Bullethead

Yeah, she is pretty cute. OH, you meant the camo'd car. I didn't see that at first

Absolutely. Go fly a Spad XIII in QC with your nameless Brit test pilot. IIRC, you've got TIR now. So sit there on the ground and turn your head to the right. About the time you get to your right shoulder, you'll see what I'm talking about. Feel free to get baked , or just use the top part to dribble your lump of sugar into your absinthe. What, you don't do absinthe? Geez, dude, this is Europe in 1918. EVERYBODY cool is still doing absinthe, even if it's under the radar these days after being wrongly blamed for some unfortunate incidents a few years ago . You think I got that autographed naked photo of Mata Hari in my Fee without absinthe? You thing Judge Roy Bean every had a chance with Lilly Lantry with out it? And now, in the 21st century, absinthe's been legal again for years in Europe, and recently, finally, has become so in much of the US. I'm having some right now, and I've still got both my ears . Of course, today's version doesn't have anywhere near the wormwood that the stuff of the the late 1800s did, but that was overkill. Just ask Van Gogh. The modern stuff works quite well, thank you very much :yes: . Even Hemmingway would agree. And just for the record, I hate them both . I've flown Noops (some) and Albatri (very little), so I can appreciate the downwards view of the non-D.II German fighers, which after all were copied from the Noop. But no tractor plane can equal the pilot view of the DH2 or FE2. Go ahead and hate us, call us ugly, and it still doesn't change the fact none of the tractor prop figthers, and very few jets, have equalled the amount of unblocked sky to greet the eyes of a Fee driver. But what wouldn't I give for a 400hp Liberty in a Fee, along with a fixed gun for me.....

With Campbell's Soup cans instead of roundels? Seriously, would you put some blurry, impressionistic, absinthe-soaked watercolor painting of WW1 aircraft on your wall? I just did it for a joke.

Besides the pin-up girl, the Fee's cockpit also sports a shelf just below the row of instruments. Upon this shelf is a pack of cigarettes that slides from left to right. As such, it functions very well as a slip indicator, and I actually always use it as such. It's the only "instrument" in the Fee I every bother looking at, because it does an EXCELLENT job of telling me which way the wind's blowing. The other instruments are just excess weight I wish I didn't have to carry, because no matter what they say, I already know I'm too low and slow, and nothing I do will change that The best thing about these smokes, however, is that they NEVER fall out even when I push negative G. So I keep all my important papers, my money, my naked pictures of my observer's wife, and my blackmail photos of the Major with the mule all folded up in this pack

The Fee really had 2 separate guns for the observer, 1 facing forward and 1 facing aft. Both could pivot, but both remained on their mounts, so always shot into their own arcs. The front gun couldn't cover the rear or vice versa. The Quirk, OTOH, just had 1 gun, which could be picked up and moved between IIRC 5 different mounts surrounding the observer's cockpit. Thus, the gun had different, rather limited, arcs depending on which mount it was in at the time. CFS3, OTGH, was built for WW2 when such archaic arrangments as the Quirk's had gone out of style. So the game apparently expects to see only 2 types of guns: those fixed in place firing forward, and those pivoting in place covering a specific arc. Another apparent CFS3 limit is that it assumes that if you have multiple pivoting guns, you also have a gunner for each. Thus, all the pivot guns can fire simultaneously, either at the same or different targets, even if in real life you only have 1 gunner. You see this very occasionally in the Fee, but not often enough for it to be anything approaching a buzzkill. Instead, almost all the time, only the front gun is firing. If the rear gun ever shoots, you're about to take a dirt nap . I haven't flown CFS3 itself at all, but I expect this also happens to the cheek guns of B17s and B24s, the upper tail guns of the Ju-88, etc. But I guess they didn't think this was a big enough problem to make a special case for. To be honest, though, the Quirk observer's gun was mostly there for show. In no position could it shoot downwards, it could only shoot upwards a little when firing back over the pilot, and in no case did it have much lateral arc, so there were big gaps between the arcs of its various mounts. Besides that, it took real time and effort to move the heavy gun from mount to mount, so it was incapable of reacting to rapidly changing threat directions or tracking a target passing at high deflection. Plus, at high altitude, the observer often was too hypoxic to be able to lift the gun at all, even without having to fight the slipstream (or so says the Quick pilot whose book I read). Plus, there was a pretty high chance of fumbling the gun over the side. So really, while I would like to see the Quick be more formidable, upon giving this more thought I've concluded that OBD was correct in NOT giving its observer anything to shoot with. Even if all the software technical issues could be overcome, at the bottom line it still would be practically the same as not having a defensive gun at all.

