Olham

Hasse Wind, I'm sure, everyone of us has days like this. I never read much of any pilots here, who make more than 17 hours AND many kills. I lost one pilot through "blood rage" - I didn't stop chasing and firing at a SPAD VII that had shot down my wingman, when the tracers of his wingman zipped past my head already. More SPADs joined in to that, but I shot the bloke in front of me down with a very demolished craft, before I crashed myself. I had hoped on a crash landing, but the craft became uncontrollable. My fault. My next pilot did better; he downed one FE2b, when he saw no less than 10 Tripes from RNAS-1 diving on his wingmen. He shot down three of those elite pilots, but one claim was regarded erroneus through the lack of witnesses. And he survived this, although his craft was damaged.

That's what the map is for. We Germans had the whole real line painted red first, but then the Red Baron used up all the available colour for his Jasta 11 fighters, and we couldn't paint it new anymore at the various front line changes.

themightyscr: Tea and crumpets for the next 2 bleedin' years then......rats..... Hahaha! Mighty, that sounds familiar, but could have been worse. Actually, tea is one thing these Limeys can brew, crumpets I don't know, but when they ask, if you want scones with clotted cream and raspberry jam, DON'T say "no" - they're delicious! Oh, and their beer is also very good! You can analyse your actions to find your mistakes. The most you did was okay, right? But you had no situational awareness - you didn't realise, you crossed the lines. That should never happen. Secondly, if you cross the lines to get the Tommy, you can't do that at 500 feet. Next time follow him much higher, zigzag over the lines, and go lower, when out of reach of the front line gunnery. Believe me, I'm always still learning. And it gives me the greatest respect for all the long life aces and mostly those, who survived the war, that they got it right in their their first one and only attempt they had.

This one is a total guess, as I can't enlarge the picture. It could be the synchroniser gear, first used, but not really invented by Anthony Fokker. Fokker had found a patent for some gear, which was for another purpose, but he was a clever man and found it useful to interrupt the machine gun fire, when shooting through the propellor circle. I think, it was first used in the Eindecker Fokker E III.

For the WIKIPEDIA Article, I would like to use very good screenshots of aircraft, single or flying in formation or dogfighting. If you at OFF OBD have some good ones with your logo in, please post them or PM them to me. Whoever wants to contribute some, please follow some rules: 1. You should have most advanced graphics. Use highest resolution for the aircraft in workshop, please. 2. pick an interesting wheather - that can be chosen in "workshop QC's". I want some really nice and sunny wheather as well as huge, dramatic thunderheads, but rather no rainy wash kitchen looks. 3. Pick some really interesting German skins for your German craft. 4. Do the dogfighting like a movie director. Manoeuver your craft to good angles in relationship to the sun and the other craft. Use the "pause" key and wander around the frozen scene, to get the best angle; zoom in and out to get it right. Also view scenes or single craft from above - sometimes a good angle. Turn and move around a scene in thunder wheather so, that you may catch some reflection on the surfaces; that will give it an extra touch. And after all that work, you should still be prepared, that your pic might not be used, although it is good - I can't plaster Wikipedia with screenshots, and will have to pick some 3 - 6 pictures, to show the variety of types and skins. Thank you for reading.

Rickitycrate, there are days, sometimes whole weeks, where you can't get anything right. What a nice chance this could have been, as you got the answer very quick. But you flew into the burst of Rooster so to say - beaten by only 4 minutes. Life over Flanders fields is really tough! But I wouldn't be asthonished, if Lou would make another competition in some future.

Well, I understand a little French. So, if no real Frenchman should answer, I would give it a try. Dej, I think, also learned some French. Dej? And what about Franco-Canadians here?

No. 42 is a DFW R.II The DFW R.II was a German bomber aircraft of World War I. It was developed at a request by the Luftstreitkräfte in spring 1917 after their experience with the R.I had been generally positive. Design and development The service desired generally similar aircraft but needed greater payload (3400 kg, up from 2600 kg in the R.I). This meant the design had to be considerably revised. The same engine/propeller arrange- ment was used (four inline engines mounted in the fuselage, driving two tractor propellers and two pusher propellers via long driveshafts). When the R.II first flew in August 1918, the driveshafts proved troublesome, creating excessive vibration. As a remedy, they were enclosed within steel tubes, which fixed the problem. The aircraft also was able to benefit from the newly-available Mercedes D.IVa engine that had replaced the troublesome D.IV in production. Operational history Of the six ordered by the Luftstreitkräfte, only two were completed before the end of the war, and these were operated from Cologne on training duties only when their performance proved inadequate for front-line duties. Following the war, DFW planned an airliner version of the R.II, which would have carried 24 passengers. Construction of a prototype was abandoned before it was complete. Specifications General characteristics * Crew: Five * Length: 20.93 m (68 ft 8 in) * Wingspan: 35.06 m (115 ft 0 in) * Empty weight: 8,600 kg (18,900 lb) * Gross weight: 12,000 kg (26,500 lb) * Powerplant: 4 × Mercedes D.IVa inline piston engine, 194 kW (260 hp) each Performance * Maximum speed: 132 km/h (82 mph) * Endurance: 6 hours I had this worked out since 27. 9. - 02:43 h, honestly. Really sorry for you, Rickity, but everyone else still had so much time left to find it. Now it's time for my second post - so I'll press: "Add apply" now. Oh, and my source was WIKIPEDIA.

