Dej

Ah, that's the danger of non-representative photos, Olham. Those guys are just going out 'trick or treating' at Halloween. That's clearly Hannibal Lector on the right. Seriously though, we sit here at our desks, in our stduies or under-stairs or back rooms or whatever, wearing whatever we please, flying and fighting in the virtual skies and sometimes imagine we're near a WW1 experience. Nope. Put on every ouside coat and pair of gloves you possess, and if the latter is only one wrap a towel around each hand and then try OFF. By God, all those fellows were men worthy of the utmost respect, whatever side they were on.

Twelve! Heck, I'd only thought of seven, Simon. You're a hard taskmaster! Okay, twelve it is. Any requests, anyone?

I liked that HW, liked that a lot. Broken record mode now, but welcome, welcome stefnuts A friendier bunch than these folks you'll not find. As uncleal would say "the only stupid question is the one you don't ask" so don't ever be afraid to yell for help. Free Flight mode in QC is a Godsend... I still use it if I've been off stick for a week or more to get the feel back. Use it to practise with every machine that takes your fancy, take her up to 10000 and throw her around, try some hands off to see where her innate leanings lie. And do read the 'Flying and Air Fighting Primers' here they will help you know what to expect of particular machines and give you some good tips on what sort of combats you should or shouldn't engage in. And the sun's over the yardarm now, so peint o gwrw a wisgi, os gwelwch yn dda. Iechyd da!

Here is the third in the Fateful Morn series - a bit different from, and a darned sight more difficult than the prior images, being a combat scene. This is because of its subject, Captain Robert Alexander Little DSO* DSC* RNAS and RAF, the highest scoring Australian ace of all time with 47 victories. Little took off at night and any scene with his machine on the ground wouldn't have been well-enough lit to make a good image, plus, it wouldn't have been a 'fateful morn'. Or so I thought, and so chose to feature his machine later in the story, caught by the searchlight beam and with the Gotha above and dawn breaking in the East. Lighting the scene, however, proved a real pig. Bizarrely, there's nothing like having 'real' lights in the setup to really mess up the lighting! I've also shamelessly copied Sandbagger's skin for Little's Camel. A beautiful piece of work and thankfully the camera angle hides the areas where I couldn't do it justice. Anyhow, the scenario is: 04:10 HRS, 28th May 1918. Little has taken off from Filescamp Farm on a moonlit night to intercept Gotha bombers in the vicinity. Closing with one of the returning raiders pinned by a searchlight beam, Little's Camel is fatefully highlighted by another beam swinging across to join the former, temporarily blinding Little and exposing him to the bomber's alert crew. Little has thrown up his hand to shield his eyes and is banking his machine out of the light but in doing so will unknowingly drift into the machine gun fire of the Gotha's rear gunner, whose bullets will fatally wound Little in both thighs. Little will crash-land near Noeux, and survive the impact, but will bleed to death before help arrives. 3D rendering in Cinema 4D, post-processing (landscape blur, 'glamour' filter, film effect - Paintshop Pro X2) Mannock next... [EDIT] Camel skin initially wrongly attributed to Winder, now correctly noted as Sandbagger's work. Thanks Shredward. [/EDIT]

And did those feet, in an-c-i-ent time, Walk upon Winder's moun-tains green...? Maybe not that JC, no, but I bet John Constable's up there, copying those clouds. Reminds me of Suffolk skies.

Dusk is, even now, one of the best times to fly if you want to admire Winder's work. And the DH2's a good crate for sightseeing. Those pics are something else, though... and that new DH2... I rather think P4 will see me spending a lot of time (and a lot of pilots probably) with No. 24 Sqn.

I try to imagine a personality and back story for each of my wingmen, at least and sometimes other squadron pilots if I've seen them do something noteworthy. Thus, the situation above is really gutting and always seems to happen to me when I've been flying with the same chaps for some time. Maybe it's reaction but the deaths on my wingmen seems often also to herald my own... meaning I can be sat on the field with two strangers either side and literally scared to take off. Of course, the latter comes about at the same time if I collide with one of 'em... another 'habit'!

Nope, that was Louis Strange.

I'm with Lou. It's only a choice or a judgement one can make with hindsight making the question rather specious. Neither Cecil Lewis nor Werner Voss nor any of the others who lived or died in The Great War had much in the way of contemplative choice about their fate on the day. They did what it fell to them to do - pure chance - and responded to their circumstances as their natures dictated... who's to say that Lewis' and Voss' situations might not have been reversed, Lewis was young too, equally gung-ho, but didn't happen to encounter the same situation as Voss - doesn't mean his personality was necessarily any different. Life or Death... WHOSE choice is it, actually? Some escape 'certain death' other heroes die from an infected insect bite.

For what it's worth I think the Russian aircraft might be a Tupolev SB-2M-100... it has those odd looking engines. Although the fuselage seems proportionately a little long but that might be foreshortening due to the angle at which it's depicted.

I studied French, German and Latin at school and college, then Old English, Welsh and Irish as a part-time hobby (also Sindarin and Quenya, ahem, if I'm forced to admit it). If your son would take one word of advice from me WM, I'd say 'Vocabulary'... learn as many words as you are given the chance to, especially in a language with strong gender, declension and conjugation rules. The grammar is important of course and will 'slot into' the brain over time but the more words you learn the more rapidly will your 'feeling' for the language increase, the stronger will be your recognition of the Germanic commonality and the easier it will become.

Cor blimey, Lou and Jim! You're boaf gents and no mistake! Pretty sure I can acquire a copy from the Inter-library Lending Service, when I've time to be desperate to read it, so dinna fesh yesels. It is on my list of books to own though so I'd appreciate the 'heads up' if ye've time.

