NS13Jarhead

After a couple of years' diversion with Dragon Age, Witcher, and Civ V and VI, I've decided to pick up the joystick once more. I bought WOFF UE a while ago, played it a bit and eventually got distracted with the aforementioned games. I just fired it up again and patched from 4.11 to 4.17. Now I've got to relearn all the keymapping that I had set up - muscle memory, you know. On the first mission, I mistakenly enlisted in a DH2 squadron outside of London. Good for re-learning how to fly, but pretty lousy for re-learning how to dogfight. I just retired after a 45 minute out-and-in flight (couldn't remember how to quit a mission) and reenlisted to a squadron in Flanders. Can't wait to see what happens. Of course, this all may come to a crashing halt if/when Mechwarrior V comes out...

Gentlemen, I'm back! I just ordered, downloaded, and installed UE. I had been offline since upgrading to a new machine a while ago when my OFF BH&H didn't make it due to a Win10 failure of the Saitek X45 joystick. So I just relegated the whole WWI flying thing to the dustbin. Well, I've finally gotten everything back in order, with a new, Thrustmaster 4 and a Samsung SSD. In the interim, I have been checking in on the OBD website as well as here, and I saw the Christmas sale. Now I'm just trying to get my skills back and I'll be clearing the skies over Flanders in no time.

Going through pilot survival training at Eglin AFB, Florida, my crew and I caught, killed, and ate one of the little buggers. We divvied it up, boiled it and then cooked the pieces over a small campfire. After three days without food, you will eat just about anything. BTW, it tastes like pork.

...or having someone explain how to play cricket and how much fun it is (and why does a game take three days?)

A salute to our mates Down Under

Luckily, my transmitter/receiver is still unbroken, but I do have the reflector stapled to a baseball cap.

Welcome aboard! Sounds like you're taking this flying seriously. I don't know if you can go through the mission recap before filling out the claims (I don't think that you can). But pausing and writing down all the details really helps. If you really want to get a shock to your system - fly BHaH for a while and then fire up plain old vanilla CFS3. You won't believe they're the same game engine!

Well, the balloon IS full of hot air...

Asa Butterfield did an amazing job in "Hugo" and I can't wait to see how he does in the title role in "Ender's Game" when it comes out in November. Since Hauksbee's script is still on the drawing board, there is time for this kid to age into the role. Interesting coincidence is that he was born 100 years after Voss, so if you start filming in 2016 or 2017, he'll be exactly the right age!

For some reason I got rid of all my Amiga disks when I got rid of my 1986-era 1stGen Amiga (256 kb RAM +256 kb expansion +2mb StarBoard, 13" monitor, 2400 baud modem), but didn't unload all my PC disks when I deep-sixed the 3.5" disk drive in favor of CDs then DVDs then Thumbdrives and now external 1TB harddrives.

I suppose it does. Funny thing is that I've got all these 3.5" diskettes (at least 50 of them), but havent' had a 3.5" drive my computers in about 10 years! I had completely forgotten about them until you posted this thread. Maybe it's finally time to dump these things.

Let's talk hoarding. You guys see if you can beat this...

I'm just replying the way my kids would have. They want them all and couldn't choose, so they try to pick all three. Honestly, if I try to think like a 5-year old, the greatest number would pick the rabbits and/or iPods.

5 iPad 5 Rabbit 5 Bike 5 All three

The WWI game, Toy Soldiers, has the Tsar tank in it. I thought it was fictional until I saw some other articles on it:

Merry Christmas, all!

Here in northern Virginia, they've closed just about everything, including schools, the subway (Metro) and the Federal Government. Lucky for me I telecommute, so as long as I've got power, I get to go to work regardless of the weather.

Thanks, Olham, I'll give that a try. And speaking of spices, it's time for me to whip up a couple of batches of my family's new autumn favorite - Olham's Berliner Mandelbrot!

If you think it's too quiet, we could always ask Uncleal to start a conversation to stir things up a bit.

Hey, Bullethead, What's the longest hose run you've had to do when fighting a fire? Up here we just had one that took 1,700 feet to draw water into the pumper. Firefighters were called to the home in the 8400 block of Piney Avenue at 3:40 p.m. to find a fire in the basement, said Prince William fire and rescue Battalion Chief John Shiflett. The fire extended into the home’s first floor before firefighters could extinguish it, officials said. Damage estimates are currently unknown. The three occupants home at the time got out safely before firefighters arrived. The home sits off a series of one-lane gravel roads in a secluded and hilly neighborhood. Because there were no fire hydrants close to the home, Shiflett said firefighters had to utilize a rural water supply and about 1,700 feet of hose to provide water for their fire attack.

I don't know about how it's percieved on the east side of the Atlantic, but over here on the west side, we're deep into the middle of the 150 year commemoration of our American Civil War. We don't celebrate it so much as we try to have rememberance for it. I live about 10 miles from Manassas, where the first major land battle (1st Manassas/Bull Run) was fought in 1861 and we just passed the 150th anniversary of Antietam/Sharpsburg this September. We will be having the big Gettysburg commemoration in July of next year. There are quite a few reenactment groups who dress up as Union and Confederate soldiers and line up to recreate the battle as much as possible with a fraction of the personnel who were actually involved. These are private organizations who fund themselves and do it out of a love of history. I think the most important thing they do, however, is to set up living history displays before and after the battle reenactments where they show the general public their meticulously fabricated replica uniforms, weapons, and even food. It seems that people forget how it was 15 years ago, let alone 150. So it does give some of us a chance to actually visualiize what the conditions and mindset were like when the battles were fought and maybe, in some small measure, provides an understanding into the hardships they endured.

Oh, no, no, no. I may be a little off kilter, but not crazy enough to run into a burning building. I had enough excitement in the Marines, I don't need more now that I'm retired. I just pulled that story off the local news. The neighborhood where they had the fire is on the way to my kid's school.

Bullethead, It sounds like you and your firetruck have responded to more than one tinfoil hat+microwave "experiments".

See, global warming DOES have its uses.

Flyby, Who knows why they came up with that idea? It might have been that they felt the wings were not strong enough and were worried about the torque stress on the wings if they mounted them out there. Or maybe they didn't trust that both would keep running for the whole mission and if one failed, it'd rip the airframe apart. Counter-rotating blades have been used on helicopters to cancel out torque effects, so maybe that's what they were thinking 40 years too early. In any event, I'd love to see the rationale of the design board. The plane obviously had many features that were ahead of its time.