prattrat

This classic flying film about barnstormers is now available in DVD-Widescreen format. I pre-ordered mine from Barnes and Noble and it was just released today selling for $11.69 US (online). Until now, as far as I know, it was only available on VHS for some outrageous price (like $149). The film, directed by George Roy Hill, stars Robert Redford and features Susan Sarandon, Bo Svenson, and Edward Herrmann (and even Margot Kidder). The climactic dogfight scene at the end is a must-see for anyone interested in WW1 aircraft.

I am having a major problem with OFF and CFS3 locking up. This is, for all practical purposes, keeping me permanently grounded, so I am hoping you might have some ideas. After flying in either simulation anywhere from five to fifteen minutes, the simulation will abruptly freeze solid. There is a rapid staccato noise, basically a loud buzz, coming from the speaker. Nothing will unlock the machine. I can't access the desktop, Ctrl+Alt+Del will not bring up the Windows manager or shut down the machine, and the only recourse is to hard boot the machine by shutting off the power. The problem occurs in both OFF and CFS3 but, as far as I can tell, does not occur in any of my other flight simulations. I was able to fly FS9 for about 45 minutes the other night with no problems, and I have even been able, amazingly, to fly FSX without issue. I have checked two sources (Dell and Creative) and both tell me that the sound card drivers are up to date. I'm running the latest NVidia driver (problem has persisted through the last several driver iterations). I thought it might have something to do with my buying a 24" wide Samsung monitor about 3 months ago and thereby overtaxing the video card, but the card specs say it supports this monitor resolution, and my daughter just pointed out to me that one of her 3D horseriding games does exactly the same thing, sound and all, and has been doing so since well before I purchased the monitor. It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly when I began having the problem. I USED to be able to run both sims on this rig with no problems about a year ago. I did rebuild the hard drive at the beginning of the year, but everything else seems to be running OK. All OFF/CFS3 patches are up to date and, as far as I know, installed correctly. My system specs are as follows: Dell Dimension 4600 Intel Pentium IV 2.66 GHz single core processor, 2662 MHz clock frequency 4GB RAM 400 MHz DDR (2 sticks Dell, 2 new sticks Kingston) NVidia GEForce 6600 (256 MB RAM) AGP; driver 185.85 dated 4/30/09 250 GB 7200 RPM Western Digital IDE-ATA hard drive Creative SoundBlaster Live! audio card; driver 5.12.1.203 dated 9/22/03 350w Dynex power supply Samsung SynchMaster 2443BWX 24" flat panel monitor running @ 1920 x 1200 Windows XP Home SP3 Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 (disabled before flying)

My most passionate request would be an overhaul of the Quick Combat functionality. I use QC quite a lot (or, rather, would LIKE to use it quite a lot -- I find it so irritating that I give up), and would love to see the following shortcomings addressed: 1) Completely de-couple QC from the Campaign. QC should be for when you don't have time to go on a Campaign mission, or don't want to risk killing a Campaign pilot, or want to practice certain combat tactics over and over again, or simply want to shoot at something for a few minutes with abandon. 2) Don't use campaign pilots. Use a default pilot that you only have to set preferences for once, that the game will remember until you change them again. Even if you die in the QC, the game will retain the default for the next mission, without having to go through the rigamarole of naming, picking a squad, etc.... Give the option of picking a pilot from either side directly in the GUI. 3) Retain mission settings until changed. Right now, if you pick a skin for the enemy craft, it reverts back to the default skin every time you get sent back to the GUI. It's a huge time waster to have to search for the same skin in the extensive dropdown menu for every mission. 4) Allow weather overrides. Right now there are seasonal overrides, but quite often (I think because of the Campaign date interaction) the game gets stuck in a rain or snow mode, and no matter what I do to the seasonal or time of day settings, I can't escape the lousy weather, which really kills my frame rates. 5) Allow the CFS3 feature of simply picking "Refly" at the conclusion of the combat, without actually exiting the mission. This is a very convenient feature, especially if you like all of the settings and just want to keep practicing the same tactic over and over quickly. I have tried the "CFS3 QC" button from Workshop, but it doesn't seem to behave the same way as the stock CFS3 does in this regard. Other than this aspect, I think it's a great sim. As far as new planes go, I'm still partial to wanting some more of the later craft, like the Snipe, even though they didn't really have much of an impact on the war. The rush of dogfighting in this sim with the better maneuverability and higher speed of the advanced planes would be hard to beat. I've followed the previous forum discussions on reasons for not including the Nieuport 28, but even though it was already outclassed and obsolete when it was introduced, its absence in the sim really leaves a big hole in the American campaign experience. Finally, I think the wind effects can be dialed way up. I never notice myself really needing to correct for wind while navigating, or fighting a really wicked crosswind in my takeoffs or approaches to landing, but I know these kites would have been tossed around pretty easily in RL. It would be reasonable to expect that the wind would have changed between takeoff and landing on a Campaign mission, so that you would really need to fly over the field to check the direction of the wind every time before setting up for a landing, or risk being overcome by the crosswind component. I never can spot the windsock from the air.