Bullethead

And there was much rejoicing. Glad Avongate came through for you.

Hmmm. Well, I start with the original skin because the OBD guys put a lot of effort into putting the panel lines in the right place. The fuselage especially usually has all the lines laid out just fine, although sometimes you do have to tweak them where pieces of the same line appear on 2 different pieces of skin, such as the side and top of the fuselage. In some cases, the 2 parts of the line don't quite meet up so you have to move 1 or the other a few pixels. The main thing I have to do on the fuselage is that different production batches of the same plane sometimes had different arrangements of inspection panels and louvers around the engine. So if I'm working from a photo of the plane I'm skinning and see it's got different engine hatches, I have to draw them in from scratch and ignore what's on the original skin. The weakest point of the original skins are usually the outlines of the ailerons, which often don't coincide with where the physical airleron polies are on the model. See attached pic. And the inboard corners of the ailerons are critical to get in the right place, because the wing ribs depend on them. So before I can start on the wing rib template, I first have to determine where the aileron outline goes by drawing lines, looking at them in the game (usually with full aileron applied), tweaking the lines, repeat many times. Only once I have the ailerons' inboard corners marked can I start drawing rib lines. Now here is where you need some external reference material, because now you usually can't use the original rib lines as a guide, due to having moved the aileron to fit the model. So you'll need to find a 3-view drawing of the plane that shows how many ribs it had and their spacing. Even better are photos of a taken while building a full-size reconstruction that show the structure. Next best are photos people have posted while building exact-scale wooden models of the plane, then photos of plastic kit construction. For instance, I came across some a large photo gallery of the building of a reconstruction Fee. This showed that it had only 1 short rib beween the long ribs, instead of 2 as on the original skin. It's pretty easy to find this stuff online. Just google "plane name 3-view" or "plane name reconstruction" or "plane name model". So, you draw rib lines on the upper surface and lower surfaces based on the aileron corners, then tweak 1 or both sides until the rib lines meet up at the leading and trailing edges, are of the correct number, and are spaced out accurately. One thing to note, however, is that a few of the 3D model planes in OFF have the wing ribs built into their upper surfaces. The only ones I know of so far are the DFW and DH5. Most planes instead have flat wing surfaces. On the planes with 3D ribs built in, you have to go with where they are, regardless of aileron corners, at least on the upper surfaces. You also still need to draw rib lines on them so you know where to put the ribs on the lower surfaces, and where to put the rib tapes on the upper surfaces. However, you don't have to make rib shadows on the upper surfaces because the game's lighting effects does that for you.

I don't have any real trouble trimming the Fee to fly hands-off. You're right, she does take a lot of aileron trim to start with, but there's an easy way to do it. I've mapped the aileron and elevator trim commands to the #2 hat on my stick. As soon as I throttle up on my takeoff roll, I hold this hat over for about 3-4 seconds. I release it just before the tailskid lifts off the ground. This is usually enough trim to be in the ballpark once I'm airborne, only minor tweaks needed after that. However, be advised that the Fee has a curious anomaly in its flight model that makes it retain angular momentum in the roll axis for a LONG time. Here's what I mean..... Suppose you're in a left turn, have gone far enough, so you apply right aileron until you're level, then release. But you'll only stay level a split second before starting to roll right at about the same rate with which you leveled your initial bank. So now you do left aileron to get back level and as soon as you release, you start rolling right agan, but this time slower than before. You generally have to repeat this process 3 or 4 times before the Fee settles back into level flight. And NOTE that this same thing happens if you start out turning to the right and level out with left aileron. Doesn't matter. This can easily create the illusion that the Fee is out of trim. But as I say, it's just a weird thing. Once you've got the roll axis settled down, the thing will stay level until you turn again, provided you're trimmed out. Gusts don't even bother you--the plane will bank a bit in the gusts, then return to level flight without any input from you. There's the famous RAF stability for you. It's perfectly safe (apart from enemy activity) to leave the Fee trudging along while you leave the room to get another beer.

