Bullethead

I did that, too. The wife of a friend of mine has bad cancer and there was a benefit concert for her. I donated a batch of homebrew to the cause, which sold better than the Buttwiper, and for a higher price. Glad nobody had a wreck on the way home.

Sadly, I haven't had time to work on my airplane for about 6 weeks now. I have been chiseling lately, but only on stone and bone, making trinkets to sell in the current spring tourist season. Hmmm..... I got AirWrench about 6 months ago and that demo version will let you edit contact points ONLY. I suppose that would be useful if you were using renamed existing files for your new plane and wanted it to set correctly on the ground, but that's it. It supposedly does the full analysis but doesn't let you change any aerodynamic values--read-only on that stuff. Someday I'll get to the point where I actually need AirWrench. Then I'll buy the thing. But for now, seeing how I don't know what I'm doing with it, I think it's safer to just look at things in AirWrench without the possibility of screwing them up accidentally.

Domo arigato gozaimasu! It'll take me a while to grok this..

Such a thing would be very helpful to me. I am in the process of making a new plane for OFF and when I get to the FM part of the process, my plan is to start with the OFF files for an existing, similar plane and tweak them to match my new plane. The tutorials I have at present are rather dated. For instance, they rely on fligh-testing your new CFS3/OFF plane in CFS2 using an instrumentation mod for that game. I have no idea how to get around that problem; I can't find a similar instrumentation mod for CFS3.

He wasn't in a Legion unit there; he was a Legion officer seconded to one of the colonial regiments, which I understand wasn't uncommon. Until the US got involved, he served with a number of French colonial units, never with a line unit IIRC. Then after the war, he got back in the Legion.

Good story . Sure she didn't do it on purpose? When I was a nipper, I was friends with several Fillipino kids. Where they came from, kite combat is almost a national sport. So we used to go have kite fights all the time. It was serious, too. We mostly flew the old "bat" kites, and we'd tape razor blades on their leading edges and ice picks on their front points. After a fight, we'd patch the things up with electrician's tape and do it again. Over in the Philippines, they have broken glass on the 1st few feet of kite string and the object is to cut the other kite loose. But we were more interested in destruction and forced landings so tried not to cut strings. Of course, it happened periodically with all the razor blades involved

I had a great uncle in this mess. He was a Foreign Legion officer in charge of some colonial troops. Needless to say, it was a bad day for him, but he survived it.

Nice pic, BTW, WM. And this reminds me of another old joke: Q: "How do you shoot women (aka Fees) and children (aka Quirks)?" A: "Easy, you just don't lead them as much." And on that note, behold the pic below. Another cheap kill in Bloddy April, nothing to be proud of, but I like the image. It looks like the guy is wing-walking

