Bullethead

My own aversion to the stuff comes from its association with miserable times. I can't think of Spam without recalling the circumstances under which I always seemed to eat it. Imagine your day beginning like this..... You awaken stiff, sore, cold, and soggy, rolled up in your shelter half. When you open your eyes, your vision's all blurred because the night's rain has filled in your sunken eye sockets. So you sit up to wipe that away and all the water that's collected in your helmet pours down the back of your neck. This produces a painful, chest-burning fit of coughing, which immediately triggers a migraine. Not having eaten in a day or 2, you decide a good breakfast will make you feel better. So you root around in your sodden pack with your chapped, stiff, grimy fingers and pull out your last MRE, the one you been saving for a day like this. First thing, you find the packet of instant coffee and pour it down your throat dry, for quick headache releif and to numb your tastebuds for the horror to come. Then you get to the main course, which naturally is a packet of Spam. That's why this is the one that's still left--you ate all the good ones already. You tear the end off the pouch and squeeze but only get a whiff that smells like dogfood. The slab of cold Spam won't budge because it's glued to the inside by congealed grease. So you get out your plastic spoon and try to scoop some out, but the spoon breaks. Nothing for it now but to open the pouch completely, exposing the sticky mess inside to the blowing sand in the air, which is still flying around despite the continued rain. So you rotate to face downwind to shield your meal from the sand as much as possible, and start cutting and peeling the pouch. The wet plastic slips in your clumsy fingers and about 1/3 of the Spam slab breaks off and falls to the ground. You gnaw the rest off the remaining part of the pouch and, despite your best efforts, it still gets a fair amount of sand on it before it enters your mouth. So you don't chew it much and you swallow it quickly to get it off your tongue as fast as possible. Ah, memories. That's why I don't eat Spam now.

I dunno, I've always thought it was kinda silly having to start my motor at all, let alone worry about the wheel chocks. Out of my whole flight, I'm the only guy who begins the mission with his motor not running. Missions always start with the planes lined up at the end of the runway, already in position to take off. How did they get there? In real life, from reading various pilot memoirs, it seems the usual practice was to start the engine and do the mag checks and runup in front of the hangar, then taxi out to the the takeoff position. The motor warmed up during the taxi, so by the time you got to the end of the runway, you were ready to go. So, in OFF, when I start at the end of the runway, I assume all the pre-flight stuff happened already and have no trouble at all just going as rapidly as possible. The one fly in the ointment is having to start the motor, like I forgot to switch fuel valves or something, every single time... Anyway, it seems to me that if you want immersion at the start of a mission, you need to move the spawn points to in front of the hangars, have the whole motor start, test, and chocking thing happen there, then taxi out to the end of the runway. But since we start at the end of the runway already, I say just go fly.

Or perhaps this: I shot him, and it had to be One of us "Twas him or me. 'Couln't be helped' and none can blame Me, for you would do the same My mother, she cant sleep for fear Of what might be a-happening here To me. Perhaps it might be best To die, and set her fears at rest For worst is worst, and worry's done. Perhaps he was the only son. . . Yet God keeps still, and does not say A word of guidance anyway. Well, if they get me, first I'll find That boy, and tell him all my mind, And see who felt the bullet worst, And ask his pardon,if I durst. All's a tangle. Here's my job. A man might rave, or shout, or sob; And God He takes takes no sort of heed. This is a bloody mess indeed. -Ivor Gurney, "The Target"

Did you ask him about it? If not, got back tomorrow and do so. Had he and I but met By some old ancient inn, We should have set us down to wet Right many a nipperkin! But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot him as he at me, And killed him in his place. I shot him dead because-- Because he was my foe, Just so: my foe of course he was; That's clear enough; although He thought he'd 'list, perhaps, Off-hand like--just as I-- Was out of work--had sold his traps-- No other reason why. Yes; quaint and curious war is! You shoot a fellow down You'd treat, if met where any bar is, Or help to half a crown. -Thomas Hardy, "The Man I Killed"

