Rugbyfan1972

It is a shame that his stickies, and useful advice has gone, and I hope you are able to get it recovered for the use of new members. I agree with this quote completely, when I first got interested in OFF and had requested a P2 DVD from Nio, I posted a couple of thoughts about the aircraft in the simouthouse forum and got a thoroughly scathing reply from uncleal. Fortunately a couple of the other forum members quickly lept to my defence and persuaded me by their kindness to put uncleal's comments aside and to continue with my participation. However it left me with a distrust of uncleal, and although he was helpful on other occassions he never helped without being scathing and leaving you feeling like something unpleasant he had stepped on. That is why you will have seen some of my newer correspondence with him on this forum be quite biting towards him. I have to say that he is the only member of the forum that I have ever had a problem with and I have enjoyed every bit of correspondence I had with the rest of you. I have particularly found your answers to my computer problems very helpful. I have also enjoyed the information about the "first war in the air" that you have shared with me. I am sure uncleal is lurking on this forum, and if so all I can say to him is we have had our differences, but at the end of the day, as someone who is physically handicapped myself I can only wish you well with your health both mental and physical. As Shredward says "we will remember you"

I would like to see the difference in the flight model between the AI and player aircraft addressed, I feel it is unrealistic that for instance while flying an albatros and fighting dh2's the dh2's are able to climb and zoom far better than the albatros, but when it is reversed, i.e. I am flying a dh2 and fighting albatri, the albatri is far better than the dh2. While I realise this may be in some part down to pilot ability (me). It is readily evident with all the aircraft, I also know from other posts that the pilots weight in the player aircraft is modelled as (I think) 185-200lbs, whereas in the ai aircraft it is about 120-140lbs, that is a difference of a minimum of 45lbs or to put it in british terms 3 stone 3 lbs and a maximum of 80lbs or 5 stone 10lbs.

All, I installed the ATI Radeon 11.6 on my windows 7 64 bit machine last night, and it immediately gave me a blue screen of death, and restarted the machine. However when it restarted it only gave me the option to restart windows normally or do a system repair. Choosing to start windows normally got me the same blue screen of death that the system had crashed with, only this time it was when windows was starting. Choosing the system repair gave me the same problem and would not fix the problem (it crashed 6 times while trying to fix itself). I eventually gave up and reformatted and reinstalled everything, trying the 11.6 driver with a clean windows install (same problem, except this time system repair fixed the problem). I also had the same problem with 11.4 (I did'nt bother trying 11.5 or 11.3. I now have a stable seeming system running 11.2. Does anyone have any idea as to why a driver update from the ati site would crash my machine, and also if there is a workaround to get the driver to work. I asked a colleague at work who seems to be knowledgeable about computers, but all he has come back with so far is that when you install a new graphics card driver, it also updates the firmware, which I thought sounded a bit odd. If any of the knowledgeable experts on this site have any suggestions that may help me I would be pleased to hear them. (my system specs are in my signature)

Polovski, No problem, I was awake most of the night trying to think what was causing the problem. Anyhow after further investigation on an amd driver forum, it appears it is a fault with the 11.6 drivers that is affecting some people, but not others, and it does not seem to relate to the hardware being used either. My advice, any ATI users, for the time being steer clear of the 11.6 drivers as they are useless in their present state. If I update to them successfully at some future date I will let you know.

Polovski, I have not seen anything on the net saying it is a common problem, so with a bit of luck it is a fairly isolated incident. As I said I have got my machine up and running using Catalyst driver 11.2, but am wary of trying any higher driver update in case I have to reinstall everything again.. I meant to put more in my post, if anyone has any idea's how I would br able to update the graphics driver in the future with out this problem I would appreciate their input. As you can imagine reinstalling everything to windows is a time consuming task that I (as I am sure the rest of you) would rather avoid if possible. I am also concerned that my graphics card may be showing the early signs of terminal failure.

