Olham

Just found Tho Osterkapm's book "Du oder ich" on EBAY. In the Great War Osterkamp was a Marinefliegeras (Naval fighter ace) with MFJ 1 (Naval Field Fightersquadron 1); he also flew the Messerschmidt Bf 109 in the Second World War; and survived both wars. Still 8 days to go, and so it may go high, but right now it is still at 1,- Euro. I have the book, and most of you guys may not be able to read German, but I thought I'd post it anyway. http://www.ebay.de/i...=item3cc5c80e23

Afterglow - in a double sense. I had just shot down a BE2c in flames, north of Arras - they had almost made it back. Killing defenseless aircrew feels bad - sending them down in flames is even worse. Feels bad...

Wow, that looks good - you could have sold it to me as an original, Lou!

Ah, okay, thanks Lou! Amazing what you could get for 50 Pounds back then!

Took me a moment to get it*, Capitaine, but what about the first one - a word play with "visual", or what is the hidden meaning? (* except for "Mayonnaise" - I love Mayonnaise - one of the best things the French ever invented! )

von Baur, I have recently seen some programs like yours about the pyramids - they are usually American programs, bought by our private channels. They are on after 22 h, and they are always into something sensational. How an alien attack could be survived by the human race, for example. Now, why do we seriously think about something like that, when we may not even be able to survive our own deeds? Another example for such "sensational" programs is "History Channel". First I quite liked the show about Udet and Guynemer having their famous duell. I had never known about it before. But since I get a bit deeper into WW1 aviation, I see it is overdone; they make the aircraft appear as sharp and fast as F 18s in some parts. And then they present a story here as facts, which was only ever told by Ernst Udet. Guynemer never reported about the event. So it may not have happened at all, or not like Udet told it - who knows? I also wonder, if Udet could have flown an Albatros D.III - in the summer of 1917 they should have had the D.V. It's quite thin for a channel calling themselves "History Channel". As for the pyramids: not everything great or big must be made by Aliens - the human race CAN do big things. But we are as lazy as the animals, and we have mostly to get forced to do them.

Benno Baumstutzer & Egon Untergrass; Timothy Treetrimmer & Gordon Groundthrust

The living proof, that successful performance chart curves must not always go up! Congrats to that, Lou!

If you fly OFF without "Labels" and "TAC", you may realise any second, how beautifully the AI can often operate. We were flying in rainy grey weather, and I strained my eyes and neck so much, to make sure I can lead a flight and bring the boys back home. Then I turn round for the hundredst time - and almost freeze! A Nieuport is coming down on us at full speed, almost close enough to fire at us! Damn, what a cold shock! I hit "Pause" and took this outside view screenshot. The guy was not alone - more of them appeared, and boy - did they beat us up! Three cheers to RexHannover!

Often the old houses and bridges become tourist attractions. But these street lamps must be standing there along the "Rue de la Pannerie", which leads into Cheméry-sur-Bar, since the old days of first gas lights. I "visited" the old town in Google Streetview. The Germans had an airfield here, which was home for Jastas 41, 47, 49, 50 and 60 for some time during the war. And so I came to these lamps. They must be post-war, but still quite old - from the 20s or 30s I guess. Still I find it quite touching to see they still exist after all that time.

I had exactly the same thoughts, Javito!

Hauksbee, with all the different tongues in Great Britain, the "Urban Dictionary" may come handy: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wheels%20up

Thank you all, chaps! Lou, my own experience is, that I learn even more from mistakes, when I repeat them. Constant learning so to say! von Baur, that "replace, when broken" mentality has grown here in Europe too. Before WW2, mostly all broken things got repaired. After the war, Germany was under a big influence from America. Like always, the beaten admires and learns from the victor. Many good things came with that surely; young people in the 50s discovered Swing and Jazz; American products came to our shops which we had never known - I still remember my first tetrapac of "Sunkist", a kind of orange lemonade. I bet, the Americans were also rather repairing than exchanging thing before the war. But then, with the rise to being the world leader of currencies, and with all the wealth the war had created (wars often seem to generate wealth for the winners), America's lush life began, and with it this new thinking. And with the american cars came the American idea of banking. A credit was easy to get. Two credits - no problem. Pay cards like American Express - buy today, pay tomorrow - before the war the people would have said: I cannot spend what I haven't earned. They wouldn't have called that "easy credit", they would have called it "running into debts". Here in Europe we also bought new stuff and threw the old away. Alone the replacement and dumping of mobile phones (which we call "handy") shows that. Only now, that China will not sell their rare earths anymore, we begin to realise what we have thrown onto the dumping grounds. I guess we have to change our whole behaviour quite a lot, and we are already in the uncomfortable part of that change. Not only the americans. But back to the conservation of Bertincourt - on the country the people are still more conservative - in France, in England, and even in Germany. Things do not change as rapidly as in the cities. And they may be right with it.

