RAF_Louvert

. Thanks folks. Hasse Wind, you are quite right about such items. Unless they are accompanied by documentation and a fair amount of credible provenance it is hard to be sure, (and sometimes even with those things). However, the cap itself does possess the proper look, construction, and materials to have come from the WWI era, and the type of wear and aging to the item also supports it's supposed vintage. Add to that the woman who sold it lives in the area where the cap was supposed to have been worn, as well as her own statement of it's origin, and there is enough "evidence" for me to have a reasonable amount of faith that it is what it appears to be. Of course I have no way of proving or disproving it, (and likely never will), none of which detracts in any way from the intrinsic value and beauty of this wonderful old cap. I look at these old things in much the same light as Olham expressed: they touch at a "string" inside, to know they are somehow a part of history. Cheers! Lou .

. Well done nbryant and welcome to the funhouse. Drop your brushes in the turpentine jar by the door and grab a drink. Cheers! Lou .

. So many books, so little time. .

. Greetings All, A few days ago in the Screen Shots forum our own Herr Olham tasked me with the following mission request: With all this in mind I set to work building a mission that would not only fill the bill but also be historically plausible. Here is the mission description that will be in the completed download: Sunday, 23 September, 1917: Vlisseghem Flugplatz, Belgium Savage British attacks at Menin Road have strained our brave troops to the limit. After falling back to a new defensive line they are now holding their own and continue to fight with true mut. Our informants in England tell us that the British are about to deploy a new form of gas weaponry in this general area of the front and have been massing the deadly canisters in a rail yard near the outskirts of Ramsgate. It is rumored they plan on dropping these upon our troop marshalling positions at Izegem, and may be bringing them across by heavy bomber at any moment. Your flight of Albatros D.III scouts have been given the vital task of escorting a wing of Gothas from Kagohl 3 over the North Sea to bomb the rail yard and it’s lethal stock into oblivion. You will take off from Vlisseghem at 15:35 and circle the field once to form up, then fly easterly towards Nieuwmunster Flugplatz to join with the Gothas. Climb to working altitude as you make the crossing and provide cover for the bombers along the way. You will have a full fuel load which should give you an additional 20 minutes of flying time, remember this if you get into any fighting, and be sure to lean out your mixture as much as possible to conserve benzin. You will no doubt encounter defenses over Ramsgate so keep a sharp lookout for enemy planes as well as AA. Once the Gothas have delivered their bombs you are expected to see them safely back home. However, if you do run across any enemy heavy bombers in the area it is a safe bet they are carrying the new gas canisters. You should do everything in your power to see they don’t make it across, for if they do countless numbers of your countrymen may well suffer a gruesome fate. The Kaiser realizes this is a lot to ask of your small jagdstaffel, but His Imperial Majesty has complete faith in your ability to succeed in this most vital mission. Gott sei mit Dir. This mission will require that you have the Gotha bomber, (superbly crafted by Seacondor and Winters), which is available in the OFF Downloads in numerous missions, one of which being "Gothas Along the Thames!". You will also need stumpjumper's outstanding Handley Page 0/400 bomber as well, and that too is located in the OFF Downloads, (Aircraft Models section). I still have some fine tuning to do on this little project, but I should have it available for download soon. Cheers! Lou .

. Olham, you are more than welcome Sir. And you should try the other missions, I believe you would find them challenging too. .

. No problem Olham, I was hoping you would get it sorted out before I have to leave, which is in about 20 minutes from right now. Have fun! .

. So the mission launched for you now Olham? .

. Rugbyfan, I tried rolling back to several different restore points but it did not fix the issue. Once that malware is in your computer it is a bear to remove it. Sorry to learn other folks here are suffering with this. .

. Olham, you don't actually need the Gothas_Along_the_Thames.xml, but if you want it it should go into the British Scenarios folder in the Missions folder. You DO need the Gotha and its related weapons and pylons files, which are in the Gothas Along the Thames download. Be sure to follow the instructions inside those additional folders, which read as follows: Below is a description of how to install this plane into OFF, for CFS3 its the same just navigate to the CFS3 game directory instead of the OFF directory. Aircraft: Unzip the aircraft to a temp folder, then place the Gotha folder into the main aircraft directory of either CFS3 or OFF install. delete the bdp file from within the new gotha folder. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\aircraft Weapons: unzip to a temp location then place the folders into the main weapons folder of either CFS3 or OFF. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\weapons Pylons: unzip to a temp location and then place the files (not folder) into the pylon folder in your CFS3 or OFF install. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\pylons You also need stumpjumper's "sjhp400" aircraft folder installed into the same aircraft folder as the Gotha went into. Hope this helps Olham. Cheers! Lou .

