Bullethead

A valiant foe of my ancestors and a likable enough guy from what I've seen of him in interviews during documentaries of his battles. He has surely earned Valhalla. I drink to his shade

Damn, that's talent! The guy in the gray sweatshirt would be a highly respected member of the redneck community here in Lousy Anna's armpit, due to his excellent turkey-calling skills, without any need for a mechanical device. Around here, everybody eats venison all year 'round and has more sets of mounted antlers than most women have pairs of shoes. But only the most expert hunters can plaster their walls with fans of turkey tailfeathers. First, turkeys are considerably rarer than deer in these parts. 2nd, they're harder to get close to. While turkeys are, in most respects, some of the dumbest things Uncaring Bog ever made, they make up for it in their uncanny ability to know when they're being hunted long before you know they're in the neighborhood. I've killed countless deer in my life, but only a handful of turkeys. That guy gets my respect

In this we agree. I DO believe the climate is changing. I just find it incredibly hard to believe that any human activity has a damn thing to do with it, because the Earth has gone through much more violent extremes before there was such a thing as a primate, and even later once people just like you and me were alive but were just chipping rocks. Folks these days bemoan all our car exhaust, but forget that paleolithich man used to burn off entire continents every year or so. I'd say the old guys, though fewer, make more smoke than we do now and if not, they were damn close. Plus, if you look up in the sky on a clear day, you'll see this completely unshielded nuclear reactor that's thousands of times larger than this whole planet. I'd blame that long before I worried about such puny things as humans do. I also believe that humans have caused some pretty nasty things in the environment. More in the former USSR and Red China than anywhere else, but even in the US things have been bad in places. For instance, I love me some raw oysters, but I can't eat them anymore due to all the diseases they now carry from exposure to sewage from the Mississippi River. Nor do I eat any fish higher in the foodchain than bottom-sucking catfish due to mercury in the upper predacious fish. In the 1960s, I had the misfortune to live in the Los Angeles basin when you often couldn't see more than a few miles due to all the smog. This hurt my lungs and the resulting chronic bronchitis (and the drugs I took for it) ruined all my permanent teeth which were developing at the time. And I watched smog appear over Dallas, where nobody believed it was possible, based on the LA model they then had. So yeah, that's all bad, and I'd like to see that stopped. My big problem is that the pseudo-science of "climatology" is taking over the world. "Climatology" is a new "discipline", as in only 2 decades old at most. And while the majority of climatologists might agree that humans are causing climate change, the majority of meteorologists, whom have been steadily working since paleolithic times, do not. Consider this.... Meteorologists have steady jobs. They work for TV and radio stations, they work for private industry, they work for government agencies, etc. Climatologists, however, exist solely due to government research grants. And they only way they can get those grants is to promote the agenda of whoever they get their grants from. The people who hand out these grants are all socialists or worse, who are looking for ANY excuse to obtain government control over more of industry and private life. They figure the best way to do that is to present an issue as in insoluable problem without absolute goverment control. Hence, the panic-mongering. There are also those who just want to see the US socialistis destroy their own economy, so are egging them on as best they can. And seriously, how can ANYBODY take "climatology" seroiusly when that idiot failed lawyer named Al Gore, who has exactly the same amount of technical expertise, training, knowledge, and competence as a steaming pile of cow manure, gets a Nobel Prize for pimping it? 99.9% of species that have ever lived are now extinct, and 99.9 percent of extinct species died out before humans were in any position to kill them off. From what I understand, the main cause of the puffin's problem is that seagulls (rather smart, adaptable, and expansionist birds, BTW) have recently moved into their turf. The poor puffins are a rather inefficient design for sea birds, with their short, stubby wings. They therefore expend beaucoup energy flying far out to get fish, more than a seagull would, and when they finally get home with it, the bigger seagulls just steal from them. This mostly happens at nesting season, when the parent puffins are eating only enough to get by due to having to feed chicks. As a result, both chicks and parents are starving to death in huge numbers. I rather like puffins--they're cute little things. However, they're not the best design for the job, at least not as good as seagulls are, so are losing out in natural selection. Sad to see it happen, but that's why so many species that have lived before do so no longer. Seagulls do everything puffins do, but do it better. The same could be said of us monkeyboys and our competition, which is why we're now in a position to wring our hands over all this.

