Geezer

Thanks. VonS tried your suggestion, but no joy: The environsys file should be installed into the Flight folder too by the way (tried placing it in the terrains folder and calling it up, also leaving a bunch of them in the flight folder and calling them up through the terrain.ini file, but was getting strange sky/cloud results and that ugly horizontal banding that's sometimes seen in WOFF....seems such install tricks, while working well in SF2, are not applicable to FE2...so best to put the environsys in the Flight folder and switch out for a new one when needed).

Just got VonS' first test version, and it looks great running in Win7 Pro with DX11.

Got some work done on the new Halberstadt CL4.

Gorgeous!

That is marketing art of the DIVAD self-propelled flak gun, painted when I was a concept artist at General Dynamics in 1979.

When I retired four years ago, I decided that making digital aircraft would be a good retirement hobby.

Long ago, I used to do that kind of stuff professionally. I was a concept artist/designer in LA before I went back into aircraft engineering, ultimately retiring as a field service engineer for the Global Hawk, and also training college interns to make computer game models. Below is a marketing painting from 1979, done the old fashioned way - geometry, pencil, and paint brush.

Detailing the forward deck of the N17/23 series. The Alkan-Hamy synchronizer gear was a developed copy of the Fokker gear. When combat was imminent, the pilot pulled on the ring-handle to engage the synchronizer, but in normal flight the gear was not engaged. This reduced mechanical failure due to excessive wear. The ammo belt was fed up to the gun on the right side, through a wooden chute with hinged sheet metal cover. The empty cloth ammo belt was fed out the gun's left side and then down inside the fuselage, where it was wound around a spring loaded drum. Because the cloth ammo belt (used by all versions of the Maxim gun) would often flex during high-G manuevers, the belts often jammed the guns during combat. The Germans developed the disintegrating metal link in 1916 to solve the problem, and the other major powers soon copied the German metal link concept. The later Nieuport installation for metal links extended the chute over the side of the fuselage so the expended links could fall clear.

The first value is right/left. The second value is forward/back. The third value - the one you want - is up/down.

VonS' new FM for Lewis gun-armed Nieuport 17s is very authentic. The extra drag of the guns slowed them down so they were slower than the Pfalz D3. Sure enough, ingame some Lewis-armed N17s could not catch D3s that did not want to play.

Superb detail! Even the trench rifles and mortars are accurate. I've always thought that FE/FE2 could use more strafing targets. Stuff like vehicles, guns, horses, grunts, etc marching through a sea of mud.

LOL, I turn 72 in March. Yes, these take a long time but there is method to the madness. First, it takes a lot of plain, old fashioned hard work to produce this stuff. Second, this forum is full of discussions about getting various bits and bobs to work because they were developed at different times to varying standards. VonS and I want to release a comprehensive package of stuff that is tweaked and adjusted to work in harmony as a system. That will take a while...

Progress shots of the Belgian N23 in development.

Thanks. VonS and I are committed to raising the bar for First Eagles, but developing all new stuff is a slow process. We figure doing all the stuff we would like will take 1-2 years, so you have plenty of time to get a new rig!

Progress shot of French aircraft so far...

Testing the Nieuport 23 files - Belgian furball!

Yup. I'll also release a graphics pack, with templates, overlays, etc.

Been working on skins and LODs for the N17 and N23, plus separate Lewis gun versions for each.

Have you tried UN-installing Laton's effects? I don't use them and don't have problems with muzzle flashes. Laton's effects date back to the early days of FE/FEG, so there may be some conflicts?

Found more info about aircraft guns and synchronizers. Rate of fire for the ground version of the Vickers gun was 450-550 rounds per minute (rpm). Minor adjustments to rpm could be made by tightening or loosening the fusee spring. Early British synchronizers (particularly the Ross gear) slowed the rpm to 350-400 rpm, and the situation was not improved until mid-1917 with the introduction of the Constantinesco gear. By war's end, Britain had manufactured 71,355 Vickers guns (both ground and air) while Colt had built 4,000 Vickers guns for aircraft use. Britain delivered 10,544 Vickers aircraft guns to France by December 1918. Birmingham Small Arms (UK) and Savage Arms Company (US) shipped at least 6,842 Lewis guns to France. Meanwhile, domestic French production ramped up during the war: Regis Darne delivering 3,266 Lewis guns and Milde delivering 1,100 Lewis guns. France used at least four different variants of the basic Lewis design, all differences being minor detail changes. Throughout the entire war, it proved difficult to balance gun production with airframe production. This probably accounts for the confusing variation in gun/synchronizer installations. For example, the Windsock data file for the Breguet 14 clearly shows delivered aircraft mounting overwing Lewis guns, instead of the standard Vickers gun. There simply were not enough aircraft Vickers guns to meet the demand, a situation that worsened in 1917 with the Allied introduction of two-gun fighters.

Check of couple of aircraft data inis. They should have something like this: [InternalGun1] SystemType=FIXED_GUN GunTypeName=7.92MM_SPANDAU_LMG08/15 InputName=FIRE_PRIMARY_GUN GunGroup=1 MuzzlePosition=-0.1260,0.405,0.62 LightPosition=-0.1260,0.405,0.62 AimAngles=0.0,0.0,0.0 MaxAmmo=500 EjectShells=FALSE EjectPosition= EjectVelocity= GunFireAnimationID=7 Synchronized=TRUE If they do, then the problem lies elsewhere. Do you have a GUNS sub-folder in your OBJECTS folder?

VonS has cranked out a large number of new aircraft folders containing all the essential files for Nieuport 17 and 23 aircraft - including separate Lewis gun versions for the RFC. Now, its my turn to crank out a bunch of N17/23 files, with and without Lewis guns. Because of the weight and drag penalty, very few Nieuports mounted both Vickers and Lewis guns.

A good observation! For much of the war the Allies experienced a chronic shortage of machine guns, particularly light weight aircraft guns. This problem gradually went away during 1917 with new factories coming online - and the introduction of the SPAD 13. On the subject of synchronizers, there are all kinds of internet references that state N17s were built with Vickers guns mounted on the center line. Only problem with that, is the French Ministry of Munitions never authorized production of any rotary engine synchonizer other than the Alkan-Hamy! Or, if it did, the records have not survived 100 years of turmoil. Again, I suspect the confusion arises from the British inability to develop a reliable synchronizer until mid-1917! Per Woodman's Early Aircraft Armament, the Brits employed the following systems, only one of which was equal to the Fokker/Alkan-Hamy gears: Vickers-Challenger: Bristol Scout, Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutter, BE12, RE8 Scarff-Dybovsky: Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutter, Sopwith Pup Sopwith-Kauper: Sopwith aircraft (particularly Camel), despite flaws was closest the Brits came to a standardized gear until Constantinesco gear was introduced in 1917 Ross: Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutter ARISAD: Nieuport 20, early RE8 Armstrong-Whitworth: FK8 Constantinesco: When the Brits finally got their act together - a year after everyone else - they did it right. Beginning with DH4 in Spring of 1917, the excellent "CC" gear was to have replaced all earlier gears, but it proved impossible to modify all British aircraft in the real world. The British duplication of effort is remarkable, particularly when you consider that most of the gears were not as good as the German/French gears. The best the Brits could field before mid-1917 was 2,750 Sopwith-Kauper gears, despite a tendency for the guns to "run away" and shoot up the propeller - they also had a high rate of mechanical failure due to excessive wear.

Unfortunately, I can't help. Pilots are separate LODs that the game attaches to the aircraft LOD - gunners are part of the aircraft LOD.

Heh, it often takes us an evening of screwing around to get the pilots and cockpits right.