Rick Rawlings

Jeez, Pol, so far you're the only one to use the "B" word in the whole thread so far :) RR

This seems to happen when the game senses that you have no more control over the aircraft and it determines what your fate is. Sometimes you live, sometimes you die. I don't believe that the hospital has worked for the last several patches; at least, I have not been hospitalized since 1.28 or so. Whenever something like what you described happens, if I live, I use time advance to put myself in the hospital for ten days or so. To help get your mind around it, imagine you just went Barker on us and managed to bring the plane down miraculously through bouts of unconsciousness. Don't worry, another time it will happen and you will be properly dead :) RR

Don't worry, I'm sure it's just a phase I am going through and I will come out of it soon and die :) Almost happened today when my wingman and I got jumped by 5 DIII's after we just finished a major fight. Fortunately we were near the ground on our side of the lines near an aerodrome and an observation balloon. The AA guys kicked them around while we made our escape! Never a dull moment! RR p.s. the thrid and fourth DFC look suspiciously like the first two

This is almost impossible to duplicate in the game. I have never gotten more than a 10 scout to 1 two seater ratio. Attacking from below is do-able, even without particularly getting shot up, but there just aren't that many two seaters around, it seems. I always see way more fighter squads than 2 seaters, even deep in western France, which was not the way the German doctrine worked, as I understand it. I'm sure track IR also makes the attack a little easier, even thought they do sometimes shoot too well. I shot down one CII a while ago that caught on fire and went into a spinning dive. As he was spinning and burning, the gunner hit me with a burst that put my plane out of commision and I had to head home! I don't know what the answer is, but I salute Winder and Pol for putting up with asking our opinions. I am just thankful the true successor to Red Baron got made and am looking forward to whatever improvements they come up with for this phase and for whatever goodies they have in store for phase 4! RR

I finally lived long enough to collect 4 DFC's and a VC. I thought getting the same medal over and over again was a bug and had been squashed. Was it and has it? Or is it just possible to get several of the same medal? Thanks! RR

I look at it like it is a microcosm of the war. I have my pilots set up on light mission duty, otherwise, even if I could survive that long, I would have to quit my job and devote myself to doing nothing but flying OFF if I was ever going to see the end of the war. I imagine that my pilot is off flying the no-contact, inconclusive missions while I am away. I only take control of my alter ego for the "ones that count". So far, after 4 months, I have 30 kills, which seems about right. If Winder was ever able to completely encapsulate the entirety of flying as a world war one pilot into a super 17,000 gig patch, it probably wouldn't be very fun. I am always watching stuff on the history channel about the old west and my wife says that if I were to ever live in another time, that must be the one I would choose. I tell her no, it is interesting to learn about. To live then would almost certainly suck. RR

The quality of your wingman help out a lot in keeping the enemy busy so they don't gang up on you. I religiously check my six and never fly straight for more than a second or two in combat and it serves me pretty well. Collisions, on the other hand, are another story! (See my other thread) :yes: RR

Well, Olham, all I can say in reply is that if he didn't want to die, he shouldn't have painted his plane black! RR

GAAAHHH! Curse you ATI! Graphic stutters that almost get me killed and no rearview mirror! Is ATI owned by the Kaiser by any chance? I'm going to have to throw this card in the pile with my betamax player, my 3DFX stock, my HD DVD player and my Duke Nukem Forever preorder purchase receipt! RR

Man, I gotta tell you, all my dreams of survivng to the summer and getting the Camel went right out the window with one sickening crunch! After a few seconds, however, I found the flight control wasn't too bad and was able to finish the fight. The other guy wasn't so lucky. You can see the results on his wing tip below. After being on the receiving end and buying the farm from collisions over the last many campaigns, it was nice to have someone else bite it for once!

Good review! I heard that you could get the rearview mirror to show something other than shades of gray, but it has never worked for me! What slider do you adjust to get this to work!?! RR

Olham, try flying with 56 squadron in May, 1917. An early flight had 7 SE5a's against 12 DV's. I got lucky and managed to get behind one on the first pass and drop him in about a minute. I looked around to catch my bearings... there were NO other enemy planes around. Turned on my TAC to be sure, and nothing! They had all either been shot down or driven off! Good pilots with you in 56! RR

