Siggi

This is the second time in my current career I've had a plane trashed and been thrown back to the de-briefing screen, presumably forced down onto the ground with a terminally damaged plane. I wasn't even in the cloud proper, I was climbing through a hazy gap between two banks. I had nowhere else to go, other than to fly beneath them directly over the lines at a dangerously low altitude or go tens of miles left or right around them. This is effectively rendering huge portions of the sky as no-go zones, even on bright sunny days (as was this one). Personally I don't consider this even remotely realistic, the clouds in RL are simply not this catastrophically dangerous on so relentlessy a regular basis. It's not turbulence, it's a huge fist that simply picks up the plane and throws it around the sky like a UFO. Dark-grey/black storm-clouds, ok. Straight into white fluffy ones, maybe. Around the edges of white fluffy ones, on a bright sunny day, hurled around as if in a tornado, I call BS on that. Please try and fix it chaps, it has become a significant detraction imo.

I survived my second scramble late yesterday afternoon, with my oh-so-conservative pilot. I had considered running straight for a dugout, but I realised that would be the end of me with the other chaps so I stuck with it. Ended up without a single hole in my kite and three kills (claims, huh). So now I figure I'm most likely due to die from tripping out of bed and breaking my neck. My first kill was also confirmed, the subsequent pair rejected. It'll be interesting to see if the three I just shot down right over the home field will go to me or be 'given to the gunners'. Hey Rick, that graphics stutter was a gust of wind donchano.

I suspect that if you modify it's DM file you'll be able to make it as fragile as a butterfly.

The clouds are killers of all planes, avoid them at all times.

I tell a lie, there is a CFS3.exe in the OFF folder, but it won't add to the NVidia CP. I'm going to assume that's because the cfs3.exe is already in there, and as they're identical...?

Are you sure about that Pol? I have no cfs3.exe in my OFF folder, and the only one I have configured in my NVidia CP is the .exe in the CFS3 folder, which 100% definitely impacts the OFF sim (I see the glory on my screen everytime I play it).

11th April 1917 Vert Galand Flanders. Dearest Papa. Hope all is well on the home front. Had a few quite exciting days here. We've flown various tasks and I've been forced down twice more, once by bad weather (wind damaged the kite) and once again by the fire of an enemy scout, within sight of our field. Nothing more than the engine was knocked about though. Today was the jolly pipper though. We were given to attack a hun balloon, a few miles behind their lines. We got there at around 10,000ft but after circling for a good twenty minutes we couldn't see it so we left for home. A couple of the chaps went astray and while looking for them I spooted a bunch of kites coming up towards us from the rear, about 2000ft lower down. Got the glasses on them and they looked like hun Albatrosses. Being outnumbered at that point eight to five I decided to make back over to our side of the lines. Our two strays turned up so I began circling, hoping to coax the huns to contine their stalk but they'd vanished. I thought them rather windy for not wanting to come over our side to fight. So, continued towards home and weren't far from it when I noticed our archie bursting rear right, about 2000ft back. We turned to have a good look and I spotted first one, then a second, kite coming up to us. I thought they might be hun two-seaters, but the chaps say they don't tend to try and engage our scouts, certainly not outnumbered eight to two. I turned us into them and they were a pair of Albatrosses, DIIs I believe. Had to admire their pluck, taking us on like that. Sheer madness actually. I waved the chaps in and we got into it with them. I got behind one and gave him a good walloping, but stalled out of my turn and lost him. Oscar, my wingman, told me he went down and crashed. I picked up the second shortly after and chased him off one of the chaps and put many bursts into him also, until he went down in a flat spin and crashed with a big bang of flames. Two kills. I now have three claims pending and the CO thinks I'm a bit of a prodigy. What ho, eh?! Have to go now, party in the mess and I'm buying. Love to all.

You should select the cfs3.exe. The OFF exe isn't the game itself, it's the program that manages it. As in I've had the game (OFF) still running after the manager had crashed.

How many times I've been given the proverbial slap, walking through some beautiful bit of countryside and musing out loud on the suitability of the terrain for tanks, infantry, you name it. "We're here for a PICNIC!!!"

I suspect she's pissed off about her deleted thread. And the way it was said I can't say I blame her.

Suh-weet!

I've definitely had one gun firing and the other dead. Don't know if it jammed or was hit.

