Bullethead

No surprise there. Our ancestors spent FAR more time biting and stabbing than they've had roofs over their heads. As a result, women are hardwired to dig successful warriors, men are hardwired to become successful warriors to impress the chicks, and parents are hardwired to raise successful warriors who will carry on their name and take care of them in their old age.

Forget what I've said about the N28 before; that sexy lingerie did it. I admit it. I've always had a fatal attraction for the N28, and she knows it! We've had a long series of brief, passionate, and tempestuous affairs over the years in various venues, but I've always put her down for more stable relationships. Fokkers, Albatri, Sopwiths, SPADs, that old hag of a Fee, even her own older Nupe sisters. They've all come and gone, often more than once, always leaving fond memories and no hard feelings. But that N28. She's always. And never. It's been a long time. I've put her off as long as I can stand. I know it will end only in either tears or with me writing incomprehensible philosophy with my excrement on the padded walls of my cell, but I MUST HAVE HER! My warrior woman, my valkyrie! Always, and never!

Me ol' gov's a retired petroleum engineer. He won't fly OFF but thinks it's cool and really likes reading about WW1 planes. Anyway, he was reading my book about Austrian planes and noted how it says many times that the reason the Austrians had so few planes with rotaries was because they could get neither castor oil nor the German Voltol substitute. That set his oil-based mind wondering why rotaries needed castor oil, so he started researching and bothering me with his results. That got me curious, too, so I've been looking into it also. Problem is, neither of us can find a definitive answer as to why rotaries needed castor oil. Everybody seems to agree that castor oil was a better lubricant in many ways than the mineral-based oils then available. Being polar, it bonded to the mdetal better, so was more likely to remain between moving parts. Also, its viscosity was more stable over a wider range of temperatures. However, castor oil has some bad properties, such as polymerizing when heated, thus forming gunk and varnish in the motor. This means that unless you have a total loss oil system like a rotary engine, what you gain in wear protection you lose in downtime. Thus, some experts argue that this was the reason for using castor oil in rotaries. You got the benefits of using the best oil then available while dodging its bad properties. The implication here is that all engines would have used castor oil if they could have affiorded the downtime. Other experts, however, say that castor oil was actually required for rotaries precisely due to their total loss oil systems. In rotaries, the oil has to enter the engine along with the fuel. Petroleum-based oils are diluted by gasoline so lose a lot of their lubricating ability in this way. Castor oil, however, doesn't mix with gasoline so remains intact. Those of favor the 1st theory discount this 2nd theory by saying that there are many instances of petroleum-based oils working in rotaries. They mostly cite US work in 1917. However, champions of the other theory say this was only possible with oil from Pennsylvania, which was only available in the US, and note that the German Voltol substitute (made from coal) wasn't really that effective (as in lots of engines failed due to insufficient lubrication). So, I'm at a loss here. Both theories have their merits, but if I had to choose, I'd say it was really because of the immissibility of castor oil and gasoline. Anybody here know the real answer?

I'm no expert on the subject, but it seems to me this argument has problems. The reason why castor oil absorbs heat and has a high ignition temperature is because your basic castor oil polymerizes below its ignition temperature, and the resulting polymer has a higher ignition temperature than the basic oil. However, this polymer takes the form of sticky gunk and varnish, which is much more likely to stay within the engine than un-polymerized oil. IOW, the more heat the castor oil absorbs, the more likely it is NOT to be blow out even in a total loss system. Therefore, it would seem to me that most of the heat absorbed by the castor oil would be staying in the engine. One of the articles I linked above was about the "cult of the castor bean". Perhaps this recommendation was an example of that? As in, castor oil's perceived benefits outweighed its actual deficiencies? After all, engines for fighter aircraft were just racecar engines, only they had to go several times every day instead of once per weekend. That seems to be the concensus from my POV, too. But as mentioned above, one of the problems of taking technology back to its roots is assuming the old-timers really knew what they were doing . But it was worth it. I never knew any of that stuff.

