Akmatov

I used to play SF1 a bit and am thinking of getting back in as there is a LOT of mod content that is hugely tempting. Of course, that means anything SF1 now needs to be replaced with SF2. :( From reading some of the posts, it appears SF has probably reached the end of new content provided by the developer and now the modding community is the group supporting it and providing new content. Regardless of whether the developer has moved on to other things, the community seems alive and productive. I guess I'm a bit cranky that the cost of entry is based on New Model Year prices for programs that are years old. Prior to starting on the financial project, is there anything else in the same genre that I might should be considering? Given the time scale SF covers I doubt it, but I'd hate to later find out I'd missed something obvious. :)

Was just looking at the nice, and pricey, add-on instruments Saitek has available and was wondering if they interface with anything other than M$ Flight Sim?

Thx a lot for the info. It seems that there is a lot of really incredible, and pricey - but this is such a niche market, hardware Saitek sells to create a variety of hardware panels for FSX etc, but for whatever technical reasons they don't seem to work with anything else, as far as I know. Not a complain because the various sim coders didn't choose to output data in a FSX compatible format, just would have been very tempting. Just getting back into flying and working on finding the various boundaries of software and hardward. :)

Just called MadKatz and the answer is a definite maybe. Very honestly explained specifically designed to be comparable with FSX, FS2004 & X-Plane, but not limited to those if the designer of another sim chose to output compatible data. So it is down to the choices made while the sim was being coded. Comes down to buy it, try it and keep it if it works. Just surprised no one here has ever tried it.

Getting the urge to get back into flying and notice that my old Strike Fighter 1 installments need to be replaced for my Win7 machine. Is Third Wire the only source to purchase the Strike Fighter 2 installments? Don't mind paying, but full retail for such oldish games is a bit steep. Not meaning to be snarky, but Steam has Strike Fighters 2 Europe for $10 vs $30 from Third Wire.

Opps, my mistake. Darn, they are actually rather expensive considering their age. And I was only referring to legal purchase. I've looked fairly well in Google and no one else seems to sell them, which is a bit surprising, I think.

third wire, didn't they used to make driving sims or something?

Haven't played Third Wire in a looonnnng time, so long in fact that my compuer is now Win7 and my old WOE is XP only. Way back in the day, I had a really nice mod that was an airstrip out in the middle of nowhere for landing/take off practice and a bombing range. Was really helpful! Is there anything similar available for SF2? I have looked, but not seen anything. Also, does TrackIR work with SF2 series? I know it did for the SF1 series, but I'm not seeing anything about it at Third Wire and the TrackIR references are to SF1 series. Thx

UPDATE 2 Found the mod Bombing Range TerrainStarted by Bunyap, 25 Nov 06 - 11:52:52 PM Given that it is only terrain, would it run OK with SF2? UPDATE 3 I'm really really tired and more than a bit Sloooooow. Back to that SEARCH think and found just what I wanted - Moderator pls delete this string of posts of me talking to myself.

Don't seem to be able to edit. UPDATE That thing up in the top right labeled SEARCH lead me to hundreds of messages about SF2 and TrackIR - Duh

From Hello it is all out of our control. :)

I keep reading that the ROF FM/DM is different than OFF, but I don't ever read any specifics. What are people talking about? And can't one tweak the FM/DM? I certainly see Herr Prop-Wasche experimenting in this area.

In my ventures into OFF I have killed off a couple of characters. How can I delete them out of OFF so I don't clog up the directory with corpses? I looked and the files in the 'characters' folder must have come with the program as they were no anything I had invented.

t . I had never known that. The great pictures at the web site showed that very clearly. I'll give it a try. I've always thought the Albatrosses were some of the most elegant planes ever, would be nice to fly one.

Wow! I have to go buy a Lotto ticket tonight!

Good site, thanks. BTB, in the picture of First pic is Jasta 4, the plane in the top left corner (Albatross?); is the pipe looking thing sticking up over the wing the exhaust or is it a periscope so the pilot can see around all the twisted plumbing pipes in his face? (I just tried flying a DFW C V and am still in shock :) )

Speaking as an Ami, this thread reminds me that I was talking with an air force type some years ago who commented that he had found it impossible to eavesdrop on buses in the north of England due to the natives speaking some incomprehensible native dialect. Now, the subject of why a zoomie (air force person in interservice slang) would be wanting to eavesdrop on a bus is, of course, an other issue all together.