I prefer the old term "jungle" myself. "Rainforest" was a term coined by the eco-whacks fairly recently to present jungles in a more favorable light, back when they were all about saving them. But even Greenpeace quickly got off that bandwagon, because it's undeniable that jungles are a net producer of greenhouse gases. Sure, the plants suck up CO2 and burp O2 during their lives, but the C02 they inhale goes no furhter than into their own physical structure. All during their lives, plants shed leaves and twigs, each of which rots and releases that CO2 again. Then the plant itself finally dies and rots, releasing the rest. And it's not just what the get from the air, but also from the ground, too. So, if you're worried about too much CO2, you should indeed strip off the jungles and replace them with something less "harmful". After all, the photoplankton in the oceans are the real "lungs of the world". Back when the fossil fuels were still alive, the world was much hotter than it is now. How did that happen? Do you think the cycads, treeferns, giant dragonflies, dinosaurs, and such had SUVs, factories, and whatnot that get blamed for "global warming" today? I kinda doubt it, but as they say, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Perhaps the archaeologists just haven't found any yet . Exactly. What problem? The world today is colder than it was circa AD 1100; we're still warming up from the Little Ice Age. And even when we reach the temperature of AD 1100, we'll still be much colder than we were at many other times in the Earth's history. As I said, go try growing maize on the Colorado Plateau with Neolithic tech, or wheat in Greenland with Iron Age tech, in quantities sufficient to feed fairly large populations. You can't do it because it's too cold right now. So to me, the problem seems to be that it's too cold, and we need to warm this planet up. The whole eco-whack movement is the best example of the sci-fi concept of a "meme" that we now have. The whole green thing was started and fostered back in the Cold War by the Soviets, in an effort to get the US to hamstring its own economy because they knew they'd never win otherwise. The USSR is long gone, but the "meme" remains and still spreads like any other virus, now fostered by the EU for the same reason as the Soviet's started it. And guess what? Back when the world was warming, the Sahara wasn't a desert, but was fairly lush. If you go back far enough, it was pretty much a swamp. But more usefully, even into recorded history what is now the Sahara was the major source of food for the Roman Empire. Why? Because it rained more back then, because it was warmer. So again, why is it a bad thing if the world gets warmer? Except for humans, NOTHING alive on land gets buried when it dies except by some freak accident like a landslide or flood. Everything else, plant and animal alike, rots on the surface. Thus, all these dead things immediately release all the carbon they've absorbed over their lives. And human corpses aren't buried deep enough to really affect this, either, because they're quickly turned into worms and daisies, most of which also rot on the surface or are eaten by things that rot on the surface. The only carbon-based lifeforms that truly get buried are those of the deep sea, and the extremophile bacteria deep in the rocks. It's been this way since life began, and it always will be this way unless you want to go around sinking every fallen leaf and twig in the deep ocean. So the whole carbon thing the doomsayers rant about is hogwash. Everybody keeps going on about CO2 like it's the big thing, but water vapor and methane are much more powerful greenhouse gases and water vapor is much more abundant than CO2. But guess what? The doomsayers don't mention either because trying to limit either won't cripple the US economy, which is the whole point of it all. Let's consider this a minute from the "above all man" perspective..... The land area of this planet is only about 25% of the total surface. But even so, VAST tracts of land are uninhabitable, or are only seasonally inhabitable. Polar regions, deserts, jungles, swamps, high mountains, etc. And then there are the large areas of prime real estate locked up as nature preserves of 1 sort or another. Meanwhile, millions of people are starving to death, or are killing each other over water holes and arable land. I hate to see starving kids. That bothers me a LOT. In fact, it bothers me so much that I'm perfectly willing to chop down every "rain forest" and thaw every polar bear into extinction to prevent just 1 kid from starving. I know, I'm a sick, evil bastard that way. Seeing an army of naked, starving kids crawling over the mountains of garbage outside Manilla warped my brain. Go ahead and hate me. I honestly don't know how I live with myself for letting that sight bother me so much. Still, I submit that there's not a damn thing in the "rain forests", the tundra, the mountains, or the deserts that we can't do without. Sure, there are some interesting critters there, but they contribute exactly zero to the health and well-being of ANY civilized human, other than those who get paid to study them. OK, there are some uncivlized tribes here and there who hunt them, but if you asked them, I'm sure they'd tell you their life really sucks, what with most of their babies dying every year, the diseases and parasites they endure, etc. So, it seems to me that all those critters and their various uninhabitable ecosystems are killing people. If we made it so that the only things alive on land were the plants and animals we eat, and the insects and bacteria they need to be healthy, and the climate was such that we could grow these things nearly to the poles (like how it was back in the dinosaur days), wouldn't this stop kids from starving? And wouldn't that be a good thing? Some folks would say that reducing the world to 1 universal, and not-very-diverse ecosystem, would make us more vulnerable to extinction. I have to ask, HOW? The only land-based ecosystem that matters to human survival is the one our food grows in. Right now, it's nowhere near as big as it can be, so is more vulnerable to local disasters than if it covered the globe. Seen this way, all other ecosystems are at best pleasant decoration, at worst wasted space directly responsible for starving kids. Either way, it's all superfluous as long as there's insufficient land to feed the people we have today. But all kidding aside, honestly, seriously, and sincerely, how can anybody put the survival of some useless, window-dressing critters few have ever heard of above starving children? But somehow the eco-whacks never seem to ask themselves that question... Amen to that.