I am not an habitual Albatros pilot. Apart from the KvK DiD thing, I have hardly ever flown any of the family. Nor am I awash in their vital statistics, so when I report my observations below, they might well be true to life. I just don't know, and am relying on more knowledgeable people to determine if they're in step with references. So, the only Albatri I have flown enough in OFF to know their behavior are the D.II and D.III early. But I think I've got a good handle on them now, at least as they work in the game if not in real life. Based on this limited experience, IMHO the D.III early in OFF is a SIGNIFICANT retrograde step from the D.II in all performance aspects. The D.III early is slower, doesn't climb as well, has a much lower celing, and can't turn at all. Plus, of course, it has a tendency to shed its wings, which often seems to happen under inappropriate circumstances. The D.III early has nearly no climb ability above 10,000 feet. With great patience, a lot of time free from enemy action, and a light fuel load, you can reach a bit over 13000 feet. It would probably go a bit higher but it would take a LONG time because the rate of climb at this point is just a hair above zero. At this altitude, the D.III early has a top speed of about 65 knots and can barely hold this altitude. It certainly is completely incapable of ACM up there. Yet it's my understanding that it routinely flew much higher than this in real life. The D.II, OTOH, can easily reach 15-16000 feet and fight effectively up there. In highly banked LEFT turns, the D.III early suffers accelerated stalls of the RIGHT wing while at the high speed of 80 knots. These cause it to do a slow right snaproll. IOW, you cannot turn this plane to the left in combat. You can make very gentle left turns, like for waypoint turns, but you can forget all leftwards ACM. This is a crippling problem because the Albatros MUST force the fight leftwards against its predominantly rotarty-engined foes. Right combat turns work, but the enemy is so much better in that direction that it's a bad idea to turn that way. The D.II, OTOH, turns quite well in both directions. The top level speed at low altitude of the D.III early is about 95 knots. The D.II, OTOH, can do a bit over 100. The D.III early loses its lower wings, which the D.II does not. OK, that really happened, but IMHO in the game this happens under the wrong circumstances. It's my understanding that the sequiplane Albatri lost their wings due to high speed. As speed increased above a certain point, the lower wings' leading edges twisted upwards because they only had 1 spar. When the wings twisted a certain amount, RIP (Nupes had the same problem). That's why the D.Va had those little auxiliary struts, to hold the lower leading edges down. However, in the game, the D.III early will not lose its wings at any speed it can reach. In a full-power vertical dive, the D.III early maxes out at 200 knots, at which point its nose can no longer be kept down and it pulls out by itself even with full down elevator. This has no effect at all on the wings. Instead, what makes the wings come off is large elevator input at fairly low speeds. That is, trying to loop or turn tightly at like 70 knots. The aircraft at these times is under VERY little G, as in no trace of redding or blacking out visible at all. IOW, the load must be less than +3 or -1 Gs. In fact, I think the wing-ripping is tied directly to joystick position without any regard for G forces. It's possible to make hard turns and loops at higher speeds, with an equal lack of visual evidence of high G forces, with no problem. But the slower you're going, the more stick input you need to create the same G forces, and apparently this is what makes the wings come off. But it does seem a bit silly that maneuvers at higher speeds, or just going as fast as possible in a straight line, are perfectly safe while maneuvers at lower speeds (but the same or even less Gs) are not. Anyway, I can't see an aircraft with such obvious deficiencies being accepted for service, especially given its marked inferiority to the plane it was intended to replace. Nor can I believe that an aircraft would be accepted for service with load factors of less than 5 Gs (apparently the standard of the day). I admit to knowing very little about the Albatros family, and I know the D.V was something of a dud (as in no real improvement over the D.III, but not a retrograde step), but I've always heard that the D.III was a good airplane and a significant improvement on the D.II. Hell, the Austrians used D.IIIs with bigger engines (and unbreakable wings) right up to the end of the war with great success and performance in some ways better than the Fokker D.VII. I know I'm flying the early model of the D.III, but even it should have been a step up from the D.II, which in OFF it definitely isn't. It's my understanding that OBD isn't going to patch P3 any more, so any fixes will have to await P4. That's cool. I'm just saying that during P4 development, you should take a hard look at how the Albatri perform and break in the game.