Well, I wouldn't hang it on my own wall, even if there room for it between all the centerfolds

I don't have that much trouble with it, but I'm used to flying Brit planes. I don't find the Spad any worse than a Pup or Camel in most directions, and actually better in others. You sesquiplane drivers with your tiny lower wings are spoiled. I hope they break off on you :yes: . To me, the Spad just gives the impression that you can't see ahead because the upper wing is so low. However, this low upper wing actually gives it good visibility forwards and upwards. With the wing practically at eye level, it only blocks a very narrow strip of sky, and if you sit up straight, you can see right over the top quite easily (at least with TIR4). I only really notice the upper when when I'm looking up to the side, and then it's no worse than a Sopwith's. The Spad, however, is worse a rotary bird when it comes to seeing below the nose. In the Pup or Camel, I can sit up straight, lean forward, and see below my nose, which helps me pull lead for shots during tight turns. But you're probably used to this from flying German inlines so don't notice this. And besides, you shouldn't turn the Spad hard after a target anyway, so it's no big loss. I only notice this being a problem when I'm trying to land.

Yeah, she's really made the rounds of us Fee pilots. No wonder we've all got the same pox

Wasting time with Paint Shop Pro.... I know nothing of art, so is this what you call "impressionism", or is it "post-impressionism", or is it just crap? Anyway, everybody's getting all these beautiful, dramatic shots that I never seem able to catch, so I decided today to go in a different direction. Behold! PSP ain't just for making skins; I can also screw up perfectly good screenshots with it . I've attached both the before and after versions. I set out to try to make something that looked like one of those old pen-and-ink drawings in old newspapers, but I discovered how to make this sort of "art" instead so just went with it. I'll get back to the newpaper drawing later.

Yeah, they thought of everything when designing the Spad. My favorite feature, though, is that you can fill the radiator up with pinard and by the time you return home, it'll be full of brandy :yes:

I think one of the reasons the Quirk doesn't have an observer's gun is probably not so much an animation limit as a limit of the CFS3 engine. I get the distinct impression that the game engine requires a gun to be in 1 place on a plane at all times. It's either fixed in place there, or it can pivot over some arc of fire. Thus, I don't think there's no way to have the observer pick up his gun and move it to the other side of his cockpit even if OBD had wanted to animate it. Another alternative would be to use some later model of the BE2, which still had the observer in front, but gave him a big scaffold thing with a gun on top. He could then stand up in his cockpit and fire back over the pilot's head. Of course, the pilot couldn't see anything if that happened :). So maybe the best solution would be to just have the last BE2 model with the observer in the rear, but then you've basically got an RE8 so why bother?

Yeah, the Spad's cockpit is rather plush. Beautiful hardwood with brass accents, genuine leather around the combing and the trailing edge of the upper wing, and wide enough to share your seat with Nurse Suzette. It's even got an incense burner mounted just by your right shoulder. I find that a bit gauche, though, because it clashes with the rest of the decor. Still, the fumes from it are a nice pick-me-up when I'm sideslipping in to land after a couple of hours at high altitude. And the top is detachable for use as an absinthe spoon

If you're warping, you can go right through them just like the AI. But don't do it in normal flight. But if you're in a Spad, never warp on the outward leg or you're sure to be stuck at some low altitude and bounced. I just got stuck with a mission that was 75 miles 1-way, on a really crappy day, so I actually probably flew 100 miles getting to the objective due to dodging clouds. On the way, I discovered that the Spad won't go higher than about 19.5k and that clouds go rather higher than that. Fortunately, they were in a friendly mood and let me pass through their fringes in peace.

Tough day at the office, eh Ohlam? Too bad about your pretty white Albatros. How long before you can get another one painted up?

I'm sure it's from Stump's own little world in the Balkans.