. OvS, there has been a return lately of a nasty malware/Google search redirect that will not show up with any of the scan programs you listed. It can be very hard to detect and even harder to get rid of. Sometimes it will launch a second window when you are online and send you to a "wordslife" website, but only sometimes, and sometimes not at all. It runs in the background and haunts your computer as it watches where you go and what you do. I just had to reinstall the OS on my wife's computer because of it. It is a memory hog and will definitely slow up your computer to the point of locking it up when you are working online. If it got past your firewall and current malware blocker, you may have to turn it over to the Geek Squad to get rid of it. I tried numerous programs to try and eliminate it with no real success. I hope this is not what is causing your issues. .

. Olham, the .XML file in stumpjumper's download is just a test mission so you don't need to even install that, (it would go into your British Scenarios folder in the Missions folder if you wanted to install it). BTW, since rabu asked, here are a few teaser screenshots: A close up of Seacondor and Winters Gotha model...very nice. Approaching the British coast. Safely home. Cheers! Lou .

. I also voted "Yes" on this. But I do like Herr Olham's though about a switch in the workshop, if that would not be a lot of work to create. If it's a major job though I'd say you devs spend that time instead working on Widowmaker's Snipe. pssst, WM, I haven't received my cheque for September yet, so until I do no more plugs for you kite

. C'est magnifique, braves aviateur! Well done, SirMike. It does feel good to come home after a mission like that. Olham, I agree with you as concerns the AI, and I too hope P4 will see further improvements in that area. Not that I'm complaining mind you, I dearly love flying OFF P3. However, it would be nice to see the enemy break off an attack when the tables have turned; have them fly much smarter when near the ground; see the use of standard defensive tactics, such as two-seaters flying in a circle to protect each other; etc. But as SirMike said, we've come a long way since the early WWI combat flight sims. .

. Well I certainly won't say a thing Olham, other than "Viel Glück!" Also, I will be travelling starting tomorrow at around noon, so after that I won't be able to check in very often on this until I return on Thursday evening of next week. But I will stop by in when I am somewhere with internet access. .

File Name: Olham's Gotha Escort Mission File Submitter: RAF_Louvert File Submitted: 18 September 2010 File Category: Maps, Missions, and Campaigns Sunday, 23 September, 1917: Vlisseghem Flugplatz, Belgium. Savage British attacks at Menin Road have strained our brave troops to the limit. After falling back to a new defensive line they are now holding their own and continue to fight with true mut. Our informants in England tell us the British are about to deploy a new form of gas weaponry in this general area of the front and have been massing the deadly canisters in a railyard near the outskirts of Ramsgate. It is rumored they plan on dropping these upon our troop marshalling positions at Izegem, and may be bringing them across by heavy bomber at any moment. Your flight of Albatros D.III scouts have been given the vital task of escorting a wing of Gothas from Kagohl 3 over the North Sea to bomb the railyard and it's lethal stock into oblivion. You will take off and circle the field once to form up, then fly easterly towards Nieuwmunster Flugplatz to join with the Gothas. Climb to working altitude as you make the crossing and provide cover for the bombers along the way. You will have a full fuel load which should give you an additional 20 minutes of flying time, remember this if you get into any fighting, and be sure to lean out your mixture as much as safely possible in order to conserve benzin. You will no doubt encounter defenses over Ramsgate so keep a sharp lookout for enemy planes as well as AA. Once the Gothas have delivered their bombs you are expected to see them safely back home. However, if you do run across any enemy heavy bombers in the area it is a safe bet they are carrying the new gas canisters. You should do everything in your power to see that they don't make it across, for if they do countless numbers of your countrymen will suffer a gruesome fate. The Kaiser realizes this is a lot to ask of your small jagdstaffel, but His Imperial Majesty has complete faith in your ability to succeed in this most vital mission. Gott sei mit Der. Click here to download this file

. Olham, you are a great fighter pilot, of that I am sure. And no fear about leaning back your fuel mixture Sir. Just keep hitting Ctrl- until your engine coughs and sputters, (it might even die out). Immeditately start clicking Ctrl= until it smooths out, then go another five clicks richer and you will be fine. When you get up to working altitude you can lean it out another three clicks or so, but if you happen to forget to do that you will still be OK. Or, you can just use the auto-mixture setting in the workshop which is what most folks do, I assume. Personally I prefer to have the control over the fuel mixture as well as the magnetos, which is why I have hot keys for these functions programmed on my JS. Oh, and BTW, I have just uploaded the mission to the OFF Downloads section and as soon as admin approves it it should be available. Or if you don't wish to wait you can grab it here: Olhams_Gotha_Escort_Mission.rar I hope this won't cause you too many nightmares, Olham. But, some white knuckles perhaps. Cheers! Lou .