I don't use Gimp but it has most of the same features as Photoshop and Paintshop Pro. Thus, while I can't tell you the exact commands and where to find them or what their hotkeys are, and might even use different words for some of the concepts than Gimp uses, I can tell you the proceedure, which hopefully you'll be able to translate into Gimp terms. 1. Prepare the 3rd Party Graphic This basically means have it saved somewhere on your HD. If necessary, open it in Gimp and clean up any problems you see such as pixels of strange colors, etc. 2. Prepare the Skin (possibly unnecessary) The skins are in DDS format, which most graphics editors can't open by default, although some can be made to do so with 3rd party plug-ins. If you have such a plug-in for Gimp (if such exists), then skip this step. If you don't, then open the skin in DXTBmp and save it as a bitmap. This bitmap can then be opened by Gimp. 3. Do the Pasting a. Open the skin in Gimp. Save it under a different name, such as "Barkhorn_AlbDIII_Logo". If Gimp has its own file format, be sure to specify that. Otherwise, maybe it can work with PSP or PS formats, so use them instead of leaving it as a BMP. This way, you'll always have a multi-layer file separate from the single-layer file (DDS or BMP, depending on plug-in) of the same name. b. Create a new layer on the newly saved and renamed skin file called "Logo" or whatever, c. Leaving this skin open, also open the 3rd party graphic in Gimp. d. Make the graphic file the active window, then select the part of the graphic you want to use and hit CTRL-C to copy it. e. Make the skin file the active window and paste the graphic into the new layer you just created. Don't worry about size, shape, and position just yet. f. Move the graphic around and rotate/resize it as necessary to get the effect you desire, then save the skin. Because it's on a layer by itself, this has no effect on the underlying skin itself. Get it where you want it. g. Close the graphic file window. h. Save the skin file in whatever multi-layer format you're using. i. Save the skin file in whatever single-layer format you're using (DDS or BMP, depending on plug-in). If asked if collapsing all the layers into 1 is cool with you, say "yes". 4. Converting the Skin (maybe unnecessary) If you needed to do step 2 above, then you'll now need to reverse the process with DXTBmp to save the single-layer BMP file as a DDS file. Be sure that you have "create MIP maps" checked (the default, so don't really worry about this). Also, be sure to save the skin to the \Campaigns\campaign data\skins folder. 5. Check New Skin in Game a. Start OFF and select your test pilot of the appropriate nationality. b. Go to QC and pick the plane you just made the skin for. c. Pick your skin off the list. d. Set altitude to somewhere non-zero value, try to make the weather sunny, and hit Go To Field. e. As soon as the game loads, pause the game. Then use the numpad and [ and ] keys to move and zoom the POV to look at your skin from all angles. Note any problems. 6. The End? If you need to tweak the graphic, open the multi-layer version of the skin, do the tweak, save it as the single-layer version, convert to DDS if necessary, and again look at it in the game. Once you're happy, get drunk. You've earned it

1955 Chevy 4-door, 3 on the tree, straight 6, no power steering, no AC, no radio. Mostly because Dad (who bought it new) let me drive it in high school, where it was something of a babe magnet. 1972 Pontiac Bonneville, about the size of an armor car, automatic, 455 4-barrel. I inherited this from my grandma and also drove it in high school. It would go from 0-60 in 5 seconds and 60-120 in 7 seconds, with the torque cocking it over sharply to the side. However, it didn't turn. Or actually, the chassis would turn but there was so much slack in the touring car suspension that the body would continue straight ahead for about 10 yards before snapping back to the chassis . Then I went to college, got married, and had to buy cheap, boring, used cars for many years. However, for the past 11 years, I've been driving the cool red trucks in the attached pic. Now THESE are the REAL babe magnets . They're 1988 Ford 800s, 220hp, 5-speed, and a few of them will reach just above 70mph after about 2 miles of acceleration. They're getting a bit long in the tooth so we're slowly replacing the most worn-out ones, but they still put the wet stuff on the red stuff.

Try Aces High. It's an MMOFS with a fair selection of Japanese planes, including this here Tony and also the George and Frank. "Curious George" is, or at least was when I was flying, one the most popular planes.

Mark Twain said: "If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. But if you do read the newspaper, you're misinformed." Seems just as true today as back then.

That's my line! Or at least I thought of it independently back in the Y2K panic PTSD = Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's called a "disorder" now despite the fact that for the vast bulk of human history (as in up to say the mid-1800s), it was the normal, everyday mindset of every man, woman, and child on the planet. And it still is for the most part in those places that lack the ability to convince the majority of their populations that death and destruction don't exist except on the TV. Basically, when a person is exposed to some traumatic situation (or a lifetime of them), his mind USUALLY instinctively switches to combat survival mode. Problem is, when he's not in a combat situation but is still in this mode, he regards every minor disagreement as a matter of life and death requiring instant, all-out action. Thus, he gets all wound up over trivial stuff and also bites folks' heads off for no good reason. Some folks even get violent. So folks like this have to go to therapy where they teach them this and how to recognize when they're blowing up so they can put the brakes on. They also learn to ignore the ghosts or at least make friends with them so they no longer keep them awake. Anyway, PTSD is a survival adaptation which is quite useful, which is why folks get it, but it's ONLY good as long as everybody else has it. When the surrounding population has led sheltered lives, a person with untreated PTSD is regarded as a dangerous nutjob, despite the fact that he probably got PTSD by allowing the others to be sheltered. by being in the military and/or emergency services. There's gratitude for you .

