themightysrc

" Like I said, I haven't actually seen an enemy aircraft yet in this period. I am still landing more by luck than judgement - that'll probably get me first!" You probably won't see a Hun until June 1915 - I joined up a pilot in February 1915 (see reports from the front thread) and managed to get plenty of valuable flying time in BEs before meeting the inevitable Eindeckers. Be reassured - they're even less manouvreable than BE2s, and not quite as fast. Ask your observer to duck his head before you open fire! As for landing, you'll probably find it increasingly easy as you go on. I used to crash with monotonous regularity until I realised that the best way of landing is to actually chop back the throttle to more or less nothing, and then to glide in, keeping the nose just up until the stick's rattling away, when you cut the engine completely and coast. It'll work with a BE, but they are, believe me, sweeties to fly, because they have stability built in. Do not, I repeat, do not take up a Camel until you have mastered a variety of other planes. Finally, welcome to CA and OFF - mine's a pint of Pendle Witch! Cheers, Si

"We all know his ridgeback temper and sometimes rough communication. But he's an honest chap, I believe to have experienced." Seconded. He may be curmudgeonly and rather too abrupt for his own good, but I would like to point out that the last time I had a (political, of course) disagreement with him, he was sensible and measured about it and PM'ed me directly to continue the dialogue, rather than do it on a forum where we should be talking about WWI. That's hardly the sign of a man who is too difficult for the mods to allow on here. So, I will be pleased to welcome him back to the forum.

"That rear gunner has come in handy when you run out of ammo. I keep flying so as to give him a good shot and fairly often, he'll put down a few of the enemy." Actually, that's not just a good idea, but also replicates the situation of two seaters in the early war period - rear machine gun only. One of things that irritates me about the BHAH BE2c is that it's an amalgam of the BE12 and the various difference BE2 variants - by rights, the BE2c shouldn't have a front gun at all as far as I'm aware, whilst the BE12 was a rather lame attempt to turn the BE2 into a single seat scout, complete with front gun (with predictably dismal results). I hope they sort this out for P4. Still, firing off all the ammo from the front gun before setting off would be a way of being more authentic (if not for the Strutter, then as though it was a generic RFC two seater). It would also be rather foolhardy, but if you wish to experience something more akin to what pilots of the time did, that's surely the way to go. Personally, I've found that the BHAH BE2c is more than a match for the EIII. What a difference it would make if I was reliant on my observer for our defence.

"The less they have, the easier it is for us to take 'em out." I wasn't aware that the US and Iran were at war?

Excellent stuff, Olham. Have you had a gander at the Reports from the Front thread of late? I've been posting the (mis)adventures of Captain Victor Timm, 2 RFC, and a BE2c pilot in 1915. I've found that the dear old BE is actually a pretty good match for the EIII, and the only real advantage that you have (apart from unimpeded vision to the front) is that you'll be faced with rather supine opposition, as BEs are apparently set to huddle defensively and to try and escape by toddling along at 75mph. You should bag a few, as long as you don't lose height. Once that happens, you'll struggle to regain altitude - all I do is to order the flight up another thousand feet or so, and the poor Fokkers are, er, Fokked. Having said all that, the default height for BEs seems to be about 5000 feet, so you'll be able to swoop on them. Can't tell you very much about the Bristol Scouts, but I'm hoping that when I've satisfied Major Douglas (see the diary!) with 30 hours in combat and rejoined Home Establishment then I'll be able to pass on the juicy goss about them (the aircraft, not the Home Establishment, that is). Cheers, Si

I wonder if it would be easier to use in order to get optimised performance out of OFF with older rigs running ATI AGP cards (like mine, fr'instance)?

I bet it's FSX, or whatever it's called.

Hi BD, And welcome. "And as far as WW1 combat sims are concerned, I've been flying Rise of Flight, but after the last patch it's been stuttering so bad on my system that it's pretty much unplayable. Still, I've soldiered on with it, tinkering with this and that, wiping my computer, reinstalling windows, updating drivers and bios and all that and nothing helps. So I've given up." Given that you've gone and bought OFF now, I'm hoping you've answered your own question regarding 'is it worth 40 bucks?', however, even if it turned out that you didn't like OFF - quite unlikely, trust me - then at least you'll be able to flog it to someone else! Given your travails with RoF, I suspect that that's not an option for you with recouping your costs. Feel free to pick everyone's brains here about configuration, which is the hardest part in many ways. You'll find that everyone's very helpful and pretty knowledgeable having mostly been there, done that. Final point: don't bother with the Camel until you've mastered flying about 2-3 other types of plane. Oh, and get used to collecting a large heap of dead pilots in a pile behind your chair.