He seems to be my brother by another mother. My moustache is of equal length but goes straight down the sides of my mouth and and inch or 2 below by jawline, in the best Texas gambler-gunfighter style. And while I prefer a good chaw of Days-O-Work or a 4-finger dip of Copenhagen, I still smoke cheroots now and again. Apart from these minor differences, we look very similar. I've shared water and rations (when my unit hadn't enough of either) with Iraqis who a few minutes before were shooting at me. I've gotten drunk with Palestinian friends to the memories of their cousins whom I killed in Desert Storm. I've had lunch with an Iranian who, as a young student, came over the wall of the US embassy back in the 70s. All us cannonfodder types know that the reasons for us killing each other are beyond our control and we all have to do our jobs. C'est la vie, c'est la guerre, and not THAT many hard feelings. So on the day of battle, I might happily gut-shoot them all, but the day after, those of us who survive can drink to the shades of friends not present on both sides.

Amen to that. I've flown sims for nearly 30 years now and until OFF, I never had anything but contempt for their AIs. That's why I've flown so much MMOFS, to face competent opponents. But OFFs' AI is the first thing I've seen that's worthy of the "I" part of its name. This thing really knows its ACM. It might not have to deal with all the things a human with full realism has to, but it knows its ACM and even its average pilots can put up a good fight. When you beat them, you know they knew what they were doing and can respect them for trying, even though you knew a few more tricks and had been able to anticipate them. This is a very far cry from the usual offline flightsim. And then there are the top aces, who can do things that are downright immoral without making it look like they're "cheating". And this is all just when you're locked up 1 on 1. Add a few more planes on each side and it really rivals what you find in an MMOFS.

Flightsims were about the 1st games written and are at least contemporary with things like those old Star Trek games where everything on your scanner was an ASCII symbol. Remember those? X = you, * = star, K = Klingon, and . = empty space. Believe it or not, the 1st so-called MMO game I every played, back in the mid-80s, was like that. It was called Megawars and could have up to 8 players at once. The 1st version of DOS Air Warrior came out only a couple of years later, and I never heard of it until much later. Of course, back then, the Internet was new, very small, and very sparsely populated, so it wasn't like you could hear about new things that way. Print media was still the dominant way to advertise computer products back then, and if your product didn't get published, nobody heard of it. What the Internet was for back then was exchanging info on how to hack various programs FTP sites to download free porn. In those days, there weren't quite yet graphical web browsers, so all your porn had to be downloaded without seeing it first, at 1200 baud, and usually for a fee. Hence the hacking. Back in those days, the Internet consisted of hacking, flightsim, and porn sites, all connected by ISPs like Compuserve and Genie. Not even game developers had home pages, but just reps who MIGHT be found at the BBS sites (not yet forums) on the various big ISPs. But if you can hack, discuss mutual interests, and get porn, all else on the internet is fluff and gravy, eh?

'E 'asn't got no papers of 'is own, 'E 'asn't got no medals nor rewards, So we must certify the skill 'e's shown In usin' of 'is long two-'anded swords -Kipling, "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" The vast majority of my pilots, if they get decorated at all, only rate wound stripes which, unfortunately, ain't in the game. I've had a few decorated "heroes" who specialized in "let's you and him fight" and then bayonetted the wounding who are trying to limp away. For the most part, though, my "successful" guys will get the entry-level medal before buying the farm. I figure I've been through somewhere between 100 and 120 pilots. It depends on how many times I've been through the alphabet for my Brit pilots, who die like flies in Bloody April. I really can't remember at this point. All my pilots of a given nationality have the same surname and 1st names that start with A, then B, then C, etc. My current Brit pilot is Laforey Bullethead, but whether he's the 3rd or 4th "L" Brit pilot, I have no clue.

No, that's too nasty for me. That North Sea weather is just evil. I've been to Orkney on the Summer Solstice and even then it was still too cold and damp for my poor, gimpy joints. In fact, a haar blew in while I was there and damn near killed me. Nope, I'm an unwilling exile due to my job. If I had my choice, I'd live in the desert of west Texas. Heat's fine with me as long as there's no humidity, and I much prefer dust storms to hurricanes . I think the closest alligators live about 3 miles from my house. I live on some of the highest ground in Lousy Anna so am that far from a swamp big enough for them. However, I have seen a number of foxes and coyotes, plus the occasional bobcat, in my immediate yard, and there are panthers, bears, feral hogs, the odd Russian wild boar, and horrific cross-breed monster swine out in my woods. But enough about this. Somebody post some pictures

Congrats, Olham. Well-deserved. And great contest idea, Lou

If I had to guess, I'd say DH4. I don't think the Marines used any Salmsons or Strutters, which were the other main US 2-seaters.