I think the Chance Vought F4U Corsair was known as the 'ensign killer' or something similar for its unforgiving attitude to inexperienced pilots. And maybe Albatross D III = Bf 109? Earlier than the FW190, but in the right hands quite the kick-ass aircraft.

I quite agree. Ops, I apologize. I had absolutely no intention of starting one of 'those' discussions. I had purely been curious about some things I had read over at the Aerodrome where some posters were saying very nice things about both OFF and ROF. One of the distinctions that seemed to pop up from time to time was a preference, by some, for the FM/DM in ROF. Having read a bit about Herr Prop-Wasche's experiments with these models in OFF, I was wondering if I was understanding OFF correctly in that if you didn't like some aspect of the FM/DM in OFF, you could just go in and adjust it yourself to suit your understanding of a more historical accurate modeling of WW1 aircraft performance. In other words, I wasn't intending to compare one sim with another; but rather badly asking if it isn't possible to adjust OFF's FM/DM. I am now retiring into a convenient cloud and will quietly drift back across the lines to safety in obscurity.

Olham made this comment in another thread and it got me wondering. At this point I'm not even trying out a career, I'm spending my time on basic flying skills. But I'm wondering how long people manage to survive, on full realism or close to it, in OFF? Also, curious about how many kills folks might manage before going down in flames. I don't know how it played out historically, but my sense is the death rate of pilots who actually flew in combat must have been well over 50%. I seem to recall that in WW2 the USAAF used 50% as the guide for setting the required number of missions before they rotated a pilot back to training duties and my sense is that WW1 was a lot worse for everyone.

This is all of great interest and hopefully once I get better at flapping my wings successfully I'll be able to put it to some good use. Getting interested recently in OOF again, I realized that although I have been slamming around with flight sims for a while, I had never really taken the time to actually learn how to fly properly. So recently I started with MSFS 2004 and I'm working my way through the very basic flight lessons and quite enjoying them. Sneaking into OFF to crash and burn is kind of a desert course at the moment. :) However, I hope to get better. Was working on setting up the control buttons for OFF last night and was a bit shocked by WW1 aircraft - which I hadn't flown in a long while. Having just discovered the DiD Krauts vs. Crumpets campaign, I thought I'd try out a bomber - which I have never considered flying before. Thinking I'd probably enlist amongst the Krauts, I fired up a DFW C V - OMG what a penance for my many flying sins! First of all, there are virtually no instruments! OK, I wasn't expecting a 'glass cockpit', but not even a COMPASS! I found myself hitting the 'M' key a lot - which was totally ahistorical, but it was either the 'M' key or the 'Z' key to at least figure out what direction I was heading off toward. Secondly, I've seen pictures of the open-topped German inline engines with the upward pointing 'saxophone' exhaust forever; however, I had never considered the problems involved in seeing around such a monstrosity. So there I am at 5000 feet with a wing right over my head, a gas tank just barely over my head in front of me, a huge THING right in front of my face blocking my forward view and a thin slice of viability around the edges of the THING and between the wings to the sides. Talk about flying blind - I needed a cane and a seeing eye dog - badly. I had though flying blind related to clouds and fog, I didn't realize it meant flying aircraft with your face pressed into the rear of your engine. My admiration for the men who actually managed to fly these things, and you guys, had taken a big upward jump!

At first I wondered about that, but then I remembered that in the spring of 1917 the average RFC pilot was good for 11 days. Not sure how long an 'average' sortie was, but the two numbers seem mutually supporting. I don't remember the number of hours of stick time that was thought to qualify a pilot to fly at the front, but I remember thinking the low number of hours was criminal. Hmm, wonder if some of the more durable pilots had more flying experience before arriving at the Front than was provided by the sausage factory flight school system run by the RFC. Great advice uncleal and RAF_Louvert. I particularly like live to fight another day approach and I will definately spend some time practising down in the weeds dodging trees this weekend. :)

I didn't know there were still so many of the old multi-engine warbirds around. I live just east of Davis-Monthan AFB and get to watch C-130s, F-16s and A-10s pretty regularly. Plus whatever allied airforce wants to play out at the bombing range up north. Right now there are some RAF tornados down on the snow-bird ramp. They are definitely a bit louder than some. Last spring I heard something strange and went out to find two planes practicing for the air show circuit. Flying in front was a brightly painted P-51 and behind it a much bigger gray shark-like F-4. Looked like the F-4 was about to swallow the P-51! :)