Olham

Thank you, Carrick, but I'll have to leave for another 10 days or so, soon. I'll enjoy every second here before that.

Yep, I think it's the simmer's decision. If we really fly without any aids on, the Entente pilots will find it harder to trace the enemy at all (the Jasta pilots, operating over own grounds mostly, have the Flak as their warning and guide). So we would have less sightings. From these sightings, we would still carefully approach and detect, what enemy craft and strength there is underway, and often better decide to run instead of fighting. And the more we fly it like that, the less sensational Wham!Bam!Boom!" would it be. Indeed! I will stay with OFF, and develop with it with the months of flying - more and more towards a realistic approach of the sim. I bet, everyone who stays with it for a long time, will come to this point. PS: I realised, that it must be the hardest thing to do and survive, to fly like the British side. While the French flew a more defensive attitude, the British were operating in a much more offensive way. As I said above: once you had crossed the lines, you wouldn't have had any Flak/Archie warning and guiding you anymore. Once hit and damaged, you couldn't just put your crate down on the next meadow. To fly British side without all aids, and for a long time survival, must be the hardest thing to achieve in OFF. Especially in late 1916 and early 1917. On the German side, the line-crossing, low operating two-seaters would be the biggest challenge, I suppose.

After three new installs in the last 4 months, I can do it in my sleep now, I guess.

A good example for the theory, that two competing buisinesses can also drive each other forward.

I don't have a web camera, but if I had, they would very often face a very seriously gazing man with a black baseball cap with a kind of antenna on the cap screen, and they would know immediately: damn - it is us, who are getting watched. Raaaahhhh!!!! With my genious idea of writing back a backup of my C: partition, I have eliminated OFF's files in the AppData department, and nothing helped anymore but a clean deinstall and total new install! Raaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!! Also, I had to restore all my settings in "Workshops", my pilot photos, my skins, my "Controls" etc. - raaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I almost wept like a 3 year old boy; I sent a prayer like: Lord, have mercy - I only have this one pair of nerves! But now, I have it all back up running fine - ahhhhh! And I have only one pilot so far, to begin again flying a more serious carreer with Jasta 2 in September 1916. I started with the Halberstadt again, and MvR has only arrived short before me. He is a normal flyer there - no kills yet; just an eager pilot reading every word from the lips of our mentor, Oswald Boelcke, who is quite impressive in his calm modesty, and in his understanding of air combat.

Davy TASB, are you ever serious? Creaghorn, your dream sounds spooky - as if a "drifting lost soul" of a WW1 pilot, who died this way, had used you as a medium, to live through it again and again; perhaps to find out, who killed him. He may have found his peace, when it stopped. Your description is at the same time of little visual Hollywood sensation, as it is feeling very realistic. I like such goose-skin stuff. Thanks for sharing. It makes me understand the ernestness, with which you approach OFF. I don't know how I would have been in RL there; I only know I felt related to all the aces who fell. My whole way of flying OFF is, as if I know I would not be able to keep my nerves together through the whole of the two or three years of this hell. I want to become an ace first, and then I know I will fall sooner or later - exchanging the hell, from which no one can return intact, for the big sleep.

After all this hassle, I can at least report, that I can get YouTube again (sigh!). Which I'd like to celebrate with Monty Python's "Spam Song".

Hasse Wind, you have a tendency to fire my paranoia (which I'm glad is something EVERYONE in this whole galaxy is suffering from, as I've learnt from Douglas Adams). Thanks, Parky - I read your advice too late and have written the old image back. Must check, if it helped. Google Chrome - is that something I should search for, WM?

Some time ago, we had debated the question, if there should be pilot bodies modelled for the inflight cockpits. I had voted for them, cause I thought, it would be looking much more realistic. Only after that poll, I realised that my favourite and beloved Albatros are modelled without a pilot dummy. I had never realised - I must have imagined it being there, but it isn't. Now I have seen those beautifully refined cockpits for P4 - and I would find it a pity, if I couldn't see all this detail. I am wondering, if it might still be time to save the devels some work of making these "bodies", by deciding new and possibly against them? What do you all think about this? (In the case, that it is all done and modelled already, I hope you won't tear my head off, Winder and Pol!)

P5, perhaps?

October 2008 I googled for WW1 air combat sims, cause I hadn't found anything since "Flying Corps Gold". "Red Baron 3D" had - very strange! - not got much positive review in the gamer mags I had looked into. (When I later read here from so many of you, how good it seems it was, I almost bit in my own bum!) Well, as I said, I googled, and I found traces which lead me to "Over Flanders Fields". I found the name very special and though, that guys who come up with such a name for a WW1 air combat sim, must have a "special touch". I found the old forum, and I read there, that OFF was in it's Phase2, which was a free sim. I saw, that people asked for copies, and that they got them sent by other fans. But most of that was America or Britain - I seemed to be the only German. So I finally dared to ask the question to all: who would send me a copy of this sim? I won't forget that it was Typhoon from Canada, who sent it to me - and he didn't even want any money! I was so grateful I made a screenshot story about a Major from Canada, with the name "Typhoon" on his S.E.5a, and sent it to him. Thanks again, Tony - you have helped so much to gain a deeply devoted fan for this wonderful sim - no, I keep forgetting it is a simulation - for this great event called "Over Flanders fields"!

