Siggi

What's the Asus Record you were using? I have an Asus Maximus mobo and I don't recall having any such software bundled with it.

From hereonin please submit your fighter stats as a total including both your bomber totals and fighter totals. Eg, if you have 17 hours on bombers and 10 hours on fighters please submit total hours on your report as 27 hours. Ditto for all the other entries. This is so I can simplify the fighter boards (do away with the bracketed stuff). Fanks. :)

I'm afraid I've come to regard the AI as of a very low level of threat. And I don't think it's because the AI is bad, it's because we have become masters of our planes. Having said that, Manfred sucked the large one.

I hit the top wing of a D7 with my Se5's undercarriage some months back, my wheels were damaged and I landed lop-sided but survived. Other collisions have seen a wing-tip go, survived ok. I've also been brought down by collisions and survived. So no, it's not an instant death-sentence.

Olham told me off for that so bomber pilots can still transfer to fighters if they wish.

Got into a scrap behind enemy lines and took a burst in the tail. I got clear and was within sight of my home field, at about 250ft altitude, when the engine suddenly quit. I looked at the fuel-gauge, expecting to see it empty (holed tank) but it still showed 3/4 full. I tried to restart it, thinking maybe I'd accidentally hit the ignition-switch, but no joy. I put down safely in a field. A few minutes earlier I'd flown straight through a balloon-wire (the wife was chatting to me) and caught a glimpse of it right on the nose as I looked back at the screen. I looked back, thinking I'd imagined it (it had looked like a stalk of corn ) and there was the balloon, still thethered (so I hadn't severed the wire). Do wires usually do damage? In reality I'd expect either the wire to be severed or the plane to be brought down. Anyway, it was either the enemy bullets or the wire that damaged the engine, unless random engine-failure is modelled? It was a cool moment, whatever the cause.

I've put up an aces page at the DiD site. To qualify: a) You must be dead. b) You must have the highest award available. Only one entry per player, which will always be the highest achieved. Query: I'm pretty sure there have been more than the current two Pour Le Merites shown. If so, those I've missed, if you still have your stats for that pilot, please PM them to me. If you no longer have them, my apologies for missing you.

It's for all nationalities, I'll add graphics if and when US/French forces fly. I'll see what added text looks like/if it'll fit.

...how it is flak-bursts can do 100mph? The far away ones I get, but there I am, doing 100mph, and the flak-burst that went off just ahead of me creeps past my wingtip at around 3mph? Doesn't matter what speed I'm doing in fact, the little puff of smoke is always around 3mph slower than me when it should really be zipping past (or me zipping past it actually). What's that all about then?

Thanks Bullet, I'd believed them much smaller than that.

Lol. Is that the best to be hoped for? How about any improvements?

If that's correct it indicates that MS did not model a true 3D environment, they created some kind of botched trickery. Probably necessary at the time, to allow the sim to run at a decent FPS on the hardware of the time. Or possibly down to what most people believe about MS, that they were unskilled hacks.

Do you prefer online or offline play? If it's offline there's no choice really, it has to be OFF. It's more than just an excellent sim, it's an RPG too.

I remember scathingly refering to CFS1 as 'The Hang-glider Sim', because of the way the planes were supposedly doing 300mph ten feet off the ground but looked like they were doing 20mph, and felt like gliders during maneouvers. I'm aware of the old rationale about having to be able to draw the scenery at acceptable FPS, but IL2 was doing an acceptable sense of realistic speed years ago. But then this is the CFS3 engine, and I guess they were still limited by the hardware back then. But it doesn't explain the flak-bursts. Trees go by a lot faster on the deck, and there are lots of them without detriment to FPS. So how come a handful of flak-bursts need to be going so slow (or fast in fact, being that the plane is over-taking them at 3mph, which means they're going at the same speed as the plane minus 3mph)? It's not just the far-away ones Olham, it's the ones you can fly through as well. It's very very weird, when you think about it. Clouds do it too, I should add. Next time you're flying through a cloud, notice how slowly the mist is passing you. It's like you're at walking speed. It creates a surreal sensation of no speed.

Make sure you clean the mud out of the barrels, we wouldn't want the breeches going up in your fizog.

A week later it was smashed up in a muddy trench.