Here's a strange thing..... Prior to HitR, the F7 key used to put me in the bombsight view, but only if I had bombs aboard. No bombs, no bombsight. Now, however, F7 does nothing at all even with bombs aboard. But hitting N (which used to bring up some useless help screen for dummies) now puts me in the bombsight whether I've got bombs or not. But PLEASE don't change this. I'm actually liking things as they are now, because the bombsight is the only way to see down in the DFW from the pilot's seat. My last few DiD missions, I was glad to be able to take a downwards peek this way to help my navigation. I suppose this only works in the DFW, the only current OFF plane with a working bombsight. I haven't check other planes, but you can SEE normally from them so the issue hasn't arisen.

I came down near Eindoven, but I could have sworn I saw a Chimay on the map nearby. Maybe both countries have a Chimay? But I was REALLY lost at the time, so who knows? Thanks for the info.

As long as we've got a Belgian available, I'd like to know something.... Some time ago, I leaned that there are a number of small pieces of Belgium scattered about within the external boundaries of the southern Netherlands. It's my understanding that these Belgian "islands" were created long before WW1. So what happened in these "islands" during WW1? How did the neutrality of the totally surrounding Netherlands affect things like beligerant troops crossing the borders? I ask because a while back, I made huge navigation error and found myself near the German-Netherlands border without enough fuel to get home. So I headed for the Dutch border and landed on the edge of a city, which I later looked up on the map and discovered was Chimay. OFF said I was captured for landing in enemy (or neutral territory). However, I know Chimay is in Belgium because I'm a huge fan of the Trappist beer they make there. So don't you think I actually landed in the friendly territory of a free corner of Belgium, even if surrounded by the Netherlands? What would have been my fate in real life? Could I have gotten back to the front from there?

Happy happy, Slappy! And don't worry about the prostate exams. As long as everything down there is working OK and gets regular use, you've got no worries. It's those guys who let their pipes silt up who have the troubles

I've tried very hard but without succes. The other day I started a QC hop at 15000, did a split-s, and kept her in a full-power vertical dive until I could count the leaves on the trees, then pulled out as hard as I could. During the dive, I reached a top speed of about 245 knots, and got there within the 1st thousand feet or so. The N28 accelerates instantly from stall to 100 knots with even a slight nose-down angle, but once at 100 knots acceleration slows, although is still pretty quick. Anyway, starting at about 3000 feet, there were occasional snapping sounds and a few lines of red text started appearing saying I was taking a small amount of wing damage. Because I wasn't going any faster than I had been, I'm assuming this was time-based stress build-up. There was no visible damage or apparent effect on the plane's flying abilities, although from then on it said OVERSPEED DAMAGE in the upper right corner of the screen. The incredible elevator authority made the pullout rather unique. It was practically a pivot around the upper wingtips, with only a hint of blackout around the very edges of the screen. It appears that I created so much angle of attack doing this that it slowed me WAY down very quickly and therefore eliminated the Gs. The plane didn't even creak and was at stall speed when I got to the bottom of the loop, where it promptly fell out of the sky but I recovered just above the ground. How's that for an airshow stunt? Then I tried hard turns at high speeds in shallow dives. The plane made scary-sounding creaks, cracks, and crunches in even relatively gentle turns, but no matter what I tried, I took no further wing damage. Periodically, text would appear in the upper right corner, saying DANGER--OVERSTRESS, just below were it was still saying OVERSPEED DAMAGE. But the wings stayed on. So I'd say the N28 is fairly unbreakable just by itself. Now, if you've taken a lot of bullets through your wing, perhaps it would fail doing this stuff.

I read long ago, and more recently saw a TV show, about a stewardess who survived an airliner being blown up. She was even interviewed on the TV show. She was back in the tail section, which broke off and as it tumbled she was stuck inside by the centrifugal force. The tail landed in the top of some trees on a mountainside, cushioning its fall, and it just so happened that its rotation made the open front end of it be facing downhill at the moment of impact. The stewardess was thrown out at just the right angle to graze along the slope of the mountainside, which was covered in snow, through which she then slid a long way downhill until she came to a gentle stop. IIRC, she got a bad back out of the ordeal but that's it.

As Siggi so correctly observed, these aren't modeled in OFF. And besides, they would defeat the whole purpose of my crusade to repopulate Europe.

Now that you mention it, that does seem to fit into that style. I'd never considered this before, nor read Collishaw's own account, but it stands to reason that Donald Jack would have taken inspiration from the memoirs of real Canadian pilots. LMFAO!!

