Bullethead

Maybe it's because I learned to fly on the "Traumahawk", but I find the Camel to have zero bad habits, quite a few strengths, and has the very useful quirk (historical as I hear it) of the upwards spin. She's different from other planes, but any experienced pilot should have the beast in hand after a couple of Cuban 8s over home drome, and then go from strength to strenth. I don't fancy a Camel agaist a D.VII; that's like a Spit Mk V against an FW0-190A5. But other than that, her only real challenge is the Dr.I, which does all the same things only a bit better. The Spad XIII also has no vices an experinced pilot shouldn't expect after a single walk-around. You can tell just by looking at her that she goes fast, dives hard, zooms well, stalls if turned hard at low speed, and likes to land low and hot. She's like an FW-190D9 in a world of Spit Mk IXs and Zekes, except with no better firepower than, well, a Spad or any other fighter with 2x synchronized Maxim RCMGs. And, of course, the D.VII plays the La-7 to her Dora. Seriously, there are only 2 planes in OFF that I consider potential deathtraps: the E.III and the DH 2. Both of these aircraft seem to want to kill you at the least provocation, easily getting into unrecoverable spins or slides. Even the notoriously stall-prone R.E. 8 is benign when ripping up an aerodrome barnstorming. In WW1, when even the so-called E-fighters weren't enough faster to get out of range before their turn-fighting opponents could turn around, the Camel is a true warhorse. The Spad XIII, OTOH, IS fast enough to play WW2-style E-fighter, but you have to remember that she's no better armed than anybody else.

I'm currently watching "River Monsters" on Animal Planet. This week's episode is about the Wels catfish, which apparently lives all over Europe, both naturally and where it's been recently introduced. Monster thing, up to 7-8 feet long at least, perhaps bigger, and able to pull folks under. Any of our Euro anglers ever land a big one of those? They make our garfish seem pretty tame

Only as that term pertains to what goes on the back seat of a high school student's car parked on "Lovers' Lane" . And that can be risky enough, as I'm sure you know.

Yup, that's a pic of the Mekong catfish they caught in Viet Nam a year or 2 ago. IIRC, that particular one was the heaviest fish of any type ever caught in fresh water, although not the longest. That was a big specimen, though. They get big like the other catfish we've been discussing, but most don't get that big. Oh bah, the poor ol' garfish might look like a nightmare, but it's harmless. Even the biggest ones can't eat anything more than a foot or 2 long. Like the vast majority of predatory fish, they don't and can't bite chunks off of big things, but can only swallow whole things much smaller than themselves. That said, however, the gar CAN hurt you quite badly, IF you mess with it. It's got lots of wicked teeth, and even brushing against one's side can slice you up on the sharp edges of their armor-like scales. But not even a 10-footer would think any human was small enough to eat, so they won't bother you at all. Just don't try to get your hook out of a living gar's mouth, and don't aggravate them if you're swimming with them, or you'll be sorry :yes: So why all the deadly hardware and armor? Well, they need the teeth to grasp struggling prey, and they grow up in a rough neighborhood. All those alligators, older gars, 40-pound bass, 60-pound catfish, and great blue herons really take a heavy toll on small fish :). Seriously, I'm not at all afraid of gars, and I have no reason at all to mess with them. It really makes me feel sad when I catch one accidentally, because I have to kill it--no way to get the hook out safely while it's alive, and I can't let it go with the hook in place and let it slowly suffer. But there are plenty of REAL killers around here, from 18-foot alligators to swarms of both malaria and yellow fever mosquitos, to flesh-eating bacteria. Those things scare me a lot How else do you propose to catch a 10-15' catfish? You sure aren't going to do that with a fishing pole .

Thanks for the tip. Never knew that. Most times, the logo's design is pretty self-evident, so I'd never had occasion to be curious, let alone know of this feature ;)

Hmm, that's the perfectly normal Albatros Z.I "zwilling". I know it looks strange, but they really built them that way

I dunno, I hardly ever make it home :).