8th April 1917 Vert Galland France Dearest Papa. Most exciting news! Today I flew my first combat sortie and I bagged a hun! Incredible! I had thought my first letter to you all from the front would be rather dull. The transfer flight went without a hitch, mostly raining all the way. We arrived at VG in good time and spent the rest of the day and the next settling in. Yes, tents as I feared. The kites have somewhat better accomodation than do we. This morning we took off at around 07.30hrs to patrol in defence of our aerodromes in the vicinity of Albert. I was given a flight, as promised, but with one or two more experienced pilots in attendance to keep out a weather eye. The weather itself was in fact quite good, a little overcast but good visibility. I took the flight up to 5000ft and headed off in the general direction of the front. After about half an hour into the flight, having already seen various of our own kites flying about on their own tasks, I spotted a flight of kites coming in from 2 o'clock headed in our direction. Impossible to see who's they were at first, but then our archie firing at them gave them away. I immediately signalled the chaps to head into them and engage. There followed the most most furious fight, our kites and theirs twisting and turning all over the sky. I shot into at least three of the buggers, and was hit myself, before I got a jolly good burst into one and down he bally well went! Crash! Bits all over the show! Then I realised my engine was running a bit rough and suddenly the sound of rounds plastering my kite. I looked behind and there was Mr Hun, on my tail and thoroughly enjoying himself as he peppered me with gay abandon. I immediately put the nose down and headed, quite fortuitously, in the direction of a friendly aerodrome. The gunners there took the hun under furious fire as I put my kite down on the grass and came to a halt about fifty feet from the outfit's parked kites. I don't mind admitting I was shaking like a leaf as I climbed out of my poor Se5, and she's a write-off I'm afraid. Including mine we lost four of our kites to six of theirs, one of our chaps killed unfortunately. So what was it like? A hell of a bloody introduction, I must say. And all rather surreal. To be actually shooting my guns at another kite, in the air, and knowing there's a person in it...a person who will die if my rounds shoot his kite out from under him, or hit him directly...it's a hell of a sobering thing. I rather feel my mind hasn't got itself all around it yet. The CO, Mr Ball, is very pleased with me, not withstanding our losses. He says I did exactly the right thing. I don't think I had any choice if I'm honest. One is taught never to show one's tail to the buggers, unless one is out-numbered and sure of being able to get enough speed to get clear. Well, I must sleep now, I'm quite exhausted and it's late. And I'm rather squiffy to tell the truth, we got a bit of one on this evening. Love to all!

Flight Eval/Log: Campaign only < that was the bit I meant. No explanation for it then, other than a bug.

In the Workshop do you have it set to include all stats for your pilot in both QC and Campaign?

Have you tried advancing time? It might kick the code past the glitch.

Sound like my kind of chap.

Nuts. If I can hoon around on a Fireblade at my age I can certainly fly a biplane into combat over the WW1 trenches.

Switch the 'Campaign Activity' on the fly.

Excellent stuff Bletchley, thanks for posting all that. It's a shame the setting is tied into both AA and e/a, that makes it problematic to dictate a more realistic spread of settings vis a vis AA over time. So I guess the 'Normal' setting is a reasonable compromise.

Concerning the whole tracer thing, was the movie 'Flyboys' realistic in that regard etc, I've come across a mention in the book I'm reading (Jasta Boelke): Kurt Jentsch wrote: "...we were lucky enough to jump an English squadron. The white threads from the phosphorous ammunition criss-crossed the sky." So it would seem it was a noticeable feature.

No, you can carry your four victories into v1.3. It's a moot point though really, you'll be dead again by tomorrow night.

How do you mean, "not enough yet for the board"? All DiD pilots go on the board with zero stats. For the ACES board you have to have at least five kills, but you only go on that then if you're POW or KIA. Go here to read the rules: http://www.hetzer.talktalk.net/ If you want to participate fill out the report and I'll put you on. :yes:

Only one pilot at a time sir, thangyuverimuch.

6th April 1917 Walmer Dearest Papa. Today's the day, we're off to France and should be leaving (in our scouts) in a couple of hours. Many thanks for the selection of scarves, they arrived safely yesterday. I particularly fancy the white one with red polka-dots, very spiffing!. We're been flown hard by the boss and I now have around ten hours on the Se5, about six more than most chaps get before being sent over. He's also had us doing all sorts of tricks to make us sharp. It looks like I'm going to be given a flight of my own, apparently I'm a fast learner. The responsibility of other chaps' lives in my hands is a bit of a weight, but I'm a cautious fellow as you know. One hears all sorts of tales from the older hands, but one still doesn't know exactly what to expect. Some of them make it all sound so easy. But I'll be finding out for myself soon enough. Can't think of anything else to write. Head's in a bit of a whirl if I'm honest...this is really it. No more training, practice, the balloon's going up and I'm off to the sharp pointy end. Give my love etc. Your loving son.