Olham

Holy Moly! Looks like us "Krauts" may have reason to get worried in 1918! Wonderful, all those colourful designs! Sandbagger, you'll get me into flying them!

Well, I think it's about the quality of what you do. A sim set to "easy" is not a challenge. Many kids of today play things like that. They don't want to work on anything, they don't like drawbacks, the want to be the star without the labour. Full DiD - I just flew my first fighter mission in the "Krauts & Crumpets" with full DiD. Boy, was I lost! It is okay with the bombers - high up and out of reach. But this now, 300 meters above the mud, in a fight with Nupes, surrounded by a web of ground fire, and a vision so poor as if it was doomsday - man, that was tough! I want to see, how far I may last under these conditions.

"Krauts & Crumpets" had to stay grounded today, due to terrible wheather. I mean REALLY terrible wheather, cause we had bad wheather most of the time in Nov 1916. So I decided to fly a fighter I haven't used yet. First thought of the N 17, but somehow I landed with the Airco DH 2. And in the early 1916, when there are no other fighters around (in BHaH) than the Fokker E III Eindecker, it is great fun and feels very safe to fly. The craft is a bit sensitive for side wind. It is yet underpowered, and so it isn't good at turning with a hard bank and the elevator; it prefers a medium bank plus rudder. Flying in a British Squadron was fun. I wasn't lead there, although that is chosen in 'workshop' - everything is a little different under the Union Jack. But flying with Lanoe Hawker (with 24 RFC that is), I didn't really expect that anyway. On our second sortie, we came across a flight of Rolands, which tried to kill one of our spotters. Although the Rolands where acting very agile, I shot one up badly (it was killed by Lanoe though). Just when it was nice, a flight of Eindeckers appeared, led by Rudolf Berthold, with more aces in that Staffel. I shot Berthold to pieces (or at least his wing warper), but then another ace damaged my kite, so I had to land. Aiming and shooting are phantastic with that free forward look. I had a gun jam, but could clear it. I had started it as a campaign, and I will continue it. Next craft we get will be the Sopwith Pup. Should also be fun!

Av8er, when you switch on "Labels", all aircraft have their type named as a text line. The craft with aces in, have that plus the name of the ace. Like: "Fokker EIII Rudolf Berthold" or similar. Find out how Labels get switched on by pressing "escape", then go to "controls" in the menue. Mine are on the key "Q", but I'm not sure if that is the default key.

Hey, Winston - long time no see. Good you're around again! A scene from a documentary, or did I only read it but imagined it so real: A Hurricane or Spitfire comes in to the field swaying, touches down, rolls out, stands there in the middle of the runway. Nothing happens. The ground crew, running to help the obviously wounded pilot out, open the cockpit and find a sleeping boy. He had just made it back and down, before total exhaustion charged it's rights. That stands in my memory for what they did and what they gave to their country. They kicked Hermann's fat *ss with their sheer willpower not to give up their country! Well done, boys, indeed!

Crepitis, we shall see you post "Ah! It arrived!!!" any of the coming work days now. Monday, Tuesday? It takes 10 - 15 days, as far as I followed it here.

War isn't fair, Hasse Wind! And I think, they can't do it any other way.

Hahaha!!! Good ones, Carrick! I will not try to get ten together now, but one of my "most famous" ones was: "When I become self-employed, I will be able to reign about my time."

Good one, Dave!

That's why it isn't allowed in Germany to do phone talks whilst driving. At least should he have used a free speak connection with the ear set. Now the misanthrope in me says, you obviously don't need to be intelligent to make a lot of money. But it would help to be intelligent, to make some good use of it.

Sooner or later, they'll have to do one, to make WW1 air combat complete. But my instinkt says, they would prefer to first get all the aeroplanes done. Your idea with the trim functions might work - there should be a way to rise or sink even without moving over ground.

Hmm - I didn't. Thanks for clearing that up, Wels.

Thanks for all the love you put into this, gents! It is really lovely to see, for example, the coloured illustration on Wilhelm Scheutzel's craft - "die Sieben Schwaben" I think they are, from a German tale, painted in the Jasta colours available. No, we don't need any appetizers to make us hungry for coming OFF works - but we love to get them!!!

Yep, they did a nice and respectful artwork there. Here is the other side of the fin: The JG 71 "Richthofen" is based in Wittmund in my native homeland Ostfriesland. Here is a site I found with some more pictures: http://www.bilderblog.org/2009/06/11/jagdgeschwader-71-richthofen/

I believe - I KNOW, that OFF will soon be the WHOLE possible experience, with all documented skins, and all the craft that played a role. Great work, guys!

Gary, I'm sure they wheren't offended - rather disappointed or even sad about the fact, that their skinning works are not so obviously noticed, until you pick new skins each sortie, or you get that program and browse through them. Not your fault, and I only wrote the above to make you and everyone else, who didn't know, take notice of the huge amount of available skins in OFF. And now I hope you will enjoy it all at least half as much as I do! Welcome!

As far as I know, he was called the "Red Baron" by the Entente, maybe the press. He was not even a Baron, but a slightly "lower noble" - he was a Freiherr. So, if he would have spoken of himself with the colour in mind, he would have said "der rote Kampfflieger" rather.

OvS, you just made the November grey disappear, thanks, man!

It's called Pfalz, boys - P-f-a-l-z - not Pflaz, which might be the Hungarian name though.

A video like an appetizer to OFF. I liked to see Manfred von Richthofen dressing up for a flight.

PS: of course you can still go through the downloads then. I think, you'll get what I mean, once you saw the original pile.

Hey, Gary It must be pretty hard for the skinners of OFF, to read your post. Because it sounds, as if it was only some other people's contributions, that provide you with an incredible amount of ace skins. That is not true. I highly recommend to you, to get the freeware "DXTBmp", and to browse through the great fund of about 3.000 skins made for OFF by OvS (James Romano), "Paarma" Kartunen, "Makai", "Sandbagger" and earlier on, "Rabu" and "Capt.Winters" (hope I got them all - sorry for not knowing all your real names). It was absolutely unnecessary to create the ace skins again, as these skinners search high and low even for the least known photographs, in the attempt to provide us with all individual skins you might find in any documents. I have provided own phantasy creations, together with other hobby skinners, but ALL OF THOSE where made from parts I got with the original OFF skins. So, instead of seeing through the downloads, please get DXTBmp, and browse through this cornucopia of skins - and enjoy them as much as I do. Have fun, and blue skies! Olham

Well, in those "naive" days, the public sentiments where fired by propaganda on all sides, and there was little or none better sources for comparison. The freedom of today is an incredibly big freedom of speech and information, that wasn't available then.

Dear British High Commission Watching the amount of aircraft and pilots you send over to kill us, and counting now 4 nations standing against us at this front, I developed a kind of greed, indeed, to balance numbers at least a little bit. And never forget: YOU declared war to US. Your decision... Neverless would I much prefer to sit by a warm British or German fireside with you gentlemen, and drink some of your and our excellent beers or wines. Personally, I don't have any antipathy against you and your people. Yours sincerely Ltn. Jeschonnek

No, not at all. He was a Jasta (Fighter Squadron) commander then, and maybe even recovering from injuries still. The picture shows him, so much is true, but they did not handle truth too careful in those days. Recently, there was a paper showing a picture of a German pilot, saying it was Manfred von Richthofen. Paarma showed the link to the Aerodrome, where you could see, it was someone else (forgot who).