AFAIK, there is no absolute size limit on the growth of most fish. If you feed them enough and they don't sick, they just keep on growing. But the bigger they get, the more food they need, and eventually they reach a point where food big enough to be worth the effort to catch is too infrequently encountered for them to grow any bigger. So in theory, you could have truly monstrous catfish. However, I figure this practical limit kicks in at no more than about 6-8 feet long in the wild, even if you could grow one bigger in a tank. Oh yeah, here in Louisiana we've got gators out the wazoo. Nobody swims in the bayous and few walk their banks.... For a long time, I was a volunteer fireman here, so I had to deal with gators more than I wanted to. One of our stations was near a patch of swamp, and not infrequently a big gator would be napping on the driveway in front of the engine bays, soaking up heat from the concrete. The chief would ask us why we took so long to get the fire, and we'd say it took us 5 minutes of yelling and poking with our pike poles to get the alligator out of way of the truck :). The road to the ferry landing at the little town here is about 1 mile long from the River to the town, with several HARD 90^ turns in it (not really curves, but corners). There's a dive of a bar at the landing, and every couple of months some drunk heading home at closing time misses the last 90^ coming into town, which is at the end of a quarter-mile straightaway. When this happens, they go flying out into an old borrow pit created when they were building up the roadbed, but which is always full of water now. This is known as the "Alligator Pond", because it's PACKED with gators of various sizes. These gators are pretty big, too, because the local vets dump the carcasses of euthanized, unclaimed cats and dogs in there, and there's a restaurant adjacent to the pond, too, with full garbage cans. Anyway, if the people are unlucky, the water's high or the car lands upside down, and they drown. If they're lucky, the water's relatively low and their car stays right-side up, so they live. Then the sit there the rest of the night, all smashed up in water up to their chins, until the sun comes up and somebody spots them and calls the fire department. And if they're really lucky, somebody sees the wreck happen and calls right then. All the time they're in there, they're being circled by hungry gators. I can't tell you how many folks I fished out of that pond. Chest-deep, NASTY water full of all kinds of evil microbes, bottomless mud, and scads of big, hungry gators that weren't bothered by human activity. Plus the odd cottonmouth and snapping turtle, just for variety. And we had to lug the Jaws of Life, a backboard, and all that junk out there and actually somehow manage to use it. Meanwhile, the whole embankment above was manned by a dozen or so deputies armed with rifles, just in case a gator came too close. To be honest, I was always more worried about being shot in the back than being eaten, but only by a little . And then, of course, I'd have dysentery for the next week, taking antibiotics that I couldn't mix with alcohol. I'm glad I'm too old and gimpy to do that anymore....

I was wondering if this was where you'd gotten the name :). It's a scary fish, that's for sure. The show I was watching was filmed in the Ebro river in spain, and they caught a 7-ft/75kg specimen, althought they say they get bigger. I think the biggest on recent record is from the Po in Italy. Apparently, the fish was introduced in many places and now folks are getting afraid to go in the water. I don't blame them. In Texas, there are many large, artificial lakes used as reservoirs and coolant sources for power plants. Part of the deal for building was recreational boating and fishing, so they're all well-stocked with big fish. I recall about 25 years ago, a kid of about 8 was swimming in one near where I lived and a big catfish tried to eat him. The fish had no hope of actually eating him, because it was only about 60 pounds, smaller than the kid. However, it got one of the kid's legs down its throat and would have drowned him had the kid not been wearing water wings. Adults dragged both kid and fish out of the water and the whole thing made the news for a few days. The kid's thigh was all scuffed up from the sandpaper-like "teeth" of the fish, but otherwise he was OK except I doubt he'll ever go swimming again in his life :). These 60-pounders are the biggest you normally catch. However, there are persistent rumors that they get much bigger down in the deep water by the dams, and that scuba divers have actually been eaten by them in various lakes. A friend of mine swears he spotted several 8-10-footers lying side-by-side on the bottom like logs, which is why he no longer dives in lakes. I've always wanted to put this to the test. This "River Monsters" show is never going to land a true giant because they only fish using salt-water poles and bait no more than 1 foot long. You need BIG bait to catch a big fish. I propose renting a towtruck, using an entire goat or hog carcass for bait, and a modified boat anchor for a hook. Park the truck on the dam and let out the cable, using a boat to carry the end out over the deep spot. Then reel it in after a couple of days and see what you've got :)

Hmm, apparently somebody at Google is also into this. You know how the world "Google" on the main page is spelled out in different ways depending on what's on the calendar? Well, today it's spelled in Morse code. I was wondering why before I came here ;)

