Winston DoRight

Rise of Flight will soon give all your dual and quad cores a good workout. Reports are a 30% to 40% increase in speed if you have a quad core processor over the same speed dual core. See the review here: http://www.simhq.com/_air12/air_400a.html Now if the'yd only get this thing done!

It looked all red to me, when I shot him down in my SE5a Viper........... twice. Didn't really check it out though. At the time there were so many other things going on.......... The photo above looks like Lothar's kite I believe?

Yes, if you don't mind the fact that certain asian countries have no respect for copyright laws, this is available in north american NTSC region 1, full english language, Dolby Digital, no subtitles, 2:40 widescreen, DVD case and cover, and excellent quality. I don't imagine it could be played on european PAL players unless yours supports the north american NTSC standard as well. Not a bad product if you don't mind an asian knockoff! I'll be watching it again tonight. I missed some of the dialog the first time due to the excitement of the flying scenes. I've got 20 of these coming in on the next flight home so if anyone is interested, PM me for details as they are available.

After 48 hours of flight time and 2 resurections (one for mysteriously coming out of pause while I answered the door, and the other for an equally mysterious explosion right after coming out of warp) I finally completed a scramble mission without getting shot down or forced down. My strategy this time was to get my crate (Alb DVa) off the ground quickly and climb at 1000 fpm until I reached 2,000 ft altitude. I then turned around, ordered my wingmen to attack and then closed the distance to the nearest Camel. It seems thay had a hard time shooting my flight on the ground, they all hadn't taken off yet, so two of them survived and gained enought altitude for a dogfight. They seemed to ignore me maybe thinking the taxiing Albs were easier targets. We got all 5 Camels, my 3 kills were fast and furious. I would get a few hits on whichever Camel I could then evade the ones trying to get behind me. A few more hits on another then break off to evade again and survive. Soon I began to see the messages at the top of the screen that I had gotten a kill. Then another. Soon it was 1 on 1, my 2 remaining wingmen and me and the last 3 Camels. I got mine and this time watched him crash into the trees below. I then helped out my wingies a bit, but they actually got their kills this time. Must have been rookie Camel drivers? Looking forward to the next scramble to see if this was luck or if this tactic will work again? I think I'll go out for a pint now.

Sure, reality would dictate that there's no time to tell the mechanics to empty out fuel or add or remove ammo, so I just take whatever the fuel loadout was from my last mission and that's usually less than 100% anyway. My ammo is always 100%. Now it seems my sucess rate is directly related to the number of enemy planes attacking at once. If the number isn't more than 7 or so (1 flight of 5 and another of 2) I can survive and even get a bunch of kills. Anything along the lines of a 2 to 1 advantage in the enemy favor and I'm not going to last long considering the skewed altitude and energy factors.

I like patch 1.28a with the hardcore damage model. It seems the best so far if you also select hard for main guns in the workshop. The hard damage model gives your own plane a boost in durability as well. No more 1 hit and out of the fight.

TAC yes, labels sometimes (I'm amazed at how many times I shoot down some of the same Aces). Last night I had another scramble but didn't fare too well on this one. This time swooping down on us while we were trying to get our engines started were 2 flights with 5 Camels in each. I lasted less than a minute this time. One of them flamed my engine or fuel tank when I was hardly off the ground. Previously their 5 against our 4 was a fair fight, but this time 10 of them against 4 of us and well.... it just wasn't destined to last long. I barely got my flaming kite back on the ground, hitting a tree in the crash-landing, but I lived and no hospital this time!

OK, I just saw this last night and really enjoyed the flying/combat scenes. My roommate is a pilot for an major international parcel company and just got back from Asia. When he broke out the DVD case I was sure it wasn't going to play on my NTSC player but what a surprise when it worked AND in full Dolby Digital 5.1 english sound (no subtitles) and 2:35 widescreen! The quality is excellent and it looks good on my 40" LCD Sony XBR and while the movie itself isn't going to win any awards, the flight scenes were awesome! He's flying out again soon so if anyone wants a USA NTSC copy of this, send me a PM and I'll get more info to you on a price.

That's definately your problem. On the original and early patches it was damn near impossible to get a plane to go down. They all just seems to go into a long gradual decent and crash. Get the latest patch and you'll see that now your doing some real noticable damage. Wings get ripped off, engines come flying out and pilots/crewmen jump or fall out. Just today I blew both upper and lower wingtips off a Camel! First time I've seen that!

Remember it wants to climb in a hard left turn and decend in a hard right turn and you'll be unbeatable in a turning fight. I too had problems with it's twichyness in gunnery. I had to turn on unlimited ammo for a few missions just to get used to it. I like to start a career a bit earlier than when it's available so I can have something to look forward too!

