Bullethead

Hughs nearly died himself in another crash. One of his stunt pilots refused to do a certain maneuver called for in the script so Hughs tried it himself, and crashed. I believe that footage made its way into the film, too.

Thanks, but it's really crap and I'm sure it'll only get worse. I fully intend to skimp on a lot of things and just hit the high spots. I'm viewing this plane as a learning experience for me. IF (a big if) I ever finish all the things that need doing, I'll do something up all nice and pretty. I look forward to seeing it.

Thanks muchos! I've found some good stuff here. They have a pretty big selection so search around: http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/lane.htm

I'm an old, gimpy, drunken curmudgeon with a lot of other things on my plate, but I chip away at Gmax a little every day or so. Especially right now, when I'm under doctor's orders to quit chipping at flint for the time being. One of these days, I'll have it figured. That's only the 1st step in making a plane, but it's a big one. As for skinning, knock yourself out. I don't make historical skins--neither do most other skinners. First off, there are so many ace skins in the game already, with more to come, that it's more trouble to research who hasn't been done yet than it is to research how to do a specific ace skin. Second, the non-ace skins for included squadrons are generally already there, too. So, most folks just roll their own. This was, after all, the golden age of personal markings. If you make a new plane, it will only ever work in QC and MP. There's no way to add it to the campaign and OBD doesn't take user submissions for a variety of good reasons. But, this is still better than nothing. Check out the downloads section (link is at the top just under the logo) to see what all has been done already by users.

My most "renowned" pilot survived in a Fee from 15 April and 23 July 1917. He spent most of that time in the hospital so only did 10 missions for 6.7 hours. Of his 10 hops, 5 ended in painful crashes and 2 in forced landings--he only got home his last 3 hops, when the Arras front had quieted down. Still, he had 4 claims with 3 confirmed. The 4th claim was scored on his last hop but I retired him at this point because 1) things were now boring near Arras, 2) he had the Howard Hughs syndrome from too many bad crashes and the resulting complete addiction to epic doses of painkillers, 3) he was out of his mind with PTSD, and 4) due to various problems occurring, I had to reset OFF. So I archived his files in my pathetic little war memorial folder and that was that.

Just lucky. Even with DiD on, there's a small chance you might survive some horrific situation. After all, folks sometimes do in real life. These are the Creation Awards, the opposite of the Darwin Awards . Hope that didn't offend anybody..... Such things are very rare in OFF. They've only happened to me once or twice in all the hundred or so pilots of mine who've gone to the Permanently Inactive bin. And the guy(s) I've had this happen to died the next sortie or so. Having it happen twice to the same guy is really unheard of. You should go buy a lottery ticket NOW . However, you have ultimate control over this. If you don't think the guy should be alive, just go to the Dossiers and Retire him. Or go into your text pilot files and change his name to something with a cat in it, and remember that he's used up 2 of his 9 lives. Or just assume your guy was the test pilot for parachutes.

Quite some flying. But then I noticed over to the right, in the "related videos" section, that there was this one.... Amazing what an ungodly power-to-weight ratio and immoral amounts of control authority will do for you. Still, this is a trick I need to learn for OFF

Yup, and they had armor for the aircrew in 1914, "jet" engines in 1910, helicopters of a sort in 1909, etc.

Back when this forum was at SOH, somebody mentioned having seen Gueynemer flying along all by himself one evening, so followed him for a while. Eventually, without warning, he just nosed over and crashed. Turns out that was his day to die, his number came up in the game, and that was that. Kinda cool he didn't just vanish. Also, now the mystery of Guynemer's last flight is solved

I recently purchased Austro-Hungarian Army Aircraft of World War One, by Peter M. Grosz, George Haddow, and Peter Schiemer, published by Flying Maching Press. This thing runs over 500 pages and covers everything known to have been built in the Dual Monarchy or imported for use there, for the army only. No seaplanes, I'm afraid. The publish is pretty proud of this book, but you can buy it for substantially less if you look around. Same with other FMP titles. SKINNERS TAKE NOTE: My copy is the 2nd edition of the book, and as such lacks all color profiles that appeared in the 1st edition. So, if you're looking to skin one of Stumpy's Austrian planes, or perhaps make an Austrian skin for a Fokker or Albatros, you'll have to look elswhere for colors. Here's what Grosz has to say about that, from the preface, page vii: Given that this book is considered rather authoritative, it appears that the colors of the 1st edition were taken and run with by many folks, so a lot of the info on the net these days is still based on it. Thus, you have to use it with caution. Bottom line: nobody seems to know what colors were used. But I digress. I didn't get this book for skin colors, but to learn about obscure airplanes. And in that area, the book is great. It covers everything, not just production machines but all the experimental prototypes that came to nothing. Most planes are presented with photos, physical and performance stats, numbers produced, and very good 3-view drawings. This data is organized by manufacturer, listed in the order of their numeric designation used in serial numbers. The Dual Monarchy's aviation industry was interestingly arranged, hag-ridden by bureaucracy and monopolists, and handicapped at times by severe materials shortages. Still, it produced some very good machines, although also quite a few clunkers. One interesting thing is that some planes by different manufacturers tended to resemble each other. This was because nearly every company built planes designed by other companies and then modified them by their own engineers into designs of their own. However, each company had it's own style, too. And there were some planes that the Museum of Diseased Imaginings would be proud to display . Anyway, it's a great book, especially if you're into building plastic or 3D models. If that's not you, you still might be interested in learning the difference between UFAG and Oeffag, or why Austrian Albatros D.IIIs were superior to not only to their German originals but also their 1918 opponents.