I've recently been giving the Spad a go myself. I don't have any complaints about its maneuverability; it does quite well in the high yo-yo department, so you can get your good firing opportunities. You just have to maintain the E to do that. And you have to recognize it instantly when you can't, and run/dive away before you get in trouble. I also find it hard to kill anybody in the Spad. It's not that I don't get good firing opportunities, it's that I'm a lousy shot. Because I'm just getting the feel of the beast, I'm playing conservatively, so I'm only still in the fight at all if I've got a good E advantage; otherwise I'm outta there. That means that in all my firing opportunities, down at the bottoms of my high yo-yos, I'm coming out of a dive and am overtaking the target rapidly. It's a low-deflection shot, but it's only for a second or so because and E-fighter MUST pull up into its next vertical move BEFORE it overshoots on a firing pass. Otherwise, it blows all the angles it's built up so far. In the limited available time, I can almost always get a burst into the target somewhere, but usually I miss the vitals, so the fight goes on. And the longer the fight goes on, the lower my E unavoidably gets, until eventually I have to make a run for it. But at least the Spad is QUITE good at that . This is where I miss my FW. When you're packing multiple 20mm or 30mm, ALL of the target is the vitals, because nothing flies very well without a wing or a tail . But with WW1 RCMGs, you can only do instantly fatal damage if you hit in a much smaller area. And the E-fighter, at the bottom line, is largely dependent on doing instantly fatal damage. No matter how well you fly, and even if you're never hit by enemy fire, if you can't knock the enemy down on your 3rd pass, you're probably not going to get him, and if you keep trying, either your target or 1 of his buddies will nail you as you bleed down. Thus, the Spad pilot, if he's aware of the relative E states in his fights, is probably going to live a long time. But if he can't get guns on the back of his enemy's head in a split second, he's also probably not likely to run up much of a score. I need to work on that part . One important lesson I've learned for success in the Spad already is NEVER warp except on the way home. It appears that warping has fixed altitudes for you between waypoints, seemingly based on dividing your assigned objective altitude by the number of waypoints between. Thus, even if you climb to your objective altitude of, say, 16k, over home drome, then warp, you'll find yourself back down at 5-10k en route, and will almost always be bounced by Germans who are much higher. And in those fights, the Spad really doesn't have any option but running away. I never found this a problem when flying Pups and Fees, because in those I expect to be bounded and can usually handle it. But it really takes the fun out of flying a Spad. It would be nice if warping would never put you at a lower altitude than you already have, because otherwise I rarely have the amount of real-world time necessary to do my missions.

I find it one of the easiest to do, because it's got so few curved surfaces that distort things. I'm working on my personal skin for it, which is metallic green with gold and red flames all over, and the words "MALE IN SE" in a big, bold, black Frankenstein-type font across the top of the upper wing. Then it has the Latin lyrics of "Ave Satani" (them from The Omen) on the fuselage sides, in place of the usual data block of name, model, serial number, and weight. And all the Balken Crosses have short lower legs, so they look like inverted regular crosses. I might end up making them broken, too, or surrounded by flames, depending on how the rest of it comes out. I figure that's an appropriate scheme for such an instrument of the Devil It wouldn't be such a killer if Tony hadn't sold his soul.

There's a reason the D.VII was specifically named as one of the toys the Germans weren't allowed to play with any more after the war . However, considering the late-1918 environment from the Germans' POV, I doubt I'd want to fly anything else then. For prop fighters, and even into the Viet Nam era, Uncaring Bog Himself laid down the law: E-fighter and turn-fighter created He them. A plane is supposed to do one or the other, but never both. It's supposed to be all about the classic match-up of speed vs. power, echoing the gladiatorial bouts between the retiarius and the secutor or murmillo. But every so often, a plane came along that "swung both ways". It might not have been the best at either, but it was good enough at both to use either set of tactics as the mood struck it. In a contest of individual skill with nothing on the line except reputation and bragging rights, I'd never fly such a thing. But as a real-life German in late 1918, with my life and entire way of life at stake, hugely outnumbered by the best the other side had yet come up with, you damn betcha I'd be all over it. And seeing as that's exactly the situation in the OFF campaign at that point, I have no hesitation in flying the D.VII then.

My Fee lads have tangled with your Jasta several times; I recongize the tail stripes. So far, personally, I've broken a bit better than even with them. I've gotten 2 of them, and they've forced me down once :). OTOH, they tend to make mincemeat out of my wingmen...

That's about the biggest piece of FOD I'd ever hope to come across

I don't like fighting Dr.Is in the Camel, but I'll take them over D.VIIs. The Dr.I is a 1-trick pony; although it does that trick very well, even a little better than me, I always know what it's going to do so I can try to out-mart it, even if I can't out-do it. And if that fails, I can out-run it. The D.VII, OTOH, can kill you in several different ways, and it can do them all better than I can. The Camel is obsolete in the D.VII timeframe, and shows it.

