Flyby PC

This is impossible. Every time I think of classic, another one pops in my head. There you go, there's another one - Gonna Write a Classic, Adrien Gurvitz.. But, for all my actual favourite might flip from song to song, throughout my life, whenever I've compiled cassette tapes of my favourites or playlists on an ipod, the one song which is always in the list is Teenage Kicks by the Undertones.

Of course, a tourist stopping in the middle of the road to take a photo adds another layer of danger too. From a little experience driving in China, all you need for a traffic jam are two lorry drivers. The concept of right of way, or waiting for someone else to go first, just doesn't exist. That's not being cheeky, it's true. Even on a slip lane, traffic will not wait for a gap, out they come in front of you and you'd better hope your brakes work. What starts with two lorries meeting face to face quickly turns into 8 lorries face to face, with no room for anything to get past, and no room for anyone to reverse. Nobody will move until the cops turn up and start to issue fines. A traffic jam can last a day or two, but I think the record is 11 days, with hundreds of vehicles. Anybody who knows China will know I'm not kidding. They are quite, quite mad. (mad as in daft, not angry). I wasn't sure whether they physically didn't know how to reverse their vehicles, they weren't exactly brilliant going forwards, (and nearly all lorries looked 50 ton jobs had massive 30 ton trailers too), or whether it was just a battle of nerves as to who should be first to crack and move their vehicle to let somebody else get passed. No doubt a little of both. No road rage anywhere, just good natured, well mannered insanity. Quite surreal really. Funny when you're a tourist on a motorbike. Edit - not my pic, but yup, that's China for you.... Yeah, that'll be fine, just needs a little bit more on the front....

Clearly my knowledge is a bit out of date too, but thanks for the advice guys.

No secret TSmoke. To make link you need to write the following sentence, nothing clever, just type it in as text but pay attention to the symbols. Start off with a bracket [ Then Type YouTube. Close the bracket. That should look like [Youtube] Thats the first part done, called the opening stanza. Next, you take the complete address for the youtube film you want to link. Include the www. bit. Usually I just right click the whole address bar, copy and paste. Be careful here - One thing to watch is that you link the correct page. If you see something like +feature related, or search, or querie or something, that means you're not linking to an actual film but a search result, which includes the film you want, but more besides. For example - is fine, but http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cfs3+lancaster&aq=f won't work. It links to more than one video. Get it? So, you now have your opening stanza, your youtube link, all you have to do now is your closing stanza, which is the same Youtube text in an other pair of brackets, with one additional symbol. Type [ then type forward slash / then youtube, then close the brackets. I can't type the actual text or it wouldn't appear, so instead of brackets I shall type *. *YouTube*http:the link address*/Youtube* Job done. Or should be... Is that clear enough to follow?

Naaaa, na, na, na, nananana, naaaa, na, na, na, na, nananana....... Dambusters. I quite like the soundtrack to the Bourne Supremacy too. "It's easy. She's standing right beside you". Classic. Also like Hans Zimmer, mostly for Gladiator, but his name keeps cropping up when I hear something and wonder who wrote it.... Except sometimes it's Zimmer, sometimes Zimmerman. (Zimmer is correct, Zimmerman's an Architect). OT, did you know that the haunting voice which runs as a theme throughout Gladiator was Lisa Gerrard, and that after Gladiator she was contacted by Denez Prigent, and the two of them worked together on the very different but equally haunting 'Gortoz a ran - J'attends' which runs as a theme through Black Hawk Down, another cracking Ridley Scott Film with a Zimmer score. Very different sounds, but both grab you the same way and add layer after layer to their respective films, but curiously, they are harder to listen to as music without the film. Weird. Lord of the Rings has it's moments too, soprano/castratti moments, but lets not go there....

