Flyby PC

It's not a great suggestion, but have you tried out some of the profiles hosted on the Trackir website? I see there's also a link to a forum. Might be a good idea to sign up and see if somebody can create or recommend a profile which might suit you better. http://www.naturalpoint.com/trackir/04-community/community-profiles.html

There is another option Over50, with Trackir you can physically line up your target with the iron sights on your guns. You can also lean in to use the actual guages in the cockpit, and also lean out to some degree to help keep yourself straight when taxiing. Trackir is incredible, and indispensible once you get used to it. I do use f12 sometimes, but it depends on the aircraft. The WW1 aircraft aren't so bad generally, because you see the engine and fuselage which gives you some degree of perspective and fixed points of reference. However some CFS3 aircraft, especially the Mosquito, are very hard to 'centre' manually. You line up your target for the perfect attack just to see your tracer squirting off on a tangent. I became a crack shot with my Tse-tse before I got trackir, and afterwards, well, it wasn't pretty. I might suggest you tinker with your settings. You can make trackir less sensitive to suit your own taste, and once you get it right, it's well worth the effort. Edit : Another tip which might help - zoom out a couple of clicks. You see more filling the screen. Use the [ and ] brackets. Sometimes you feel like you're flying with your nose squeezed up to the windshield. 'Sit back' and you get a better view.

Found it. Pippen, my Border Terrier, Day 1. It's nice to have a snooze after a good meal. Evidently some pups like a snooze during a good meal.

Hmmmmm. Read the link. Vely intellesting..... I'm at work now, but I'll give it a go tonight. (Maybe I'll start a new thread 'Help! I changed my Boot.ini file and now my PC won't start'. Just to get the helpful answers in and printed first, before I destroy my PC.) I'm kidding a little bit. It doesn't sound a complicated tweak at all. Nice find VP. If it works, an extra GB of RAM will be a BIG tweak.

Just to be clear VP, I've got 4GB Ram on my Win XP rig, (which I know doesn't recognise all of it), but this is a method whereby it might? I'll give it a try. My performance is (was) at the better end of average, but it's annoying I've RAM capacity not being used....

Steady on. Isn't that the velodrome for the London Olympics? I'm pretty sure it is. Go Chris Hoy!

I don't know the answer here, but might speculate it could be you're on a reconnaissance mission over flying a particular piece of real estate - with a little imagination it's perhaps where enemy troops are forming up for an attack and you can call down artillery to break up the attack. There was CFS3 multi player talk of doing PRU recon missions where you had to get a screenshot of something specific. It might sound dull, but most of the time the real mission probably was. Alternatively, it might be two sides playing similar maritime sorties. You need to find and sink an enemy ship before the enemy finds and sinks yours. That covers anything from single subs, right up to the Battle of Midway.

Just my tuppenceworth again, but it's not surprising that any good commercial product comes under intense scutiny from it's competitors. There's nothing new about industrial espionage, - just look at Concorde and the Tupolev Tu-144, and just about anything that's made in China. What's more unusual is our high level of contact with the R&D team, while they're developing an already successful product. I cannot think of any other comparable circumstances to my knowledge. If you think about it, that's direct contact at board room level near enough, and that's quite a priviledge. It's a pretty big board room however, with an open door policy, and let's not forget we're all non-executive directors who don't have top level security clearance. Personally, I'm quite happy with that. Who's got the biscuits? Can't be my turn again.

I thought OFF stood for Operation Frozen Fortitude. I think it's an excellent idea that OFF P4 should focus on the WW1 air war in Antartica. Very bold step to bring such an overlooked theatre of the war to the publics attention. That'll certainly catch competitors on the hop. Bravo! Oh yes, here is the photo of circa 1917 fur coats you asked me to source for reference.