Damn good thing, global warming. Without it, none of us would exist. It's not something the eco-whacks like to publicize, but Earth is really out beyond the Sun's so-called "Goldilocks zone", where liquid water can exist without other factors at work. The only reason Earth isn't frozen solid is because of global warming, greenhouse gases, etc. Also counter to the doomsayers, every time the world has been hotter than it is now, life has flourished. Strangely, it wasn't wiped out by super hurricanes or whatever. Opening up more land area to more species always results in more speciation, greater diversity, and more healthy ecosystems. Sure, it's a bad thing for the very few cold-specialized things like polar bears, but it's a net gain given the benefits to everything else. And for those who say the world now is hotter than it's ever been, I say go try growing wheat with Iron Age agricultural tech in Greenland right now. I dare you. Or try growing maize with Stone Age tech on the Colorado Plateau. Both those things were not only possible, they sustained thriving cultures, in the Medieval Optimum Period (now called the Medieval Warm Period by the doomsayers), but have become impossible since the Little Ice Age.

"The Sorriest Thing Made Now Bar None" ????? J/k, I have no idea

FWIW, in my so-far very limited experience with making new planes for OFF, I've learned that plane models have things called "contact points". A contact point is, AFAIK, a spot where the airframe is likely to come in contact with the ground. Parts of the plane without contact points go through the ground as if it wasn't there. Parts of the plane with contact points interact with the ground. For instance, wheel contact points make the plane sit on the ground, so you can land and take off, and contact points on the lower wings make the wingtips break if you let them touch the ground. From what I understand, you can only have about 13 contact points on a plane, in CFS3-defined places, but as I say my experience with this is quite limited. Anyway, I'm 100% sure that all OFF planes have contact points under both wheels and the tailskid, plus both lower wingtips. Otherwise, they'd be unable to take off and land, but instead would fall through the ground. Thus, if your undamaged plane ever falls over on its side, as in 1 wheel and then the lower wing tip sinking through the ground as if it wasn't there, then I submit the problem is with the ground and not the planes. Note, however, that the apparently(?) limited number of contact points does cause some strange things to happen at times. For instance, it appears that you can only have 1 wing contact point on each side (a legacy of CFS3 monoplanes?), which naturally is at the tip of the lower wing, the part most likely to touch the ground in non-emergency circumstances. But suppose you manage to land with the lower left wing shot away, which is possible in some planes. As your speed decreases and your aileron authority goes away during your roll-out, your plane rolls over to the left, so is contacting only on the left wheel. But because the lower left wing is missing, there's no longer a contact point on that side. Thus, your upper left wing goes right through the ground as if it wasn't there, neither stopping your roll nor breaking itself, because it has no contact point of its own. Your plane continues to roll over on its left side, pivoting about