OK, then I won't comment on how the Obamination has kicked the world's economy while it was down Yup. Here in Lousy Anna's armpit we're doing no worse than usual. How is a poor, Iron Age barbarian redneck going to notice a world-wide economic disaster until he finally cuts up the last of several rusting cars on blocks in his front yard? Lucky for me, I've invested time in learing to be a paleolithic barbarian redneck, despite this being a flint-poor region, so I can hold out longer than most. It won't be until I run out bones to turn into weapons and tools (after having exhausted all the scrap iron, broken glass, and toilet tanks) that I'll complain, and I don't see that happening in my remaining lifetime. So while all you city slickers are starving, I'll be eating venison 3 meals a day, 365 days a year, except when starving city slickers try to invade my space. Then I'll eat "long pig". But all this is just preparation for the worst-case scenario. I really don't expect things to get anywhere near this bad. Still, nothing like being ready for it if it happens (fingers crossed). Sure thing. I've been to enough PTSD therapy that the several hundred ghosts who made me that way no longer keep me awake. And if they can't rob me of sleep, nothing can . Thanks. Being a nihilist anyway, I look on the present situation with glee tempered by pessimism. I'm afraid these days civilization is too redundant and wide-spread to crash as utterly as it has many times in the past. Humanity has weathered far worse storms than this one, both before and after civilization was invented. I mean, we're living in what passes these days as the Dark Ages, given that the prior world order totally collapsed at the end or as a near-term result of WW1. Really, we EARNED the traditional 500-year period of anarchy after that with few records to tell the tale to future historians, for which I'd be quite grateful. I mean, no taxes to pay, every man for himself: humanity's natural state. Problem is, I'm lamenting this on the internet, which happened not long afterwards in historical terms, and the internet prevents old-school Dark Ages. Bummer . But anyway, regard this as a message of hope. I've seen worse in my own lifetime and you have, too. And now is nowhere near as bad as things can get. If it bothers you, or if you'd really like to see everything go down the toilet, then do as I do and learn to knap flint and throw and atlatl dart. But if you don't think things are bad enough for such measures, or if you sadly don't expect such measures to become truly necessary, then buck up

Yachi da! This, BTW, totally exhausts my knowledge of Welsh. I know how to say something pro-Wales and how to curse the English, which together keep me in free beer all night. I know how to buy a round myself to help even out the karma, and I know how to say "cheers". What else do you need to know (allowing for local politics) of any language? After that, it's just a matter of saying Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch with my Texas accent (which 10 years of exile in Lousy Anna's armpit hasn't ruined) to charm the local women.

I've been in Wales long enough to learn that this phrase roughly translates as "the nearest Welshman in the pub must buy a beer for the wandering American who just walked in." And the amazing thing is, it works most of the time. The Welsh are such friendly, generous people, and so thoughtful to have created phrases in their language for the needs of thirsty tourists. There's an even better phrase which means "all good Welshmen must buy this American gallons of beer all night long and introduce him to their daughters", but I understand the English find it offensive so I refrain from typing it out .

I have the workshop set for the tight formation and the only command I gave my wingmen was the occasional call to rejoin if they were slow in making a course change. Anyway, they were always at the usual close distance around me during the bombrun, at least up to the point when I started looking through the bombsight. I think the bombsight mechanics in the game have some leftover WW2 code in them. To me it looks like your bombs alone follow a true ballistic trajectory and your wingmen's bombs get put into a formation with yours more appropriate to a B17 formation than where your wingmen really are compared to you. BTW, selecting the ground target and giving your wingmen the attack order makes them go into about a 30^ dive with the objective of dropping bombs from about 1000' or so. This is for any type of plane, not just the DFW. As such, this is only useful for low-level missions. At DFW attack altitude, it just breaks up your formation and also cancels the automatic wingman bomb-dropping. This is why you never do this in a DFW.

