Olham

A pity I don't drink anymore - this would call for a bottle of Chamgagne! Edit: Cripes, I've received a mighty big medal for my bigmouthdom! I had expected a warning for flooding the forum with 15.000andsomething posts... Mmuahahahahaaa!!! Thank you, CA!

Did you select the right cockpit view in OFF? Toggle through your cockpit views with F3 and see if any of them responds.

Cheers, mate! Yeah, well, they must be Scotch - they even save promising me a drink. Mmuahahahaaa!!! The new AI in WOFF is said to be much improved again. It can decide about attack chances. And it can be unaware, and give you a chance to sneak up on it. Yo, we Albatros love that trick - we fly our sleak bird around the opponent and blind him emotionally with the sheer beauty of our craft. Happens often that they just forget to fly. It shows, that the British and French have good taste! Wait until you come to 1918 (if you should ever make it so long)! ... Mmuahahahahaaa!!!!

Welcome over Flanders fields, devere! New guy buys the drinks, remember... Now to your question: yes, HitR and especially the patches that followed and belong to it, improved the AI on many aspects. The "Lemming-behaviour" was mostly eliminated. But of course, badly damaged kites which have fought their way spiralling down with their foes, may still end in the trees, or crawl along low. The overall AI behaviour was much improved - they became much more lethal in their actions. You also have three choices for AI in "Workshop": - a more lurking, more passive AI that will only make attacks when they see a good chance - an aggressive AI - or a mix of both; OBD call it "historical". Here they are more careful in the earlier war; and more aggressive in the later period. The sim will blend both for you IMHO the AI had grown up after HitR and patches - it is much harder now to even survive half a year with the "aggressive AI". Are you ready for that? There was something else... - ah, the drinks! I'll have a virtual "Andechs Spezial Hell", please!

After the book "The Flying Fox" by Otto Fuchs was recommended to me so much by RAF_Louvert and rjw, (thank you both for pointing it out) I have bought an old German original copy and am still enjoying it very much. The English edition by Adam Wait is said to contain the true squadron and persona names, so I may also buy that. It is an incredibly well written description of all Fuchs saw - people, aircraft, flying, landscapes and the war. And it has a lot of good humour. Now I wanted to see where it took place and made a research. Maybe the English book contains some of these photos; the German one from 1933 unfortunately doesn't. But I found this "Malaula" blog space (which might be written by Adam Wait or Norman Franks - couldn't find a name; can someone help?), and there were some fine pictures. The rest is compiled from GoogleMaps and the web. Enjoy!

Hey, Hauksbee! It will, as Pol assured us once. Maybe he is always flying in the same bad period, when testing. Look through ALL the new shots, and you will see clear, bright blue skies.

Welcome to the OFF-Forum, John! Your description is all too vague so far IMHO. Did you install OFF on a new rig with windows 7, and it doesn't work right after the fresh install? In that case you must have missed some important point. Remember, it needs the updated CFS3 (I think it is called 3.1 - no sure). Then after installing OFF the patches have also to be done right. Best you check all about installing on the OBD website in the FAQs about INSTALL: http://overflandersfields.com/FAQ.htm

Next time I meet you, I will wave at you. Make sure you wear a red-white-blue checkered scarf so I can reconise you!

When I click on your second link, I get them all.

Thanks for clickable links - but I did show the place in the text in my picture; last line.

Definitely is, Lou! You also recommended it, Robert, and it was a good tip. The book on Immelmann gives quite a good insight into the person, into Immelmann's permanent efforts in being good at what he does. Maybe a German attitude which many shared in those days. I liked the part about the bicycle trip to Belgium and France with his brother some years before the war - they travelled to much the same areas which would soon be gun-ploughed.

Thanks a lot for pointing this book out to me, Lou! I "only" got me a German print from 1933, but it is a great read and I may also get the English version for the details. Fuchs is able to visualize all his observations like a painter does in his sketches; I can see it while I read. I learned from him, how exactly an artillery observer communicated with the forward artillery observers at the ground; as well as how many freedoms the pilot in those days seemed to have to make own decisions about missions and actions - at least at the two-seaters. While Fuchs himself is mostly the accurate observer of the squadron life, he understands it very well to catch all the funny humorous details woven into the everyday routine. I am still not finished and not even at the point yet, when he became a fighter pilot, but I can already say that I regard it as a fascinating WW1 book.

Tony, I guess you deserved it! Enjoy every second! We expect a report!

Like René Fonck? No joke - Fonck visited Udet in Berlin, and Ernst took him up in his two-seat plane. That was 10 years after the Great War ended. Here are two photos:

He sure did. When he saw Germany would be fighting a two-front war (again) he said something like "We cannot win this war - it is all lost." Each time I see that coloured photograph of him I tink "Nobody can be as good a guy as he looks here." Like a commercial for a health supply or such. Mmuahahahahaaa!!!

Oh, wow - it still exists? Yeah, a German actress once said about her friend Udet: "Ah, Ernst - he made a contract with the devil, if he could only fly. He is such a daredevil - he should have been dead a dozen times or more..." When you make contracts with the devil, the outcome is always sombre."

I knew you were only kidding, Robert! (The CA Smileys are simply the best!)

I didn't say he took it with him in his fighters - even Udet wouldn't have been allowed to do that. My personal guess is that this "travel bar" was built after WW1, in the 20s or in the 30s. when Udet became a high ranking officer in the new Luftwaffe. In the English WIKIPEDIA site about Udet, the mini-bar is shown. It seems it was transported in Udet's Siebel aircraft - that must have been in the "Third Reich" I think. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Udet

Yep, he liked the drinking too much in the end, I'm afraid. But at last he couldn't drink away the evil anymore which had caught the war heroe in a deadly embrace of it's iron arms. Here is a picture of him in front of his Siemens-Schuckert - and the famous mini bar.

That is another book I must read again soon - one of the "must-have" WW1 pilots' books. It has a good humour too.

Tony, enjoy your trip and the museum! And perhaps you can meet B.B.III again and talk about his granddad this time.

Update 10 August 2013 - 11:05 h Berlin summer time (= GMT + 2) Ruby, Mississippi, added. The maps are in post 1 of this thread

Hey, Maeran, I envy you a little bit - I wish there was anything like the Shuttleworth Collection here in Germany. I find many of your photos quite good actually. I bet you had no professional gear like tripods etc. These are my favourite two among your big collection - I like the "Hurry", the fighter that REALLY kept the bombers at bay, and that Bristol Bullet looks hot!

Gee, the Smithsonian! ... I guess one could easily spend a whole week there! The SPAD cockpit always reminds me of Italian racing boats from the 30s. What was that tube to the right of the pilot, which goes out through the skin?

Here is another dimension for our "Little Italy" campain: some German Jagdstaffeln were based in Italy for some time. Here is one example. Jasta 31 was stationed in Italy for some time in the war. The bases were: Audritz 20 September - 2 November 1917 Udine 3 - 11 November 1917 Aviano 15 - 19 November 1917 San Giacomo 19 November - 2 January 1918 San Fior 3 January - 13 March 1918 I will research this a bit more and report, which Jasta were where, and when. This would mean, that the Jasta 31 "Barber Pole"-Albatros D.III OAW could see action. I had built this skin long time ago, but never finished it (it was hair splitting hard to make the red bands meet!). Now I searched for the file, but it must have been left and lost on my old rig. Maybe I'll build it again.