Flyby PC

Excellent. Thanks guys.

Why did Cliff Richard suddenly spring to mind? Chistmas time, Mistletoe and wine... Lets hope we don't get a Christmas release, and they keep him locked up til afterwards. (Sorry Cliff if you're visiting. No hard feelings eh?) OT at Hauksbee or anybody German, does the word Panzer mean anything other than a tank? I mean did the word exist before tanks were invented, or was it invented when they were? The English work tank is reportedly derived from the crates of 'secret weapons' shipped to France as marked as water tanks, and the name just stuck.

I kept the faith with the guys who drive the bus and knew they'd sort it out, but it was odd for a down site. No error messages or codes or anything, just a plain white screen. I feared a hacker too, but I'm glad it's under control.

That's totally cool with me Erik. We're all just having a chuckle...... Aren't we?

Separation anxiety.... Separation anxiety.... Separation anxiety.... ..... and relax. Well done Admin. Sterling effort!

What I like best about Herons is them being there. When I was a kid, seeing a heron at all was a "Stop the car! Stop the car! There's a Heron!" type incident. To see them so common now is a grand thing to see, and says a lot about the local water quality of our rivers. Not before time. I wouldn't say they were common yet, but otters are making a comeback too. I've got some phone clips, but they're not very clear. They are otters I promise, but they're so fuzzy people won't believe me, and say they are Loch Ness Monsters which just look like otters. It's amazing what you see when people stop killing stuff off. Buzzards, Badgers, Peregrins, Kingfishers, I've seen them all, but 30 years ago you'd never see any of them.

I kind of have... kind of.... In the Borders, we have the Common Riding, where you might have 200 horsemen (on the big rideouts) riding the local boundaries. There's no massed charges, but you'll filter through a gate and take off in a group of 20 or 30 horses, and yes it is a superb feeling, made all the better because the crowds cheer you on! Been a while since I followed, back when I was 14 actually... [YouTube] [\YouTube]

The problem with art, is you may die happy but hungry. Very often nothing sells your work better than being dead. It's the difference between stonemasonry and sculpture, a technical journal and a work of literature, illustration and art. One strives to reach the pinnacle of technical accuracy and is governed by rules, and definitive rights and wrongs. For example, if you have two masons working side by side churning out yard after yard of cornice, to be considered competent work, never mind good, the stones should be identical and you should not be able to tell which mason did which. The other original and creative side strives to conquer your emotions and lift your level of awareness to the world around you. They do overlap from time to time, but only rarely come together as one. If a sculptor does a carving, it's a one of original piece of work. If a mason does a carving, he should be on a wage to do it, not a commission, and be readily able to do two carvings exactly the same, four the same, a mirror image of the same carving, the same carving half the size, or the exact same carving but done ten years later etc. It's a technical discipline. Technical accuracy and getting things right every time is the essence of computer software, so it's not hard to see why it thrives, - but it's a sterile type of knowledge, and no threat to artistic creativity..... not yet at least. Those paintings I remember? I couldn't describe a single one of them, or even detail what was in the images for you any more than I already have. Warships and menace. It's the powerful emotions it stirred in me which have stayed the course for 27 years. That's art. ....And that's the problem with art, 27 years of value didn't cost me a penny. The value isn't in the ownership.

I don't fully agree Shiloh, when the right piece of art resonates with somebody's personal taste, you really can't beat the result. It doesn't happen very often, but the effect lasts a long time when it does. When I went to Art College, er, 27 years ago (yikes) there was an art student there who painted warships, but very darkly and his pictures were filled with menace. They've haunted me ever since, - in a good way. If i wasn't a skint student myself, I'd have bought the lot. Art gets tough when it comes up against photo-reality / illustration, and good digital software, but there's still no substitute for creativity and originality. I imagine a great many painters put away their brushes when photography was invented. There are parallels with stonework. I'm a stonemason, and when I carve things, it isn't art, its a technical professional service, even though such work is very often done to a better technical standard than most artistic carving. But when you see really good sculpture, or some piece of exquisite artistic carving, it has that spark of vitality which makes it unique and 'special' and transcends the technical merits of the artist. There is a lot of rubbish out there too, but I'm talking about the genuine good stuff...

You know something, I really don't want to disrespect Steve Anderson, and I do appreciate a craftsman and artist at work, but I find it very hard not to compare images like these to our OFF screenshots, and find my personal preference drawn to the latter. I swear, that isn't a swipe at the artistry, just recognition how high OFF has set the bar for realism and general ambience. You need to make allowances of course because you're not comparing like with like, and you get a third dimension in OFF which you can't possibly replicate on paper, but OFF does look mighty fine. Every frame has artistry all through it, it's only the composition you need to add.

Sorry Pol. Done it again. No defence. I just have really short attention sp

Well, good question with some of us, but when it comes to making fake video clips, I think humanity has a comfortable lead on the monkeys. It's funny Elephant, I thought the same thing, and was going to ask if this was budget version of the new film, and the chimp was Ceasar from the new Planet of the Apes film, given an AK47 instead of the cure for alhzeimers. Then I wondered if it was the new Trunk Monkey advert. (I'd recommend hunting those down on Youtube if you fancy a chuckle). [YouTube] [\YouTube]

@ Hauksbee - Class! :rofl:

I agree HW and Olham. I can easily imagine the observer asking his armourer whether it was possible to mount a gun to cover the rear, and the armourer then discussing the problem with the fabricators and technicians in the workshop to devise a way of doing it with the materials they had to hand. If it wasn't quite right first time, no big problem to develop a better solution. I expect the armourer earned himself a beer for doing it too. I'm also assuming there were armourers and fabricators etc, termed by what they did if not by their formal title.