Hi peeps, I've not been MPing for a while, due to personal commitments beyond my control, however I'd be very interested to get up into the skies again in the company of you stout chaps, and enjoy some flights. I notice that it's gone very quiet out there in terms of MP, and I was wondering if people are still interested in MPing, perhaps on an ad hoc basis? I'm aware that running campaigns is a lot of work, and that designing missions takes time and effort, and I'd be happy to help out in whatever way I can. Just to get the ball rolling - I hope - can you please drop a post here if you'd like to see MP restarted. Cheers, Si PS - I can now hit a barn door from 50 yards, and haven't crashed into a fellow flyer for ages. Honest.

"The flight model is set to realistic." Do you have manual mixture on? that might make a difference. A damaged/smoking Albatros III should not be able to outclimb you, unless, perhaps, you still have about 90% of your fuel with you, and he's running on fumes. I will confess I've never had this happen to me, so I'm simply ruminating...

Ah - good point. Also add 'V strutter', when you know it's an Albatros, but that's it.

"about 20 EIIIs sighted, but still no C-Types" Hi Smithy, you're going to spend a long time looking for C-type Albatroses - they're not (yet) modelled in OFF. Cheers, Si

Interesting comments, given that I've just been over to SimHQ and looked at the RoF video winners in the competition run by NeoQB. They're perfectly fine videos, and some of the effects are lovely - I do like the grass in RoF - however I'd be very hard pressed to say that they look any better than ones I've seen on this thread and elsewhere from OFF film makers. It's certainly arguable that RoF has a certain bright and cutesy feel when it comes to scenery, and that's something that I find difficult to suspend disbelief in when viewing the efforts of said film makers. Wouldn't it have been naughty if someone had entered an OFF vid into the contest and won....?!!

I have to say it looks a bit crap, but you pays yer money, etc... Would be nice to have a Gotha or Staaken kicking around, but let's not be greedy - can you hear me, Messrs Polovski and co.....???!!! Cheers, Si

Hi Brit, I don't think you're getting the feedback you deserve, so I'd just like to say thank you and that I've downloaded all of these documents. I might even write one concerning surviving in a BE2c and living through Bloody April! Cheers, Si

Oh yes, they certainly do! Various times I've chased AI bombers - usually fruitlessly - and heard the whistling as their bombs head off towards Terra Firma.

Hi, I work in a UK based library service and I would urge all UK OFFers reading this thread to join their local library service. You'll then - very likely - be able to do FOR FREE loads of genealogical research on your forebears, and, what's more, be able to get a s**tload of advice free from professional archivists and historians. These are important local resources, which, I regret, we all may be in danger of losing, depending on how the next few years pan out. I'm currently delving into the past on my maternal side, and have found out incredible things - my great uncle was one of the very last out of Dukirk, for example - and I could not have done this without there being a free service to me via my local library and local studies set up. Use it, or have it taken away forever - I kid you not.

Hi Hellshade, Have you considered rendering some of your vids in sepia or black and white?

I've based my answers on my current pilots - six in total. I have an RNAS 10 pilot who's spent plenty of time in Camels (God I hate them) but I still have more time in the Tripehound. I have an SE5a pilot who I barely activate, RFC this time. My remaining pilots are more representative of my commitment, perhaps. I have a BE2c pilot who, miraculously is still alive after many months - probably helped by choosing the earliest enlistment date I could have in 1915 - so I will be nurturing him until his probable demise at the hands of a Fokker jockey. If he survives, however, I think his mob end up in Biffs, at which point rewengey is mine!! My current Hun is stuck in Alb DIIs, late in 1917, and every flight is very iffy in terms of survival. I'm hoping they get DIIIs soon. My current French pilot is, to my surprise, doing rather well in his N17 and I'm thinking of giving him much more stick time, if only to see Alsace more often. Finally, I have an American pilot in March 1918, who is cursed with a N28, possibly the least forgiving and usable of the 1918 scouts. I've managed one kill, but I think I've already written off about three Nieuports to get there. My all time fave is undoubtedly, though, late 1916 and into 1917, as I'm a massive fan of Arthur Gould Lee's writing, and 46 squadron RFC, with Pups - probably my favourite scout - is where I feel most at home. Unfortunately, it's also where I get shot down and killed most habitually, so feel free to draw conclusions as to my unsuitability as a scout pilot... D'you know, I think I hear my observer at the tent flap? Time to take up the old BE again. Cheers, Si