In the web I found a picture of a Halberstadt wing, that's getting restored in Brussels. The photograph was very professional; when I tried to adjust the colours by Photoshop presets "auto tone" or "auto contrast", nothing changed. So the lighting was set very well. Now I zoomed in very close into the picture, searching for colour spots, where the colour was most intensive, but not darkened by shadows. I sampled several of such pixels which showed a well saturised colour, and realised, that the CMYK values where similar in their relationship of percentage. That way, I came to the 5 colours you see in the upper right corner. I believe, that these where the colours more or less, seen from close-on of course- in their most intensity. As they where printed on fabric, you would have a lot of reflecting light from the laquer-sealed cloth's surface. So the colours would appear brighter, the further you walked away from the wing. Also, in field service, the fabric might have worn of, the colours bleached out a bit after time. In the 80s I had made tests with German RLM colours. I had them painted on 3 cardboard pieces. The first I had near me, the second I put 10 meters away, the third was 20 meters away. The colour RLM 65 is a greyish-blue sky blue. From 20 meters away, it appeared like a very bright sky blue only; the intensity was less than 50 % of the close colour. So, if anyone wants to use these colours for skinning, I would suggest to brighten them up by at least 15 - 20 %, if not more.

Bullet, the devil's advocat has a plausible logic.

There where units, that came back to the Albatros D III OAW, after flying later types or Pfalzes. ButI don't think the craft was extremely different to the other D III. Maybe the rudder was better, and that would make quite some difference already, but not much more. The D Va was a more powerful craft, and it carried 1.100 rounds, which is quite some extra. Von Richthofen scored well in the D Va. But I can understand those pilots, who preferred a more agile craft, which the D III was. And so some Jastas must have used it again. That they took the OAW type, could be because it was a bit better - or because Schneidemühl produced it longer, whilst Johannestal was already doing the D V and then the D Va. You will find that represented here in OFF: you can fly D III OAW even later on in the war.

Okay, thanks Pol, will read those and work it out.

Do you know a good decal company for WW1 models?

Wunderbar! Zee crumpetz hav zee allowance to pint nicer cratez now! Ziss one iss so very beautifull, zatt I can't vaitt to shoot it down! Mmuahahahahaaaa!!!!!

Jasta 4, Jasta 5 - so much to do, still !

No, it was printed. Maybe they had big rolls with the pattern on them; one for each colour.

Mr. Lucky, I really admire pilots, who dare to fly the Eindecker in campaign! And you seem to have survived many meetings with Nupes? N 17 even?!? Stickshaker, please show the pictures!

Oh, I see - you got it identified too! And you will be allowed even earlier than me to do a second try!!! Now I can only hope you got it wrong (Lol!!), but I don't think, you have. Well, if you get these two points, they are surely well deserved, Sir!

Update 09/27/09 13:13 Berlin time (GMT +2) cavalliere57, Italy, added. Welcome to our first OFF pilot in Italy! the maps are in post 1 of this thread

To be fair, I tell you, that I know the answer for the last picture, and that I will post it at 13:30 h Berlin time (GMT +2). If nobody comes in earlier...

Baldric: Perhaps I'll fly a French DiD pilot starting with Nieuports and flowinto Spad VIIs. I need another pilot anyway, as Reiner has nudged intothe 19 hour range and I'm getting nervous lol. Why not start right with the SPAD VII? Pilots entered war at various times, and if you fly the Nupe before, you may find it harder to completely change your flying to an energy fighter? About Reiner: I understand that nervousness too well - 19 hours - wow! Hasse Wind: I like challenges, and becoming a succesful ace with the S.VII is anenjoyable challenge. And I promise to give the Fee fighters a try someday... So much to try, so little time. Indeed, Hasse Wind, indeed! The Fee is okay to fly, if you can live with the fact, that the gunner, when he is firing rearwards, will block your forward view - which may cause some unexpected evasive moves (Lol!). And for the SPAD: same for me; must try! Yes, so much to try... Guynemer did part of his kills in that craft.

BH: I have only been able to break planes by doing things I would never doin actual combat. Hence, it never happens to me in the real thing, andas a result, I have no problem with it never happening to the AI. TheAI here is good, so knows where to draw the line. If you're rippingyour wings off, therefore, I submit that you're doing something wrong. I have had breaking wings many times, when I simply tried to follow the moves of AI Nieuport 17. I thought, when they can do this manoeuver, I should also be able to do it. That is not so - the AI wings just never break from stress. My Albatros lower wings do already break, when I follow a craft in a spiral 30° dive plus bank, and try to follow the opponent, when he pulls out of it. My wings break, his won't. Of course I don't have the problem, since I just avoid those movements. But I don't think it's realistic.

That's unbelieveable, but I haven't been in there, to be honest. I visited the outdoor part of the museum, where they have lots of old jet fighters mainly from Russia and the DDR (best object to me: the HIND helicopter), but didn't know, what they have inside. Will have to go there, definitely! If anyone else wants to have a look: http://www.luftwaffenmuseum.de/

For WIKIPEDIA German, I would write the article about OFF. But I would need some detailed info about the history of the development and the team etc. If anyone from the team would communicate with me about that via PM, it could be done.

No, they are from the RODEN Website, built by modellers who sent o photo to RODEN. You can see many pictures there, but not from all the craft. I used to build some models, but not recently. The Albatros could really get me doing it again.