I haven't seen the question asked, but that's not to say it hasn't been, so apologies if this is old ground.... I had a thought occur, but don't know if it can happen. You know when take damage, with labels on, your see "So & So has damaged your wingtip" or whatever, I haven't been aware of any way to check this data, either in flight or on the ground. It rattles up the screen too fast to read and once it's gone, it's gone forever. Would it be possible to find where this data is kept, and devise a way to add it into the post mission debriefing so that you could see how much damage you sustained during the mission? See how many hits you took. Perhaps made conditional on getting home alive. Going to feel stupid now if we can do this already, but if not, do think it's possible?

Thanks gents, but thats not 100% what I mean. I mean those lines of red text which describe the damage you're getting as it happens, literally bullet by bullet. Clearly the game is recording that damage somewhere line by line, and I wondered whether that might be recovered, and put into a post mission debrief. I don't believe we can do it at the moment, but if the information is in there, somewhere, and I wondered if the OBD Masters of Invention might be able to bring it out. I imagine if I was a pilot and made it home after an intense flight, I'd be crawling all over my plane to count the near misses, if only to be sure they all get fixed...

I remember Sky Movies was it? had this advert which showed some movie film hanging on a line, with a deep voice saying "somewhere,.... a crime is being commited". At that point a big pair of shears snipped the films in two. I was never sure whether this was intended to stick two fingers up to ad breaks or BBC censorship, probably both. (Sky movies didn't have ad breaks or censorship). I hate censorship, unless its to stop kids seeing stuff they shouldn't, but it's more because of who does the censoring than the censorship itself. I'll be damned if the same people who consider the daily barrage of soap operas as fit entertainment for my viewing pleasure should be considered in any way fit to judge what I may or may not watch on TV. The antithesis of censorship is piracy, and with the internet at it's disposal, my money is on the pirates, but only for now. It's a ying yang thing. I like Fallout 3, very much, and I think it's better than New Vegas, mostly because I'm a BoS kid at heart. I like the wilderness and madness better too. Having said that F3 was always going to be a tough act to follow, but I found myself not really liking anybody. I won't spoil it for anybody, but when I came across a BoS bunker I couldn't get into without a key, I knew my friends were out there..... Like I said, I won't spoil it.

I don't have Facebook or Twitter or any other social network connections. We had a big year school reunion a few years ago when we all turned 40. That was good enough for me. I get occassional emails requesting people to become friends on my Facebook account, which is very clever because I don't have one. Binned as spam I'm afraid, legit or otherwise. For about 0.3 seconds I worried about identity theft and somebody pretendeding to be me, but I realised that's exactly what I was supposed to think and sign up to check. I'll sign up if and when I want to, but I have no immediate plans.... Don't know if it's a guilty conscience or anti-social tendancy, but I also won't take a call from anyone who screens their number. It's rude, but so are they. It's like somebody trying to speak to me while wearing a mask. That means it's either a mugger, the Lone Ranger or the Bank. .