The vast majority of my flightsimming is MMO, and I flew the FW far more than anything else. In my experience with it, you usually need 3 passes to kill a spit. This isn't because they don't die immediately under the weight of an FW's fire, it's because in MP games it takes that long bleed the spit down to where it holds still long enough for you to get your sights on it without wasting a bunch of your E. The main mistake beginning E-fighters make is blowing E for a snapshot on the 1st or 2nd pass. By that I mean that the target is turning hard out of your way as you come screaming in, and all you think you have to do is pull a little to get the sights on him. And that's true, because you're still far away, but your still too far away to be in range. By the time you get in range, that little pull rapidly becomes a big pull due to the angle having widened. But having already started this from far away, you just keep doing it as you get closer. So there goes a bunch of your E. And having now screwed yourself this way, you've also totally screwed your position and attitude to start your high yo-yo at the correct time and place to set up your 2nd pass, AND you don't have enough E now to do that right even if you were in the right position and attitude. And remember, this is even flying an FW-190A8, whose snapshots can be quite fatal. It's just not worth it in the long run to blow E to take a snapshot. Keep you E, because the target likely has friends. Use E to work yourself into position, NEVER blow E to "buy" position. Only take tracking shots, and always keep yourself ready for the other enemies in the neighborhood. The Dicta Bullethead (for E-fighting) 1. SA, SA, SA, SA, SA 2. NEVER fire a shot while in a dive, unless your target is diving straight away ahead of you. 3. NEVER blow E for a snapshot opportunity. 4. NEVER allow yourself to become co-E with the enemy, unless he's in an E-fighter himself and you want to turn-fight him, AND there are no enemy turnfighters in the offing. And BTW, maybe it's just me, but "boom and zoom" is what an Me-163 does. Come screaming in, totally ignoring angles, take whatever shot you get, and extend into the next county before reversing. Energy fighting is the opposite of that. The E-fight has you maneuvering every bit as much as a turn-fight. The difference is, you're doing your turning in the vertical and expending very little E doing it. The goal of E-fighting is to keep your own E while bleeding the enemy. Any turn-fighter with a modicum of E can turn out of your way, so you have to take his E away. The only way to do that is to force him to turn hard and often, and the only way to do that is to seize the initiative and press the attack over several aggressive passes that give him the choice of turning hard, RIGHT NOW, or dying. And the only way to press the attack is to keep maneuvering, doing all sorts of high yo-yos and lag rolls. If you don't press the attack constantly, the enemy will have time to catch his breath (as in regain some E) between your passes, so you don't bleed him down. Then eventually you get impatient, blow your E for a snapshot, and die. So in E-fighting, always go in thinking you won't take a shot unti your 3rd pass. Only take good, low-deflection shots. If you catch the enemy napping, go ahead and blast him on the 1st or 2nd pass, but never expect that to happen, and NEVER try to force that to happen. But by the 3rd pass, if you've been pressing your attack correctly, the enemy will be pretty much a wallowing, stationary target, and then you can really light him up. And when you've done so, you should still have enough E to repeat the process on one of his buddies.

No, it isn't. As a new guy, you have to buy everybody a round of drinks :drinks_drunk: Welcome to the unfriendly skies

I'm sure you'll find the Camel about the same as the Dr.I in general characteristics, and might have an easier time in the campaign with it than with the Dr.I. For most of the war (as in well into or even beyond 1917), the most common Entente fighters, when compared to their main adversaries, are slower, very weakly armed, and rather more fragile, but significantly more maneuverable. So you get used to being bounced by and then playing dodgeball with swarms of Albatri, suckering them into blowing their E to try to get a shot at you, and then your maneuverability can come to the fore. AI programming for an E-figthter is significantly harder to do than for a turn-fighter, and most flightsims fail miserably at it. This isn't surprising because most humans fail equally miserably. Hence the preponderance of turnfighters in MMOFS games. In fact, I recall a while back you were having difficulty surviving in the Albatros, but look at you now! OFF is one of the very few SP flightsims I've played where AI E-fighters actually use E-tactics fairly well. But they still get greedy, and that's when the slow, weakly armed, but better-turning Entente scouts score. But when you're in a Camel, the extra performance and firepower of the machine make this happen sooner. OTOH, it would seem that the Dr.I would have to work harder to reach that point against the usually more-agile Entente machines. Now, later one when the Entente was mostly flying SE5s, Spads, and Brisfits, it might happen sooner, too

I think you all did a fine job on the Camel. Sure, you can get yourself in trouble with her, but every aircraft has its no-go regimes. If you know just how far you can push the Camel and stay within those limits, you should have no problems. But just remember what happened to McGuire and his P-38. Even experienced pilots can go too far.