Kirsten

Had a nice time escorting HM. the Queen back to Holland, nearing the Dutch coast, in those hectic days of April 1940.... Aju, Derk

Thanks Dave cs., looking,flying,fighting fine!! One question: does it still refer to Mike Werners existing cockpit with the big system behind it (looks like it)? Aju, Derk :nyam:

Thanks Lindr !!! Aju, Derk

Listen carefully, I will say zis only unce: Herr Flick of ze Gestapo will haf you shot for zis !!!!! Aju, Derk

Wunderschön !!!!!!!!!! Aju, Derk

He reinstated the F16 MLU Aju, Derk

WOE (it's home !!) and my old very big, partly unpatched SFP1, Aju, Derk

With the latest patches in WOE the wings of the Draken come off like leaves in autumn when pulling abrupt high G at high speed. Same for the Hornet but not for instance with F16's or F104's and lots of other planes. No such thing in my SF install (no October patch). Aju, Derk

Looks good enough !! Nice to see a bit more of the Netherlands, though of course it's pretty flat.... Only in the very south there is a 1000 ft hill. Around Arnhem and Nijmegen it goes up to about 300ft If I can be of any help concerning this area, just say so .... Aju, Derk

Same here !! Aju, Derk :yes:

And what a sweet litlle ship it became !!!!! Wonderfull job Kevin, a delight to fly (just like the real according to the stories of the pilots) and fantastic skins. Result of a lot of research , very well done !! It does bring back parts of a long forgotten part of our history........ Just one very litlle nitpick: I changed the fuselage guns in the Dutch Brewsters to 0.30's .......... Thanks a LOT !!!!! Aju, Derk

Do you ever sleep ?? Thanks Kevin, Aju, Derk

Thx !!! :yes: :yes: Great new plane .... Aju, Derk :yes:

"Cannot find the specified file" it says when I'm trying to download ..... Anybody else ?? Aju, Derk

Wow Kevin, sh.......t about the flag, well done, and of course also the matter of the serials and "the stripe" !! As for the movie I'll look it up, didn't know it and it sounds very interesting. The Java Sea battle was another one of those forgotten tragedies. We lost three quarters of our Navy there and indeed a lot of Americans were involved in the Houston and the Marblehead as well as a couple of destroyers, and the escape to Australia of a lot of people was indeed a miracle, even despite the dramatic attack at Broome. And my family was trapped at Java together with about 250.000 other Europeans in the Indonesian Archipel. They were put in concentration camps and lost just about everything except their lives (and tens of thousands lost even that) If there hadn't been nuclear bombs a couple of years later they would have died of hunger anyway (and I wouldn't have been there for that matter) but they came away with it, my father after three gruelling years at the Burma railroad. Funny thing that there seems to be nothing about that in the Japanese schoolbooks on history: for them the war starts in August 1945 with Nagasaki and Hiroshima....... Anyway, looking very much forward to the KNIL Brewsters !!!!! Aju, Derk

Kevin, Indeed the matter of what plane and what Groep sported what triangles and what flags means a headache. But in the mean time you've been doing great ..... You're a HERO !!!!!!! Aju, Derk

I absolutely adore the 2e-Vl GV "Java Rhinoceros" squadron badge !!!!!!!! Three MWO's (the equivalent of the Victoria Cross) were won by the pilots van Helsdingen (posthumously), Deibel and Bruggink of this group. The replica due to arrive in our Airforce Museum shortly is named after Tub Bruggink....... Aju, Derk :yes:

The red-white-blue Dutch roundel (as used nowadays) was changed to the orange triangles in Europe before the outbreak of the war, in order to prevent confusion with the Tchechoslowakian roundels and the RAF roundels., Holland being very much neutral.......... In the Far East the triangles were replaced by the flags because AFAIK the Japanese red ball was considered to give the same sort of confusion in the heat of the fight. Before all of the triangles could be replaced the KNIL capitulated. May the real guru's correct me if I'm wrong ...... Aju, Derk PS: Kevin, check PM :yes:

Sacramento, il pericoloso sporgersi di caduta massa, de motore wille nie starte benne bevrore pervanvore en vanachtere !!!! Donna imobile il papa di telefono !!!! Mille gracias nada di peseta ...... Aju, Derk

Very interesting discussion..... Basically I agree very much with Dave, but flying for my own country or the Allies IS for me a matter of flying for the good against the bad. In the colonial past the Dutch had their flaws, especially in Indonesia where we had our own version of My Lai, but my parents and brothers and sister had to endure the Imperial Japanese hospitality for a couple of years over there and if there hadn't been Hiroshima and Nagasaki I simply wouldn't have been born. So that's that with the Japanese, and what the Nazis did in Europe and also in my own country is the second point. And a third point is the number of people killed by Stalin and his butchers - probably more than the Nazis did. And they would have liked to do the same in Western Europe. So for me there has always been a good and a bad side. And then after WWII, I was born, a child of the Cold War, when there was a well defined enemy with a very real threat a few hours driving away. An Iron Curtain with an overwhelming force right behind it, fighters at QRA, parts of our army stationed in Germany, articles in the papers about the nuclear threat, Korea, the Hungarian rebellion in 1956, the Cuba Crisis, Vietnam and lots of smaller incidents to remind you every day that something called communism existed..... My two elder brothers served in the Army and they did not need a third one from the same family so I did not have to serve, but flying over Europe in SFP1 or WOE still means "defending" my own youth and my own country and its NATO allies. It still gives me a kick, can't help it and I like it.... And luckily, indeed, in the end it's a game. And it's great that our former adversaries are here on this forum and it was fantastic to be able talk to them back in the nineties, with the airshows full of MiG's, Sukhoi's and whatever came over from the East. Making up is beautiful, but there will always be a past....... For now, let's be happy !! Aju, Derk

Guess we all recognise parts of your story---- the headphones the most important items...... Aju, Derk

Thanks CA, people will love this !!! (and thanks for the pm's too .....) Aju, Derk

"One Bridge too Far" Aju, Derk :yes:

OK, found them, very nice !!!! Aju, Derk