. Very nice Spad skin you've put together there nbryant. If you were to darken the natural lumber a bit and hunt down the matching fonts for the tail number and "C" it would be a dead ringer for the illustration you've posted. I love the weathering you've done on it. .

. Very, very well done, British_eh. Top hole work, Sir. Stop by the pub and I'll buy you the first round! Cheers! Lou .

. Greetings All, I'm getting very close to wrapping up this project and hope to upload the finished product by tomorrow morning. I have created a map for those who might like to print it out and try flying the mission without using the in-sim version, (something I hightly recommed in general when flying OFF as it really adds a whole new immersion level). I will include this chart in the download, and I am posting it here as well. I have flown this mission quite a few times now in the process of getting it dialed in, and it is quite challenging to actually achieve everything asked of you in the mission briefing...and make it back home alive. Cheers! Lou .

. Olham, I believe the instructions are inin the mission download, but here they are just in case: Gothas Along the Thames Install Instructions Place the "Gothas_Along_the_Thames.xml" file into your Over Flanders Fields "Missions" folder. ****** You will now need to unzip and install Seacondor and Captain Winters Gotha plane files and Gotha weapons and pylons files, (if you don't already have them in your OFF game). Follow the install instructions included in the zip files, but if you are asked if you want to overwrite any existing files be sure to say "NO". ****** You must now install the OFF searchlight files, which I have also included here for you. The gc_searclights.xml file goes into your Over Flanders Fields "Facilities" folder, and the gc_searhlight_blue folder and gc_searchlight_white folder go into your Over Flanders Fields "Vehicles" folder. ****** And finally, you will need the airraid_siren.xml file I have created and included here as well, and it also goes into your Over Flanders Fields "Facilities" folder. ****** Many thanks to Seacondor and Winters for the Gotha; Eurofinn and www.groundcrew.com for the searchlights; and to all the OFF contributors who made this possible. May 17, 2009 RAF_Louvert +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Gotha ALHPA Model Intermediate work in progress Gotha Bomber WWI. Gotha Bomber - flyable model for CFS3 or OFFF WWI. Credits: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- original Gmax model by Seacondor. texture mapping and skin by Capt. Winters. Flight Model is a stock CFS3 FM ammended by trial and error, to get it to fly and interact with AI behaviour in an exceptable manner. INSTALLATION: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- below is a dscription of how to install this plane into OFF, for CFS3 its the same just navigate to the CFS3 game directory instead of the OFF directory. Aircraft: Unzip the aircraft to a temp folder, then place the Gotha folder into the main aircraf directory of either CFS3 or OFF install. delete the bdp file from within the new gotha folder. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\aircraft Weapons: unzip to a temp location then place the folders into the main weapons folder of either CFS3 or OFF. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\weapons Pylons: unzip to a temp location and then place the files (not folder) into the pylon folder in your CFS3 or OFF install. C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\CFSWW1 Over Flanders Fields\pylons The plane will show under the country Germany. It has two gunner positions, pilot and bombaimer postions. the VC is only rendered in Gmax colours. we hope you enjoy this intermediate build until the final model is finished off. .

. Olham, you are correct about the name of the Handley Page file being rather cryptic. For others who might need it here is the link to stumpjumper's file: HP 400 Aircraft File Download And here is the link to a mission I built some time ago which includes the needed Gotha files in the zip: Gothas Along the Thames! Cheers! Lou .

. Yuppers Olham, I was aware of those skins and have flown them several times. I have always been a big fan of little Belgium and in fact created the Camel skin for Lt. Jan Olieslagers of 9me Escadrille de Chasse. I also built an entire set of Belgian Camel skins for that escadrille for those who wanted to switch out one of the Brit squadrons in that area, just so they might see Belgium represented from time to time in the OFF skies. There are a few other Belgian skins availbale in the download section as well. .

. September 11, 2001 saw one of the worst attacks by a terrorist group on a civilian population. In the grand scheme of things it does not matter who the terrorists were or what people they targeted. It was a tragedy and a horror. On this day I ask that we remember all those who have died at the hands of terrorists, around the world and throughout history. Let's pray there comes a day when such evil is wiped from the face of this tired old earth. Lou .

. OK, now I'm hungry! .