Dej

Croeso Thomas... hope the 'Cambrensis' does mean we have another Welshman on these fora! Pol, thanks for the input, good to have your clarification. Personally I think the landscape looks great, promises to be so much more immersive when roads, railways and rivers seem to have a direction, use or purpose. It may not be 100% real-life accurate but I think a certain artistic licence is allowed in order to create the patchwork effect we kind of expect to see.... Besides, we're not yet seeing what seasonal magic Winder may have worked.

On the matter of portraits here is another, by Denholm Davis, whose subject featured in other paintings by Bertram Sandy and who needs no introduction. I find it extremely poignant, he looks so very young, as indeed he was.

How about the 'first aviation artist' Henri Farre... Sorry I couldn't find any larger or better resolution images.

That DR.1 screenshot is now my new wallpaper!

Awesome. If that's the improvement is in what they can show us, I'm salivating over what may be in that they can't, e.g. improved mission types, deployments, AI performance, etc. They don't do things by halves these chaps.

Alas, RIP Karl. I liked him, 'salt of the earth' type, none better to guard one's back. Speaking of which, I hope Paul remembers to check his six more often now that Karl's not there... though it wouldn't surprise me if Karl were sitting on Paul's shoulder as a guardian angel.

Blimey! That's a real cliffhanger, Lou. Get yourself back behind the keyboard pronto and give us the next installment... please!

Aye, in the second vid, the first chap you had a pop at was Menckhoff, immediately recognisable from the 'M' on the fuselage sides and the underside of the lower wings. The silver-bodied fellow was Kohze - had to watch it again to check for the KO on the side, first time through I thought you might have had Jasta 11 in the mix too! Great vids, HS, I'd like to see you put some 'in character' commentary with them specualting about the aces... definitely one to link from the OFF official site. It's not often you get such a scene in a scramble mission.

Hi Shrapnel, Before I obtained TrackIR (and I of course endorse all recommendations to use it - changes the sim completely) I used Padlock extensively. The most useful keys when using Padlock are: ' (Accent) - Padlock Target (Toggle) CTRL + ' (Accent) - Target Attacker T - Cycle TAC (set to Aircraft Only for dogfighting) CTRL + T - TAC Range (2 NM or 4 NM is good for dogfighting) TAB - Next Target CTRL + TAB - Next Friend SHIFT + TAB - Previous Target CTRL + SHIFT + TAB - Previous Friendly It's easy to become disoriented with Padlock, which can be fatal, especially for Camel pilots, so I used to map mine to the B fire button on my X-52 which sits practically under my thumb right next to the POV hat and just snap it on and off rapidly. It was akin to 'glance at your target', 'glance away, check six', 'glance at your target' etc. The 'Next' and 'Previous' type key combos were mapped to my second POV hat. Worked for me. You may find the attached useful too. CFS3 Commands.pdf

There are many WW1 and WW2 -related overlays at the Google Earth Hacks website HERE. If you go to page 6 you'll find Ypres, Polygon Wood, Haubourdin Aerodrome under attack, Fort Douaumont... just keep paging through and you'll find all of them. I've added them to the overlay work I'm doing with the McMasters stuff and other trench maps in pinning down WW1 aerodrome locations... and yes, it's most often the roads that allow one to line things up properly.

Aye. Happy Birthday, Ted. All the very Best to you and yours. And if you can't have a good old wine have a good old whine instead... 'tis the privilege of age.

Exactly the same with me... my sons are two of the best things that ever happened in my life. Congratulations Creaghorn, as Bird Dog says, enjoy every minute.

Chacun à son goût, Pol. Personally I don't have a problem with the Camel FM. If I'd flown it in OFF with no experience of WW1 sims whatsoever, I reckon the FM would put me in that novice position, with many a death before I learned. You can tame it, but it's not tame. There are many other things P4 ought to be looking at before changes to existing FMs, IMHO... possibly maybe the N.28 excepted if that thread on the matter has validity. Haven't flown it meself so couldn't say.

Hmmm... they used to put bromide in that stuff. And considering the areas you would have had to zoom into to trace the lovely lassie's outline I daresay you needed it!

'Grats WM. Double-edged sword though, how much more painful is the wait for P4 going to be now. Mind you, you could be the first OFF player to reach the war's end, with that mean machine. Your challenge then, should you choose to accept it, is to start a No 43 Sqn. campaign pilot in P3 and get him alive from January 1916 to August 1918... then, and only then, can you have your Snipe.

Well, it's about time we had the actual machine. Nice pair of twin bays on that bird, Lou...

Heinz Baked Beans on thick buttered toast, with a poached egg on top, and a splash of Lea & Perrins. Simple Perfection. Once begged for that in a posh hotel where I'd been staying (at a client company's expense) for the best part of a month... me having grown bored with the mostly cuisine Francaise menu (very good but too much of a good thing, etc). It was duly served, and divine... but the restaurant manager was muttering under his breath at me for a week!

Hey Devs! Any chance of getting one of those improvised wire sights for our pups? Nice set of pics, Tonyo.

Thanks HS, glad you enjoyed it... and glad it conformed to your experience. Canvas Wings has brought up a few points which I'll incorporate in a revised version. He'd almost finished a guide himself (which matches mine very closely) but was waylaid by some RL issues, which is why we've not seen him around.

Excellent find, Lou. And as Olham says, a deserving recipient The nearest I can manage is a copy (rather more dilapidated) of Lanoe Hawker's biography, signed by his brother... only a second edition too, alas

Hmmm, The KagOHL one might be of interest to me, if it listed the aerodromes they used. Not nearly as much information in English on BogOHL/KagOHL locations 'out there' as there is about Jastas. British and French bomber squadrons are reasonably well catered for, but not German.

Si's post has made me think about the unrealistic (arguably, 'cos offensives made pretty intense demands on the air service) levels of combat we experience in this sim This may happen already, I've not observed. Plus, it's hard enough to keep a pilot alive that this may be over the top. But, I wonder if aught could be done with the fatigue parameter such that if you fly too many missions without a break, e.g. leave, or a posting to quieter sectors, your pilot becomes more vulnerable, so you'd have to be more cautious in combat and might have the occasional random accident on landing or take off. One of the parameters British_eh proposes switching to as part of various Survival in the Air settings through the course of the War is Death on Dice Roll instead of Dead is Dead, and if increasing fatigue weighted the former more toward the latter might that not add more immersion?

That's why I love idioms in language... 'currant pooper'. What a splendid anal - ogy

The raw numbers are only half the story though. For a more meaningful picture you'd have to cross-reference it with the length of time the type was in service, the density of contemporaneous air activity and the relative hazard of the 'typical' mission profiles each type undertook et cetera. Each type then would occupy a relevant position in a multi dimensional hypercube.

Agree with all of that Si. I'd like to see the Belgians in too. And I too would love to see the Italian/Austrian and Palestinian sectors. Problem with the latter is that they are less well documented that the Western Front, which alone causes the devs grief trying to pin an enormous number of aerodromes to an inaccurate map (courtesy of CFS3). Most of all though, and I hope the vote will prove it, we need a concentration on two/multi-seater machines for the campaign players. But paying attention to the multi-player needs built on existing P3 may be a better way for the devs to go in terms of revenue generation... and I'd support that too, for that reason.