Check out Amazon and instead of getting the one from their main store, click on the "new and used started at $xx" link. Thats what I did, and ended up getting it NEW for about $35 from some small bookseller up in New Jersey or some such. While I was at it, I got FMP's French Aircraft of WW1 as well. FMP wants $125 for it, but I got it NEW for $50 from some other small bookseller. I figured it was worth it.. As mentioned, however, take the color stuff in the 1st Edition with a grain of salt. Those colors apparently were based on counterfeit artifacts, probably from that same guy who's responsible for everybody thinking German naval hex was light blue.

Yeah, do like me and post shots of Fees killing Ablatri

I dunno. I mostly fly for the Republique in 1916, for the King in 1917 and early 1918, and for Texas in late 1918. The only time I fly for the Kaiser is in mid-late 1918 when they're really up against the hordes. To each his own. But IMHO that's what non-combat Flight Simulator is for. Folks have made lots of anemic early planes for that. In the meantime, if you have to see such things in OFF, feel free to make your own. Gmax and the necessary CFS3 SDKs are free. All it takes is knowing how to use the tools, which comes with practice. So pick some plane and see what you can do.

I've travelled this world all over And now to another I go But I know that good quarters are waiting To welcome ol' Rosin the Beau When I'm dead and laid out on the counter A voice ye will hear from below Sayin' "Send down a hogshead o' whisky "For to drink with ol' Rosin the Beau" Then get a half-dozen stout fellows An' stack 'em all up in a row Make 'em drink down their half-gallon bottles To the memory of Rosin the Beau Then get these half-dozen stout fellows And let them all stagger and go Make them dig a great hole in the meadow And in it put Rosin the Beau Then get ye a couple of bottles Put one at me head and me toe With a diamond ring scratch ye upon them The name of ol' Rosin the Beau I've got only this one consolation As out of this world I do go I know that the next generation Shall resemble ol' Rosin the Beau I feel that Old Tyrant approaching That cruel remorseless ol' foe So I lifts up me glass in his honor Let him drink with ol' Rosin the Beau!

Yeah, those Austrians could fly. Check out these pics of other miraculous landings. The Aviatik D.I was a POS for several reasons, but the most dangerous was that the wing trailing edge was designed to flatten out at high speed to reduce drag. It was thus thin and weak, and tended to fail at high speed. These are from that Austro-Hungarian Aircraft book. Congrats on getting that down OK

Yeah, that way you get to kill them multiple times. It's like Widowmaker throwing the big, named carp back in the pond to get him again next weekend. This is purely wishful thinking on my part, of course. None of my guys have ever lived long enough to see a rematch with an ace they've beaten.