Hey, makes sense to me . As to German torpedo planes, I know there was a I Torpedoflugzeugstaffel based at Windau in the Baltic in 1917. It was equipped with Gotha WD 11s. They had 5 such planes and 10 torpedoes available in total for Operation Albion. The planes had naval numbers 1372, 1374, 1376, 1377, and 1378. On 8 October, all 5 planes attacked a couple of Russian minesweepers anchored off Zerel. 3 torps malfunctioned and the other 2 were near misses. Because this used 1/2 the available aerial torps, the unit spent the rest of the operation dropping bombs, saving the torps for higher-value units targets that never appeared in a suitable place to attack. -Source: Battle for the Baltic Islands 1917, by Gary Staff

While I appreciate your comments, this plane is a piece of crap. It will never be worthy even of licking up the oil dripped below anybody else's plane. It's "BAD-ly Made", as it will someday proudly display on a label in its half-ass excuse for a virtual cockpit (which is all it will ever have, assuming I get even that far). All that is to say, I'm 100% sure you can make something better even on your 1st attempt. Remember, I've never done this before and I'm deliberately cutting an obscene amount of corners, not caring about how it turns out as long as I learn the process. I'll make something good later, once I know how, if I have the time and patience. So, I say, get on it. There are plenty of friendly experts here who'll pick you up when you stub your toe.

DAMN!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!! Well, that certainly will speed things up. I need to learn how to do that myself someday, but I'm not complaining now . But that means I have less time to think about bracing wires..... How do you make them, just a very skinny 3-sided cylinder? Or perhaps a 2-sided flat poly with alpha-mapped texture? If you made them 3D, is it OK to color them in Gmax, or do they actually have to be textured?

Very nice work! I look forward to seeing them in the game.

No, I fly it from the cockpit. As 77Scout says, I use the ] and [ keys to zoom my view in and out, and have it as far out as it will go in the Fee. You can see everything that way: your target, your front gunner, which way your rear gun is pointing, Mata Hari's picture, and also the pack of smokes. The smokes are important--they're a flight instrument. They work just like a "ball" slip indicator. You shouldn't get upside down in a Fee. Fortunately, it's not easy to do even on purpose so the situation rarely arises . However, it will fly without one of the lower wings, although you have to hope you land on something soft because you can neither arrest your descent nor stop yourself going around in a big circle. Turns in the Fee are best done with mostly rudder. You've probably noticed that the Fee is so stable that you have to hold aileron in throughout a turn to keep it banked. But then it wants to keep banking when you level out. Strange. In any case, your ACM will mostly involve flat and oblique turns. The Fee's turn radius is very short if you use a lot of rudder, so you should have no problems turning inside Albatri. And if you ever get an accelerated stall in a hard turn, just slam the stick forward while leveling out and you'll be back under control instantly. That is an FE2d, not the FE2b we have. The D model had a redesigned nacelle with a bigger Rolls engine. Note the huge radiator behind the pilot instead of the small side radiators of our Beardmore. Also, the pilot's seat was lowered so he wouldn't block the radiator, and the main landing gear were moved forward, so that the nosewheel could be dispensed with. And as you say, the pilot had a fixed forward gun (lucky bastid). All this stuff added a of of weight, so the D had a greater wingspan to carry it all. But the extra weight and drag absorbed all the power of the bigger motor, so the D's performance wasn't really any better than the B's, and the main difference in game terms would be the fixed gun. I'm really not sure the fixed gun would be that useful in the game, however. The Fee is so slow and unmaneuverable that I figure it would be next to impossible to get the sights on a target anyway, except perhaps for a balloon

The strange thing is, only the DFW has a bombsight, so only it can do level bombing. In the DFW, if you're in the F7 bombsight view and drop your bombs, your wingmen will drop theirs, too, without having to order them to attack. That's perhaps the difference between level and tactical bombers.