Wow Jim, I'd never heard of Dien Bien Phu. Sounds like a place you just didn't want to be. Need to find some books on that. Having thought about it, the issue with the clips on the US harness was getting out of it. If you're about to land on water, you've no idea how deep it is. The drill is once you know that's where you're going to land, you open your harness and just hang there ready to release it the second your feet hit the water. If it's an inch deep, you make a normal landing if a bit soggy, but if it's deep water you want to get as far away frome the cords and canopy as possible, and by releasing your chute early, there's a better chance it won't land square on top of you. Thankfully I never had to test the theory. I did see a water landing happen - sort off. One fella landed in a ditch which ran parallel to the prevailing wind. The poor chap was getting dragged through the mud, crap and water by his parachute and with all the crap in his face he couldn't find his cords to collapse the canopy, so it just kept going. He got dragged about 50m or so. It wasn't deep enough to drown or anything, he was certainly a lot more camouflaged than the rest of us. Laugh at him? Yes we did. Second incident was more serious, or could have been. I landed ok, and was twisting my parachute ready to pack it up, when a para ran past still wearing his harness but no parachute. An RAF officer on the ground bellowed "Hey you! Where's your Fking Parachute?" Para turned and pointed "Up the fking tree!" and just kept running. I thought now there's a lucky boy. Gets to survive a landing in trees without breaking anything, and then gets to swear at an Officer without saluting. Yeah, Fking Airborne!

It was today in 1915 that the Second battle of Ypres was launched, which saw the first use of Chlorine gas on the Western Front. http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/ypres2.htm http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/2ndypres_germanstatement.htm

Even in mid/late eighties, we still jumped with PX4 parachutes, which were more or less unchanged since WW2. You weren't supposed to, but everybody tried to keep hold of your Apex tie as kind of record for how many jumps you'd done. I also remember doing one jump in what I remember as being an American harness. The PX4 wasn't exactly comfy, (if it was, it wasn't tight enough), but had much fewer buckles and clips to do up (and go wrong). Your balloon jump is typically 1000ft, and quiet so the training staff can hear you shouting out your drill. I was lucky, when I trained, it was too windy for the balloon, and since the flights had to be booked weeks in advance, it worked out my first jump was out a Herc. (The balloon jump is horrible experience for various reasons). I still had to do my balloon jump to tick the box, but had about 4 'real' jumps under my belt before the dreaded balloon jump.

The page I read said the very first attack was dropped on French Algerian and territorial division troops, though it doesn't mention the Legion. Gas affected 10,000 troops, half of whom died within the first 10 minutes. I guess if he wasn't actually there BH, sounds like he wasn't far away.

I had just under 2 years as a TA Paratrooper, but that feels like, and indeed is, such a long way from ever being what might pass for being a veteran. Some people say you're not a veteran unless you've seen actual combat. I know what they mean, but that's very harsh on all the other squaddies or wider servicemen just as ready to do their bit, but just never getting the chance. They're every bit 'veterans' too. To be perfectly honest, I feel a little uncomfortable even calling myself a Para, (& normally I don't) because there's such a massive gulf between a TA Para and the real deal legends in the regular army. They are the real Paras, a true elite Regiment, and all those stories you've heard about how fit, tough and hard they are? Well they're all 100% true. Me a veteran? Never. Near enough killed me just getting the beret. I did think about going regular, briefly, but life took me in a different direction. I was always fit and active growing up, playing rugby, sprinting, getting into one or two scrapes, gung-ho, happy go lucky and pretty much up for anything. I thought I was indestructible, but the Para's taught me I wasn't. I so very nearly came unstuck and close to giving up. My body had never had to endure such punishment. Hardest thing I've ever done, by a mile, but somehow I got my beret, and my wings, but best of all, the whole experience gave me a new outlook on life and built me up to be a better person. So, all these years later, I'm still not really a Para. But then again, if the s**t had hit the fan back then, and we'd all been stuck in a Herc and flown out to some godforsaken s**thole in the middle of the night, would I have actually jumped through that door? You're fking right I would.

These buildings don't have enough protection. Even when listed, a developer can buy the building, let it fall to ruin, then get an engineer to declare it dangerous, and he then has a stong case for demolition, listed or not. The irony is the French are much more enlightened than the Brits when it comes to such issues, so it might be the case that the building had some serious structural issues, but I suspect the building was loved too much by the wrong people for too long. They can't bear to part with it, but haven't the resources to fix it up, and the building continues to decline and slowly passes beyond redemption. It's very sad. I've no sympathy for supermarkets, nor indeed the vast procession of 'modern' buildings. There's a complete lack of craftsmanship from design to completion. Thank heavens our forefathers were more enlightened when building the world we live in.