According to FMP's French Aircraft of the First World War... "On 4 April 1914 the Aviation Militaire became a separate department of the Ministry of War; it was now a separate service." Originally, there was also an Aviation Maritime that was part of the navy. I think what happened in the 30s was that these 2 were combined into the Arme'e de l'Air like had already happened to the RFC and RNAS. But the land-based planes were an independent service from before WW1.

I started offline flightsims as soon as they were invented back about 1980. I had the original MS Flight Simulator, which ran on an Apple IIe with 48K of RAM. You loaded it from a cassette tape, a process taking 20-30 minutes and failed more often than not, requiring you to try again. Thus, you could spend all your available time just trying to load the game. The world was about 5 miles square and consisted of a flat wireframe grid with a vertical jagged line along 1 edge to represent mountains and give you a visual cue as to which direction you were flying. There was also a narrow rectangle in one of the grid squares--your runway. The ground extended away forever beyond the grid but you couldn't see it. All control inputs were via the keyboard. There was no view of your own plane out the window, just a couple of low-rez instruments drawn at the bottom of the screen. You could fly either a Cessena or a Sopwith Camel, the latter being very nasty to fly with just a keyboard, and even worse when you had to fight 5 enemy planes at once. The enemy planes were just dots that never changed in size no matter the range, and of course gave you no visual clue as to which way they were heading. They also flew like UFOs, able to change direction at will without regard for aerodynamics. In all the times I played this, I think I only ever shot 1 of them down. I thus rate this as the most difficult flight "sim" I ever played .

If your computer can run OFF, it can run Gmax no problem. First off, you need Gmax, which you get here. To make planes for OFF, you need the CFS3 SDKs from Microsoft, which are available here. The only one you really need is the "Aircraft, Vehicle & Building SDK v1.5", but get the others just in case MS pulls the plug on this site in the future. You never know where your creative talents will lead you... Install Gmax, then install the SDK. The AV&B SDK installs as a "gamepack" into your Gmax tree, the others into your CFS3 tree. Once you get the AV&B SDK installed, look through its gamepack with Windows Explorer. You'll find some docs which won't make much sense to start with, and also a Gmax shortcut. Always run Gmax from this shortcut (copy it to your desktop) because this is set up to load the necessary plug-ins that let you make CFS3/OFF planes. The big thing here is being able to export models in .M3D format, which is what the games use. Regular Gmax won't do this. Having done this, go to the OFF "Photoshop and Paint Shop Help for Skinning and 3D Modeling" forum here at Combat Ace and in the stickies, find Stumpjumper's thread about a great Gmax tutorial. That's very good at showing you what goes into making a flyable plane for CFS3/OFF, and after reading and doing it, the SDK's docs will suddenly make sense. This tutorial also links to several others which are very good for the nuts-and-bolts of making an airplane that looks good.