Gee, this kind of "goose skin thread" - wonderful! Creaghorn, now you have made me (and I guess many others too) very curious, what your nightmare was about? My interest was started in the early 70s, when I began to go to the cinema more often. One day, there was this poster: I saw the movie (which I know today, wasn't very good - the "Blue Max" was far better) and was impressed from this kind of air combat. But still, I was much more interested in the WW2 fighters. Shortly after seeing the movie, I went to check the window displays of my local model kit shop once again. And there, in one window, stood the assembled models of one Spitfire and one S.E.5a - both built and beautifully painted by the same modeller. I preferred to build my own models, but realised I could never build and paint anything as good. So I went in and asked, if they would sell them, but the answer was "no" - they were meant only for displaying. But I didn't give up and asked again, when the window display had been changed, some weeks later. The shop owner, Herr Adelmann, gave me a long look and finally promised to ask the model builder. I should come back after a week. And when I went there again, he had both models there. But they cost me a little fortune - 6,- Deutsche Mark each (which was in fact ridiculously cheap for such fine builds; about 1 and a half dollar). Still though, for me it was a lot, cause I only received 2,- DM pocket money per week. So I decided to buy the Spitfire first, and begged him to keep the S.E.5a, until I had more money. He shrugged and said, he would sell it, if anyone else wanted it. So I borrowed the money - the first mortgage in my life - to buy the S.E.5a too. It was a "sleeping" first starter; and only later, when I had a computer and got "Wings of Glory" (yes, CaptSopwith!), it awoke from a long slumber. It fell back to sleep after having also bought "Flying Corps Gold", wich looked good, but I couldn't get to grips with. In October 2008, I began a new search for WW1 air combat sims and typed in various search words. Among the finds was "Over Flanders Fields", which I found sounded very poetic. And so I came to OFF and met you all - and I want to express here, that this was one of the greatest treasures I have ever found in my life - no less!

Thanks you for both your compliment and the advice, Parky. I was thinking of writing back an ACRONIS image of my C: partition. Would that eliminate the newer FLASH player completely?

No one coming up with the most obvious use of the pilots' arms: making signs for their wingmen? Using the blip-switch? Adding pressure by using the fuel pressure pump?

Your post fits well with what I'm always saying to newbies: this is NOT a game... But then many, if not most of us would find it boring to fly it so historical. That's why I have a compromise to offer: I have one pilot (with Jasta 2, Sept. 1916), whom I try to fly much like you describe (although not as far as you are going). Watching myself and my own attitudes with this sim flying, I notice, that I change very slowly towards your or Creaghorn's attitude. It's a slow development I can't and won't hurry in any way - it's a "natural change" in it's slow way. I came in to Phase2 very late, and was all into what you called Wham! Bam! Exiting! kind of flying. I didn't know anything about WW1 air combat or the war in general. Now I am (slowly) reading more and more about that time, and I have probably had enough "quick success/ early death" kind of action, so I'm also getting interested in how it would have been in RL. I will still have pilots for Wham!Bam!Action!, but the interest in that is fading. I think, it may take time for most "players" to become "RL sim flyers", and some may never go that way. Well, each to his own, as you said. I'm having a difficult, stressful time recently, but when all problems are solved in a couple of weeks, I intend to work my way through British_eh's and your stuff, to find your guides to more realism for at least one "RL pilot" to fly that way.

Thanks for the flattery, Sir.

Absolutely amen and ditto to this post!

Good point, Bullet. Don't worry about your brains - it was another thread; which inspired me to start this one.

I always update NoScript, and make allowances if necessary. In this case, NoScript didn't block anything.

Damn, you're right - I made that S.E.5 skin for Tranquillo. I tend to get names mixed up, when they have the same first letter, and when more letters are the same.

I'm back from Ostfriesland, where I had 12 straining days. My mother has to move out of the flat she's been living in for 10 years, and I did most of the clearing and packing. All this had to be done within short time for various reasons, and as the "old lady" also just had a knee surgery, it was all too much for her; and I felt like violating her life and feelings with my actions, which I could not do any more gently though. It was very tiring, and I'm glad I could return to Berlin for 9 days, before she will move into the new flat on the old age terrain (she'll have her own little flat, with some service from the old age, and an alarm conection). It will all be much smaller, and I hope, she will get used to that. But the appartment is very nice. Now I will try to get the most out of the forum and OFF flying, before I will travel there again, for another 10 days.

Hihihi - the YouTube Polizei! ... Lawyers and solicitors, rather, Hasse Wind. But Germany bought all of Monty Python in the seventies and eighties. They even tried to translate it - which of course made them miss many of the jokes. But: we have paid for it, and so the solicitors of the big entertainment companies (or is it the good old BBC ?) cannot stop us from watching the original. I have learnt more English through Monty Python, and the Beatles, than in school. Thanks for the sketch, Hasse Wind. Not one of their top stuff, but fits here.

When I started this poll, I thought we could save you devs some modelling time, if most people would not want bodies. But then I also understand the other points of view, and you guys will build it the way you wanted anyway, I suppose.

Cold here in Berlin, too. Well, it's not as cold as you have it, Lou and Hasse Wind. Only -2° Celsius.

Ah, I understand; thanks for clearing, Pol.