Sub Flt Lt Sidney Williams 2 RNAS St Pol sur Mer 29th October 1916 08.15hrs Enemy planes over the field, took off with flight to engage. Long bursts into two Albatross scouts which went down into woods near Capelle le Grande. 11.30hrs Enemy planes reported near the field, took off with flight to engage but could find nothing at our low altitude, returned without incident. ______________________________________________________________ 30th October 1916 15.20hrs Arty Obbo. Our flight engaged by at least five Fokker Eindeckers at 6000ft, approx five miles west of Lille. We were escorted by DH2 scouts. During the fight over our obbo station I fired into three EIIIs and drove them down. I did not follow, prefering to maintain the safety of my altitude. Three of my chaps reported seeing an EIII I had fired into going into the ground, but without knowing if they'd all seen one or seperately saw three I can make only one claim in good conscience. The fight lasted at least ten minutes with both my chaps and the DH2s wheeling around ever lower with the EIIIs. Half an hour later I spotted two trying to close with us at 5000ft as we left our station to return home but they gave up when we outran them. Our flight returned safely without losses. ___________________________________________________________________ 1st November 1916 10.00hrs Recce flight. Engaged by a flight of Alb DII a good 20 miles on our side of the lines. One got through our escort and tried to engage me, I turned into him and got on his tail and drove him down from 6000ft to 5000ft with a number of bursts. Large pieces came off him but nobody saw what happened to him after that. Climbed back to height and made our way to our station over the lines and took notes for 20 minutes or so. On the return flight, at almost the exact same position as our outward leg, a lone DII engaged us. I got onto his tail and chased him down to 3000ft with multiple bursts and observed him crash into the ground. Diary note. Today was my second trip over the lines. The noise of the barrage is frightful, even at 6000ft. There is a pall of smoke and the smell! Then the stress of constantly having to look out for enemy machines, it does tire one. We were escorted by our latest type, four Sopwith Pups. A very good looking machine. They kept the DIIs off our backs and we lost sight of them before arriving over the lines, but shortly thereafter a single one reappeared and stayed with us for a while. I do hope the others were ok. I now have four claims pending, two Eindeckers and two DIIs. None I've encountered so far have put up much of a show, they all appear to have been flown by novice pilots. Long may that continue, I have no illusions about my own skills. ______________________________________________________________ 2nd November 1916. 09.18hrs. Airfield Bombing. three-plane flight, three-plane escort. Intercepted by Halbs over the enemy field. Got the bombs away ok but unable to watch for effect as had to engage the Halbs. Drove one down 1000ft with a few bursts. Upon return leg engaged flight of four Roland two-seaters at 2000ft behind our lines, emptied belt into one who was observed shortly thereafter to crashland in no-mans land. _________________________________________________________________ 3rd November 1916. 14.06hrs. Preparing for takeoff when our field was attacked by enemy scouts. Some of the chaps got up but I never got my motor started and made for cover (slit-trench). Our chaps brought down four of the bastards. Max Cutter got two and ended up in the drink. _________________________________________________________________ 4th November 1916. 09.27hrs. Recce over the lines at 5000ft, no air contact, all returned safely. Escort by Fe2s who were barely able to keep up with us. _________________________________________________________________ 5th November 1916. 09.08hrs. Field hit by strafers at take-off, aborted and ran to trenches. 12.29hrs. Received new planes today, two-seater Strutters, along with new personnel to man the rear guns. After re-fueling them we were straight out on a strike against an enemy airfield at Longavesnes. We were attacked by Halbs on two occasions, the second directly over the target (which I missed with my bombs from 5000ft), but in both cases they made only one pass before hanging around out of range for a while and then making off. We took no evasive action, I kept our flight of four straight and level so as to concentrate our defensive fire and not split the flight into easy individual targets. Our escort was conspicuous by it's absence until we'd left the target, the planes shadowing us from behind about two miles out turned out not to be Halbs as we'd originally thought but the Be2s supposedly escorting us. We all returned safely but the strike was a bit of a dud I'm afraid. _________________________________________________________________ 6th November 1916. 09.57hrs. Arty obbo at 5000ft over Festubert. Driving rain. Three-plane flight. Uneventful, not even much of a show from archie. Brought fire down on a bosche battery. __________________________________________________________________ 7th November 1916. 14.53hrs. Went up under an umbrella of strafing Halbs and put down in a nearby field two minutes later with a bullet in a cylinder. _________________________________________________________________ 8th November 1916. 10.17hrs. Arty obbo. Two wingmen, three N16 escort. Engaged over the lines at 5000ft by Halbs with red wheel-covers. I got into a fight with one which went down to about 2000ft until I hit the pilot. He went down in a shallow glide into no-man's land. All returned safely.

It's been a while since I updated this log, due to mislaying it after I was wounded. Soon as I find a quiet moment I'll set to it.

They sell them at ModelZone. I suggest you go check them out first, they're pretty crude.

For the modellers amongst us, got this for Christmas and have been at it for the last few days. Early days yet but it's getting there. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=42185

Thanks Kaiser, that's extremely useful. I've heard of the hairspray technique and how to do it but those last two links are the first time I've seen actual results. Both are superb, the last one especially.

Thanks, I wouldn't have done that.

Mine's acrylic on enamel too, but I used a cloth dampened with alcohol to rub through to the silver. I won't be using that technique again. I'll certainly be trying yours on the Spitfire.

With your nail?! Bloody hell, how many times I've tried that in the past. I've even considered rubbing in a very fine layer of oil or vaseline onto the silver, to help the top-coat chip off. Did you use polishing powder?

What pattern did you go for, Oak-A?