Uncleal, Sorry but not everyone is right handed, I am one of the billions in this world who are left handed, so I naturally have the joystick on the left side of the desk, so the throttle on that joystick would not be a problem for me.

Uncleal, I suggest you check your posts before clicking add reply, you say if you can't get used to having the throttle on the right, in the link you have posted the joystick pictured has the slider for the throttle on the left hand side of the joystick. I suggest you check any pictures/links to get the facts straight before posting a sarcastic reply. By the way, tips and tricks 7 relates to the saitek throttle quadrant

Uncleal, I don't know how you would hold that joystick, but to my eyes the throttle is on the left. Remind me never to get on an aircraft you are piloting. LOL

About 2 seconds after you first start dating them isn't it. LOL

UKW, Just a random thought, but do you have a copy of vista or win7 you could install (and then wipe), just to see if it is a problem with the network card. I am assuming that vista or win7 will have newer motherboard drivers than the copy of xp you are trying to install. I know it is not a legitimate workaround, but providing you only try once to install either of the above and then format the hard drive if the installation works (assuming he does not want to keep vista or win7), you will at least know if it is a hardware or software fault. Please keep us posted on how you do with this and also the fix (if any).

33Lima, What makes it laughable for me with the battle with Lanoe Hawker, is the fact that the filmmakers did no research i.e. Hawker was shot down and killed on the 23rd November 1916 flying a Dh2, the SE5 first got to france to see active service with 56 squadron on the 7th April 1917. Aside from the fact that the DH2 and SE5 do not even look similar. Also as Dej pointed out Hawker in an SE5 would have killed MVR in a heartbeat, something MVR freely acknowledges in his diary/autobiography when he say that if Hawker had been flying a better plane he would have won the dogfight. Also do you not find it strange that the film only shows aircraft that MVR would have encountered from mid-late 1917 onwards. Considering that he had amassed 52 victories by the time he left the front in late April/early May 1917. Dej, Thank you for the interesting news on the flypast of Lanoe Hawker's memorial with a replica DH2, do you have any other information about the flypast that you could post, or indeed could you post any new information as it becomes available.

RAFL, I take it you were in the military before you got married then (sorry too good an opportunity to miss). LOL And apologies to all the ladies out there.

33Lima, You may have to do some reading up on it, if you have not already done it, but try limiting your FPS in one of the xml files. Sorry I can't remember off the top of my head the file name, but I remember it is on the C:\OBD folder and is set to 0 when BHAH is installed which basically means unlimited frame rates, when you alter it it will make that number the maximum fps that you will see.. I have mine set to 60, but you will have to experiment with it.

I can't wait to find out how Wayfarer does fighting the einie's in P4.

To quote Lanoe Hawker as printed in Somme Success by Peter Hart. "I had a very careful look at that bit of ground, circling and going over it again and again till I could make sure of the exact positions we held. It was while flying low over a big farm to the north of this bit that I received a bullet just above my left ankle that solved the problem as to who held the farm. ". You have got to love dry matter of fact way that he explains it. Wayfarer, that is my idea of a contact patrol, where you actually make contact with the enemy.

Olham, I think some of the pilots of all sides would have flown lone wolf if they were after recon aircraft. After all from reading Flying Fury by James McCudden, I can't believe that he was the only pilot on any side to go out alone and hunt aircraft. After all lets be realistic, we all know how hard it is to spot a single aircraft as opposed to a flight of 4 or more, and a single aircraft can set up a far better stalk unseen than can a flight of aircraft.

All, I am reading Sharks Among Minnows by Norman Franks. I just have query regarding the following which is on page 27 (for those of you with the book). It says that Bohme in his official report was flying Fokker E 14/15 with 700 cartridges, on 25th september 1915? My questions are as follows: 1) Was the Fokker EI still in operation at that time or had the Fokker EII been introduced. 2) Was a twin spandau arrangement in use at that time, as the statement that Bohme had 700 cartridges seems odd for a single spandau. 3) When was a twin gun arrangement first used by operational units. As an aside I am enjoying the book and would recommend it to anyone who has not read it.

