Olham

I know, Rugbyfan, you are not the only one using it, but it is still a short form, that only makes sense within a purely English community. No one would go so far and translate "Jasta" into "fisquad". Nor would a German come to the idea to call the RAF the KL, which would be the short for it's meaning in German: "Königliche Luftwaffe". Or RFC into KFK - "Königliches Fliegerkorps". It was not called "Königliches Fliegerkorps" - it was called "Royal Flying Corps" My personal feeling is, that names should be kept in the writing of the countries they come from. And also the short forms. But please don't take this personal - I saw it many times in other posts, as you said. That would be really interesting to see. Could a Mosquito (which was a very fast plane, I think) fly slow enough to follow the turning and other manoeuvering of an Albatros? And on the other hand: was the Albatros' calibre strong enough to damage the Mosquito severely? What do the aviation experts say? Yeah, it's true - the Germans had more twin gun fighters early on. But you will receive the Sopwith Snipe in P4. Something to look forward to. But the hardest thing I find if flying the Entente side is not the twin Spandaus on the other side - it is that crossing of the lines, and fighting over enemy ground. That is the main factor, that will always cost one many more pilots in OFF, than flying German side, over own terrain, IMHO.

Yes, much more vital and somehow dangerous, with attention. Well done, guys! You cannot imagine how much I am looking forward for P4! GAS? I'm not flying for any GAS - I fly for the Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte. Afraid from a Mosquito? Huh - my Albatros can turn much tighter! First he'd need to hit me! Hehehe!

Yes, Lewie, Gert is singing about football, mentioning German heroes from the mid 70s. The song, well - Gert was more the great actor surely. That's a beautiful Albatros seaplane. I always wonder, how much additional weight and then also drag those floater must have meant.

Yeah, I guess Mr. Coppola made it into his very own special story. Well, actually "Apocalypse Now!" is the adaption of a much older book by Joeph Conrad; "Heart of Darkness". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness

Did you make the R.E.8 larger, or is it the more detail, that makes it appear bigger, Pol? Looks great; the gunner doesn't appear so stiff anymore; much more like life - can that be? Landscape and town are wonderful again, Winder! One funny thing: the "wire pyramids" on the top wing - what is that? Are there struts missing??? .

Quite thrilling I found the CGI air combat beginning at 8:00 min into this Japanese docu.

Hey, that is a good picture, Hasse Wind - one can recognise the Naval hex camo also painted on the fuselage back.

Yeah, I was afraid you guys would find out sooner or later. The German flyers went surfing or just bathing in every possible hour, instead of holding the enemy at bay. Here is another photographic proof for that. ...and here is some rare footage, showing they also wasted a lot of energy in trying out new ways of warfare:

Don't bother - losing hair on the head is a sign of manhood, they say. A wife plus a kid can sometimes be as straining as flying four patrols on a busy front sector, I'm sure! Good to see you here - and laughing, Creaghorn!

Knowing your athletic shape (from that Halloween pic, when you were the "Joker"), I just had to laugh out loud, imagining you to get scared by a game.

Hihi, that shows you are an "immersive player" - I know that so well ! A friend of mine doesn't understand that; for him it's "just running through and kill all the monsters". But me, I need to explore things, and when getting towards a difficult task waiting, I often spend even more time exploring, postponing the stress a little. In OFF, I recently saved Jasta 2 ace Frommherz, who was fighting two Nieuports only 100 feet above the mud. And it felt like a Staffel mate in in serious threat, and I had to concentrate myself so hard, not to make a stupid mistake now. After the rescue, I was really mentaly exhausted - but also very glad. Maybe as a sportsman, you have trained it better, not to think about any consquences, but to concentrate on the very moment rather. That can be the decisive difference between winning or losing. In a dogfight as well as on the baseball ground.

Hood, you may have discovered at least one recepy for a longer life in war. We fly OFF, cause we want it most immersive. Most immersive is: you feel like - you ARE the pilot above the lines. Most immersive also means: you are afraid to lose your life Absolutely normal to me. And the longer you fly, the more pssible chances of dying did you see; the more of the 9 lives of the cat did you use up...