The Fee pilot doesn't have a gun of his own to shoot with, so no ammo shows up in that position. However, both gunner positions do have ammo, never fear. I STRONGLY recommend that you NEVER fight from a gunner seat in the Fee. Just fly the plane and leave the shooting to your gunner(s). You need to be doing ACM if you don't want the Albatri to shoot you to pieces. If you're in a gunner's seat, the plane will just fly in a straight line, which makes it an easy target. All the gunners' kills go on your account, without you firing a shot. The only reason ever to get into the guner's seat is to check the ammo remaining during a lull in the action. Fly the Fee like a fighter. Your objective is to set up shots for your front gun, so chase the enemy around trying to get on his tail. Because the front gun pivots, you don't have to get lined up perfectly, and in fact it's better if you're NOT directly behind the target. I get most of my kills by formating on my target on a parallel course just off his 4 or 8 o'clock. This angle gives my bullets a better chance of hitting the vitals at the front of the target than shooting from behind him. Besides, it's cool to watch because you have a perfect view of the target (not blocked by any part of your plane) and the gunner firing at him, too. Suppose you're after an Albatros that's going rather faster than you. Odds are, he'll be doing high oblique turns, and the Fee lacks the macho to follow him up. No problem, just turn flat inside him (easy for a Fee) and match his bank as if you're in formation with him. Then your gunner can shoot him all through the turn. A few notes on Fee gunners.... I have found that they start to aim at enemies about 300m away but will only fire at 200m or less range (per labels). They will also only shoot if you're in a relatively low-G turn banked not more than about 30^. They can snap the gun instantly from side to side (whereas you have to crank it over slowly) and can follow rapid crossing targets, but can't hit anything except relatively stationary targets. This is why you need to formate on your target, so you can hold him in the same small part of the screen. That way, the gunner can pour rounds into him and he'll go down. But as said above, you can't be turning very hard while doing this. Also note that the gunner usually has to aim at the target for a full second or so before he starts shooting (even if all the other conditions are met), so you can't really do snapshots. The front gun is your only real weapon. It has a field of fire about 160^ wide across the nose, and from about 30^ down to about 45^ up, but only gets many hits on targets that are within about a 40^ cone centered on your nose. Shooting at higher angles to the sides just wastes bullets, even against relatively stationary targets. The rear gun's field of fire is about 90^ wide and from essentially level to about 35^ up. Your rear gun should never fire a shot, other than the odd short burst at some non-threat crossing behind you but not staying back there. It's unlikely that the rear gun will ever fire a long burst, because a Hun on your tail will usually shoot from 300-400m and blow you to bits before the rear gun opens fire at 200m. The rear gun is only useful as a sort of status indicator of your 6. If the gun is in its centered rest position, then your 6 is PROBABLY clear, at least if you're turning (which forces any enemy following you to be on your high 6 and hopefully in the gun's field of fire). However, as aces typically fire from 400m or so and the gun won't point at them until about 300m, it could also mean you're about to die. Just hope your SA is good enough to remember where all the badguys are. If the rear gun is swinging rapidly from side to side, perhaps firing a short burst now and then, that means your 6 is PROBABLY clear (as in nobody's in position to shoot at you) but enemies are criss-crossing the sky behind you. This being fairly normal in a large furball, consider this a good sign. If your rear gun ever points in a single direction and stays there, forget what you're doing and BREAK HARD NOW!! It only does this when it's aiming at a relatively stationary target fairly close back there, which means you're in some Hun's sights. NOTE: I find it best to fly the Fee with my view zoomed all the way out/back. This makes it easier for me to see targets ahead and also keep 1 eye on what the rear gun is doing. The file I indicated only affects your squadron's Fees, and only for a pilot in that squadron, whichever squadron it is. IOW, suppose you have 2 Fee pilots in different squadrons, say 20 and 22. When you fly the guy in 20, his Fees will fly better but no others will, including those in 22. And vice versa when you fly the guy in 22. I have no idea what tampering with the other files will do. I hesitate to try, actually . I don't know if there is such a thing. However, what you don't want to end up with is Fees doing a lot of loops, or rather trying to and failing, and thus stalling constantly. Also, bear in mind that the Fee couldn't hold more than 20^ nose-up attitude for any length of time, due to this making all the oil run to the back of the motor and stay there. You CAN loop a Fee if you have a lot of speed to start with, and the Gs of this will keep the oil from pooling, but you don't want to do long, steep climbs. Doing so doesn't seem to have any adverse effects in the game, but you shouldn't have Fees doing this if you want to be realistic. The main Fee tactic seems to have been the Lufbery Circle. As long as I can get my guys to approximate that, I'm happy.