All, Upon reading a bit further, the book now mentions that Pfalz also built a monoplane fighter (Pfalz EI-EIV, with only the EI & EIV seeing operational service) during late 1915 early 1916, and that the german pilots preferred the Fokker to the Pfalz due to its better performance. All I can say is that the Pfalz must have been a dog to fly, because I know the Fokker was not well liked. Lewie, it is the Fokker DIII (see link) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fokker_D.III

RAFL , Thank you for the quick reply, it just seemed odd that in an aircraft that was so underpowered, that they would have taken extra ammo up on a sortie (I actually thought that the spandau had a standard load of 500 rounds, didn't realise that the standard load war 550, you learn something every day).

All, I realise this is very off topic, but I have downloaded an mp3 bitrate change program, and when I try running it all I get is "MFC71.DLL missing". As I am running windows 7 (64-bit), and I cannot find any newish versions of the file, I am wary of downloading and installing an old version and possibly screwing up my copy of windows 7. I have found the following on the microsoft website http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=a05ce727-c5b5-4022-b7a0-d8861ce99209, but it is dated the 13/2/2007, which is long before windows 7 came out. I have also read that it is flagged as a virus on kaspersky, which makes me a bit wary (or is it just kasperskey being an overprotective program) If anyone else is running windows 7 and has this dll file running successfully on their machine with no problems could they please let me know so that I can install it without worrying. I also have found an earlier version of it in my SH3 installation (datestamp 1/1/2005), could I copy that to my system32 folder or would I need the newer copy. I have asked on here because I have a lot of faith in the technical knowledge on this forum and it has helped me a lot in the past.

DukeIronHand, The Be2 series, it is a swine to aim the lewis, but she is a beaut to fly, so forgiving, unlike the camel, which I stand by the RL pilots "a good pilot swears by her, a bad pilot swears at her). The only plus point with the camel as far as I am concerned is that she has taught me how to recover from a low altitude spin, and no one can hit her when I am flying her, because even I don't know what she is going to do. I can fly the rest of the planes that I have tried (Alb DI-DIII, SE5 & SE5a, Sop Strutter single & 2 seat, Sop Pup & Sop Tri 1&2 gun variants &Fe2b) fairly well. as you can see I favour 1915-1917 heavily, I have tried the DR1 a couple of times but cannot get the trim set right, and also the engine noise is unnerving (when another plane makes that noise I know I need to head back to my side of the lines and land ASAP) .

Olham, I like the idea of this poll, the only question I have is about using the windows experience index (which incidentally is a Windows 7 only tool, as far as I know, certainly XP did not have it), and the fact that it rates the system as per the lowest score. So my system rates the following. Processor 7.4 Memory (Ram) 7.5 Graphics 7.8 Gaming Graphics 7.8 Primary Hard Disk 5.9 So I get a score of 5.9, now if we discard the HDD which we all know is the slowest part of the system and average out the other parts of the system I get a score of 7.6 and if we add the HDD in and then average it out I get a score of 7.3 (in each case I have rounded to the nearest tenth of a fraction)

New rig every time, the only thing is I spent 6-12 months deciding what I want and who to get to build it, and then by the time I commit to buying it the price has dropped. I also aim to future proof for hopefully the next 3-4 years with each new rig I get, and the old ones either get passed down the family or to a friend.

RAFL, I much prefer the term "chrome horn" (yes I love Nascar).

Actually, the americans are just speaking the language as it was spoken in England when the Mayflower and the following ships departed England for the Americas. On another note, great work OBD, keep it up (as I know you will), I wish other software developers/publishers showed as much dedication to a released product as you do. Also guys and gals, just remember to wipe the drool from your mouths before you get in the cockpit, or at best you will have frozen saliva caked to your skin when at altidude, at worst you will rust your machine guns and engine. LOL Seriously loving the screenshots, and awaiting eagerly the polished product, because lets be realistic it will not be released as a half completed simulation.