JFM

Okay, Elephant, thanks for that. Not quite as historically accurate as some perceive, then. No doubt keeping track of everybody's rank and victories for each day of the war and having them reflected accurately in that area of the sim would require a mountain of work.

I know it's pedantic but on 11 October 1916 Richthofen was a Leutnant, not a Rittmeister, and he had 4 victories, not 0.

I say it's a game: "An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime." Certainly is that. It's a simulator, too: "Consisting of a machine on the ground that simulates the conditions of flying a plane." Nothing wrong with a simulator being amusing and providing entertainment! The flight simulators I used in flight school were neither; they were a lot of hard work and I hated the GD things.

I'm buying it immediately--whenever that is--so I'll post screenies/impressions for you guys waiting to pull the trigger.

Not WW1 and a fan-made video but it matches very well with Maiden's "The Longest Day."

1.Battle of Britain CoD. 2. Not really a new sim but awaiting the new campaign and Gotha for RoF. I'm also interested in OFF P4 and the WoP sequel but without official release dates I can't place them in a 2011 list.

ROF isn't online only, either.

I've been praying to the sun gods that they go PTO.

I'm a sim whore; I'll own it the second it's available.

Charlotte rules, okay?

Not. No throttle in the Alb Ds, no guns on the BE2s, RE8 cockpit, etc. This isn't an attack; overall the planes are very nice but they are not spot-on duplicates. And to answer Wodin's question, from what I understand the CFS3 engine will not support the kind of dynamic self-shadowing seen in First Eagles, Wings of Prey, and Rise of Flight. Certainly not the fault of OBD. I have; I own RoF. If you mean aircraft exploding in mid-air then, yes, it is amazing. Doesn't happen very often, at least by my experience, but from selected posted videos one may get the impression it does. And before it is claimed this never happened in the First World War, read on: "59th Victory. August 26th. 1917. 7.30 a.m. Between Poelcapelle and Langemarck, this side of our lines. Spad One-Seater. English. -------------- When flying with four gentlemen of my Staffel 11 I detected in 3000 meters below me a single Spad flying above a close cover of cloud. The adversary was probably trying to find low-flying German artillery planes. When he came out of the sun, I attacked him. He tried to escape by diving, but in this moment I shot at him and he disappeared through the clouds. Following, I saw him falling below the clouds and then he exploded in 500 meters height. The new, very bad F.B munition had done a lot of damage to my plane and pressure pipes, sucking pipes, etc. were shot through. It would have been impossible for me to follow an only slightly wounded Adversary and I had to try and turn in as soon as possible. (Sig.) Frhr. v. Richthofen. Capt. And Squadron Commander. Witnesses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Was acknowledged on Sept. 12th)." It did; it wasn't.

What a Clintonian explanation.

uncleal, you've said many times throughout these fora that "the only stupid question is the one that's never asked." Now you rip this guy for asking a "stupid question." Respectfully, you've shone a poor light upon yourself.

I agree they're fun. We've had the Lego IJ, SW, and Batman for a while. The kids love them and it's great to watch them figure out all the minutiea. I also battle them in Wii bowling and golf. I'm Walter Ray Williams Jr. in Wii bowling but when we go to a real bowling alley the kids pummel me unmercifully.

Hello, One cannot get too pedantic about WW1 colors because of the lack of color photographs, different films used, different levels of ultraviolet fading/bleaching from the sun, etc. However, respectfully, as well executed as those skins are, the irregular polygon fabric seems a touch too dark. Based on decades of research and surviving fabric samples, this is a pretty good representation: Note the slight color overlap that creates a dark border between the colors. This is seen in period photos as well. Photo from this website: http://thevintageaviator.co.nz/projects/albatros-dva/albatros-dva-walkaround Still, look at the various interpretations: http://www.wwi-models.org/misc/Colors/German/loz2/index.html See what I mean about not being too pedantic? Several takes on the same subject. I guess the above screens can be considered your take, based on whatever research you've done or period photographs you've used.