its left wheel, until the side of the fuselage touches. This also doesn't seem to have a contact point, so it also goes through the ground. This continues until another contact point touches the ground, and it appears that the one mostly like to touch is the one on top of the cockpit. In most WW2 planes, this corresponds with the top of the pilot's head. IOW, it's like your head hits the ground moving at whatever speed you have left. This is usually pretty fatal. So, it seems to me that unless you're missing a wheel and/or wingtip, you shouldn't be tipping over like this. If you are missing such parts, then you're prey to the limitations of contact points. And if you're not missing anything but still tipping over, then I think you've found a fault with the terrain rather than the plane.

To make sure we're on the same page, there are 3 main types of rolls: aileron, snap, and barrel. A barrel roll is the only type useful in ACM, because it's the main ingredient of a rolling scissors. The others are only for show, but trying to do them in QC helps you master your chosen ride or at least learn its limitations. As I was taught them, the various types of rolls are defined as follows: Snap roll: As described above, it's a horizontal spin. The fuselage is cocked at a pretty sharp angle to the direction of motion, the inboard wing is stalled, the outboard wing is still flying, and you're doing your best to maintain altitude. Aileron roll: The objective is to keep the fuselage perfectly staight and level while holding full aileron over, using elevator and rudder as needed as you go around. Needs to be done at a high enough speed that you don't immediately start a ballistic trajectory straight down. For wimpy rides, best done after a dive for speed and then pitching up to about 15^ before starting the roll. Barrel roll: Combination of lots of aileron and elevator, so you fly in a spiral path around an approximately horizontal axis. The natural reaction to an enemy diving on from your high 4 or 8 o'clock, and thus bringing about the rolling scissors fight. Not all OFF planes, even if fast enough, can do a barrel roll, due to insufficient aileron authority combined with too much "built-in headwind". Most can, though. Every plane that will spin will do at least 1 snap roll, however. But only the planes with high speed, decent roll rates, good rudder and elevator authority, and a sufficient lack of inherent stability, can do an airshow-worthy aileron roll. I find these work best in SPADs. I agree that if you try to do snaprolls, you'll usually lack precision. You'll either do too many or come out at the wrong angle and have to do an "excuse me" barrel roll out of it to get back level. Modern aerobatic planes are specifically designed to fly indefinitely in the regime, however, and to come out of it at will, so comparing WW1 planes to a Pitss or something is unrealistic (especially given the disparity in power:weight ratios). But, with sufficient stick-time on a given snap-capable OFF ride, and plenty of practice at judging the correct moment, you can get fairly competent at precision snap rolls. I can do this with Camels, Pups, and Fees, but other planes I'm sloppy with. As I said, though, snaprolls aren't ACM, so being able to do them "correctly" won't help you in combat directly. All it does it teach you about your ride and give you an measure of your master of the beast.