I'm quite relaxed Olham, but like I said, I have a small niggle when sources, typically US sources, run down Montgomery. He had his faults, not denying it, but much of the criticism levelled at him isn't fair or accurate. Just mention the name Montgomery and see the ignorant bile and ridicule it prompts, even after nearly 70 years. He delivered victory after victory, and while criticised repeatedly for his caution, that caution saved many many allied lives. Everybody knows about El Alamein, but by then, the British had overwhelming superiority and victory all but assured before the battle began. Less is known about the battle of Alam Halfa, when Montgomery and Rommel first crossed swords. Both sides were then of very similar strength, and Montgomery's tactics were much superior to Rommels, and he won a striking victory. He was criticised at the time for not crushing Rommel in his retreat, but Mongomery had been reinforced with large numbers of green troops brought in from Alexandria, who were competent to hold ground, and lacked experience of mobile armoured warfare in the desert. Rommels weakness had been his inattention to his stretched supply lines, and Montgomery didn't repeat the error, but instead built up the strength of his forces to deliver the more famous victory two months later. That's what you do if you want to win the war, not just the battle. Montgomery was also slated by Bradley and Patten for his failure to break out of Normandy during operation Market Garden. The perception is that Mongomery planned Market Garden to breakout of Normandy in parrallel with the US Operation Cobra, but when it failed, he claimed it was just a diversionary attack to hold German armour and prevent it reinforcing the German lines against Cobra. That wasn't the case. Taking Caen was planned originally, but after a review of German strength against them, prior to the 'off' the brits had greatly reduced their objectives. The didn't expect to break out. The Brits and Canadians at Market Garden faced 3 armoured divisions, including 1 and 12 SS Panzer Divisions, 21st Panzer Division, 2 heavy tank battalions with King Tigers, all backed with 4 seasoned infantry divisions, including the Panzer Lehr Division and 1SS Division Liebstandarte Adolph Hitler. Both the Germans and the British saw Caen as the linchpin to their defence strategy, and reinforced it accordingly. To quote the famous Wikipedia, (so check the facts yourself)..., "......reinforced the German view that the British and Canadian forces on the Allied eastern flank were the most dangerous enemy. This resulted in the Axis committing their reserves to the eastern half of the battle, so the United States forces only faced one and a half Panzer divisions compared with the six and a half now facing the British and Canadian armies". I'm not attacking the US nor seeking to belittle them in any way whatsoever, I'm just defending Monty, but the truth is he is a 'one of' and I don't think anybody else could have done what he did. Take Monty out of the equation, and the outcome of a number of important battles could very easily have been different. With all due respect to him, I'm not so sure the same could be said for Patton. I actually think the US had much better generals than Patton, any one of whom could have delivered the same if not more, and without all the fuss.

I'm not impressed. No Battle of the Atlantic? No Norwegian campaign? No Dieppe? No St Nazaire? No Blitz? Malta? North Africa also isn't in Europe. Clue is in the title. Sorry, I'm all for better education, but this looks like a B- school project to me. And a small personal gripe is Kasserine Pass, and in particular why it is never mentioned that it was Montgomery's British infantry and artillery, including the Coldstream Guards, which supported the Americans and held the line to turn back Rommels advance and thus prevent a serious US reverse becomming a complete rout. I have no doubt such events would bug the hell out of Patton, who only took over II Corps after the damaging lessons were learned, and give Mongomery DUE cause to lack confidence in US capacity to fight UNTIL MORE EXPERIENCED, - the consequences of which burning resentment we are all more familiar with.... That's not an attack on Amercia, nor flag waving the Union Jack, there's no bigotry or criticism of US troops intended, it's just history, and simply reflects the difference between troops with experience in battle who happened to be British, French or German, and those yet to become experienced who happened to be US, - have the confidence to tell it like it is please. It's only yourselves whom you misinform. Your allies are your friends. As Churchill said, the only thing worse than fighting a war with allies is fighting a war without them.

I thought about this, not for OFF, but flying night fighter missions in my Mossie. I wanted to bounce enemies and see them react so I could get close enough to id them visually before opening fire. I had to cheat, and make them friendlies, which let you approach, but didn't react to your attack. I got to thinking, obviously, when you damage a target, you affect how it flies. Naturally, the more damaged it becomes the less able to fly it becomes. Now thinking out the box, if you can alter a planes characteristics by hitting it, couldn't you enhance it's performance, rather than damage it? I'm thinking of a full enemy AI fighter, but it's default manoureability in flight is very restricted UNTIL it gets damaged. One or two hits are sufficient to alter the flight model, making it better, or rather back to the default. That way, your target would appear to be distracted, letting you sneak up, but put a couple of rounds in him and he 'wakes up' to evade you like a demon. In reality, he still sees you coming, but his flight model won't let him evade until he takes a little damage. Follow me? I thought hard about it in CFS3, but it only solves half the problem. The tail gunners still see you in the dark from a mile out. No good. I think it's doable, but I don't know enough about flight models to have a go myself, but now the subject has been raised .....