At hindsight, everything is so much clearer to see, that's true, Flyby. I don't think it is a good idea anyway, to project all the terrible deeds only just on one man like Hitler. What makes me shudder much more, is the fact, that the whole German railway system (for example) with so many people working there, became part of the Holocaust - a perfectly greased machinery, and civil servants, who switched off their personal responsibilities. Waggonloads of Jewish people became numbers and transports; were neatly listed in the logs; were managed like meat stock. The true horror is not, when we are ruled by a Hitler - it is to be ruled by fear. Each and everyone's personal fear. That is what caused me nightmares after seeing "The Diary of Anne Frank" - that I knew, I would not have had the strength to hide even only one Jewish person from the Nazis for several years. What would I have done? I cannot say.

Maybe I should fly the new FM despite the loss of the ace skins? What you have achieved is good so far, Herr Prop-Wasche. More immersion vs more realism - a tough one. I'll try it out again. I guess you're right there, elephant - one would only lose the ace skins in your own squadron. But flying German side, it surely is a big loss.

Javito and Lou, I knew that too well. Sometimes I spend more than an hour on preparing to fly, only to find that a sudden, very intensive tiredness is falling on me like a curtain. It is psychological - I feel a strong stress, and try to escape it. And that is only flying German side, which is easier, cause you fly your scout only over friendly terrain, and can put it down, if it is damaged. Whenever enemy craft are getting near you, you will see black Flak puffs as a warning and a guide for either sneaking up on them, or for evading them. How much deeper the Entente pilots feel this, I only recently felt again with a BE2c pilot. After crossing the lines, you have no more to rely on than yourself. No guiding Archie. No terrain to land a damaged kite. Flying Entente side is so much harder, that no one must feel ashamed, if they make far less kills, or if they don't last so long. Yes, I feel with you guys.

I always used and still use "Auto-Mixture" on.

Hasse Wind, I did not mean the things which are always and generally there in OFF - wrong or right. What I mean is, that every now and then, the Albatros I fly operates on junk level - you cannot get anything done in it - and the AI performs on Superman level. It is absolutely different to the general average flying.

Well, sometimes they DO react on being shot at, or at least some sorts of pilots do, LIMA. I have definitely seen craft pulling away as soon as they get shot at. It's only that too many of them don't. Maybe the "veteran" standard of P3 should be the "average" standard of P4; and the P4 "ace" standard should be improved?

LIMA, I did not use HPW's FM today, as it doesn't let the ace skins show. Shiloh, I remember your report, and I have such "events" every now and then, and it always feels like when you meet such a special enemy ace flight, the performance of your own craft gets ridiculous, while the performance of the enemy craft, which should be inferiour, gets boosted. I do not mean to say that the sim is programmed for this to fool me - but something strange IS definitely happening sometimes, and I don't know, what causes that???

As for your first passage, Flyby - that is true - it was impossible for me to identify even near as much with a German WW2 ace, as it must have been for an English, French, American, Canadian or Australian kid to identify with their aces. That lead to the result, that there could not be much pride about my nation's soldiers; and also to quite some admirance for the Allied soldiers. This was not really bad for my development though. I learnt, that the "other side" is much the same human beings as mine, who fight as determined and as well as mine. And I understood, that they had all fought a regime, a fashist ideology, and that they - once that regime was wiped out - offered their help, and offered their hands to become friends. We may not have developed that pride about our armies and weapons - but that lead to a wider view, like looking over the trench line, seeing, recognising the other side. I wouldn't want to miss that.

Yeah, that's understandable - thanks for the history lesson, Hasse Wind.

Yeah, I heard it must be very difficult to get into any parking space outside the Pizzerias in Rome!

That would be almost 38° Celsius? In Massachusetts??? Geeze, talk about climatic change...

Well, the Japanese - maybe one would need to know them better. I used to talk several times to a Sushi master, who had his restaurant here in Berlin, and he was a very nice chap. On the other hand - when we regard the cruelties Japanese soldiers have done in large amount, we think they are very different. But then again, if we look at what was even possible in my homeland, which should not have been possible in any human culture - that makes me think, that there are these two contradicting sides in every society, and that we can only care for our democratic ways and freedoms, as if they were raw eggs. I don't know much about the Italians as soldiers - maybe they are more famous for good food and wine?

Absolutely what I think, Pol! Sunny hot summer weather is much overrated - look what it's done to the Sahara! Hmmmm - tea!