" I do not give up alt if I can avoid it, and I will break off from a long fight if we are getting pulled too far over the lines." Bravo Lou - yours and subsequent posts were happy reading for me. I do wonder though, how you manage to figure out how you're too far over the lines if you don't use the map key? I've liked what I've read this evening on how one should fly as per genuine WWI standards. Obviously, we're not all going to get there at the same rate. For example, I still use TAC, and, I'm a bit ashamed to say, the F5 based speed/height/climb indicators, although I know I shouldn't. That's probably just me being lazy WRT setting up my Trackir profile correctly! Even with all the aids I'm using, I still find OFF a complete bastard to survive in, but I guess I'll have to accept one day that I'm simply a rubbish pilot and a terrible shot. Actually one thing that's occurred to me that does make my life harder, in relation to TAC, is that I downloaded somebody's mod which (a) never shows red/blue colours for friends and enemies, and (b) only fades in the onscreen name of squadron and plane type when you're pretty close in. I wish I could recall who did that mod - it really should be standard in OFF, or at least an option through the Manager screen! Hey ho. Time to go off and do some work, but I think I'll try to combine it with a bit of OFFing. Incidentally, there's a thunderstorm outside - lashing it down and lightning galore. Anyone ever seen this in OFF? I recall seeing it in IL2, and frankly it rather s**t me up, as I hardly had control of my bf109 in the best of weather! Cheers, Si

From Wikipedia: "A description of the medieval 'Great' or 'Old Custom' wool tax of 1275, which survived until the fifteenth century.[1] Contrary to some commentaries, this tax did not involve the collection of one third to the king, and one third to the church, but a less punitive sum of 6s 8d to the Crown per sack, about 5 per cent of the value.[2] This theory also depends on the rhyme surviving unrecorded and even unmentioned in extant texts for hundreds of years." I'm pretty happy with that, and I'm atrociously left wing...

"A great many nursery rhymes we learned as children, are no longer taught in school or printed in books. Not because of their original meanings, rather in they're present form they are not Politically Correct" Would you care to share a few of these so we can join in with the mourning about their destruction by PC Gorn Mad?

I have to say, I rather like the idea of UK/Commonwealth ace anonymity. It's historically accurate, and yet certainly wouldn't stand in the way of P4 having some form of information area purely for pilots - McCudden, for example, used to go and speak to other squadrons, and Ball certainly became known through out the RFC, despite the lack of press coverage at the time (although I suspect this changed). I'd be happy if the visit of an ace pilot made all the mediocre wingmen better flyers for a few days - and that's surely reproducible via a wee bit of subtle pilot reratiing for a set period is it not? I'd also say there's a strong case in P4 for reassignment to Britain (for the above pilots, dunno about the French and German services), if only to enforce a career break and to reintroduce one's pilot back to the front at a different rank and probably a different squadron. Given, also, that flight leaders were judged by their pastoral care of pilots as much as their ability to rack up kills, perhaps this needs to be recognised in P4; after all if OFF seeks to reproduce WWI aerially, it would do well to recognise that pilots who were rubbish at flight management were not held in the esteem of the likes of Mick Mannock and McCudden.

Hi BruceD Seeing as there's another would be OFFer out there asking about specs, I thought I'd bump this for our collective benefit - lets see if we can't come up with a 2010 PC spec that does the job but doesn't f*** the bank account!-

"I've just had two job interviews. If I land one of these two contracts I'll be back on my feet and laughing, so prayers and any crossed fingers on my behalf will be most appreciated. Furthermore, the moment I'm working and solvent again I'll restart the Vasco's Volunteers campaigns again as soon as you guys can drag yourselves away from the barbecue pit!" Hi Vasco, What can I say - the very best of luck with the interviews. I've got the rabbit's foot crossed up here in expectation - believe me, I've been there and done that. If you can land the gig and get back to doing your excellent campaigns, I'll be out there doing a jig. And even if you got the job and thought, 'nah sod it', I wouldn't blame you, it seems an awful lot of work. But, with the pint glass half full, I'll say Cheers! Let us all know how it turns out - it's tough times out there. ATB, Si