I can never understand why so much time and effort goes into the minute detail of appearance of authentic aircraft, only to get the physics of flight so wrong. I try to forgive them, and say that a real dogfight would not make good cinema, but I'm sure they could do better. For a movie, you want to see the narrative, things like the enemy on the tail of the hero, being caught by the hero's wing man etc, - which means you need to visually identify three different aircraft at the same time. In real life, at least one of those aircraft would be a dot, and the chances of all three being in the same frame for more than half a second are slight. If you slow everything down so the audience can keep up with whats happening, you lose the urgency of the action. If you think about it, next time you have a dogfight, try to describe what happened. It's very difficult, because it is never far from chaos. So what occurs is careful composition of shots with slower interaction between aircraft, with the background kept very dynamic. You'll see the victims of movie dogfights are quite static, when in reality they would be evading like crazy, but you couldn't keep it in frame and you wouldn't know one was being hit.. I think we get spoiled because we have such a good sim, and actually 'take part' in the battles. When we expose ourselves to dogfights, we engage much more than our eyes. A lot of us use trackir, and put ourself in the middle of a real (but make believe) 3d world. That doesn't happen at the movies, you have to take in the information from one viewpoint. Visually, realism would not look as good, nor would it carry the story. Watching a movie is like using tracker, zoomed in, with tunnel vision. So even in 3d movies, wherever there is a narrative point to showing a dogfight, I think we should get used to crappy dogfight sequences. To watch it for real, little dots in a big blue canvas wouldn't tell the story. Just my tuppenceworth. I have the horrible feeling that the way we knowingly criticise dogfights in the movies might be the same reaction that real pilots have to our simulated dogfights. That's not to criticise the simulators, but there is no substitute for the real thing. Everything else is pale by comparison. So I reckon, it's never going to look correct, but I hope it might look a little more correct than it typically does. It may not be perfect yet, but it's better than B of B's plastic stukas on a string. (Which funny enough doesn't bother me).

Combat fatigue , also called battle fatigue, or shell shock, a neurotic disorder caused by the stress involved in [/url]war. This anxiety-related disorder is characterized by (1) hypersensitivity to stimuli such as noises, movements, and light accompanied by overactive responses that include involuntary defensive jerking or jumping (startle reactions), (2) easy irritability progressing even to acts of violence, and (3) sleep disturbances including battle dreams, nightmares, and inability to fall asleep.... Back in WW1, mental frailty was not something you would talk about. You'd pull yourself together and pretend it didn't exist. There were more than one courageous veterans from the trenches shot for cowardice just because they'd seen too much of war and just couldn't handle it any more. It isn't depression, it's something different unique to war and repeated exposure to danger. I'm not saying MVR was aflicted with combat fatigue, but bad dreams concerning your own mortality are a recognised symptom. (Recognised now, - not in WW1). A full nervous breakdown might not be a sudden thing, there might be an extended period leading up to it when someones judgement might be impaired or his reasoning flawed. Don't misunderstand me, that isn't an attack or criticism, just an observation. I don't know if MVR was impaired at all in any way, but after all the action he'd seen, it wouldn't be at all surprising if he was. It's not an accusation of cowardice or frailty. As I recall from my own reading, there was a marked change in MVR's disposition after his head wound. And if I'd been shot in the head, I doubt I'd be over it in 9 months. I broke my nose once and couldn't stand having anything anywhere near it for about 18 months. I do understand you JFM, 100%. Things just happen, men get killed in battle and it's just as simple as that. You pull yourself together, stiff upper lip, and carry on.... just like they did in 1918.