I concur. The rudder and elevator always have beaucoup authority (you can do a "flat" rudder turn in the N28 of about 340^ of a circle (but I don't recommend pushing it any further), and can always yank the nose up, both regardless of speed. However, the ailerons are highly speed-dependent. At high speeds, you'd think you're in a Pup or N11, the roll rate is so good. At medium speeds, the ailerons are adequate but nothing to brag about, say like an SE5. At low speeds, they cease working altogether. In QC I was trying to see how slow I could be to do a 4-point roll, and I found the lower limit was where the ailerons quit working just after the 1st point, which was about 75 knots. There was nothing for it then but to bottom-rudder into a dive to regain aileron authority via speed, meaning you have to have some altitude to do this. Of course, the N28 will do beautiful 4-point rolls at higher speeds. I'm just saying that if you get knife-edge at less than 80 knots, you're likely to be stuck there because you'll bleed down below the speed at which the ailerons work, unless you can regain speed by losing altitude. Because the ailerons go away so completely at speeds where the other controls still throw you around like a ragdoll, I tend to use the N28 more as an E-fighter than a turnfighter. But as I said, it's right on the border between the 2, so you have to know when to use which set of tactics based on what you're up against. I think the best analogy would be the Japanese "George" of WW2. You can really see why the N28 was one of the last few rotary-engined fighters, and why she wasn't considered a success in the context of her time (nor were any other planes with the same engine). The N28's good qualities are set against the nasty gyroscopic properties of the larger rotating mass of her bigger rotary engine. I've never been able to do a pretty, circular loop in the N28. Every time, I either do an involuntary Immelmann or I fight that so hard I end up with a very non-circular loop.

Amazing story, ain't it? Help up by a cross-fed cartridge? You'd think his bowels would have cut loose so hard everything on the plane would have been too slippery to hold onto . I read the other day that Collishaw or some other Naval 10 pilot had to maneuver so hard to avoid a collision that he broke his seat belt and was thrown out of his Sopwith Tripe. However, he was saved by smashing his head through the upper wing, which allowed him to wrap around one of the cabane struts, then shinny down it back into the cockpit.

Welcome back, Deuce! I find the N28 to be sorta twixt-and-tween. She turns well for a late-war plane but not as good as a Camel or DrI at high speeds nor as good as the SPAD XIII at low speeds. She's fast, but not as fast as the SE5 or SPAD XIII. She can zoom, but not as well as the DVII or SE5, especially at lower speeds. All in all, quite fun. You just have to choose your tactics for the situation. But it's good to have the choice :)

Then that's certainly a 1-in-a-million picture. I can't get that fine a control over the camera to make it look like the shot was taken in TIR out of another plane's cockpit. The other planes are just never in the right spot to make it work. So I'd frame that one . Here we go again with this rearming business. The devs are silent on it and a few folks say they've had it happen to them but have been unable to repeat it. Meanwhile, those of us who have experimented have just wasted our time, never getting it to happen. So how did you do it?

Beautiful pics, Rickety! I especially like the one where your homie's got your back. I hope he didn't get you with any stray shots

Merry Christmas to all. Even if you don't do Christmas, try to be merry anyway

If you've never had the "pleasure" of flying the DH5 in OFF, I can sum it up as follows. It's just like the "Matilda" Mk II tank of early WW2: slow, unmaneuverable, and weakly armed, but tough as Hell. I kinda like that, as a result of the same perverse, masochistic tendencies that lead me to force-land repeatedly in within the bounds of the convent of the Flagellant Sisters of St. Jezebel of Lesbos. So, I'm officially now working on a DH5 skin that is inspired by the tan/light blue/dark green camo, with white-red-white anti-Austrian stripes, made famous by the Matildas in the Battle of France (see attached pic). If anybody does such a skin skin before me, I'll have your entrails for guitar strings. Ye be warned.

