JFM

Re: cold, some planes were better than others. The Albatros D-types, for instance. With no firewall and the engine a couple feet away, residual heat made its way into the cockpit. Other planes, like the DH2, were notoriously cold since the engine was behind the pilot. Not to say it still wouldn't be cold for an Alb pilot. With an average lapse rate of 3.5F per 1000 feet, when 60 degrees at takeoff it'd be -3 F at 18,000. But with some residual heat, being shielded from the wind, and bundled up in an acre of fabric, they dealt with it. Kind of like winter for Hasse!

I didn't fly in rain much but I never could see anything out front when I did, if the rain was heavy. I flew looking out the side windows. Light rain wasn't so bad.

BTW, where do you live, Buddy1998? Here in Naples, if I drove 100mph in the rain several other cars and I would be flaming wreckage!

What do you mean by bubblegum English? I don't speak that way? You were probably just impressed with my outstanding German: HORRIDO!!! ZUM HENKER!!! ER GEHT RUNTER!!! PAUKE PAUKE!!!

I don't know if the plugs were common but after many sorties/hours of sitting behind the engine and in close proximity to machine guns, I imagine it could "add up" get loud. Perhaps headaches would be involved eventually. My primary flight training was in a Cessna 152 (110 hp) that didn't have an intercom, and we wore earplugs. Without them it was loud, and you had to shout to be heard, but it wasn't deafening. But we rarely flew more than 1.5 hours. All day of that, though, and firing two machine guns a foot or two away with no protection would get old fast. At least for me. I made the mistake of firing a MAC-10 without hearing protection (my ignorance was such that I thought the suppressor would make it "quiet") and it was louder than $#$& and made my ears ring. Soldiers must be half deaf when they come home.

All these foreign (to me) pronunciations are why I have refused all requests for speaking engagements! I'd look like an ass. Spelling is much easier than pronunciation. Throw out one "GEYEneemer" or attempt at saying "Beugneux-Cramoiselle" and bye-bye credibility.

As far as English accents, a friend in London pronounces Hurricane "Herken." And it's interesting to me that ALL my German friends have traces of English accents amongst their German accents when speaking English. Obviously, their roots to the language have UK rather than US origins. Still, and sadly, most of my European/Scandinavian friends have a better command of written English than many youngsters I know. Olham and Hasse, for instance. Their English puts some of my niece's and nephew's to shame. To shame.

I have VERY limited, non-WW1-type, open-cockpit experience. Based on it, there wasn't very much wind when sitting behind the windshield--hence its name. Stick your head out to the side and it's like sticking your head out of a car window while driving 100mph. But sitting in the cockpit normally, I could have easily lit a cigarette had I wanted to. Still, some rain gets in. As Ltn Joachim von Ziegesar recalled: "The raindrops glide in light threads from the blue wings and cloud our goggle lenses."

That this place has been empty is the fault of the users. I.e, ours. Don't wait for others. It is what we make of it.

Now, please enjoy this Sopwith Triplane:

Cool! So, if that's accurate, for the sake of completeness of this subject: "BEH tong leh." I agree, a French human would be best to ask this stuff.

To me they're the same. It is the users who add life to a site or not, not the site itself.  I check several flight sim fora a day, anyway, so what's another? Although I already come here to check out other things besides WOFF.

My understanding is Bertangles is pronounced "ber TONG."

According to his mother's book, MvR was two in that photo. Thus, airplanes hadn't even been invented yet.

Our pleasure, Jim - a true WW1 air war historian in our ranks!

I'll have a virtual Warsteiner, please!

 

By right-clicking on the badge, you can get the SAVE command.

If you save it into an own gallery of yours, ou can get it into your signature from there.

Will it work if I save it in the CA gallery? I have it there but am failing hard getting it into the signature.

I agree. We'll be flying this for a long time.

  In the olden days it'd be Crown Royal for me, with a chase of another Crown Royal--or twenty.  Which explains why I don't drink Crown Royal anymore!

Barmy? Perhaps. But as far as historians, if I am even that, I'm on the Baltic Avenue of historians. Nowhere near the Park Place and Boardwalk historians like Kilduff, Guttman, VanWyngarden. They cast a shadow over me like Mt. Everest over a pebble at dawn. Guttman, especially. He knows more about WW1 than Courtney Love knows about heroin and loose virtues.

Yes, Hauksbee! I knew you'd like that book, especially for the ridiculously cheap price. Couldn't lose.

Now to follow the instruction how to save the Barmy thing here.

Ah, I like that clarity. Gold will be the last "phase," but the possibility exists they do more add-ons for that last phase. Excellent. See? WOFF will be around for years and years with new stuff.  

Holy crap, Olham! Where's the rest of that 109 drawing? Awesome.

History has shown that their rate of production is very slow, so no need to break out the Kleenex yet. The end of WOFF is years away still.