The main misconception IMHO of the so-called "Fokker Scourge" is that it happened at all. The 2nd misconception is that the DH2 played a big part in "ending" it. The "Fokker Scourge" was NOT an era when Germany achieved air superiority, sweeping the Entente from the sky. As such, it was NOT an era that had to be "ended" by the arrival of better Entente planes. Such images are suited to later years and other wars, but applying these words to the "Fokker Scourge" is applying inappropriate later terms to a very different set of circumstances. Here's what really happened: First off, in 1914-1915, the French pretty much ruled the air. They alone had an independent air force at the start of the war, they had the most planes, and they began arming them with MGs before 1914. Thus had things all their own way. They had bomber formations roaming at will over the nearest parts of Germany and in fact formed dedicated fighter units long before No. 24 RFC. Meanwhile, the Germans had only unarmed A- and B-type machines, which were loosely organized under the army's transport command. Thus, the Germans couldn't fight back and couldn't really organize to deal with the French airial juggernaut. The RFC began pretty much in the same boat as the Germans, with a bunch of unarmed observation planes. They were able to operate, however, because the Germans had nothing to oppose them with. Their encounters were the stuff of dropping bricks and firing pistols at each other. However, the Brits soon began to fly MG-armed pushers like the French had had all along, so that they, too, began driving the Germans from the skies of their sectors. And of course the RNAS was into bombing aggressively just like the French, too. So things stood well into 1915. At this point, however, the Germans reorganized their air force to make it more responsive, concentrated, and aggressive. They also began to introduce the 1st C-type planes, which had a tailgunner, along with a few scattered Eindeckers. Thus, suddenly, Entente planes began to be shot down in air combat, something which had been extremely rare all along before. This came as a shock after so long of having things so easy, and this shock is what led to the coining of the term "Fokker Scourge" by the Brit press--NOT the RFC. This term was used in political debates mostly, and as such was deliberately chose by press and politicians to sound alarming to help carry arguments. Thus, it has ever since given many people the completely the wrong impression of what really happened. The "Fokker Scourge" wasn't a bloody defeat for the Entente, but merely marked the point in time at which the Germans finally started shooting back and thereby achieved a degree of parity in the air. So, what really happened in the "Fokker Scourge" was that German 2-seaters were no longer easy pickings, but could give as good as they got from the contemporary Entente 2-seaters. There were also a few Eindeckers here and there that used different tactics, which forced Entente pilots to develop different tactics and that took a bit of time. They were matched, however, by a growing number of Entente scouts also equipped with various mounts for forward-firing guns. Things were thus more or less balanced in individual fights, but the Entente still had more armed planes so could accomplish more of its missions than the Germans could. As such, the Entente still had overall air superiority, and as time went by developed strategies and tactics to effectively contain the smaller number of Germans. None of the Entente planes (except the Nupes) had performance very superior to those of the Germans, some were arguably worse, and most of them had been in existence, at least in small numbers, since before the Eindecker appeared. But because the Entente had more planes, it was able to smother the Eindecker. And because these old planes could do this, there seemed no reason to make anything more advanced, thus setting the stage for massacres later on when the Germans came out with much better fighters. The important thing to remember here is that the "Fokker Scourge" was an invention of the alarmist British media that was exploited by alarmist politicians. To hear them talk, you'd think that it was the end of the world, but this outcry bore little, if any, relation to what was going on at the front lines. It was rather like today's media and defeatist politicians spinning the major victory by our troops last weekend as a disaster because a mere 8 US soldiers died while killing hundreds of badguys. However, then as now, it's the media's version that becomes public perception. And having created the largely imaginary "Fokker Scourge", the press had to end to it somehow. Thus, the tiny contribution of a small number of equally pathetic DH2s was given undue credit. This was also political, because the DH2 wasn't a product of the government's RAF, which certain members of Parliament and their supporters in the media at that time were ballyhooing.