I took the DH5 up the 1st time and absolutely hated it. It flew like a 3-legged hippo stoned on ether, so that I couldn't even hit the broadside of a balloon except by flying into it. When the collision damage made me roll over and crash on landing and the screen went black, I was thankful, thinking that was the end of that pilot and I'd never have to fly the DH5 again. But I walked away without a scratch. "Oh well", I thought, "this plane is such a dog, and has such a dangerous job, that I'll surely die next time." And in fact my entire squadron, 13 DH5s of both flights AND 5 escorting Strutters, were all destroyed in about 5 minutes by a mere 3 Albatri (one of which forcelanded due to Archie). Most of the DH5s crashed from sheer inability to fly in the severe gusts we had that day. I only just avoided this fate, straightening out at the last second to make a good landing in a field, where I sat and watched the carnage. When there were no planes left flying in the area, I took off and tried to strafe the downed Hun, who was sitting on the other side of the same field I was in. However, the same wobbliness as before led to the same results: I couldn't shoot him but I did hit the ground just short of him where I lost my landing gear, then left a wing on one of those tall stumps right beside him, and finally careened right into the Albatros. Black screen. "YAHOO, I'M DEAD!!" I thought. Wrong. When I came to, I was back at the my airfield on the roster for the next mission. And so it's been ever since. I've now been forced down by DFW tailgunners twice due to ignoring their fire while I tried to shoot back, in hopes of being set on fire or shot in the face. No such luck, and I even managed to bag one of these 2-seaters. The weather had cleared and the air was far less bumpy, so I was able to hold the DH5 steady enough to hit something. Sadly, being shot to pieces doesn't make the DH5 fly any worse, so I've had no trouble landing safely. So, I've come to have a grudging admiration for the DH5's toughness, and I admit that I now almost look forward to flying it just to see what terrible crash I can walk away from next. But I still hate flying it. The best that can be said of the DH5's flying characteristics is that on a sunny day with only a few weak gusts, it doesn't try to kill you just flying along straight and level. On such days, it's just a pathetically slow and unmaneuverable pig--the Fee has better performance in both areas, by far. Still, due to the lack of wobbles, you might actually have a chance to kill something on such days. But on a cloudy with lots of strong gusts, the DH5 is practically unflyable. Its usual reaction to a strong gust is to go sharply nose down while rolling hard left and losing power. As such, just staying in the air in level flight is a major challenge, and is futile if the gusts are too frequent. If you go up on such a day (and you'll know it pretty quick), your best bet is to land immediately. ACM is of course out of the question on such days, and attempting it will wipe your whole squadron out in a few minutes.

I haven't seen this mentioned yet so I figured I'd bring it up.... I just tangled with some 2-seaters for the 1st time in HitR, and was amazed at the differences from before, which I don't recall being mentioned. When we attacked them, they all maneuvered around a lot. While their formation kinda broke up, they also stayed mostly together. But instead of just flying along straight and level, they were turning in circles and otherwise being obnoxious. Also (and pay attention here because this is important), their tail gunners had a MUCH bigger field of fire than previously, much closer to what IMHO they really could do back in the day. They could shoot into their front hemisphere and well below the tail to the sides. Needless to say, it was a pleasant change. No more easy 2-seater slaughters, at least if they have rear guns. I was just thankful to be in the "Flying Tank", AKA the DH5, so I could absorb a lot of bullets with no apparent damage until they shot my gun out. But by then I'd actually managed to knock 1 of them down, much to my surprise. So ye be warned. 2-seaters no longer sit there and take it, and they are MUCH harder to approach without getting shot at.

I'm using "historical AI". The above 2-seater scraps were happening in August 1917.

Just now I ran into several flights of DFWs and had a better look at what they were doing. It was the "Indian run" maneuver, where the lead plane would circle back to get behind somebody trying to get behind the last of the 2-seaters. And as soon as he'd done so, the new lead plane would circle back. Meanwhile, the main formation was weaving around generally being hard to line up in the sights, especially with all the tailgunner fire. They quickly got my engine and I land to forceland near a convenient convent

Sometimes you're just lucky

FA (A) 250, DFW C.V, 21 Dec 1916, 1429hrs, from Wasquehal to bomb rail yard 118 just NW of Arras. On the way home at 5000m, I had to hold considerable left aileron to stay on course. The DFW normally needs beaucoup right aileron trim to fly straight.

I strongly suspect that the plane you're flying requires a lot of right aileron trim to fly straight. In my experience, most of them require a lot of aileron 1 way or the other to fly straight, let alone deal with gusts and constant wind. Unless corrected with trim in-flight (as an abstraction of the countless unrecorded test flights and rigging tweaks your pilot and his ground crew would have done in real life between actual missions), you'll always be stuck holding the stick far over.