I'm not a believer in premonitions. They're only premonitions if they come true. The millions of premonitions which don't come true are quickly forgotten about. I don't believe MVR had a premonition, but he was only human, and like many others, the longer he survived, the less time he had left. It's not a premonition, just the uncomfortable recognition you've been living on borrowed time and your luck will run out sooner or later. It's a symptom of combat fatique, with a level of survivors guilt thrown in when you've lost so many of your good friends. It is the natural reaction. He had also survived his head wound by then, and even if he was fully recovered, (and I emphasise the if), a bullet in the head is a shocking reminder of your own mortality. I don't believe he knew his end was coming, just recognised the ever increasing likelihood that it was. His technical skill might not diminish, but living with the emotional stress might be something else. It might even have been the success itself which compounded his dread. It isn't a pleasant thing to live with killing so many men. Who can say what was in his mind. Fate will have its way regardless.

Drooling for more. That's excellent. About time for a new desktop I think. I always wonder about the cockpit in all pusher types. I can't decide whether I'd love having the best seat in the house, or fill my boots before every mission to be so exposed, cold and vulnerable. I feel the same about later planes with the glass noses, the spectacle of flight, any flight, must have been something to see. You'd never look at the world the same way ever again. Can you imagine flying over the trenches? It would blow my tiny mind, that's for sure.

Have you tried the CFS3 forum Shred? I'm not sure if they old faces still go there, but I'm sure some of the British contingent live quite nearby and would be happy to reconnoitre for whatever you might be looking for. I forget who it was, but there was a regular based at Biggin Hill. Be worth a punt anyway. Even the other lads based further North were air-minded chaps anyway and may have been to see the collection anyway. I seem to recall either Beau Brummie or NSS posting good quality pics, but for the life of me I can't remember if it was Duxford or the Shuttleworth, but I think NSS had the Shuttleworth. It was a while ago now.....

Learned a little more - My father was with No3 Anti Aircraft Co-operation Unit based in Hal Far, Malta. I always got confused about what he did, because he was definitely in the RAF, but whenever Swordfish flew, they flew as part of the Fleet Air Arm, as in Naval aviators. Now, I think I've got this right, but can somebody confirm this? - In WW1, you had the RFC Royal Flying Corps, which later became the RAF, Royal Air Force, but you also had RNAS, Royal Naval Air Service. Now, the RNAS also became part of the RAF, but somehow, the identity of a naval air service persisted with the formation of the Fleet Air Arm of the RAF in 1924, because the Fleet Air Arm reverted to Admiralty control in 1939. But when I say reverted to Admiralty control, the FAA had never actually been under Admiralty control, not since it existed as the RNAS? Have I got that right? I could never understand why my dad in the RAF would be flying about in Navy planes. He has about 140 flights in his log book, all in Swordfish, but sometimes float Swordfish, and I do recall seeing pictures of Swordfish float planes being hoisted abour ships, and being confused all over again. I think I have it now, because No.3 AACU was indeed an RAF squadron, based in Hal Far Malta, and flew RAF Swordfish from 1937 to 1939, until the Fleet Air Arm was re-established, and the Swordfish went to sea due to their suitability as carrier based recon/ torpedo bombers. I think if my father had stayed with Swordfish, he'd have had to join the Navy as part of the Fleet Air Arm, but he stayed with the RAF, and somehow ended up in Burma. That means all his flying experience was pre-war, and that he didn't actually fly during the war at all. It still seems odd, because he had 160 hours logged of a variety of missions, ranging from HF for Army or Naval Artillery, (I think the HF stands for Height Finding), recon patrols, searchlight co-operation, spotting for various ships (references to HMS Hood and Glorious, Glorious being a carrier), aerial photography, towing target drones, and various references to 'Queen Bee' patrols. I had always assumed the Queen Bee was a ship or some kind of landmark, but it turns out the a Queen Bee was pilotless radio controlled aircraft for Anti aircraft batteries to shoot at. I had no idea they even had such things in 1938. It's all beginning to make sense now. Even the picture I have which he took of the British Mediterranean Fleet in 1938, with it's neutrality coloured red, white and blue front gun turrets. Even the Gibraltar confusion is a little clearer, because No3AACU did move from Hal Far on Malta to Gib, then back to Hal Far. I don't know for sure, but I have the outlandish idea that it may have coincided with the period flying Swordfish Float planes. You certainly don't need floats to land at Hal Far. Oh yes, and he was a corporal back then, but came out the RAF as a sergeant. I really will need to get hold of his service record. I still have no answers to the perennial kidsquestion of 'what did you do in the war dad?' - but I am a lot clearer on what he did leading up to the war. Edit Oh yes, and flew lots of 'sleeve' missions for ships. Anybody got an idea what that's all about? I'm guessing it might be a wind sock type target for ships to shoot at, - but I don't know.