No BSOD is tolerable. It's an indication that something is wrong with your box. Could be a small problem with a hardware item or a large problem with software/virus, etc. It's kinda like driving your car down the street with your muffler dragging on the ground, don't look for ways to get by with the noise it's making, jump under there and fix it!

FYI everybody, if you don't turn it off, then you are using it because it defaults to ON when your mission starts.

I find my wingmen mostly useless except for the fact that they can take some of the heat off of me in the first few minutes of a dogfight. It seems the norm for most or all of them to be shot down in an engagement while I get what multiple kills I can and then run for it when out of ammo. Are they supposed to be this weak? Which has now led me to adopt the policy of skipping ahead/advancing time past a mission where I'm given less than 3 wingmen. It helps a bit when the odds are at least even, but still almost always I return home alone. Because they're so incompetent I now feel no remorse in leaving them to their destruction. I often feel a bit like taking a few shots at them myself especially when two of them are going round and round with one enemy plane and can't seem to finish him off!

I see there is now no pending "number" visible in the claims part of the logbook. How are we supposed to know if we're writing good claims now? If I want to go back to the old 1.28 can I just re-run the 1.28 patch or do I have to remove the whole mess and start over?

Simply because all my claims with LOW pending numbers were usually rejected, and all my claims with HIGH pending numbers were usually confirmed.

I still have the 1.28 patch, but don't know if all I need to do is re-run it or do I have to uninstall everything, reinstall CFS3 and then OFF 3 and THEN the 1.28 patch? Every patch has been good for me, a big improvement in all except this last one. Without more info on why this was even done and how it works I consider this last patch a big mistake for now. It has ruined my enjoyment of the game. Please devs, why was this done? How does the claims work now? Why remove the pending number? Make me believe this 1.28a patch was really needed.... please.

I don't think it's a mess. I just don't understand it now after all the hard work trying to figure it out from before. Is now the results completely a die roll or what? Is there any importance in words at all now? How do you know if you have gotten it right? What are the requirements to get a favorable result? Could you now just write. "Killed a enemy plane" and achieve the needed results? The messy part is nobody ever told us what was needed before, so we figured it out. Now it's changed. For what reason and why? Is the new way now better? Why? Do we have to figure this out all over again, but now we have nothing to guide us like the pending number. Again, if I want to go back to 1.28, how do I do that exactly?

Will this be needed if you are completely satisfied with the damage models as is in ver 1.28? In other words, is there a difference between the as is damage models in 1.28 and the normal damage models in 1.28a? Also, have you guys considered making a "add-on planes pack"? I'd be willing to pay for something like this, anyone else? It's so much of a let down to reach a time in a pilots career when a newer plane should be available... and it's not modeled.

Yeah, it should give you an advantage to fly it, too bad it's hard to fly. Double too bad that the AI can fly it so well. Why can't there be some added programming to make the AI screw up once in a while? They're just too damn good in it!

Yes, it seems that "Auto-Trim" is the culprit. It defaults to being "ON" when you start a mission, and simply turning it off cured my problems with all planes that I was having this problem with. Now, just one more thing to do before taking off..... remember to turn off auto-trim!

After a few campaign sorties in 1917 flying for Lafayette Escadrille in a Nieuport 17, I'm noticing definate enemy kills now instead of the "long, slow gradual decent". A lot of the Albatros DV's and DIII's I've shot down go into a snap/spiral and you know they are definately going to crash. I've even blown off a wing or two which is something that wasn't happening before. My ammo lasts longer because I'm not pouring extra rounds into planes now. Before you couldn't tell when enough was enough. I can stay and fight longer now with more ammo and that means more kills and fewer downed wingmen. It seems that the damage I do to enemy planes now more closely resembles the damage I receive when I'm hit. I like patch 1.26 . This just keeps getting better and better!

I'd settle for an N23 or N24. I'm flying a career for Lafayette Escadrille and according to the squad in game information if says that they fly the N23 after April 7, 1917. Imaging my surprise when that day came and went and I'm still in the N17. Better off than the Aces tho still in their Spad VII's!

I can trim my aircraft to fly straight and level, but as soon as I touch the joystick all trim settings go back to as before. Why is this?

OK, I found my own problem guys. My right ctrl key doesn't work anymore on my keyboard. Must have worn out over all these years. I can input trim using the left ctrl key plus the arrow keys but not from the right ctrl key. Looks like I was just inputting regular keyboard control to move the control surfaces and thats why it would go away with the first joystick movement. Now I can't get buy using the left control key because it's too far from the other keys that control trim, so can amyone recommend a good gaming keyboard that still uses the PS2 interface? I need this because I'm still using the old Thrustmaster F16-FLCS and TQS throttle. A USB keyboard just won't do. After looking at several on-line dealers it seems no one is making a good gaming keyboard in PS2 interface.

Here's my all time favorite..........