The Dark Side is a state of mind having nothing to do with nationality. Folks who use it as a national tag are incorrect as well as offensive. I was there when the term "Dark Side" became associated with flightsims and, to a certain extent, German planes as well. As you say, it came from Star Wars. It happened like this. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, noobs in DOS MMOFS Air Warrior seeking instruction from expert players typically phrased their requests in Star Wars lingo because being good at ACM seemed supernatural to them. The experts liked this flattery and responded in kind. Because noobs naturally gravitate to turnfighting, this is what they called "the Force" or the "Light Side". In those ancient times, what is now called "griefing" was an expected part of daily online gaming, and a large part of its attraction to the relatively few people then online. Piling up a good score or k/d ratio was fun, but it just made your day if you could get another player so made he'd log off in fury, throwing his joystick against the wall and cursing you in pre-TOS language. This of course led to many personal vendettas, duels, lynchmobs, etc., all driving by Hate. Thus, the Dark Side was there from the start, too. Another good way to spread the Hate was to be an E-fighter. Nothing PO'd a good turnfighter more than, after getting several kills by sheer skill in a huge furball, he'd get swooped by an E-fighter. And because most folks learn E-fighting after exposure to turnfighting, it became accepted AW jargon that E-fighting was the Dark Side. Habitual turnfighters (always the majority of the population) fumed that E-fighters wouldn't turn with them but just took cheapshots, whereas habitual E-fighters regarded turnfighters as ignorant dweebs unable to master the higher mysteries. And because E-fighters were so Hated and Feared by so many folks, they enjoyed calling themselves the Dark Side. Thus, the Dark Side originally encompassed both griefing and E-fighting. But as time went on, AW's code tightened up so griefing faded away, leaving only E-fighting in the Dark Side. Still, this was harmless enough, because in those days AW's arena alternated every few weeks between ETO and PTO plane sets. Thus, the F4U was just as much a part of the Dark Side as the FW190A8, while the Ki84 was just as Light as the Spitfire. But eventually AW ran both plane sets at once in separate arenas. Most customers preferred the ETO set, so that's where all the action was and hardly anybody was ever in the PTO arena. And in the ETO, the FW was by far the best E-fighter. Thus, the F4U faded from memory and Dark Side came to be associated solely with the FW. To be sure, there were P51s and P47s in the ETO, but the P51 could do turnfighting and the Jug was so difficult to kill with in the arena that they never achieved the same popularity amongst E-fighters as the FW. As the 90s went on, griefing became illegal as the AW player base expanded from a few thousand to several hundred thousand. The newcomers didn't know the backstory and of course there were too many of them to carry on with the old Star Wars jargon--too many for most to have ever heard of it, or know who the masters were, etc. So that fell away from simmer culture and all that remained was a vague impression in many minds that the Dark Side was somehow associated with German planes. The newcomers naturally felt this had to do with the Nazis, or perhaps even WW1 Germany as viewed through "Beastly Hun" propaganda posters. And as simmers spread out to other games, this idea has gradually taken over. And thus we have the situation today, where simmers mistakenly call Germany the Dark Side. I hope this helps set the record straight.

Yup, Bloody April was a localized event, over the Arras offensive. At other places at the same time, things were quite different. And try flying for the Kaiser in the 2nd half of 1918. In most places, the Entente is on the offensive and has overwhelming numbers. Even if you're flying a D.VII, you feel desperate and hunted because you can't outrun the most common enemies (SPADs and SE5s) and you're way out-numbered. Things only get worse if you're flying an Albatros or Pfalz, unless you're way off by the Swiss border or something where there aren't so many enemies.

I dunno, I've found that AI planes tend to go according to their skill level, not their airplanes. Good AI pilots in crap planes will usually beat mediocre AI pilots in good planes. But this is how it should be, IMHO. It's the pilot that matters, not the plane, at least up to a point. And FWIW and just MHO, but the DH2 wasn't THAT much better than the Eindecker. In the game, I'd rather fly the Eindecker. Both will kill you very easily if you try to fly them too aggressively, but the Eindecker has much clearer limits which are easier to avoid, and if you do get in trouble, you CAN recover unless you're very low. So just be careful and you won't kill yourself. With the DH2 OTOH, you THINK you can do more with it than the Eindecker, but if you try you'll often find yourself in the "DH2 Cuisinart", an unrecoverable spin that's so fast you can't tell which way you're going, and which occurs with practically no warning in the middle of what a moment ago you thought was a perfectly safe maneuver. The DH2 stayed in service so long not because they were good, but because the RFC had nothing better. It was the same story as with the Quirk and Fee. In fact, the RFC was lucky to have DH2s at all when it did. They had their moment, but once things like Halberstadts and Albatri came out, they were dogmeat. At that time, the RFC was pretty much joined at the hip to the Royal Aircraft Factory. That establishment wasn't into making fighters until mid-1917 and then only under duress. Thus, the RFC had to scrounge fighters from other sources against great official opposition. The new De Haviland company with a few "Spinning Incinerators", whatever Pups Sopwith could spare from its RNAS commitments, and the few Nupes and SPADs begged from the French. Eventually the RAF made the SE5, Sopwith expanded to make lots of Camels, and Bristol made the Brisfit, but none of these became common until late 1917. BTW, the "Fokker Scourge" was mostly ended by Fees, not DH2s. But because the Fee had 2 guys in it, most folks don't consider it a fighter. But it was in its day, and can still give a very good account of itself into 1917, if properly flown.