My wingmen in detached naval squadron 8 are all aces themselves, except for my poor wingie, Geoffrey Boyd, who got himself shot up and spent two weeks in the infirmary. I am amazed at how they go after the enemy. There have been several flights where I tried to stay on top of the fight and pick off the upper scouts, but by the time I found them, my boys were all over them and there were none left for me! There was a run there of about two weeks where I couldn't seem to get a plane of my own to shoot at and had some moments of Olham-style battle rage. Lucky for me, no additional enemies were around to take advantage of my recklessness. Sometimes, I will just hover above the fray when there is only one enemy scout left and padlock him and watch the rest of my flight kick him around. It is fascinating for me and also gaurentees I won't get collided with! RR

My pilots are DiD, but not Siggi DiDTM. Do you mean just for the kill board, or in general? RR

I know! It's an ATI dust devil that unfortunately shows up the same time every mission! I've managed to manage it by taking a good look around before I start to roll, seems to allow every thing to load in memory and minimizes problems on takeoff! RR

I don't believe it completely negates it, but it doesn't help your chances :) RR

Wait a minute, are you saying that you used to play OFF in 3rd person?!?!? Wow, that seems quite hard! RR

So since 1.26 I have been flying as Rick Rawlings in #40 squadron trying to get through Bloody April in one piece but never really lasting longer than 20 missions or so. So just to blow off steam, I started up one of my goofy pilots, a Scot named Dirk McGurt. I placed him in Detached Naval Squadron #2 in the fall of 1916 stationed at Vert Galant. I just finished his 40th mission! Apparently, a doofy name and a lighter approach are the key. Also, I think the winter of 1916 is a little lighter in the air than the spring of 1917. The fact that I am flying in an elite squad also seems to help. I started in November of 1916 and am flying on light mission frequency. It is now the end of January. I have flown 40 missions with 32 hours in the air and have 19 confirmed kills. He is at 100% realism and on dead is dead selection. For full disclosure, he did die once due to a graphic stutter that caught me on the take off roll and caused him to nose over, which seems to be always fatal, but that was his only re-start. He has seen the Neiuport give way to the Sopwith Pup, which, despite it's loving reputation, has me a flying wreck. That thing starts shuddering in a gentle dive and I am always worried that it will break up at any moment. As I approach April, I can only hope to survive till the camel. If anybody else feels like they are in a rut, try getting out of your usual squadron/plane/timeframe and see if that makes anything happen! Report back here with your successes, or, as I am sure I will soon, the eventual failures! RR

Well, at least they won't be able to tell what you are thinking! We always have to be on the lookout for them! shhhhh! rr

No, but my best German pilot so far was killed by the plane that they jumped out of. I follwed them into a climb and flamed them in my Albatross DII. They jumped out, I dove down and to the right; the abandoned, flaming crate turned over and fell...down and to the right. Flash of red, flash of black, I'm not allowed to say what happens after that, you just have to wait and find out :) RR

For me the funniest part is your wife saying "Twat", which is quite a bit further up the name calling list in the states than it is in England, apparently! RR

Actually, the two that jump out are the stow-aways. The reason that two seater was flying so passively is because there were two more people hidden down in the bowels of the plane trying to catch a ride to Paris. Little did they know that all they were hitching passage to was their deaths. The extra weight made the crate so un-manueverable that you had no problem shooting it down. As your bullets rattled around the fuselage, the hidden ones got scared and cried out. The pilot and gunner, realizing only too late their mortal error, grabbed the stow-aways and cast them to oblivion. If you look closely, you will still see the pilot and observer seated in their seats, grimly resigned to their fate. This sim goes even deeper than you imagined, my friend! RR

You think that's magic? Try flying a Roland CII, switch to the gunner's seat and then wheel around to look at the cockpit! RR

You can try "o o o" which bails you out, never done it on the ground myself and only accidentally in the air Nobody really seems to shoot at you on the ground though, it seems to be hard for them to get a firing solution... RR

Yeah, realistic ground fire seems anything but... more like Annie Oakley trench fire! I keep it at normal after forced landings on three ground strikes in a row with just one pass over the trenches! I also wondered if the AA that explodes around enemy flights over our territory could ever miss and hit me. Well, it can. I took a near hit from my own AA a few weeks ago and was lucky to bring it down in one piece! My grandfather told me that they had night-time curfews in WWII and no allied planes were allowed to fly over after dark. He said that one night he heard the easily recognizable whine of a mustang passing overhead and then, much to his dismay, the sound and fury of a whole series of AA batteries lighting him up, so, unfortunately, friendly fire happens even in the air! RR