I'm not interested in re-paying for all I've already purchased. Then again, damn fool I am, I threw 80 bucks at the DCS WW2 Kickstarter because of the siren song of the Me-262 and I haven't seen JACK SQUAT in return. ZILCH. Yeah, I can fly the 109 over Nevada but that is NOT what I paid 80 bucks for. I got a large dose of Lemmiwinks on that one, let me tell you...  So, in the end, of course I'll buy WOFF Gold. At least I'll actually receive what I paid for.

Shipping. Love that! Maybe some HMS Furious carrier ops?  And I'm all for AI planes. I've been requesting that from various sims for years and years and years. #1 on my personal AI list, the AGO C.I. Just be cool to see them flying around, either friend or foe.

Awesome. That guy is talented!

What is that image in post #41? Digital art? Where did that come from and is there more? Looks fantastic!

Great thread!

Man! Did you see the rate of climb for that 109-G4, right after takeoff? Awesome. That entire video was Viagra-esque!

Well, thank you! Yes, my pleasure, all rounds are on me!

Egads, two of the fugliest pigs in the war!  I am interested in neither but I will definitely buy the add-on. Wake me when they release a Farman, Voisin, or Albatros C-type. Oh, and the FE.8.  Cool thing is I expect one day those planes and others will arrive! Always something good coming down the road from OBD.

The parasol in Blue Max was bogus, as far as it being a German plane. A quick search reveals it was a Morane 230 with the front cockpit faired over.

If Lou did all that stuff in Boistrancourt, he should ("should"--sooooo easy to spend someone's time for them!) be working on simpler airfields, like Roucourt and Toulis and LaBrayelle, where you won't be tortured with making extra stuff, Hauksbee. I have a lot of maps and photos of Roucourt, when he's ready to go. I know OBD asked you guys to step back a bit but, I say this nicely, screw that! Then we'll never have airfields because they have so much to do as it is.

Cool chateau. I'm not in the BOC but I'd install that chateau! (And not just to bomb it.... heh heh heh) Can't wait to see that baby finished. And I'm all for your ideas for the airplanes! You have a lot of interesting ideas cooking over there.

Holy mackerel! I had to take a nap just after reading that first paragraph! No wonder you needed a break.

Unfortunately, I'm just a "gimme Boistrancourt!" guy and can't offer a farthing of help in any regard. I think it's awesome you are still considering the project in light of what you've done and what you still have to do. Fantastic! Many thanks and best of luck.

Wisconsin. I lived there for six years as a kid, 1970-1976, on the west side of Madison. I absolutely loved it. Back then, at least, it was clean, safe, Americana. Hopefully it still is. The winters were ass-kickers for my parents but I was a kid--I didn't have to drive, shovel, etc. I just got to sled, build snow forts, have snowball fights, etc. There is a deep place in my heart for Madison, and Wisconsin in general. I would have been content to live there forever but my dad's career took us away.

My dad worked as a sportscaster at WISC-TV and my mom worked at the University. My dad had to travel to a lot of sporting events so we were always taking him to the airport. Back then, there were no jet-ways to board the planes. At Dane County airport (I think it has an "official" name now) you walked up the stairs to the plane like the President. They had observing areas where you could stand and watch this, right off the ramp, just surrounded by a chain link fence. So we'd stand out there and watch my dad go. The plane would only be a hundred feet away or something. So you fire up three Pratt & Whitney JT8D engines on a 727 one hundred feet away and it's like the power of the gods crushing you into the ground when they started taxiing, it was so loud! No worries about noise in 1970. Not as loud as an F-16 in full afterburner or a Harrier hovering, but still awesome! Then the plane would turn and taxi away and the smoky, warm exhaust would wash over you and blow little pebbles in your face. Awesome! People would be holding their ears with their clothes flapping in the smoky exhaust and I'd be holding the fence and breathing in all that P&W goodness through a giant smile! Being exposed to that over and over again as a young kid fueled a passion for airplanes that has never left.

The History Channel lost me when all they started showing stuff about "Hitler and the UFO Conspiracy."   I didn't realize they had an international channel, though, so I'll look for it. If I can ever turn off MeTV, that is. That's all I ever turn on, it I turn a TV on. I tell you what I miss is Discovery Wings Channel. That was awesome. Then it morphed into the Military Channel, which was a major step down, and that morphed into American Heroes Channel, or something. I'm not sure, because it's not 24-hour airplanes either, so I don't give a crap about it anymore. I'm glad the SEALS took out Bin Laden but I can't watch shows on the SEALS 24/7. Plus, the words "hero" and "heroes" are so overused now that the true meaning of "hero" has been shamefully diluted.

I think you'll love that book, Hauksbee! I'm not in lock-step with every word but overall it is packed with info and a great read. Loads of photos, too.

No release date for my book, other than the super vague "next year." I'm in the process of editing stats, then I have to write some photo captions. That shouldn't take too long, then after that the beast will be close to being done. By far my biggest book. It's as big as all my other books combined, and then some.

BTW, what ever became of Boistrancourt? Still working on ground objects?