I've just got a few more things to add to the excellent advice others have already given... When bombing, DO NOT give your wingmen any attack orders. In fact, do give them any orders at all. When you're in the bombsight view and drop your bombs, your wingmen will drop theirs as well. There's a slight problem, however, in that their bombs fall further behind yours than their planes are in your formation, even though they drop a second or 2 after you do. I don't know why this is, but that's how it works. So, if you're attacking a railyard (the most common target) and you aim for the center, their bombs will fall short of the target area. To get all bombs in the target area, you have to aim at the far edge and theirs will land just inside the near edge. This isn't a real problem, however, as the DFW's bombs are bigger than most in the game, so have enough blast radius to cover most of the target area this way. The best L/D glide speed for the DFW is about 45 knots, which is just an RCH above its stall speed. However, as mentioned, it will go a LONG way at this speed, especially if you're up very high when you lose your motor. It just takes forever to cover any horizontal distance. Flying high is of course the desired approach, but you have to be below the clouds to see the target, which makes you more vulnerable to both flak and fighters. So I have a set of rules for various weather conditions. If the mission is a deep penetration, I will only go if I can fly at least 15,000 feet just below the clouds. If the target isn't too far behind the lines, I'll go if I can reach 10,000', although I expect to lose a wingman to flak. If the clouds are any lower than that, I just bomb front line targets of opportunity.

I've seen this in writing but seeing it explained in video is so much better :). http://http://home.comcast.net/~steveham21/turbo.mpg

Sir, I bow to your superior knowledge of the female mind. If such a brief discourse in PhD-type language made sense to you on this subject, then I might as well sign up for castration right now. I can't get a handle on even the Special Theory of the Female Mind without a computer, several reference books, and about 500 pages of notes. But I know enough about the subject to recognize that this was in fact about the General Theory of the Female Mind, which is beyond the ken of mere mortals. Anyway, I'm glad you all appreciate this bit of humor. As I understand it, this vid originated as an out-take for a serious commercial about a real transmission, but the voice talent wanted to a practice run to warm up. So he just pulled that whole spiel out of thin air, total ad lib. If that's true, then to him!

All in favor say "Aye"

"Stirling" work instead of "sterling", eh? You don't know how literally correct you are there, sir, because I've got beaucoup Stirling blood in my viens. My ancestors started calling themselves that about 1746, in hopes of disguising the fact that they'd been on the losing side of the 1745 attempt to restore the legitimate ruling house of the UK. Prior to that, they'd been Skirlings, but with the bagpipe classified as a treasonous weapon of war at the time, you can see why a good Jacobite piping family might want to change its name to something a wee bit less seditious, but still rather patriotic. Around Arbroath, you can still see a few tombstones from just before the Rising with the original "k" replaced by a "t" in hopes of proving we'd always been "Stirlings" and to keep Grandpa's remains from being desecrated by the damned sassenachs. And it worked. Instead of all being hanged, a few of us were deported this way. And thus I exist to trouble the world today . To the King! (with "over the water" implied by holding my glass over scotch whisky over my glass of water as I say this). Surely, living where you do, you can understand . But anyway, 3D modeling is like skinning, at which you're an expert. Remember when you 1st started skinning and had the tools but didn't know how to use them properly? Same thing. So give it a go. If I can produce semi-recogniseable results even when mostly drunk, surely a more experienced drinker like yourself should have no trouble figuring out Gmax

Hehehe, I can be like Captain Goldwater in the Super LBJ comic book, flying a plane with just a right wing ("Who needs a left wing?!?!?!?) simply by substituting my model for some existing plane on a temporary basis. But won't I have to build the VC for that? And anyway, isn't the game engine smart enough to tell that the engine is in no way visible from the cockpit? I mean, there's all this upper fuselage decking MGs and their ammo belts, not to mention the cowling and firewall in the way. Or is the game really that stupid?

Bravo If I hadn't already burned all my models and paints after seeing another piece of excellent work a few weeks back, I'd be doing it now.