To me, they're all games. People just have different opinions as regards what game/sim is more "real" than another and then defend/justify their preferences. For instance, I think hitting an "E" or "I" key simulates nothing regarding starting an engine--I've flown a lot of airplanes and none of them had an E or I button in the cockpit--but others justify this lack of reality because it saves them time or relieves what they consider to be a tedious task. Except real flying is comprised of tedious tasks, but to simulate this reality would be too much reality for many, even though a combat sortie was mostly flying and very little combat. So in order to make a game more fun people can dial back these preferences (mixture, auto-rudder, vulnerability, unlimited ammo, etc) to tailor the game/sim to their perception of what constitutes real/simulated. Do you know what octane fuel your plane uses? Oil weight? Have you done a weight and balance? What's the reference datum? Do you let the engine warm up? Do you do an engine runup? What's the air pressure/air temperature/dew point/density altitude? What's the freezing level? What's the wind speed and direction? What do you do if you pick up rime ice? (Oh, wait a minute, there is no icing.) What are the magnetic compass errors and why aren't there any in the game/sim? What's the magnetic variation where you are flying? Real pilots are familiar with these things and IMO they should be simulated but that would bore many, so for entertainment value they are ignored, scaled back and/or made selectable so you can bypass the too-real part of the sim and get to the fun/game part, shooting at stuff. I agree some games/sims get to the shooting part a whole lot easier/faster than others, but ultimately that's the entertainment people seek in all combat sims; the money shot, so to speak. Nothing wrong with that; it's fun! But does that make a game or a flight simulator, i.e. "a training device or apparatus that simulates certain conditions of actual flight or of flight operations"? I believe many or all of us focus on the caveat "certain conditions" and how that is defined, which leads us back to my post's first paragraph.

Excellent! I look forward to seeing this level of detail and accuracy applied to the Albatros Ds, too.

+1 on new screens, please. The November 5th shots were great but they are so November 5th ago. Perhaps a shot or two of a Gotha that's not so far in the distance?

Hey, I don't know if that's Naples but it certainly could be; looks flat enough. Resembles areas of "Old Naples." Looks like part of Fort Myers and Cape Coral, too--hell, it looks like many coastal communities round here.

Meanwhile, people still claim MvR "stole" victories. Here's 80:

More two-seaters; early war a/c; Aviation Militaire Belge planes and campaign; multi-engine bomber campaigns; as many historically accurate airfields as possible.

That book list is a good start. Also, be sure to grab Nigel Steel/Peter Hart's Tumult in the Clouds, The British Experience of The War in the Air, 1914-1918. Required reading, IMO. Alex Revell's British Single-Seater Fighter Squadrons of the Western Front in World War I is bursting with information. So is Lance Bronnenkant's The Imperial German Eagles in World War I, Their Postcards and Pictures. Also, the brand new Belgian Air Service in the First World War by Walter Pieters is THE book on this forgotten/overlooked area of First World War aviation. 728 pages/over 1,000 photographs/375 biographies/history of the AMB/daily chronology of the AMB for the entire war.

Hell, plenty of lazy people up north. They just don't shovel! I'm a Yankee; saw it every year. Today I live in Naples, Florida. Not much south of me in the US except Marco Island, some gators, and the Keys. Having done 30 winters in Madison, Columbus and Chicago I do not miss the four seasons at all--at all. Now I live in eternal summer weather and believe me, I appreciate it every day. "It's another beautiful day in Naples" is the first thing I say to my boys in the morning. I don't need 9 months of crap weather to appreciate warmth; to me that's like parking a car on your foot so you appreciate when they move the car off. Although, I know some people who actually do like the cold, dreary, cloudy days--day after day--of November. Sincerely, to each his own! When I lived up north Summer was the three months everybody lived for (save for the skiers). I did, too. I endured winter because I had no other choice, and I made the best out of it by saying it made me appreciate summer ( ), which is what everybody couldn't wait for. I've been in Florida now for 8 years--96 months of consecutive summer weather. To enjoy 96 months of summer weather up north (which in this example is June, July, August, as you could have frosts/freezes in May and September and there are often large temperature fluctuations) would take 32 years, with the summer weather eeked out in 3 month increments between 9 months of crap weather. Screw that. I know eternal summer isn't for everyone (many mistakenly think it's mega hot here, like Dallas, Houston, Oklahoma City--lived in all three and they're way hotter than Naples) but IMO the other three seasons can go *$ themselves. Edit: BTW, 84F/28C here today.

Ever hear of cigarettes? RoF is one of the many flight sims I own. Pre-ordered the O/400 and looking forward to it.

I'd like to see the Walfisch be able to carry bombs.