What are these? Demands? I am an artiste I tell you. I will not be dictated to. Mannock's on the list WM, just working out the shot atm. The Camel one is Bob Little, and that one's giving me grief

It's only natural, Olham. Your pilot has graduated, his lady now is less superficially attractive perhaps (as is he), but far more forgiving... and that's what you need when times are tough. Read that D.VII guide through and through... it's a good 'un, especially the advice about the big furballs.

Thank you kindly, Jim. That would definitely be appreciated.

Much as I respect your views on all things, BH, that's a tad too cynical. If a piece of music has been played constantly for the last 2, 3 or 4 hundred years it HAS to have some merit, like it or not. And there's a lot more than one or two '1-hit wonders'. Yes, some folks will dig up something that had best been left at the back of the drawer but that's true of all musical genres, they all have their 'poseurs'. But it's different if one genuinely likes something that doesn't seem to get enough airtime... there's no harm in promoting it. Saint-Saens 'Carnival of the Animals' as a case in point was supressed by the composer because it might have been too 'frivolous'. It's now one of his most popular pieces, because 'people' loved it. For example, personally, I'm also a fan of Provencal troubadour and jongleur music from the 14th century. It'll never be 'mainstream, but it has a rawness and vitality that is unique because of it's historical and political timing. Pretty much all we have left there are the '1-hit wonders' of the day but does that lessen them in importance, if they changed musical history? Chacun a son gout, n'est pas?

Oh Drat! Cheers, Jim! Well, I guess I'm looking at sneaking a hundred quid under the spouse-radar then! I'll keep looking, got it on search notify anyhow. Olham, glad you're enjoying 'No Parachute'. It is, for me, one of the most honest recountings of a pilot's life at the front. I accept AGL's word for it that he kept it as per his letters and diary entries but if he took out any sensitive content... well, who would judge him badly for it. I'm reading 'Winged Victor' at the moment, which is Gordon Atkin's biography of Victor Yeates, the author of 'Winged Victory'... it would appear that 'Winged Victory' is pretty damned honest too, which of course comes as no surprise, despite its label of 'a fictional account'.

True enough BH. But what those musical genii left behind is a surer immortality than any other uncertain promise.

Almost certainly the same one, Lou. Couldn't have gone to a more appreciative buyer and would have been worse if we'd been in a bidding war for it! There but for the grace of GMT, I might say. I have the Osprey Elite Aviation Units No. 56 Squadron penned by Alex which I hope is a précis of HITEB. I shall content myself with that, for the mo'.

Blimey, I didn't know that. 'High in the Empty Blue' is a book I've been trying to get (at an affordable price) for years. Saw one on eBay US for $60 dollars a while back but missed it by a whisker. Gosh. What a woefully short-sighted and heavy-handed decision! They need their heads examined. I shall look at The Aerodrome considerably more circumspectly henceforth. Glad you're still around, Lou. I wondered if you might have snuck off quietly rather than face the chorus of 'Oh No's that happened last time you tried to leave the cult!

I've alway loved that one of MacIlroy's too, still in my desktop wallpaper cycle. This is my personal own screenie favourite:

Thanks all. I'm particularly pleased with the mist, personally. Took many passes experimenting and seeing as volumetric fog pushes the render time up to 2.5 hours thats of lot of PC tie-up. @ HPW: You're right about the pose but it's all I have to work with. On the other point, Moritz was a short-haired hound and at that distance and in the mist he's not going to look 'hairy'. @ Lewie: Actually, the wheel the mechanic is working on is a copy of the Triplane wheel with the spoke and rim detail modelled instead of the tyre and wheel cover. Goes to show that the camera does lie... in 3D modelling at least. What I'm not happy with are the spokes. If anyone has a reference photo of a Fokker Triplane wheel with the cover off I'd love to see it.

Thanks Olham. I've had various models sitting around for years so none are built that fast. Plus, I cannot lay claim to having built all the aircraft from scratch, everything else, yes, but I've picked up aircraft models from various free and paid 3D sources over time and modified them to a consistent standard, adding new mesh elements, interior detail, rescaling, remapping the UV and reskinning etc. I'd happily credit the original creator if I knew who it was. Oh, and MvR and the other pilot are just 2D pictures projected onto an appropriately angled plane with some bump mapping for depth. The mechanic is 3D though... see, giving away the 'tricks of the trade' now. Who twitched that curtain...?

I think much may depend on the Jasta or Squadron one is taking on. I certainly have had 'six on my six' in the past, granted I was running for home all on me Jack Jones but none of these buggers were holding off. IIRC one of 'em was Joachim von Betraub, so if the others were Jasta 30 too, maybe there's a difference when they've an ace with them, or are an elite unit. I'm not sure about the damage modelling question, because sometimes I can take a quite lot of damage and nurse the kite home, which is an aspect of the sim I really enjoy and sometimes it seems like a single bullet ruins my day. I'm only an armchair pilot and couldn't say whether the responsiveness or otherwise of the controls is an accurate reflection of damage taken or not. Sometime it seems excessive but really I'm speaking in ignorance.

Have to go with the Captain. Conan the Barbarian is my all time favourite. It p****s me off that Howard Shore's Lord of The Rings theme gets so much airtime and Basil Pouledouris hardly any, his score for CtB knocks spots off Shore's effort IMHO. Good to see The Hunt for Red October above, that's another of Basil's. A much under-appreciated composer, I think. Number 2 is the soundtrack from 'Still Crazy'. Great film (my second all time favourite after Shawshank) , great laughs, great music.