I suppose another aspect of this chivalrous conduct towards each other could have been the opportunity to do it. I mean, in the early months, the numbers of aircraft were relatively small, they were poorly armed, and anti aircraft artillery was poor. I suspect there would be days and conditions would occur when altitude put you out of harms way, and your dog fight would be one on one. I'm sure once your enemy was damaged, and the victory decided so to speak, it was quite possible to throttle back and assess the condition of your enemies aircraft, out of his firng line and in relative safety. If that enemy aircraft is the only realistic threat to your own aircraft, the best place to have him is right there in front of you. If you can see he's in trouble and fighting for his life, or even just out of ammo, he's no longer any threat to you, and there is every opportunity either to let him off the hook or deliver the coup de grace. The parallels with some medieval joust and all related protocols are there for all to see. I'm sure there was even a Japanese Zero in WW2 who peppered an American Bomber but failed to shoot it down, but once the Zero was out of ammo, and the bomber was clearly in a bad way, all animosity ended, and the Zero pilot pointed the stricken bomber towards home and kept him on the right heading as long as he could. I suspect it was the early pace of the war itself which made things like that possible. As numbers of aircraft grew and got better armed, you wouldn't have the same 'safe' opportunities to throttle back and interact with your stricken target. As the danger to yourself grew, you simply wouldn't want to hang around playing games, but get the job done and get back home in one piece. Freedom of choice is all about the threat level.

This wasn't just a WW1 phenomenon, any plane on a torpedo run or even a bombing run had to adopt a flight pattern which was easy for the defenders to predict and aim for. Same goes for landing. The phenomenon known as Mosquitopanik was the fear German pilots had of being shot down on final approach when in sight of their home airfield by a Mosquito. The number of planes actually shot down by Mosquito was much smaller than those crashing as a direct consequence of the low flying tactics adopted specifically to avoid such an attack. I'm sure every pilot had it drummed into them that doing anything predictable was very dangerous. I also recall Bob Doe I think it was, the Battle of Britain ace saying he owed his survival to being a bad pilot. He would always fall out of a loop before the top or be imprecise in his manouvres. He reckoned the better pilots would be much tidier in their manouvres, complete them properly, but that this made them more predictable to the enemy, and easier to hit as a result. It doesn't take heroism to shoot down a sitting duck, but it does take discipline. Nobody is going to like the job, but the target needs to be destroyed, if you don't do it, some other poor b*!"*!d would have to do it for you. But if there isn't some other poor b*!"*!d there at the time, and your failure lends impetus to the enemy's attack, you might well have a clear conscience, but you might have the blood of your own troops on your hands too. Don't feel unduly sorry for the attacking pilot. If I had the choice of mission, fly the fighter or take the photo's, I'd take the fighter intercept every time. Keep your medals - give them to poor fella armed with the camera. I like to think I might try to bring the aircraft down without specifically targetting the crew, but one way or another, the aircraft has to go down. I also like to think if I was the PR photographer, that I would recognise the enemy attacker was just doing his job. He's not a murderer, his attack is nothing personal, he's just a fighter pilot doing his job and today isn't my lucky day. Edit - I don't think the Knights of the Sky thing was a myth, it was just confined the the early months of the war. In the early months, reconaissance pilots from opposing sides would even wave as they past each other. It was important to do the honourable thing, and respect your enemy. Fighting the enemy was indeed a 'joust'. When you think that most of these pilots were toffs, from upper class families, such protocols were part of their upbringing. Even this too isn't unique to WW1. In the early days of WW2 when the Brits and Germans were fighting in the desert, the war stopped at 4pm, and it was bad form to break the rules. Don't ask me where I read it, but some corporal nicked a german lorry, but after four o'clock. He was warned there would be trouble, and sure enough the Germans nicked four British lorries the next night. Not because of the lorries, but because it was after 4 pm that the first one got nicked. It's only when war gets serious, and buddies start dying, that chivalry and honour give way to staying alive and keeping your mates alive too. It's the nature of conflict to escalate out of control when both sides want to win.