I disagree. A snaproll is just a horizontal, deliberately entered spin. Any plane in OFF that will spin will also snaproll. To do a snaproll, first you have to be slow, not far above your level stall speed. Then you jam on full aileron and rudder in the direction of your choice, plus full up elevator, while throttling all the way back. This puts the inside wing into an accelerated stall and away you go. It's quite possible to snaproll even a Fee, which is incapable of doing a barrel roll or even a decent loop. The only plane in OFF I have been unable to snaproll is the RE8, which steadfastly refuses to do even a regular spin no matter how hard I try, despite its well-documented nasty flight characteristics in real life. A few other planes do things strangely, too. First off, NEVER spin or snaproll a DH2 unless your pilot is set to be immortal. Never try this in a Dr.I unless you've got a lot of experience with the machine and at least 1000 feet of altitude. Camels can easily get completely out of control and be totally disorienting, but are actually much easier to recover if you just force the nose down. Nupes always go to the right even if you start with left control inputs, which can catch you by surprise if you're not used to it. But I've noticed nothing strange with the Albatri.

Thanks for that :). And just to emphasize, don't be confused that this is an Hs123 page. Just scroll all the way to the bottom.

Well, that was certainly worth watching. I just have 1 question for Makai: is he hiring? I learned how to swab decks and chip paint in the USN :).

Did you happen to get a screenshot of that? Sounds like a very cool wreck. I'm quite impressed with your talents. Usually, it takes newbies 5 or 6 sorties to do something that spectacular. I'd say you're a natural

I didn't know any fieldgrade WW1 officers could write

Got my receiver set to auto-tune this show. Less than 1 hour to go.

The difference is largely one of symmantics, I agree, because politicians are a subset of lawyers. Not all lawyers are politicians, but damn never every politician is a lawyer. However, it seems that only the most debased, debauched, and incompetent lawyers become politicians, no doubt because they lack the skills necessary to survive in the private sector even as bums. Thus, you can separate them from the rest of the herd for special attention. If you flew the Fee in the game, you'd see there's a skin of this plane, whereon you can read the writing

If there were foreign troops on American soil, I'd be an insurgent, and would expect to be treated by them as I treated the raghead insurgents back in the day. If the invaders wussed out on that, I'd eventually kill them all.

Humanity will never have peace until the last lawyer is strangled with the guts of the last politician.

I was fortunate in my war to be on the front, not in a town. There were no journalists or other backseat drivers to be seen, so we just shot everybody who looked like he needed it. If it turned out we made a mistake, nobody mentioned it. And believe me, if some backstabbing SOB HAD come out to our position, he'd probably have gone MIA in the 1st firefight, as in fragged and put in a shallow, unmarked grave, and his disappearance blamed on the uncivilized barbarians we were fighting. THEY stick at nothing, as you well know. We didn't, either, but the enemy gave us plausible deniability. We rationalized this quite easily--after all, it's MUCH better to be in prison than on the firing line. I'm sure the guys over there these days do things the same way.

Stewie is a character in the Fox animated show "Family Guy", which has run far longer than it should have and has even spawned spin-offs now. Stewie is a toddler but nevertheless he's the smartest character in the family, the most articulate, and has a Brit accent. He's a would-be evil genious intent on taking over the world and enslaving humanity, he can drive, read, write, fly, speak multiple languages, etc.

Don't haul on the rope don't climb up the mast If you see a sailing ship it might be your last Just get your civvies ready for another run ashore A sailor ain't a sailor ain't a sailor anymore "The Last Shanty", by Tom Lewis (and IMHO best performed by Great Big Sea)

GROUNDED?!?!?!?!??!?!? WITHOUT A CLOUD IN THE SKY?!?!?!?!??!?!? My met officer would have said "Clear skies, high winds. Be careful out there", and we'd have gone. I've flown in MUCH worse conditions, and we're only grounded when you can't see the latrine from the back door of the mess, sometimes not even then. Geez, I think somebody's been busted to the ranks and handed a rifle for that call.,,, Cool pics, though