That's exactly what happened, according to this book. The Austrians knew of the D.III's wing problem when they decided to build Albatri so the 1st thing they did was redesign the wings before starting production. The Austrian experience really shows what a mistake the Germans made in not fixing the problem themselves. It doesn't seem to have been that much trouble or to have taken that much time. Oeffag obtained the rights and plans to built Albatri in late 1916. They decided to built an interim Albatros D.II(Oef) while waiting on the new D.III wings, the main hurdle of which was the new design passing static load tests on the ground. The D.II(Oef) used the same fuselage, engine, and tail as the D.III(Oef) but had the wings of the German D.II, so switching production between them imposed little disruption. They only built 16 D.II(Oef) before going to the D.III(Oef). The winter of 1916-1917 was very bad in the Dual Monarchy, which prevented any flight-testing until March 1917. The new D.III wing had passed its static tests before the weather improved and production had already switched over by then. Thus, all 16 Alb D.II(Oef) and the 1st 5 Alb D.III(Oef) were test-flown and accepted that month. This suggests it only took several months of design and ground testing to solve the problem, all done concurrently with establishing a whole new production facility and detail parts fabrication from scratch. I therefore believe that the Germans could have done it faster. Also, designing, building, and testing a new wing design would have had very little impact on production, because the main line would have been cranking out the original design while the R&D department would have been working on the new wing and the tooling department would have been making assembly jigs for it. Once all this was ready, changing over on the main line would have maybe cost a day or 2 at most to switch out the tooling. Of course, that's looking at it from the perspective of having worked in modern aircraft factories. Maybe back then, things weren't as efficient so the change might have been harder. The Austrians did so by putting bigger engines in it. The original D.III(Oef) series 53 (44 built March-July 1917) had the 185hp Daimler. Then came the series 153 (281 built July 17 - Jun 18) with 200hp, and finally the series 253 (201 built May - Oct 1918 and another 59 after the war) with 225hp. The series 153 was regarded as "a superbly designed aircraft, beautifully balanced and especially suited for aerobatics. Its rate of climb was equal to the Hanriot and Camel, but slower in level flight than the SPAD." From looking at the numbers, its performance was roughly similar to the Fokker D.VII, and the series 253 was even better. The main problem was that they Austrians never had enough of them. One thing you wouldn't like about the 153s and 253s, however; they weren't as pretty as the German types. In the 153s, the prop spinner sometimes came off in flight and broke the wing or tail, so field units started flying without it. They discovered that this increased prop efficiency, giving them about 5 knots more speed, so it became a standard field mod and the 153s flew around with ugly flat noses. In the 253s, this was introduced in production by rounding the fuselage off bluntly just in front of the engine and behind the prop, like the nose of a DFW. This IMHO really spoiled the classic Albatros looks, but you can't argue with results. IFAIK, Ostdeutsche Albatros Werke had nothing at all to do with Oesterreichisches Flugzeugfabrik AG, but was a satellite factory of the Albatros company. As such, it made what the main office told it, which was standard Albatros designs. I believe the reason why OAWs were used longer is because they were built longer there than at the main plant. As I understand it, the main plant had, from the beginning, been more of a 2-seater factory because that's what all warplanes were originally. It was also where the R&D happened. Thus, the OAW facility was set up to build fighters. As the OAW facility grew, it produced a growing share of the fighters, until it alone could meet demand and the main factory stopped making fighters.

It's lovely. I've tried to put flamejobs on a few skins, but have always created trash. So I gave up on it and told myself I really didn't want my plane to look good with flames, or it might get a taste for the real thing

He wrote an autobiography that I've read--ripping yarns. Anyway, early on, he had a rear gunner who was quite a character; laconic and unflappable. But this guy was shot down while riding with another pilot fairly early in 1941, and after that Rudel doesn't mention his gunners for the rest of the book.

The horror, the horror. My condolences, Stumpy. Best of luck on a quick recovery.

Yeah, I'm with you. I've already corrupted my young niblings (my word for nieces and nephews, from siblings) with the Holy Grail, but I still have to wait a few years before exposing them to Life of Brian. My favorite scene is this one: It brings back all sorts of memories of trying to learn Latin.

<BR><BR>Making beer is no harder than making bread from scratch. It's the same thing, except with beer you keep the liquid and with bread you keep the solid. HOWEVER, ales are considerably easier to make than lagers. So, unless you like UK beers, you'll find it difficult to make anything like is common in Germany. <BR><BR>Almost forgot--we have a "wolpertinger" beast or 2 around where I live. Native to this area are the carnivorous Bopotamus and it's prey, the Nauga. The latter is valuable for its skin, which of course is naugahide. Out in the swamps nearby, there's also the skunkape, and of course the craygator. Out in my native Texas, there's the Jackalope, which looks like the front part of the wolpertinger pic Olham posted.

I've never had a plane stay in the air when I've jumped to the gunner position. What were you in? I used to fly Fees a lot and still do occasionally. That plane is unique in that the pilot has no gun and has to rely his observer's shooting to accomplish anything. I figure it's something like what you did in reverse, but I look at it as teamwork. The AI gunner won't shoot if you're doing crazy maneuvers so you have to fly to a point where you can hold still for a few seconds for him to shoot, all the while being mindful that the guy you're chasing has friends.... All combat is teamwork. Only superheroes can wipe out the enemy singlehandedly. I think the need to have somebody backing you up in a fight was the main thing that drove the development of so-called civilization. Why else would you tolerate being around other people, most of who are jerks and are extremely dangerous and unpredictable when put in large groups?

I saw one in the UK somewhere for a baby who lived just long enough to be named. I forget his 1st name, but his surname was Longbottom. The funny thing about his epitaph (if anything about dead babies can be funny), was a pun mostly in Latin: Arse longa, vita brevis. Get it? My favorite epitaph, however, comes from a book of old epitaphs. I always wanted it for my own tombstone, but now that Ted Kennedy's FINALLY dead, I'll let him have it. He deserves it more than me (said with a mixture of scorn and grudging admiration). I think the original was from the early 1700s: If Heaven be pleased when sinners cease to sin If Hell be pleased when sinners enter in If Earth be pleased at riddance of a knave Then all are pleased, for (name) is in his grave