Dej

Looks very neat. Thanks for all your efforts.

It's the original Immelmann. Called a Renversement by the French and it's nearest modern equivalent is the Wingover or Hammerhead turn. The illustration is from Pratcial Flying (1918) by E. L. Ford, an RNAS pilot.

And both have a good few hours on me... good luck, chaps. :yes:

Eek! That's two of us in the back row with our hands up then

Hear, Hear! I had three wingmen in my first campaign with No. 56 Sqn. that had been with me from May 1917. In July we were posted back to Blighty. You'd think that'd be safe. No. Two of 'em died on the same stormy day, no one knows how. I collided with the third on our second mission back in France, killing him and myself. This game can suck... just the way Life can. You want immersion? You just experienced some.

As close to the latter as you'll get, today. And OBD ain't finished with it yet....

Ooh! That's a cliff-hanger. Don't you just hate it when you're locked in with two of the foe and you know you need to hit the first one pretty quickly 'cos his mate's going to be acquiring your six pretty sharpish... then your target proves that little bit tougher.... Very nice 'coup de grace' on the first kill, Hellshade.

Ah, Bejaysus! Will you leave it alone for five minutes! It must be official by now... best customer service, EVER! EXCELLENT! AUSGEZEICHNET! SUPERBE!

Yay! 'Educated guess' but still a guess. Has increased my 'nerd factor' with the wife though. Here's me sat at my PC giving a yelp of pleased surprise, so she asks why. I tell her... she looks at me blankly 'so you're pleased because you identified a 'plane? You do that in every war film we watch and every time one flies over' Bless her, at least she actually likes war films... so long as I don't do any 'rivet counting'. :mda:

Okay, I'll make a guess that #20 is a Morane-Saulnier Type I The Morane-Saulnier Type I was a result of trying to increase performance of the Type N, largely at Trenchard's behest. While most Type N's were fitted with deflectors on the propeller to ensure the airscrew would not be shot off by the Hotchkiss gun, the Type I used an interrupter gear on a Vickers gun. The Type I was "up-engined" with the 110hp Le Rhone, and the wing area was also increased. The similarities between the Type N and Type I are most evident in the original designation of the Type I: Type Nbis. While the Type I saw very limited - if any - service with the French and British, it was widely used by the Imperial Russian Aviation Service. A major contributing factor for the lack of use - and quick demise - of the Morane-Saulnier single-seat monoplanes in both the French and British services was the introduction of the excellent Nieuport 11. Source: Various

Just been reading on the BBC website about the violent storms in Ontario this past Friday. I notice from Olham's map that there are a fair few OFFers around and to the north of the Great Lakes... hoping you're all okay.

#13 is the Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8 Intended as a replacement for the vulnerable B.E.2, the R.E.8 was much more difficult to fly, and was regarded with great suspicion at first in the Royal Flying Corps. A fine example of the R.A.F.'s tendaency to take the bad points of a previous design and make 'em worse on the next. Eventually, though, it gave reasonably satisfactory service, but was never an outstanding combat aircraft. In spite of this, the R.E.8 served as the standard British reconnaissance and artillery spotting aircraft from mid-1917 to the end of the war, serving alongside the rather more popular Armstrong Whitworth F.K.8. Over 4,000 R.E.8s were eventually produced and they served in most theatres including Italy, Russia, Palestine and Mesopotamia, as well as the Western Front. General characteristics * Crew: 2 (pilot & observer/gunner) * Length: 27 ft 10 in (8.5 m) * Wingspan: 42 ft 7 in (12.98 m) * Height: 11 ft 4 in (3.47 m) * Wing area: 389 ft2 (35.07 m2) * Empty weight: 1,577 lb (717 kg) * Max takeoff weight: 2,862 lb (1,301 kg) * Powerplant: 1× Royal Aircraft Factory 4a air-cooled 12-cylinder inline engine, 150 hp (112 kW) Performance * Maximum speed: 102 mph (164 km/h) * Service ceiling: 13,500 ft (4,115 m) * Rate of climb: 22 minutes to 10,000 ft (3,045 m) Armament * 1 x .303 in (7.7 mm) forward-firing Vickers gun * 1 or 2 x .303 in (7.7 mm) Lewis guns in rear cockpit * up to 224 lb (102 kg) bombs Source: Wikipaedia + own opinion

Clerget Rotary Engine (Type 9B) Date: ----------------- 1917 Cylinders: ------------ 9 Configuration: ------- Rotary, Air cooled Horsepower: --------- 130 (96 kw) R.P.M.: --------------- 1,250 Bore and Stroke: --- 4.7 in. (120 mm) x 6.3 in. (160 mm) Displacement:------- 992 cu. in. (16.3 liters) Weight: -------------- 381 lbs. (173 kg) Used in Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, Sopwith Camel, Sopwith Triplane, Avro 504K, Nieuport 17bis. Also used in Armstrong Whitworth F. K. 10, one of the few production quadraplanes. Source: Various

#11 shows the observer's position on the Shuttleworth Collection's Bristol Fighter F.2B. Here showing only one Lewis gun mounted, twin Lewis were also an option.

I think, on some of the aircraft models, the UVW mapping for the top of the fusealge stretches the front of the 'rectangle' on the skin .dds file and compresses the back. Therefore you have to use the skew tools to make more of a trapezium.

Hmm... Land of the Setting Sun, eh? Rather a prophetic skin that one, considering whose flag the US would find themselves facing across the battlefield in 'the next one'

Yep, #5 is a single Vickers Sopwith Triplane cockpit showing the typical Sopwith spade grip control column, and I think the rev counter and altimeter and compass. The padding on the breech was there to protect the pilot's head in the event of a crash landing. This particular photo in it's original form included the Rotherham pump on the starboard interplane strut just out of shot in the image Lou's used. The Rotherham pump was used to supply more evenly pressurised fuel to the engine improving performance during aerobatic manoeuvers and was fitted to most Tripes but significantly not the N500 and N504 prototypes nor the later twin Vickers variants.

I noticed. But given the way you guys work I thought P5 was probably a good bet Anyway, offer still stands. No credit expected, improvement in OFF is reward enough.

Happy to volunteer my services if that'd help. I've all Mike O'Connor's Airfields & Airman books and the trench maps I'm looking at as part of my Google Earth WWI Aerodome Mapping project often show layout for 1918 as well as an aerodrome marker... only for Central Powers at the moment, unfortunately. I'm sure Shredward's onto it all though anyway.

OK. Fine. Awesome triple plus then. I'd only just started playing on 1.32d. Can you guys slow down a bit before I run out of superlatives?

Just got back from a week's 'oh sod it let's just go' holiday in France to find my favourite game changed from awesome to awesome double plus. Can't express it any better than Hellshade above so I'll just say thanks Devs, Old Black Dog is a very appropriate name, because you guys are the Mutt's Nuts of software developers.

This is one of my favourites. A real easy-drinking session beer for long summer afternoons at the pub. And the name does it no harm for a flight sim enthusiast either

I second that. Any suggestion that there is some algorithm to kill pilots off after 17 hours is just in jest. It's always due to pilot error.

Just watched Harry Patch's funeral on BBC late news. Another moving send off. So, it's late, but goodbye Harry. 93 years is too long to have memories of Passchendaele stuck in your head. Now, rest in peace.

There's certainly evidence from RFC aerodome occupation that squadrons would segregate to different areas of a general aerodrome location. It's not an aspect I've looked at so the same may well be true of the Jastas, allowing that the left side could have been used. Unfortunately, from the trench map point of view it seems that aerodromes were not commonly of interest to the cartographers before 1918.