The best way is to go for high-deflection snapshots. In my experience, 2-seaters in general, including the Strutter, are slow and have poor roll rates, but have outstanding turn rates and very small turn radii once you get them banked over. They have no trouble turning way inside a fast scout. So here's what you do: let the Albatros come to you . After a pass, the Albatros will certainly overshoot you. As he goes by, turn to follow more or less behind him, but don't try to shoot because he'll be out of effective range and receeding due to his higher speed. He'll almost certainly go upwards at the same time--don't follow him up. Instead, you might want to go into a shallow dive to build up a bit of speed, which if nothing else improves your roll rate, which you're about to need. At some point, the Albatros will turn 1 way or the other to come back down at you. As soon as you see him commit to a direction, you turn as hard as you can the same way to get your nose way out ahead of his, staying more or less level. What you're trying to do is cut across the diameter of his turning circle, as if you were trying to ram him where you meet. Bank to keep the Albatros easily visible between your wings, use elevator to keep his path angled 90^ to yours, and use rudder to keep him in the same spot on your screen, near your 2 or 10 o'clock. Pick out one of your struts as a reference and try to keep him lined up with it. Objects on a collision course have no relative movement, and collision courses close the range quickest. Hence, the need to hold him still. At first, you'll be way out of range and off target, but no worries, because you're on a collision course so that will shortly change. As you get closer, the Albatros will roll and pull more toward you, so that by the time you're in range, you'll be looking straight down on his upper surfaces. As you close in, slack off on the rudder to let the Albatros slide around closer to your nose. This is important for avoiding a collision, because it allows you to cut just an RCH behind him after you shoot. I like to shoot when the Albatros is so close that I can't see all his iron crosses due to my wings. As you shoot, get off the rudder entirely so the Hun passes across your nose at the last instant. I open fire when the tip of his nose is about at my 1 or 11 o'clock, try to hold for a split-second with his nose in line with my gun (so I hit the cockpit), then kick opposite rudder to pass behind him, releasing the trigger as I do. Usually, I don't collide with him . With a single Vickers, a pass like this will only fire about 6 bullets. However, assuming you've aimed well, most of them will hit the vitals. Even if you don't kill him, you'll at least take the wind out of his sails, making him relatively easy to finish off next pass.

When it takes you a huge number of hits to get 1 kill, it's almost always because you're scattering them out all over the plane instead of concentrating them in 1 small area. This is mostly a result of firing at too long a range, or being too drunk to hold your aim steady. Also, due to the way hit boxes work, it's possible for the rear part of the fuselage to protect the :vitals" (pilot, engine, and fuel tank) from shots from behind, even if in real life it wouldn't stop a bullet. This is more likely for the Albatros than the Halberstadt because the Albatros fuselage is so much wider. Finally, airframe components like wings required more bullets to take out than the vital parts. The single Vickers of Entente planes also fires rather slowly compared to a single Spandau. Because of this, the odds of each average burst inflicting serious damage on the target is pretty low unless you can hit the vitals. Otherwise, you have to try very hard to hit the same part on the airframe several times in a row over multiple passes. Basically, planes with 1 Vickers are analogous to being armed with a penknife. If the enemy stays at arm's length, you can give him lots of little cuts all over but while he'll be sore in the morning, none of them do much to impair his ability to continue the fight. If you get in close, however, you can slash his throat. That's how you have to fly these planes.

I thought it was more of a Sin City thing .

Why does anybody play or watch baseball when even the best hitters fail 2 out of every 3 trips to the plate? Why do people always pull for the underdog? IMHO, it's because we all think, deep down and whether we admit it or not, that life sucks. Even if you kiss all the right asses, don't beat your wife too often, and otherwise do all that's expected of you, you really don't expect anthing to work out close to how you want, because you've seen countless examples of friends and family members getting totally shafted over the years so know you're turn's coming soon (even if you've had a turn or 2 already). So, you want to beat the system. This being a forlorn hope, the next best thing is to have one of your virtual alter egoes beat the system. And to make it even more satisfying, you want him to beat the system against even harder odds than you've got in your miserable real life. At least that's how I look at it