Dej

Ooops... forgot this one: THE ONLY ONLY WAY (First World War Version, trad.) Tune: The Only, Only Way from Tonight's the Night Link to 'Aces High' clip (Chorus Only) If by some delightful chance, When you're flying out in France, Some old Boche machine you meet, Very slow and obsolete, Don't turn round to watch your tail Tricks like that are getting stale; Just put down your bally nose, And murmur 'Chaps, here goes!' (Chorus:) It's the only, only, way, It's the only trick to play; He's the only Hun, you're the only Pup And he's only getting the wind right up; So keep on and do not stop 'Til his tail's damn near your prop, If he only crashes this side in flames Then you'll only know they'll believe your claims So keep him right In the Aldis sight It's the only, only waaaaaaaaaaay!

I had a recent PM exchange with Creaghorn on a couple of songs featured in 'Aces High'. I since found a more authentic version of the first which prompted me to collect so more for posting here. There were a series of posts over at The Aerodrome on the same subject some time ago, but I thought I'd invite contributions from you folks, particularly any French or German ones you know of. The following are all songs that are known to have been sung in RFC messes and represent basic or common versions. Each squadron would doubtless have their own variant. Who knows, if we collect enough maybe Mr. Milne could work his magic on them for P4 incidental/atmospheric music A POOR AVIATOR LAY DYING (First World War Version, trad.) Tune: The Dying Lancer/Tarpaulin Jacket/My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean/ Midi (Tune Only) The Young Aviator lay dying, And as in the hangar he lay, he lay, To the mechanics who round him were standing These last parting words he did say - (Chorus): Take the cylinders out of my kidneys, The connecting rod out of my brain, my brain, From the small of my back take the crankshaft And assemble the engine again. Then go ye and get me the school bus And bury me out on the Plain, the Plain, And get them to write on my tombstone Some formulae out of Duchesne. When the court of Enquiry assembles To find out the reason I died, I died, Then say I forgot 'twice Iota' Was the minimum angle of glide. Oh had I the wings of an Avro Then far into Holland I'd fly, I'd fly, I'd stop there until the war's over And laugh at you blighters on high. And now I suppose I'll be joining The Flying Corps up in the sky, the sky, Where they all understand 'twice Iota' And they all have got wings that will fly! Additional verses from other versions... Pull the longeron out of my backbone, The turnbuckle out of my ear (my ear). From the small of my back take the rudder- There's all of your aeroplane here. I'll be riding a cloud in the morning, With no rotary before me to cuss (to cuss). Take the lead from your feet and get busy, Here's another lad needing the bus! Oh, had I the wings of a little dove, Far a-way, far a-way would I fly, I fly, Straight to the arms of my true-love, And there would I lay me and die. Then get you two little white tombstones, Put them one at my head and my toe, my toe, And get you a penknife and scratch there, “Here lies a poor pilot below.” WE HAVEN’T GOT A HOPE IN THE MORNING (First World War Version, trad.) Tune: John Peel Midi (Tune Only) When you soar into the air on a Sopwith Scout, And you're scrapping with a Hun and your gun cuts out, Well, you stuff down your nose till your plugs fall out, 'Cos you haven't got a hope in the morning. (Chorus): For a batman woke me from my bed; I'd had a thick night and a very sore head, And I said to myself, to myself I said, "Oh, we haven't got a hope in the morning !" So I went to the sheds and examined my gun, Then, my engine I tried to run; And the revs that it gave were a thousand and one, 'Cos it hadn't got a hope in the morning. Chorus... We were escorting Twenty-two, Hadn't got a notion what to do, So we shot down a Hun and an F.E. too, 'Cos they hadn't got a hope in the morning. Chorus... We went to Cambrai, all in vain, The F.E.'s said, "we must explain; Our cameras broke--we must do it again; Oh, we haven't got a hope in the morning!" Chorus... SO EARLY IN THE MORNING (First World War Version, trad.) Tune: So Early in the Morning Midi (Tune Only) The Orderly bloke was asleep in bed, He woke up with an awful head, The telephone began to ring. More hot air from the 14th Wing! (Chorus): So early in the morning, So early in the morning, So early in the morning, Before the break of day. The Orderly Officer said, 'Who's that?' The Wing replied: "There's a Halberstadt Over Albert, they say, Go and drive the blighter away.' Chorus... So six unfortunate sleepy heads, Known as pilots left their beds. They hadn't been gone five minutes, I'm sure, When the 14th Wing rang up once more: 'It isn't a Hun: the patrol must stop, It's only an old two-seater Sop.' Chorus... Then the mists began to rise Until they filled the wintry skies. The patrol it should have been back by nine; At 11 o'clock there was no sign. Chorus... Then old John Russell began to swear, 'Chaps,' he said, "Oh dear, oh dear! What has happened, I'd like to know,' When a message came through from our C.O. Chorus... 'Archie's down by Albert way, Tommy's crashed in a field they say, As for the others, you can guess their plight, It looks as though you've lost your Flight.' Chorus... And now my story's nearly done, And as you see, there was no Hun. The moral of it's perfectly clear, We must have very much less Hot Air. Chorus... Please join in...

