WW1 aviation than I do.

Maybe just a little of that will rub off in here, Lou, although I'm not very hopeful. Oh, well, it keeps me employed. BTW, that Jasta 2 photo was taken at Lagnicourt. I know some books list the location as Bertincourt, but they are incorrect. That happens, though. History is fluid, after all; the learning/refining never stops. For many. I could show how it is really Lagnicourt, but . I'll stop the comedy now.

Says it all, really.