More than several. I've done most of the alphabet of 1st names in them. The Fee is my favorite WW1 plane and OFF has made my dream come true in finally being able to fly it. I've attached some motivational pics of what you can do with it, plus a shot of an appropriately attitudinal skin for the Fee fighter pilot. As others have said, the Fee appears in both bomber and fighter squadrons. Be SURE to fly it only in fighter squadrons if you want to get into fights. Fighter Fees do fighter missions, and if you fly in Bloody April (which is the only timeframe I recommend), you do things like OPs over Douai looking for MvR and his posse. The "F" in FE is for fighter (rumors that it means "Farman" are pure calumny ). That said, the Fee suffers from being stuck with a bomber AI, even in fighter squadrons. That means that it's programmed to run straight away from the enemy, as if thinking it has an effective rear gun, unless you convince them otherwise. This ain't realistic because real Fee drivers knew better. But if you're hard-core, you'll learn to live with this and be successful even in Bloody April. I must admist, howver, that a month or so ago I FINALLY had the nerve to change my squadron's Fees to having a fighter AI, and things have gotten a lot easier. The way to change the AI is to go into the \aircraft\FE2b_Sqd folder (no number after Sqd) and edit the FE2b_Sqd.xdp file (using any text editor). The 3rd line from the top starts with "<General Allegience..." Go to near the end of that long line and you'll see "Category=tactical_bomber". Change this to "Category=fighter_bomber" and you'll have much better help from your wingmen. As for your own plane, the Fee is quite maneuverable athough very slow and with a poor climb. Thus, the vast majority of your Bloody April fights will being with superior numbers of ace-flown Albatri swooping you from high above. All you have to do is dodge their 1st few high-speed passes, however, and you can wipe the floor with any who get greedy and blow their E to try to turn with you. The Fee can out-turn the Albatros no problem. Of course, even a slow Albatros will be doing some vertical that you can't possibly match, so just fly horizontally inside his oblique turn and let your observer aim up at him. IOW, fly the Fee as if you were aiming the nose gun, but because you can't do much in the vertical, you have to rely on its off-boresight capability. But considering the Fee's general lack of performance, this is just an equalizer, not an overwhelming advantage. Remember, you 1st have to live long enough to be able to counterattack like this. The rear gun in the Fee is your rear-view mirror. Don't rely on it to save you because it won't. However, it makes a good pointer towards enemies in your upper rear hemisphere, which are hard to see otherwise. So zoom your VC view out as far as possible because you don't have to aim any guns yourself, and being zoomed out lets you see better which way the rear gun is pointing. So that's you. As for your AI buddies, unless you tweak the AI, they're practically useless. Unmodified, if you give them an attack order, they will just run away and usually die because they can't outrun Albatri nor defend themselves effectively from behind. Modified, they're not aggressive, but at least don't sit there and take it quite as much as othewise. Either way, what you want them to do is a Lufbery Circle, so they can defend each other's tails. Unmodified, you need to keep hammering the R key, to try to keep them following you, but this pretty much requires that you fly in a circle yourself, at least until the Albatri blow their E. Modified, just hit the H key once in a while, which will cause them to circle around you and thus keep you segregated from the other enemies while you outmaneuver the 1 you've picked. Regardless, flying the Fee as a fighter and actively seeking trouble with vastly superior forces as a fighter pilot should, you're not going to have an easy time. More or less serious damage is just par for the course and making it back to your home drome is a rarity, usually depending on a complete lack of enemy activity. The vast majority of my non-fatal Fee sorties end up landing at whatever airfield happens to be right under me when my engine gets hit; otherwise it's whatever reasonably clear and flat piece of ground is handy. Success in a Fee squadron is measured in living through April and May 1917 without being hospitpalized for more than 1/2 that time, and if your squadron as a whole has more kills than deaths.

No kidding. History is replete with examples of people doing things the same way as their forebears, without ever considering there might be a better way. I saw an interesting TV show about this a while back which was about the differences between the through processes of humans and chimps. One of the experiments compared kids to chimps using an experiment involving a box containing a treat. In the intial test, the box was opaque and the tester showed the kids and chimps how to get the treat out of it. Getting the treat required use of a "magic wand" and the only thing it really did was reach into the hole containing the treat and drag it out with the sticky area on its tip. The box had no moving parts, but the scientist doing the experiment gave the impression that there were some by tappingon the top of the box with the wand a few times, then poking it into several meaningless holes in the box, before finally sticking it in the hole with the treat. Both chimps and human kids assumed all these precursor moves were actually necessary to "unlock" the treat hole, so copied the sequence and got the treat. Then the scientist repeated the experiment with the same subjects, only this time the box was clear plastic. The chimps immediately saw that all the "magic" was bogus and went straight for the treat, but the humans repeated the "magic ritual" anyway..... And IMHO, that's why we're "civilized" and chimps "aren't".

While I pretty much disagree categorically with all your reasons for thinking why wars are were and are fought, I'll defend to the death your right to say it, because then I get to say my piece, too, and life would be pretty boring if there was nobody to disagree with . In the US, 11 Nov is a day for thanking living vets for their service defending the unworthy from things they have no clue about. Those of us who have friends and/or family who were KIAs, we remember them on the last weekend in May. A few others might, too, if they can pull themselves away from watching the Indy 500 or however else they're spending the holiday weekend.. When I was little, 11 Nov was a holiday, but it no longer is. Shows you how corrupt our culture is,

I drink to his shade

Tuesday, 10 Nov, is the 234th Birthday of My Beloved Corps. I'm posting this now because I have to work starting 0500 tomorrow and won't be home til late, so if I don't say it now, it'll be too late. I know we've got a bunch of Jarheads here, So Happy Birthday and be sure to drink 1 too many for Chesty