Keep looking on ebay, 'No Parachute' pops up from time to time and if you're lucky you'll not have a bidding war for it. 'Sagittarius Rising' is still widely available. Can't believe 'No Parachute' isn't reprinted every few years, it deserves to be.

Cheers Mike and Creaghorn (PM) for the links. I might compile a list of cut scenes and have a whinge over at Amazon

One particular scene, which I'm 99% certain is missing, was in the final dogfight at the balloon line, when David Wood's character Lt. 'Tommy' Thompson is shot down. In the DVD I have you simply see his plane go down in flames. When I saw it at the cinema, you saw Thompson's face first blacken and blister in the flames before he leapt from his burning aircraft. It was a harrowing image, which is why it has stayed with me.

'Aces High' holds a special place for me because it was the first WW1 aviation film I saw. I swear every video or DVD version of it since has some cut out though because I'm sure I remember rwo or three scenes that just aren't there. So I'm on the lookout for an uncut version. The 'Wings' series recently released is also very good and has been mentioned favourably several times on these fora. Bookwise, I can strongly recommend 'Somme Mud' by E. P. F. Lynch. In the air, Arthur Gould Lee's 'No Parachute' is without equal in my personal opinion, topping even Cecil Lewis . For fiction, well, 'The Blue Max' for me is even better in print than in celluloid; 'Winged Victory' is excellent; if you enjoyed 'Goshawk Squadron' then read 'War Story', another of Robinson's anti-cliché novels. And of course, Biggles is immortal.

Mike, As the award of the 1914-15 Star automatically conferred the War Medal and Victory Medal, perhaps (only perhaps... I'm conjecturing) the cross against the Royal Scots entry indicates the unit he was serving in to earn the award. Which could fit, as the Machine Gun Corps only became an independent body on 14th October '15 and he'd been serving since the 2nd of that month. The latter fact is not normally something I'd know, but I happen to be reading 'Band of Brigands', about the first tanks and that piece of data happens to be in there.

Hear! Hear! On all counts. I too raise a glass to you all... and hand around the nibbly bits!

I've the very thing, I think

I have 'Wind in the Wires' in a very battered paperback. I wouldn't want to deprive someone who hasn't read it of the chance. It's on my list of 'classics' to revisit because I do remember I liked the honest writing style... but I've so many new books to get through finding time is an issue. My Amazon wish list of WW1 and WW2 stuff is 21 pages long and the family whittle it down on a regular basis. I'm reading 'Band of Brigands' (recommended) at the same time as 'Private 12768' (also recommended) and 'My Boy Jack' (too early to recommend, but been on the list along time) thus with the corrsponding WWILFing I've no time... ARGGHH!! But I do have all my Osprey profiles scanned to PDF thus can make some offer of help with the above if needed.

Cool! I was hoping you'd do another, Lou. Enjoyed the last one immensely. Wasn't privy to your 'Aces' contest so don't know if this was covered by it but how about 'What's my Paintjob'? Pictures of ace and or unit skins or parts thereof - some of which one could find in the OFF files but also other more obscure ones that aren't... like the attached, by way of example? [EDIT]And being as I wouldn't need to be competing I'd be happy to help wth the running of it[/EDIT]

I'd really love to see an update from Paarma on this matter. He posted some WiP a goodly while ago and it looked stunning then... any chance Devs? Hmm? Please. Pretty please - with sugar on.

