Olham

Haha, yeah - ditto here! I also thought about trying the 3D modelling - but your first post rather turns me off of it, Hauksbee. I hate anti-intuitive programs.

Mmuahahahahaaa!!! Happy birthday, Jim!

Dutch, the profiles work for both, 4 and 5. I send you a PM.

Great photo, Widowmaker! I see two men, sent out by their kings and by the 'lords of the industries', to fight it out for them. Take the helmets and uniforms away, and you may find just two workers, both working hard shifts in peace time, to bring their families through. Both enjoying a warm meal, a beer, and a cigarette. So little they needed - and definitely not that war.

Tony, those were/are two wonderful Christmas presents surely! I wish you a happy and most of all a healthy new year 2016!

Guess everyone here had read it the year before? But, at re-reading, it was still touching me - good thoughts for a year's end, for the time of pausing, for looking inward. You're a good egg, Lou! Happy and healthy new year!

Tomorrow I will travel to my "hometown" in East Friesland for almost 3 weeks. Before I leave, I wish all OFFers and WOFFers here, and Eric and Dave and all at CombatAce A MERRY CHRISTMAS & A HEALTHY, HAPPY & PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR

He wrote of the final closing day of the Jastas of the Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte, that he and Ritter von Greim debated a long time with the "Materialverwalter" (custodian for gear and equipment). But Udet didn't say, if this administrator/custodian/caretaker was a German, or an Entente officer.

Just checked Udet's book "Mein Fliegerleben". He had indeed taken a "Fokker Parasol" with him, Ritter von Greim took a Fokker D.VII. The two performed dogfights on air shows for the Kriegs- gefangenenhilfe (Aid for Prisoners of War). It is not clear for how long this went on - possibly for weeks - but when Ritter von Greim got his Fokker caught in telephone wires and crashed into a lake (he remained unharmed), the air combat show had an end. "I had to hand out my Fokker the other day" wrote Udet. He didn't say to whom. Strange indeed - I would have expected, that at least the Fokker D.VII would have been confiscated by the Entente military. Could it be, that the Entente military also received money from the Kriegs- gefangenenhilfe? The book does not explain that.

Not sure there - he took one or two aircraft with him, but I thought he had to hand them to the Allies, short after the war ended?

Well, there are many points to watch about a fighter plane and it's qualities. In this video, which I had posted here before, you can learn a lot about the Bf109's features - watch the 2 longer scenes where the pilots explain the aircraft. Don't be afraid of the Japanese speaker - the American pilots original sound/language was kept! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Rmmh2Jd9uM And watch the vertical climb in the second slomo video, at ca. 1:30 minutes! I guess for a tight turn fight the Spitfire was better, not only for it's possibly tighter turn, but for the better allround vision for the pilot, and for the space in the cockpit, which allowed the pilot to move a little for getting an even better view. But I guess when a Bf109 wouldn't have to cross the Channel first, and therefor have to care about it's fuel; and if it was used for proper boom & zoom tactics - then I would have prefered the Bf109. At least if you'd fly it in "Cliffs of Dover", you'd be all over the Spit - just remember: no turnfights.

Yeah, Russian technology seemed often simpler and more sturdy in those days. But in the above dogfight, the Bf109 was the more advanced technology. Still it seemed (in this sim) more robust than the Spitfire. I watched it in step motion - the Messerschmitt seemed to clip off a whole wing from the Spit with it's own. The German fought too much a turn fight in this video, which isn't the best tactic against a good turnfighter like the Spitfire. He should have used the strong engine- climb of the Bf109, and the fact that it had fuel injection (so you could fly headover loops) for a much more vertical fight. More boom and zoom.

Not, when it looks like you cannot stop it from doing so, Wayfarer! Which I assume it DOES look like to your CO...

Geeze, what a tough fight! With a surprising end! Great show! Couldn't really see what happened at the end - I guess the cannon fire shot a wing of the Spit, which hit the Bf109 a fracture of a second later? However - tough beasty, the 109, though quite plucked in the end!

Yeah, I posted this some time ago - it is a most amazing stunt surely! A German actress said in an interview, that Ernst Udet must have promised his soul to the devil for this ability of flying. And he did walk with the devil later. Goering "bought" him with two brand new American Curtiss Hawk, which Udet studied for his ideas about dive bombing (Udet invented the Stuka, incl. the "Jericho trumpet"). He also used them for air show stunt flying. One of these planes can still be seen, in the Aviation Museum, Cracow, Poland.

"Turns like a devil, climbs like a monkey!" or similar were von Richthofen's words about the Fokker Dr. I. I still hope to see the famous Fokker "flat turn" from Mikael Carlson one day. But here is at least the other bit - "climbs like a monkey!" Watch the takeoff scene from the cockpit camera angle - a hairraising climb, almost like a helicopter.

Damn - war is a cruel business...! Detlev is my name, by the way, Jim.

You wonder, how you could possibly "patrol" in that mud, with all that light on! Did they crawl through the dirt?

Wow - I hadn't thought they were firing THAT many flares in a short time!

Just read in another forum, that Carlson's Dr. I flies with the original Oberursel rotary. The makers of WW1 sims are always aiming for the English-speaking market, and so they tend to make the Sopwith Camel as great as any possible, to allow it to dominate most of the German fighters, maybe with the exception of the Fokker D.VII. (The WOFF Camel for example is faster than the Albatros D.V - which is wrong, according to reports from combat pilots, who told that the D.V often just ran away from approaching Camels - well, how could they run away, when the Camel was faster?) Most sim Camels don't seem to show the nasty behaviour in left turns, which must have been so hard to perform, that the pilots prefered to do a 3/4 right turn instead. The Fokker Dr. I could not perform the "flat turn" in OFF (not sure if that was changed for WOFF). If the craft could do a flat turn, and had the same lift we could witness in this video, it would be a real devil of a turn-fighter, and more than a match for the Camel.

The video was taken in Germany at Gelnhausen, filmed from a Pilatus Porter. That Ju-52 is from the Swiss company "Ju-Air". http://www.biplanes.de/ https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ju-Air

Just found these posters in the website below. I love the old poster art - stuff like that isn't made anymore! https://acesflyinghigh.wordpress.com/2014/03/30/a-brief-history-of-the-royal-australian-air-force-world-war-two-1939-to-1945/

Haha - yeah, Luftschraube would be correct. RADAR with long "a" would be correct - it comes from RAdio Detecting And Ranging.

...which confirms, that German is especially hard! Mmuahahahahaaa!!!

"Kurbelwelle" is the crankshaft to which the "arms" of the pistons go. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crankshaft "Nockenwelle" is without a "K" - then you'll find it. It is the shaft with cams, that drives the opening and closing of the valves. So I guess it's called "camshaft"? "Nocken" (plural) are wave-like metal parts - "cams" or "tappets".