Thanks von Baur. I knew it was one of the classics but I was too lazy to check. The other thing which also contributed to an interest in aircraft was that my father was a wireless operator in Swordfish in 1938/9. My dad died when I was just 11, but the interest was there. Lots of it from photos. It's one of those complex things when you're a kid. You don't really know anything, but look at a swordfish and think why oh why couldn't my Dad have been a wireless operator in a 'cool' looking aircraft instead of some rickety old throwback to WW1 with rigging instead of machine machine guns? Naturally you learn much more as you grow older, and once you know what happened to the Bismark and the Italian Fleet at Taranto, the Swordfish is as cool as they come - in the hands of the Navy at any rate. When there's a direct family link, even after they're gone, you feel its your duty to find out all you can about what they did and what they flew. From memory, I think he logged some 200 hrs flying about Gibraltar and Malta, spotting for gunnery and submarine drills I seem to remember reading in his logbook. He was RAF though, not Fleet Air Arm which always confused me, but he did have photos of the Swordfish float planes being lifted abour ships, but there was no mention of him being on a ship. All flights logged were from airfields like Hal Far etc. I don't know the whys etc, but he was a sergeant in the RAF before the war broke out, and for whatever reason he was on the ground from 1939 onwards, on radios in Burma and Imphal. My mother told a story that he had the choice of going to Burma or being a tail gunner in a Lanc, and after seeming a tail gunner being hosed out of his turret he chose Burma. No problem with that except there weren't any Lancasters in 1940, and I don't think the RAF would go to the trouble of training a wireless operator to stick him in as a tail end Charlie in a Lancaster anyway. On the other hand, the wireless operator in a swordfish was also the gunner and no doubt skilled in air gunnery, so it isn't impossible. Women eh? So I don't really know. He wasn't around to ask himself, and you couldn't ask Mum because you ended up more confused than ever. I do remember asking him if he was ever in a dog fight, or 'in action' as such, -hey come on, I was 11 or younger, and he told me his only shot at the enemy was a Nip Zero which flew overhead when he was out hunting for game with a shotgun. Question 2 was did you hit it? And technically, he did have one mission behind enemy lines. When the British were running away from the Japs in Burma, some important radio equipment was left behind, and he and some others were sent back to get it before the Japs turned up. Not secret agent stuff, but I'm sure getting those particular orders would have made the heart beat a little quicker. One of these days, I intend to buy his service records and then I can learn much more. I reckon, if he hadn't past away, the chances are I might not have been tempted by the Parachute Regiment, (relax, just TA), because instead of jumping out half way, I might have been driving the bus instead.