To go OT a little bit, when I look at WW1 aircraft, I find some very ugly, and others look superb, but very often, you cannot tell just by looking at it, what makes a good aircraft. I wouldn't say they all look the same, but visually, I find it's very hard to pick out the exceptional aircraft from the 'also rans'. I find myself lacking the visual vocabulary to judge power, strength, speed and stability from photo's. Say for example those WW2 Hurricane pilots seeing a Spitfire arrive, I can see at once why they would be grinning. But would I be blown away the first time I saw my first SE5? I might feel a lot better once I'd flown it, but visually? .....

I was at work when the news broke, and having come through about 4 or 5 re-tellings, at first we understood there had been a plane crash over an American city involving 2 aircraft. We all assumed this was a mid-air collision over a built up area. It was a couple of hours later when we started to see the pics and understand the terrorist nature of it. I hate to say I was shocked, because that's exactly the reaction the terrorist scum planned for and wanted us to have, but more than shocked, I was very, very angry. I am fairly removed from 9-11, I lost no family, nor knew any victims, but in ten years, I find my feelings haven't mellowed at all, and I am no closer to forgiveness now than I was in the immediate aftermath. I am not driven by an appetite for revenge, and I bear no ill will towards the innocent, Muslim or whatever religion, but forgiveness for those who wanted this to happen? Nope. Still escapes me. I also think the USA has dealt with 9-11 with extraordinary dignity, maturity, and restraint. No country should have to deal with such obscene barbarity. When you cut away all the media hysterity, all the conspiracy theorists, all the crap about ground zero, and the occassional military mistakes made in the Gulf, you are still left with a grieving country full of very decent and responsible people trying to do the right thing, and no different from ourselves. In contrast, I cannot understand the mindset of any Muslim extremist who can look upon 9-11 as something positive or justified in any way. I cannot reconcile those despicable and cowardly actions with any motivation other than absolute evil. To attach anything positive to 9-11 is no evidence of devout faith, but to my mind, which I strive to keep objective, such 'beliefs' are symptomatic of a dangerous mental infirmity. What 'God' would not be ashamed to have 9-11 commited in his name?

If the pole was straight, I reckon it would be very difficult to aim the weapon and stay in the nacelle. It's a hairy enough task as it is, without having to lean so far back. You're always told to 'take command' of a weapon, as in have a firm grasp and have it completely under control when firing. You would need to have your feet planted, and be able to twist your body to fire it effectively. Many machine guns have a tendency to jump about or pull away off target. Accuracy is more tricky. It isn't the primary function of a machine gun to put all it's rounds in the exact same spot, but rather deliver a cluster of bullets in the location of the target with a 'general' grouping so you are more likely to hit something critical. That's not to say you can be sloppy about targetting, but you need both yourself and the weapon firm so you can maintain or adjust your line of fire when it is on target. It would be interesting to know how effective these gunners were in terms of kills. I know Jimmy McCudden once famously drove off Max Immelman with his gunnery skills, but I wonder how common an occurance this actually was. Even then, McCudden was apparently holding the weopon into his shoulder, without using it's mount. No mean feat, but hardly a vote of confidence for the typical gunnery mounts - or am I reading too much into it?. And looking at Pol's pic, I'd say with some confidence that gunner looks to be standing on his seat.

Thin ice, and not sure of my facts, but I think the Go 299 was very close to entering service, -as in complete aircraft were found on the ground by advancing allied troops.

I liked the look of the Crimson Skies Demo, but my PC at the time didn't have the spec to run it. I've never seen the game Olham, but I did quite like the film. The plot was a bit cheesey, but I liked the 1920's / pre-war theme of it all, very stylish.

No, I just wondered about the date, and whether it was an earlier attempt to air launch fighters than the Macon.

I notice in Olhams second pic that the pilot has a third machine gun. "Gunner, get on your feet and man that top gun !.... Or else". Kidding aside, I assume this third gun is standby firepower if the gunner was incapacitated. Hope the gunner had ear defenders. I can't help wondering if these gunners developed a unique espirit de corps similar to the WW2 'Tail End Charlies", who manned the rear turrets of the bombers and didn't enjoy great life expectancy.

I can't find the post, but wasn't it you Hawksbee who posted the image of the soviet fighters bolted onto a 'mother' aircraft? It wasn't that long ago, but I can't remember the thread.

Just reading a bit more about WW1. I had always assumed, indeed read, that many distinguished pilots began their war as soldiers fighting in the trenches. I had always assumed that the oppressive and dangerous life in the trenches played no small part in wanting to sign up for the air force. I'd never read before that following the French mutinys of 1917, French morale remained very low, and by 1918, there were so few volunteers for flight training that they had to be 'pressed' into the air force from servicemen would have preferred to join the infantry, cavalry, or artillery. Anybody know if this was just a French phenomenon, or by 1918 were other air forces struggling to find recruits too? I had always assumed that anybody serving in the trenches would have swapped his miserable lot as an infantryman for the glamour and prestige of becomming a pilot. (I'm reading Rickenbacker's Fighting the Flying Circus).

Better that than a finishing school for girls. For you the humiliation would be unbearable. Thanks for that Lou. Never looked at it that way before, but you might be on to something. One common outlook I have on life in general is fk it, what can possibly go wrong? I just reckon to be sitting there in a trench waist deep in rancid mud in the cold and rain with artillery, machine guns, and snipers all trying to kill you, a significant number of the things which possibly could go wrong already have.

Wow! ..... and can you imagine actually standing up to fire that rear facing machine gun? I mean really doing it, in the air with the wind and aircraft swinging about. I'm getting vertigo just thinking about it.