Hmm, I didn't know that, so I went googling just now. Turns out the PH started in 1932, replacing the "wound chevron" mentioned below. So then I dug around to see what other countries did in WW1. Very interesting; thanks for giving me the motivation to do it. Anyway, here's what I found out about WW1 wound recongition. Germany: Had nothing until March 1918, at which point they introduced the wound badge that came in black, silver, or gold, depending on the number and severity of wounds received. Austria-Hungary: Had a medal on a ribbon, with multiple stripes in the ribbon to indicated the number of wounds. This started in 1917. France: Early in the war, there were a couple of different styles of wound badges in bronze, silver, and gold. These were unofficial, but nevertheless in wide-spread use. In Dec 1916, the official Insigne des Blessés Militaires came out, which was just a little red star to be pinned through a ribbon of another award. Normally this would go on the service medal for the campaign in which the wound was received, but if there wasn't one yet, you could stick it on any handy ribbon, such as an award for bravery. Multiple stars for multiple wounds. UK: Had a "wound stripe", which was a 2"-long brass bar pinned through the lower left tunic sleeve. This appears to have been used from at least 1916. You could end up with a row of these, apparently. US: Designed a red/white/blue ribbon without a medal in 1917, but replaced it in 1918 with "wound chevrons". These were small, gold chevrons sewn to the lower right tunic sleeve, and you could again end up with quite a row of them.

Well, here's a fairly well-known photo of the Puteaux in use by grunts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US23rdIn...8-ARC531005.gif There was a lighter bipod version with a considerably shorter barrel, but the slide was just as long. There's an even better-known photo of that, also from the Meuse-Argonne, that looks rather similar to this one, suggesting both were staged on the same patch of woods. Unfortunately, I can't find that shot at the moment. The one in the pic above, I could see weighing about 80-100 pounds all up, about like a .50cal Ma Deuce of similar size and vintage. And that's counting the big tripod shown here, which an airplane wouldn't have used. The smaller bipod version wouldn't have been nearly so heavy.

Ailerons? We don't need no stinkin' ailerons! This is WW1, man. Most planes turn with a lot more rudder and a lot less aileron than more modern types. At least on my side of the mud . From what I can tell, the Fee's aileron's are just there for decoration. I never notice their loss when they get shot out, which happens frequently .

Oh bah! All of us on the front lines are equally barbaric. What matters is how much we can drink together afterwards . I've bought countless lunches and drinks for guys on my side who saved my bacon, and more than a few for guys who'd been on the other side. Even Moslems drink if none of their coreligionists are there to see it . You all were and are known as Huns, Bosche, and whatnot, because you all had pathetic public relations. How many on our side know of the hardships inflicted on German civilians by the Brit blockade, for instance?

Yeah, the Puteaux is what I was thinking of when you said "short-barrel". That's what the grunts were humping around to smash pillboxes with. And no way did it weigh 200 pounds. Looking at photos of it, I'd give it 30 pounds max, more probably 20. It certainly been much heavier, if at all, than one of todays MMGs. It was a bipod-mounted weapon carried by 1 man, who had an A-gunner humping a sack of rounds. I'll have to check the author's site. He put all his WW2 stuff up, but I hadn't looked since before he did a WW1 volume.

Bravo! Will those of us who regularly shed our blood finally get some recognition for such? Of course, after a few Purple Hearts, there should be a good chance of being invalided out of the line, but it would be nice to at least have the Wound Badge in Gold to show for it

2 guns are for girly-men . If you've only got 1, especially if it's synchronized so you only get like 10 shots in a 2-second burst, then you have to learn to shoot accurately, and fly well enough to have a chance to shoot that accurately. Of course, most of my guys do neither, so they don't last long. But how do you get better without the angst and Hate of having a very difficult goal?

Thanks for that. Until now, I didn't know they stuck old naval guns on the planes. I thought all airborne 37mm were the short types then in use by the infantry as bunker-busters, rather like a low-tech version of today's 40mm grenade-launchers.

Some planes' motors quit just from throttling them all the way down, but I guess you're not flying one of those. In which case, do what the other guys said :).

But are any of us guiltless there? I must admit I have other mistresses besides the Fee. When I fly the Camel, it's like Murphy's adventures in Sin City, "always and never".

Yeah, great skins both

Even better, arrange for it to crash into the latrines adjacent to the trench used by the pencil-pushers

In the 1st 1/2 of 1916, practially all the German air forces on the Western Front were at Verdun. In the middle, they started moving to Flanders to face the long-anticipated Brit Somme offensive. By the latter part of 1916, when the Germans were defending at Verdun, their planes were pretty much all up near the Somme. In between these battles, there wasn't a lot going on.

I suggest putting a donations addresses on the main web page, unless you all want to be bombarded with a constant stream of PMs asking for the same thing

I thought the main difference between the D.V and D.Va was that the latter had mods to keep the wings attached. What happens in a regular D.V?