Hi Elephant, I've flown First Eagles 1 & 2 with mods and I've flown RoF. Both have the eye candy and certainly the latter has a real edge over OFF P3 in the graphics and damage modelling department. But neither come even a smidgeon close to OFF for single player campaign play, period. The level of historical accuracy in OFF is astounding. As you venture over The Front you will encounter the enemy and friendly squadrons and aces that were there at the time; doing what they were doing at the time; flying the aircraft they were flying at the time (for the most part); and sporting the paintjobs they were sporting at the time... 4000+ historic skins, no less. The Front moves according to the various historic battles that took place, and if needs be your squadron will move too, thus you transfer between bases (again historically accurate) in real time. Add to all this dynamic, historically accurate, weather; the sheer difficulty of keeping yourself and your wingmen alive; a realistic claim system that demands you take note of the circumstances of each victory if you want it confirmed; AI that can be truly fiendish and you'll see why others have said that a key difference is that what happens to your virtual self matters in OFF - you care about it. There is no immersion can be had from a WW1 sim more than OFF offers. Buy OFF, work your way up to Dead Is Dead, and kiss goodbye to 'playing'. Of course... all the above is configurable too

The key thing about black-dotted aircraft is that you'll not get a credit for destroying one... it's already 'dead'. Unfortunately they can't be filtered out as far as I'm aware. But once you get Track IR you'll not be using the TAC anyhow. It's a shame more people haven't tried the Bristol Scout. I think she's a lovely machine. The cock-eyed Lewis actualy works quite well if you use the 'watch where the bullets go' approach rather than the sight. Although if Creaghorn's mods are installed that won't work. But, it's unpopularity is probably because there's little action that early on owing to a paucity of German two-seaters to emulate Lanoe Hawker with. If you're going to try the Fee do read BH's guide to flying the beast in the Primers sticky.

Hi TaillyHo, let me extend a warm welcome too. I'll have a double Midleton (that'll tax your wallet a bit ) IIRC, a black dot is an aircraft that is 'dead' as far as the sim is concerned but that is still in the air.

As I say, I can only speculate as to how he became separated. Voss is generally regarded as having been a loner, something of a 'mercurial spirit' and not really a good leader. Plus he must have been supremely confident - with good reason - of his ability as a fighter pilot so perhaps, if the others fell behind trying to climb as rapidly as he... Voss just couldn't be bothered to wait? Also, before he initially attacked the stragglers of No 60 Sqn. Voss may have seen those same six Albatri (probably Jasta 3) that McCudden saw and assumed that their presence would keep him safe. Which might have been a fair assumption given Menckhoff's intervention. We'll never know.

Voss was alone by the time he attacked the two rearmost SE5s of No. 60 Sqn and was spotted in turn by the SE5s of No. 56, but he hadn't set out that way. He took off from Marcke with two wingmen, presumably in Albatrosses or Pfalzes and was followed by Oberleutnant Weigand in an Albatros with two more pilots in Pfalzes. How Voss became separated I don't know, possibly the superior climb of the Triplane caused Voss to leave his fellow pilots behind. Courageous certainly, but not that foolhardy.

That says it.

Here is my favourite of Mark Miller's (not a Tripe surprisingly) with a few filters added in an attempt to 'de-CGI' it, which cycles its way onto my desktop regularly. I also tried a 'sketch' version which didn't quite come off... Photoshop layers are no substitute for real talent with a pencil or paintbrush That acrylic is truly excellent... you don't do oils too, by any chance?

On the matter of skinning resources and in particular creats and badges - if you've not already found this or a similar site there is a wealth of heraldic .GIF files as well as a downloadable shareware pack of same HERE, which you can use to create custom heraldic achievements for use in skins. Back in my Mechwarrior days I used to provide personalised badges for clan mates by creating their family name coat of arms from clip art such as the above. With what is really a minimum of effort one can produce things like the attached...

Thanks for the heads-up on that one, Flyby. We've guests tonight and I'd have missed it otherwise.

'Fraternising' ust have been something more serious, the practice of entertaining shot down foes was not, I believe, uncommon. Udet recalls an incident where a shot-down English officer they were entertaining was allowed to go unescorted to the privy - across the field - and they were on tenterhooks that he might try to escape... but, being on his honour as a gentleman, the English pilot duly returned. He later overpowered his guard whilst being transported to POW camp, and escaped, but was the dutiful guest whilst being wined and dined by Jasta 11!

Inspired by Lou's cleaning up of the Hawker picture, I thought I'd respectfully have a go at putting some colour to it. Here's the result:

Outstanding find, Lou. There's some very interesting information there of great benefit to mine own research... and not just in the Kagohl III section.

Interesting observation. Whilst I can't currently back up the hypothesis I'd make a stab at it changing as the War goes on rather than being random. I'm also half-recalling, half conjecturing that with the general service tunic, the collar brasses were oft employed to denote the wearer's former unit and 'attached' status, but early in the war of course because the RFC hadn't recruited 'off it's own bat' so to speak. However, you're very much more the uniform expert than I.