Yeayyy!!! He'll be backackackackackack!

Same site, - check out the models they sell. There are some cracking archive photographs there too!

Don't be a stranger Lou. Door's always open and it'll be good to see you drop in whenever you like. It's a pleasure to hear from somebody who actually knows what they're talking about. I understand completely how sometimes the time just feels right to move on. I left the CFS3 Sim Outhouse forum in the huff, and believe it or not I've never been back since. Pleasure to make your acquaintance in any event.

Anybody read the Daily Star? Small item about Captain Eric Moody, who actually flew his BA 747 'City of Edinburgh' through volcanic ash near Java in 1982, lost all four engines and calmly told his passengers "We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our darnedest to get it under control. I trust you're not in too much distress". He subsequently got the engines going again to land safely as a hero. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9 Anyway, according to Captain Moody, flying into volcanic ash is like "negotiating one's way up a badger's arse". Not kidding you... it's in the paper! The article declined to mention whether Captain Moody was pissed as a newt when asked for a quote.

Ash cloud? Och, it'll all blow over.....

This'll cheer you up then Lou.... http://en.wikipedia...../Nemesis_(star) Edit - Hmmm, this links right but acting funny. http://en.wikipedia....i/Nemesis_(star) Just follow the Did you mean link..... I'm copying the link from the title bar but the last bracket falls out the hyperlink for some reason. Never seen that before.....

Just out of interest, did Mount St Helens clear the skies of aircraft in 1980?

Works for me.....

Hang in there Zippycat. Are you saying your system ran OFF ok, that is actually flying, most of the time, but got progressively worse until it wouldn't run at all? Over what time period? Could it be dust in your system overheating your graphics card and losing performance? Try giving your PC a spring clean with the hoover. I'm not an expert, but if OFF has run correctly at some stage, then it might not be an installation problem. I'm a bit out the loop with OFF problems, but CFS3 used to crash if there was a problem with the aircraft your left ready to begin next session. If the aircraft was deleted or altered, CFS3 couldn't load it up for the new session so the whole thing crashed. The solution was to delete the uisel.xml file so you'd start on default settings. I have to say however that OFF is less troublesome in this regard because there's much less need to tinker under the bonnet. Hopefully somebody more knowledgeable than me will chip in soon, but welcome to the forum anyway.

Just a distinction Duce, the nanny state isn't the welfare system, but health and safety requirements which fly in the face of common sense. One example would be kids forced to wear goggles when playing conkers, or teachers having to stand back and watch somebody being assaulted because they're not allowed to lay a hand on the bully. - There are some nanny overtones about paying tax to support spongers who get everything on a plate, but the NHS is something quite separate from that kind of welfare. The 'nanny' sentiment is most commonly expressed when there's a feeling the system has gone to far, or over-reacted. It isn't the system itself, but where the system has failed or got something wrong. I don't buy your self help argument. It's what I meant when I said rich folks will be hiring mercenaries because the army is under funded. It's a delusion. They might feel better about it in the short term, but you don't get a better army out of it, but fractured and ineffective bands of militia all pulling in different directions to suit their own agenda. Who pays for research? A good big 'un is always better than a good little 'un as they say. Don't you think it's fairer for everybody to pay a little less into a collective kitty which supports a centralised army and/or system of healthcare which is open, fair and free to all? And nor do I buy your 'teaching a man to fish' argument either. You're actually expressing a socialist concept which has nothing to do with free market economics. In a ruthless free market economy, why should I as teacher, forfeit my time to teach somebody else to fish? The hungier he gets, the more I can charge per lesson, and if he actually starves to death then there's all the more fish for me and my family. Besides, if I teach him how to fish, he might start teaching others and then I'm out of a job. Teach him to fish? Don't be daft. Fk 'em. He can come and buy my fish, today, and tomorrow, and the day after .....That's the free market economy for you. Teach a man to shoot buffalo, and he'll feed his family for what, about 100 years or so, and see the last 30 million buffalo wiped out to virtual extinction inside 10 years. Self reliant pioneers alright....... of unregulated free market economics.