RAF_Louvert

hee hee...yuppers, that's my song often when flying OFF missions... BTW, here's the clip of Brave Sir Robin: Cheers! Lou

Topper of an idea OvS! Here are a few of mine: Restoring and maintaining the 1880's farmhouse my family and I call home Collecting and reading old WWI aviation books, (preferably first editions) Banging away at my old Washburn spruce top six-string Building computers Ultralight flying and building Vintage car restoration, which has now moved into vintage Vespa restoration A number of years ago I was also collecting old automobilia and had quite the barn-full of old signs, oil cans, pumps, etc, but I have since sold off most of that collection to persue some of the above-mentioned interests. Cheers! Lou

That is a very interesting read cptroyce, and is one of the books I have on my shelf here at home. Also, just as a reminder, that book is one of several available in the zip download I posted in the following thread: Winter Reading Material And here is the zip file download link again for those who didn't see it on the first go: WWI Books Download These are the books in said download: Biogrophies, Diaries, Personal Writings “A Flying Fighter”, by E.M. Roberts, c.1918 ”A Happy Warrior”, the letters of William M. Russel, c.1918 ”Above the Battle”, by Vivian Drake, c.1918 “Air Men O'War”, by Boyd Cable, c.1918 ”An Aviator’s Field Book”, the field notes of Oswald Bolcke, English Edition c.1917 ”Cavalry of the Clouds”, by Alan Bott, c.1918 ”En l'air!”, by Bert Hall, c.1918 ”Fighting the Flying Circus”, by Eddie Rickenbacker, c.1919 ”Flying For France”, by James R. McConnell, c.1917 ”Go Get 'Em!”, by William Wellman, c.1918 ”Green Balls: The Adventures Of a Night-Bomber”, by Paul Bewsher, c.1919 ”High Adventure”, by James Norman Hall, c.1918 ”Night Bombing With the Bedouins”, by Robert H. Reece, c.1919 ”The Flying Poilu”, by Marcel Nadaud, c.1918 “The Red Battle Flyer”, by Manfred von Richthofen, English Edition c.1918 ”The Way of the Eagle”, by Charles J. Biddle, c.1919 ”Winged Warfare”, by William A. Bishop, c.1918 References: “Aircraft Mechanics Handbook”, c.1918 ”Heroes Of Aviation”, by Laurence La Tourette Driggs, c.1918 ”How To Fly”, by A. Frederick Collins, c.1918 “Learning To Fly in the U.S. Army”, by E.N. Fales, c.1917 “Practical Flying”, by W.G. McMinnies, c.1918 “The Aero Manual”, c.1909 “The German Air Force in the Great War”, by Georg Paul Neumann, c.1920 ”The Romance Of Aircraft”, by Laurence Smith, c.1919 A final note, uncleal reminded me that there are numerous links to books and videos posted in the OFF Knowledge Base, so be sure and check there as well. Cheers, Lou

Easy peasy Rickitycrate. Bring up the You Tube video you wish to save, cut and paste the URL for the video into the top bar on the KeepVid web page, which you can find here: KeepVid Then hit the "download" button and pick the format you want to save from those that appear in the downloads links list. Cheers! Lou

. Don't forget the Sam Browne! BTW, if you want an excellent WWI unifrom made to order and you have some extra cash to spend, go to these folks: Replicater's Uniforms Cheers! Lou

. Outstanding! You have a budding young author there Widowmaker, be sure to keep encouraging him. Cheers! Lou

Excellent documentary Stiffy, and a great listing of short films uncleal. Thanks for sharing Gents. Also, for those who don't know, you can use a free online website service like KeepVid to save nearly any and all You Tube videos to your computer in .flv format so you can watch them whenever you like. I just downloaded and saved all eight parts of that documentary to my own library. Cheers! Lou

' Oh the excitement, the anticipation of it all! WM, about being the first with an add-on to an add-on. I'm afraid not. The US government has been doing that for quite some time with our tax system. Cheers! Lou

. Gromit, from one former RAF 209 bomber puke to another, "Welcome to the OFF skies!" You are going to love this sim Sir, whether flying scout or B/R. It's all fantastic. Cheers! Lou

. This is all super stuff for folks like me who are interested in all historic aspects of the Great Air War, and anything that can be used as an aid in the OFF sim, well even better. I am curious how closely the drome locations on the maps you've mentioned will match up with those in the sim, as this is the issue I have been attempting to overcome with the method I described above. As time goes on I want to end up with a full set of accurate Western Front maps that show the important features accurately so that we can fly by map and compass if we choose to. So far I am about 50% done with the Armentieres/Lille AO map I pictured in my post and have not only been getting drome placements to correspond but also the large wooded areas as these are very helpful when navigating. Roads and rivers are already very close. Cheers! Lou

. Wonderful! Thanks for continuing to share these with us Stiffy. Much appreciated Sir. Cheers! Lou

Well done Stiffy. Good luck finding an original 1918 version of the DFC, it's one of the hardest to locate. You can go to this website and get a replica of the later version: Award Productions And then go to this website and purchase the 1918 replacement ribbon, (DFC 1st type): Jeremy Tenniswood Militaria Cheers! Lou