Proud to say it was OFF that got inspired to read more about WW1. Growing up in Scotland, you have an instinctive respect for all things military, and so there was always an interest, but WW2 was always the place to be. My interest matured as I did, and I played less and read more, and took great enjoyment to find stuff out and learn new stuff whenever I could. I did read some books on WW1, but somehow the absolute waste, the numbing stalemate and the seeming indifference to tragedy always tainted my interest in WW1. Every story you would read would end up with lives being squandered very cheaply in absolute misery, and apparently no imagination on how to avoid doing the same damn thing all over again the next time. Part of me still feels the same. You almost wish you could time travel and take back some modern day knowledge back to those times just to change the way things happened and stop the insanity of it all. I think the formula for WW2 is easier to get to grips with for a young mind. It's easier to understand who's side you were on, and frankly, there's much more variety and dynamism to what actually happened. The storys you read are better than the comic books. When OFF came out, I enjoyed it as a 'souped up' CFS3. Not ashamed to say I tore about Flanders Fields in my MkVI Mosquito manys a time. But then I began to read a bit more, then a little more, and suddenly WW1 comes alive. I could ramble on for hours, but to keep it aerial related as the thread beginss, the pilots fascinate me. Not so much later, when it's all about the killing, keeping scores, and fates of various aces, but earlier on, before the rule books were written. For the first time ever, young men were flying into battle in wonderous machines that could finally defy gravity. The very dawn of powered flight. It must have been so frustrating to be there, flying some cutting edge piece of machinery into the sky and glide through the clouds taking in the spectacle of the world as nobody had ever seen it before. Unfortunately, you couldn't afford to dwell on your escape from the ground below, because very soon there were other airmen trying to kill you, and every flight would be tainted by its purpose in that you were only there in the air trying to help your army kill people more efficiently. I forget what book starts "These were the best of times, and the worst of times", but that's what I feel about aerial combat in WW1. The purest ecstasy and limitless horizon the world had to offer blighted by the darkest carnage of war ever known to man. It must have torn those guys apart.

I'm with Cody Coyote. CFS3 was my thing, but when OFF came out, the scenery and ambiance was far superior to CFS3, the game seemed more stable, and multiplayer was a bit more stable too. It still had gremlins, but it was much better than CFS3. I wasn't really a WW1 buff at that time, but I enjoyed OFF because it was good. Unfortunately as OFF has got better and better from an excellent start, I seem to have less and less time to fly. I count myself lucky to have been around then, because between OFF and MAW, it was a very dynamic time for CFS3, and it was a priviledge just to sit back and enjoy so many talented people work together to do something brilliant just for the entertainment of others. I'm so happy the OFF team have stuck together and kept at it. It's a great pity that MAW took a greater toll on its design team and put them under so much pressure they couldn't continue. I would really like to have seen where MAW 2 and MAW 3 might have taken us. I dont mean it to be a barbed criticism of anything or anybody subsequent to those days, but for me, thats when the CFS3 community was at its peak and CFS3 was re-invented every other week. AVH was active, Groundcrew was excellent as Reg's Hangar still is, but there were half a dozen more sites you had to watch regularly or you'd miss some new plane or modification. I hope OFF continue to go from strength to strength. It thoroughly deserves to. If I had any criticism at all, it might be that OFF is so good that new 'tinkerers' seem to be quite reluctant to come forward in the way the once did with CFS3. It's difficult to be brilliant right away, and so much of OFF is brilliant you don't want to spoil anything. I think it was OFF2 which the Boys of 60 flew with the noble Stumpjumper pitching in with mods unique to the squad. His gas effect was inspired. So keep it up OFF developers. I am really enjoying your journey. Edit : I seem to be unique in these parts having never played RB3D. Not once.

I thought the link would be these - http://www.andrewgra...ocations/denge/ These were made obsolete in part by radar, but more so by the advancement in aircraft speed. Aircraft got faster and faster, and by the time they could be heard, they were very nearly visible to be seen too. The early warning wasn't all that early. Intrigued by the one on Malta. Only one outside the UK, and as I recall, the only one built of 5 that were planned. These were begun in WW1, but Maltas wasn't built until the '30s, so for 15 years give or take, there was nothing better. Edit - I can't find anything on line, but somewhere in my head I seem to recall there is a similar acoustic type construction in the ancient world. Somewhere in the Med perhaps? For listening out to sea? I forget, or perhaps I just don't know. Might just be my imagination. Don't see any references to ancient devices. Hmmmm.... Need to lie down in a darkened room to see if I can remember....