Not intentionally, but neither do they check fire because friendly planes are in the target area. And your wingmen and other "friendly" AI pilots will blissful bang away at the same enemy you're chasing despite you being in between. Thus, you need to be fairly wary of all friendly troops with guns. A few pointers: 1. Never get between a "friendly" AI pilot and an enemy plane. 2. Shoot any "friendly" AI planes between you and your rightful kill--they started the fratricide, you finish it 3. Never dive straight at a "friendly" AAMG with an enemy on your tail. Always approach at a big enough angle that the AAMGs bullets will miss you on their way to the enemy. 4. Never have a big fight low over friendly ground positions, because the numerous AAMGs will fire in all directions and one of them will hit you eventually. Instead, while maintaining a more or less constant altitude of at least several hundred feet, drag the enemy over the friendly AAMGs. Due to the angles involved, you'll be pretty safe but the enemy will suffer. Keep going until out of AAMG range, then reverse and fight the weakened enemy. 5. Follow enemy planes through "friendly" flak at your own risk. Usually you can get away with it, but sometimes you get blown to bits. 6. Regardless of the above, enemy planes, flak, and AAMGs are much more dangerous than the "friendly" ones.

Whenever you're in a tail-first fall, gun the motor and push your nose down with all your might. Ignore any spin that's happening at the same time, just get the nose down. This will usually save you before too long, and once the nose is down you accelerate and this alone is usually sufficient to stop any spin you're in. Some planes, especially the ones from 1916 and before, are rather difficult to fly. I recommend starting with something more forgiving, like from 1917. Albatri and Pups are good candidates. Hell, even the Fee if you're not averse to dying a lot due to sheer lack of macho. If you prefer later in the war, do an SE5 or D.VII. Until you get the hang of something like this, I'd avoid planes like the Nupes, Dr.Is, and SPADs. These planes are fairly easy to fly, but either require special tactics or have very nasty habits just under the surface. But once you get the hang of these latter, too, you can move on to the really nasty planes, like Pfalzes, DH2s, and Eindeckers. My rule of thumb is, look at the round trip mileage shown in the briefing and take only enough fuel to go 30-50 miles further than that. 50 miles is if I've got a trip deep into Indian Country, 30 miles for anything else. You never know what detours you might have to make, plus it sucks to have to break off pursuit of easy meat deep on your side of the mud due to a fuel shortage. Besides, you might get a fuel leak, and that extra bit might just see you to friendly territory.

Best wishes to our forum buds in the path of this storm. Judging from Olham's map, it looks like GrumpyBear is in the crosshairs at present, followed by K.Lynn, Sundog, outfctrl, and perhaps MrLucky and Cameljockey as well. The boffins right now are saying that the storm will hit somewhere between the mouth of the Mississippi River and Pensacola as a category 1, the hook east along the upper Florida state line as a tropical storm, and thus back out into the Atlantic. However, given that last year the boffins never had a clue where Ike was going to end up, I'm sure this forecast will change over the next couple of days. As it stands now, I'm just in for a day or 2 of light rain, but I'm not ruling out that it will end up in Lousy Anna's armpit. It's too early to tell anything except that it'll hit somewhere along the central Gulf coast. So battend down the hatches, rig for heavy weather, and make sure your generators and chainsaws are working with ready supplies of fuel.

He's still mayor of New Orleans. As I said, he got re-elected the year after the storm. I don't live in New Orleans, so the only thing I've heard out of him lately was that a few months ago he took a trip to China I have no idea why, but I bet it was on at the public expense--Hell, I'd have bought him a 1-way ticket. However, I only heard about this because his travails were in the papers. It seems that somebody on his plane had the sniffles so upon arrival the Chinese quarantined the lot of them for like 10 days as suspected swine flu vectors. This naturally hosed all his travel plans and AFAIK he had to come straight home again afterwards to get back to whatever business he does at the office. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy . Anyway, it appears that Ida is both weaker and further west than thought yesterday, so is even less of a problem for me than before, and hopefully will be less of a problem for those in her path. But anybody wanna bet that when she gets out in the Atlantic, she'll hook around back into the Gulf and rebuild? Quite a few of the models are showing that possibility. BTW, IMHO the best storm info can be found at Weather Underground.

Just wait until you have to fly RE8s instead of Strutters

My only nit to pick with the map is that I believe one of the few city names on it is misspelled. Shouldn't it be Armentières instead of "Amienterres"? No wonder I've been so far unable to find the infamous Mademoiselle . As to your complaints with the lack of detail, I bet you could replace the map texture with something you like better. I haven't tried myself, but I'm sure if you dug around in your folders you could find the one currently in use.

Yeah, I agree. Sorry. Just a very sore spot with me. SO TO THE BAR!

Damn. That's like watching The Lion in Winter and seeing where that cast (the newcomers, anyway) all ended up.