. I can appreciate the vast difficulties in attempting to get the sim landscape to match up with an historical map of the area, and I don't know that it could ever be done 100%. However, I still like to fly by map and compass, so my current procedure in OFF is as follows: I start with rabu's historical Western Front maps that he has kindly made available in the download section. I then go to my Paint.NET program and paste together the sections I need to create the AO for my current campaign pilot. I size this to 3400 x 3400 pixels with the center of my AO roughly in the center of my new cockpit map. Next, I go into the sim and use my first flight as a new pilot to snap a picture of my in-sim map and consider it one of several "Cook's Tours" of my new AO. Afterwards, I open the photo of the in-sim map in Paint.NET, crop it and resize it to fit over my new cockpit map as closely as I can, then drop it into it's own layer and make it semi-transparent so I can look through it. Now for the "adjustment" part of this trick. Because the in-sim map will not precisely fit on top of the real map you have to start at the middle and line up a major town there, then mark in the aerodromes in that vicinity in their own layer, after which you adjust up and down and left and right to the next major towns and do the same thing over each time with the aerodromes in those vicinities. When you are done you will have a preliminary cockpit map that looks something like this, (Allied dromes are blue dots, German dromes are red dots, NML is the semi-transparent dark line): Once you have your map this far you can print a copy however you choose and then mark it up with drome placement corrections, noteworthy landmarks, and the like, and in about three to four flights in your AO you will end up with an accurate map of the in-sim landscape. Yes, I know this involves a certain amount of time and effort on your part, but if you are into the immersion factor you can appreciate that this is exactly what your WWI counterpart was doing for the first several weeks he was flying about in his newly assigned area of operation. They call me MR. Anal Retentive. Cheers! Lou .

I would suggest that, if possible, the initial maps with dromes be released to the OFF community at large as soon as the first draft is done so that all those who want to make use of them can go to a specific AO and make entries and notes of not only the drome placements but also various landmarks, woods, towns, roads, etc. If we have a bunch of us doing this we will end up much sooner with accurate maps that coordinate with the OFF landscape. Just a thought. Cheers! Lou

. Amazing. I read these accounts in the award write-ups of WWI and always wonder what the individuals were feeling and thinking at the time. I also wonder what I would have done in the situation. A man's mettle is only truly tested in such fiery baptisms as these. .

Outstanding pics Rickitycrate! I never thought of using the frame with the photo tabs in it, I have that one in my photo program as well. Nice touch. I have great respect for the recce pilots and crews. They were the true unsung heros of the air war. Their lives had none of the glamour of the scout pilots, and they pulled all the worst assignments. I flew numerous recce missions during my stint in the USAF many years ago, and even in nice, cozy, modern aircraft those very long flights sucked. And then when a hostile intercept aircraft painted you for an A2A, (in my case just to scare the living hell out of you, which it did), well that adds a whole new dimension to the term "sucks". But I can only imagine what it must have been like to sit in an open cockpit for several hours, in all kinds of weather, at low altitude so you could get good photos, and staying nice and level and slow so those photos wouldn't be blurred, (which of course made you one big fat target for every gunner on the ground and every enemy scout in the air). Gutsy. Cheers! Lou

rabu, I have flown the Strutter 1 1/2 a fair bit and find it an excellent all-around plane to bomb and fight with. If you are going up against the early enemy scouts such as the EIII and Halb you can keep up with either in a fight. However, as others have noted, your AI rear gunner is likely a better shot, so try and give him as many opportunities to fire as you can. Watch out when fighting the enemy B/R's though, they are much more of a challenge than the early scouts. The Strutter works well as a dive bomber due to the operable dive brakes and that is the method I use the most when flying this kite. But you will need to practice to find your own style. I still prefer the life of the B/R pilot, but then I'm a glutton for punishment. Cheers! Lou

. "This is worse than the time I installed Windows ME." ...that's the one that caused me to snorkel my coffee...

. The Pup is without a doubt the most even-tempered kite you will ever fly and fight in. She forgives even the most ham-fisted pilots and makes them look like aces. If you can't fly a Pup and look like Commander Joe Fall doing it, you may be in the wrong sim Cheers! Lou

TKS for the correction Olham. As to the Methuen color chart, that is still being sold in book form for $700 plus, so as copyrighted material you are only going to find bits and pieces of it online but not likely the complete charts. Don't know about the Munsell charts. However, here are a few links I have found useful in the past: MisterKit Colors Urban's Color Reference Charts (check the Italy chart for a few Methuen cross-references) The Mother Of All Color Charts Cheers! Lou

. You're more than welcome Olham. BTW, I checked my copy of Bob Pearson's "AIRCRAFT COLOURS AND MARKINGS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR ERA", (an outstanding CD that should be in everyone's WWI aircraft library, IMHO), and found the following profiles of the E.V's. Also, here is some paint info on the E.V as well, (again from Windsock Date File #25): Cheers! Lou .

. B-E-A-U-tiful Rickitycrate! Well done Sir. WM, I rather like that D7 of yours. Quite neat. Baldric, nice montage Sir. The graininess of the main pic gives a good effect. Cheers! Lou

. I assumed as much when I was looking through the chart of when the aircraft were built and accepted. After a bit more digging I can find nothing that indicates any official DVIII victories for WWI. I did come across a post by Dan-San over at The Aerodrome in which he notes just that, and if Dan-San can't find any confirmed reports, there likely aren't any the rest of us are going to run across, unless it's in a shoe box somewhere in someone's attic. I for one have no such shoe box. Cheers! Lou

. HW, according to Grozs the only documented victory with a DVIII was by Lt. Emil Rolff of Jasta 6 on August 17, 1918. But it is my understanding that there were anywhere from 8 to 10 in the Fokker E.V's which were issued before the DVIII and are, technically, a different plane. Jasta 6 claimed seven victories with the E.V in August alone. And, because of the issue dates of the aircraft it looks to me like Rolff's victory was also flying an E.V. It may well be that there were no DVIII victories in WWI. Cheers! Lou

Glad to help OvS. I have more if you need it Sir. The P.M. Grozs DVIII write-up in Windsock #25 is rich with info. For instance, he notes that several Marine Feld jastas tried out the DVIII's late in the war, and has a couple of photos of the III MF and I MF planes, if I remember correctly. Cheers! Lou