Just chased a Nieuport 16 from Esc.69 over the trees very low. After hitting him, I overshot, and since he had hardly any space left, he pulled up. My undercarriage hit his top wing - and kicked him into the dirt! Nieuports are agile as butterflies - but break as easily. The Halberstadt had a tendency to sink to the right side after that collision, and I expected the undercarriage to break away at landing. But no - I made my careful landing, and she was fine! Her dive is solid and fast, almost vertically! I'm beginning to love the aircraft better and better! .

BirdDog, against the sky you can see them over a distance of ca. 2 miles - if you are not distracted by looking at the TAC. (Against the ground, that is a completely different story). Since I am flying that way, I usually see them, before they see me. But I admit, that flying on the German side, my own Flak puffs are damn good guides or warnings - for the Entente pilots crossing the lines, it was much harder. But the real aces also missed tons of aircraft, I'm sure. Arthur Gould Lee even described an attack, which his leader began. All others followed; he saw the tracers of his lead; then they pulled up and out again - and he had not seen any E/A! Only back at base he heard, they had been Pfalz scouts. Seems that's how it was.

Thank you, Adger - I'm sure way back in this forum our good Creaghorn wrote something quite similar for me. And back then, I wanted to be like that - but wasn't ready yet. I hope now I am.

Yeah, compromise or not - that is the question. I press "Pause" for the screenshots - otherwise I could not find the best angle in outside view. Of course I don't make screenshots in every sortie. For noting the time, I use the inflight map or the "Z" key - cause I have no inflight watch. As for the claims/confirms difference: as far as I know, only 3 of von Richthofen's claims were not confirmed. But he was built up to an iconic heroe,so I guess they didn't resent so many for him, as they may have done for other pilots. But that is not the point so much. An interesting point is to me, that a great aviator like Ernst Udet, who had served throughout the whole war (as far as fighters were involved), had "only" gathered 62 kills. I say "only", because we make that number of kills within 4 - 5 months of the war; or even faster. Now I do not believe, that we are so much better pilots than Udet. The difference is rather, that we learned flying and fighting with many pilot lives; under very comfortable conditions - we can drink coffee, we have it nicely warm, we don't suffer from high or low G's, we don't need to scan our environement through rain-sprinkled goggles, we can press "Pause" when we need to go to the toilet, etc. etc. Still, all these pilots have died or became PoWs. Even most of our long lasting ones did not live longer than 1 year of the war. With the knowledge of hundred pilots, and with the comfort which we fly in, we pile the kills. We are cold-blooded and quite reckless, because we cannot get hurt. We can't lose a leg or an arm. We don't die. That's why for me, my kill numbers don't mean much anymore. That's why I even go as far as dropping most of my kills. I just don't claim them. Never more than one per sortie. Witnesses: only one name (if this guy wasn't close enough - rejected). And still I notice, I am making more kills than Manfred von Richthofen, who is an early fighter pilot in my Staffel - Jasta 2. Manfred has no kills yet - I have. You see how "hard" it can get to make it more historically true - almost impossible. But I'll keep trying - cause I'm addicted to OFF. .

You guys produce videos faster than I can make screenshots - must have a look later tonight. Here's my new Jasta 2 pilot with a perfect kill - and two witnesses near. Now the problem is - who are the fellers? Without Labels it's playing by chance. But maybe that way I will get a more believeable kill rate.

"Yes, mein Herr, zatt iss my common speshel tactic for der Balloons! Mmuahahahaaaaa!!!!!!!" I'm afraid that, if you request that from the devs now, they'll build them that way. And OFF II won't appear before spring 2013...

Sometimes you must love this man for his talent of expressing our desires with the most flourish words! Yes, that is looking mighty good, FlyBy! And we do so desire indeed!

You must be right about the dive speed, Bullet - I was never spoiled by the Albatros D.III / D.V 's non-abilities to dive steeply, so everything that CAN do it appears fast to me. And that explains, why I couldn't really catch up with a little Nupe (which should have shed it's little lower wings in that shamelessly steep dive!).

Fredrich von Plonk & Otto Treiharder - you can actually see them before your eyes, wrecking the Kaiser's Luftstreitkräfte.

Update 2 May 2012 - 13:08 h Berlin time (= GMT + 1) Dave63, Indiana, added. The maps are in post 1 of this thread

This was formation spacing set to "normal" - I must not have it too tight. I recommend (and do so) to always press "R" (Return) every 10 seconds. That keeps them with me - I am never really flying a straight line. The use of wingmen commands really works great in OFF. When I want them to attack, I press "A" repeatedly; and if I want my six covered, I press "H" twice after "A". That makes my direct wingman follow me. He would actually regard any craft near mine as a threat, and so he would fire at my target too, if I am close. But I don't mind. I am beyond the crave to make tons of victories. They will anyway still be enough - if I survive.