Olham

According to WIKIPEDIA the Germans had war spoils of 1200 t of castor oil. Castor beans didn't seem to grow here - they need tropical or sub-tropical climates. And the British sea blockade prevented any transports into Germany.

Haha - yeah, IF they should be able to keep them in flying condition... Nowadays technology is so advanced and expensive to build - it could well be that it would not be possible to remake any difficult parts anymore.

A new website is under construction, called FLUGMUSEUM MESSERSCHMITT. That site already shows some interesting videos of the Bf109 and the Me 266. More is to come. http://flugmuseum-messerschmitt.com/ Here are three videos:

Well, the tail wheel wasn't the problem. It may have helped a bit to lock it. But if you ever get the chance to stand behind a BF109 during an engine warm up run, you will realise what power the engine produced on the propeller. And the prop wind spiral, running around the fuselage, hit the rudder fin quite hard. They had to counter that with the right amount of right rudder.

PS: ...look at that taxiing bit early on in this video, where the pilot makes a great curve around a ground crew man!

Well, the Bf109 was dangerous at landings AND at starts. It was said to have a tendency to break out to the left, and if it did, even experienced pilots couldn't get to grips with her again. One (forgot his name) even ran his Bf109 all the way through a barack, when his starting run went bad. Yes, indeed. And a glider/sailplane must have been the inspiration for a high altitude fighter, which was meanly meant to be a bomber interceptor. Kurt Tank once flew a prototype himself - unarmed - when he ran into an American Mustang patrol. He pushed the throttle forward and flew away from them. Their faces must have been priceless! But the wide wingspan doesn't give it a true fighter appearance IMHO - so I'll stick with the D-9; or the D-12. Argh! Nasty! The kind of thing that might have happened to me all the time. (Well, not if it was lethal - Mmuahahahahaaa!!!) I guess as a real fighter pilot, you should have good awareness, and great concentration on the necessary.

A problem that the "Spit" had in common with it's German counterpart, the Bf109. Landing a Hurricane or a Focke-Wulf must have been a much safer feeling. Only landings that would have been worse than landing "Spits" or a "Messerschmidts" with their narrow landing gears, would be to land WITHOUT the gear down...

That's what the new add-on package will bring: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4186061/"Motley_Crew&quot#Post4186061 Great to see a French two-seater, which was used for a long time, both by French and British units. And the Fokker should help filling the gap between Eindecker and Halberstadt. It's already bought from my end!

The "Frogs" and the "Limeys" - what a wonderful friendship that should be! The French know a lot about good cooking, good wine and good cheese, and the British about good beer, good pop music and good humour! In two world wars the "Tommies" helped the French - now, John Lennon would say: come together! Well, I have seen tests where the longbowmen fired their arrows high up in the air, like modern artillery fires. These bowmen were well trained and fast - they could shoot arrows every 3 - 5 seconds, so a terrible rain of arrows sank on the armored knights. Coming down from some height, the arrows with their metal heads were armor-piercing. And even if they hit the horse instead of the rider - it must have been devastating.

Yes, that's who I quoted from, Jim.

Better than many German women - you often get the impression they don't understand what you say, even when you speak German to them - Mmuahahahahaaa!!!

Yes, I also read something like that. Widowmaker, the plane in The Blue Max was also silver, but it was a monoplane. Does anyone know, which aircraft that was?

Wot? I get nossink for it? Wot about a virtual Warsteiner at least? Typhoon, the models shows the triplane design by Pfalz. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfalz_Dr.I The craft could have been a good fighter, had there not been the unreliability of the Siemens & Halske engine. Only a handfull saw front service.

Reading the book of Osterkamp - "Du oder ich" - I got the impression that he was a big of a "big mouth". A man who MIGHT get carried away a bit. Same for Udet, who was an excellent flyer and undoubted ace - but he was drinking too much later, and he liked telling stories - where they always true? After all, these guys could not imagine, that this could ever be cleared up later by so many historians. Arthur Gould Lee, later air vice-marshall of the RAF and certainly a great character, who has really seen and gone through a lot during WW1, has described an encounter with a single, all-red Fokker triplane, escorted by Albatros D.V. While this encounter may have truely happened - at that time, von Richthofen and Werner Voss tried out the first two prototypes of the Dr.I in combat - none of these two Dreideckers was red. Not even partly red. Von Richthofen began flying the only overall red Fokker Dr.1 short before his death - in April 1918. Was Lee a liar? Certainly not! But even his memory got fooled by informations he must have heard later. Were Udet and Osterkamp liars? Well, maybe they "spiced" their biographies with a well-invented story about a French ace's chivalry?

Not sure if Jim is barmy enough, Hauksbee? Jim, what do you think? Would you join a club that would have people like you as members?

No need to apologise, Widow - sorry if it sounded like a complaint. Double and triple postings of interesting stuff happen quite often, I guess. This one was only recently, and there was quite a debate about this action. I was among those who were touched, and I myself might have not been able to shoot that cripled bomber down. But from the view of the people on the ground, it might have looked like treason. Very conflicting sentiments there.

This video was posted several times here already, Widowmaker. The opinions about it were divisive. On one hand the German pilot showed human emotions rather than being a cold warrior. On the other hand, this same, saved bomber crew might come back with the next wave, and drop some dozens more bombs on German civilians. Humanity and logic are harshly conflicting here, I think.

Absolutely DITTO to that!

Yep, I only learned that recently, that the WHOLE canopy - incl. the rear part - could be jettisoned. That way the pilot could NOT get stuck with his parachute there - as I had often wrongly read about the Bf109.

Hauksbee, here is an architectural sketch which I think you can use as a guideline. A story on a Chateau seems to have a height of ca. 4 m per level. The ground one is mostly lower.

Geeze, I had no idea that the modelling was so different from what you'd expect! Thank you for all your endurance, Hauksbee - the latest Boistrancourt version sure DOES look great IMHO! I am, like JFM, the "gimme Boistrancourt" type of pilot, but I find it looks great already, so how about Roucourt? There you "only" needed to plant many trees, a viallage (do you have access to the houses WOFF already uses?), and then there is that castle. You above one looks great; I guess with a tutor you could do it. Or so I secretly hope - but take your time; running hot ain't no good.

The look of your border collie in your avatar alone is priceless. The awareness, the total attention they pay to us humans - compared to theirs, we are often rather careless, aren't we?

Cats are often said to be aloof and less socialising with humans than dogs. But is that really true? This cat KNOWS who is family for her - and she literally defends him with teeth and claws!

Thank you for posting, Widowmaker! He looks like a true Irish rover. Adventure hasn't left him it seems, after all the hardship he has gone through. A pity I cannot see the second video - due to German copyright laws it won't show.

Maybe they don't want to make fools of the Americans, internationally?