Welcome aboard! New guy buys the drinks! I wish Herr Zahn the best of luck. However, I hope he has his life insurance paid up. Life here at the front is nasty, brutish, and short. Fortunately, here we're all adherents of the One True Faith, which believes in instant reincarnation at the prime of life, with full memories of all that's gone before but without having to go through all that tiresome business with diapers, eating your veggies, school, puberty, etc. Just straight into booze, tobacco, women, and adrenaline! Of course, none of us will live to see 25, but who cares if you just start over again at 21? But look on the bright side. A few inches either way and the bullet that ruined your gun would have hit you or your fuel tank. Whoops, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. But that's why we're all in the One True Faith here, because lots of times those few inches do go the other way

Amen to that. The US is lucky it had allies like Texas or it would have lost the last few wars. BH <-- Native Texan currently in exile...

OFF had long been on Sim Outhouse, shortly after BHaH came out, SOH put the squeeze on OBD for $$$ to continue hosting the forum. OBD had anticipated this, however, and had already found us a new home here a Combat Ace. It was a time of rather high passions. I got banned for life at SOH as a result, something I consider a badge of honor . At the time, I figured this was no loss anyway because I never intended to go back. Recently, however, with my 1st tentative steps into 3D modeling for OFF, I have discovered that since the demise of NetWings last spring, all the 1% CFS3 modelling stuff is now on SOH, beyond my reach. Oh well. It was still worth it .

Yankee: Theories abound about this word's origins. Everybody seems to agree that it's a bastardization of some word borrowed from another language, but nobody agrees on which word from which language. The main candidates are several Dutch derivations and a couple of Indian words. My personal favorite is that it comes from the Cherokee word eankke, which means "coward" . Jerry: As I understand it, this was coined by the Brits. They liked to take the 1st syllable of a nationality's name and end it with an "ee" sound, such as with "Ities" for Italians. If you do this with "Germans", you get "Geries", which of course sounds just like the common name "Jerry", so they spelled it that way instead.

To avoid getting this thread any further OT, I tried to send this via PM but your inbox still appears to be full. Gawd no! Brewing would kill you right now. Fortunately, I made a batch a few days ago when the front was cold on its way south. Air conditioning dries out interior air. On days like this, their condensation drain tubes flow like rivers. Mold is the state plant of Lousy Anna (although poison ivy is a close competitor). There's no escaping it--it's on everything. So is mildew. The old houses with window-mounted A/C units have huge streaks of mildew down their walls where the condensation flows. In general, everything left outside rusts and rots very quickly, so has to be maintained constantly. But it's a question of whether any object (say, an attachment for your tractor) left outside for a week will rust away before it becomes totally buried in fast-growing vines and briars. My father grew up here before there was electricty, let alone A/C. He doesn't even know how he survived. It's no wonder the Euro colonists died like flies here.

I'm not a German, but you could stretch the question to include "how do our US friends like being called 'yanks'?", which covers me. Being from the South, I'm most definitely not a yank, and calling me one is rather like calling a Scot an Englishman . HOWEVER, I realize that "yanks" is the generic term used by Euros (and US yankees, for that matter) for all Americans. This was certainly true in WW1, as shown by such songs as "The Yanks are Coming". So, in a forum where everybody's role-playing a pilot passionately engaged in a very bloody shooting war, I take no offense at being called a "yank". I see it as an endearing element of immersion in this forum and of OFF. I'll of course have to say something like "who are you calling a 'yank', buddy?", but it's all in fun as I see it.

I'll send you all you can take and then some. We're having an Indian summer here, as in from the equatorial subcontinent. The low temperature last night here was about 82^F and, although it's only now 0800, we're already getting close to 90^F. It's so humid that everything is completely covered with dense condensation. All my windows are opaque with water drops and the eaves and the trees in the yard are dripping so much that it's like there's a light rain falling. I'm breaking a sweat walking 2 steps out my door and those who wear glasses are instantly blinded when the step outside due to the condensation. This condensation also happens inside your lungs and sinuses when you take your 1st breath outside, so getting the paper in the morning makes you think you've got a bad cold. What's happened is that our 1st cold front of fall, which came through last week, got out in the Gulf of Mexico, and quickly retreated back to dry land. But it was out there long enough to pick up a lot of hot water, so it came back as a warm front. With not a breath of breeze in it, either. I suppose those concerned with rising water temperatures should be happy, though. I'm sure this front has reduced the temp in the Gulf by 10 or 15 ^F