Maeran

My heartiest congratulations! Children are a joy and a blessing, though you will not always remember this.

I remember seeing a Mongolian restaurant in Portsmouth once. I didn't try it however. Anyway, back to scarcely changed scenes. Personally I find such continuity reassuring, not worrying. Not quite everything a man does is doomed to disappear in a generation. Those houses were built by men, and the local councillors once decided how the memorial should look. I'm reminded of a profitable afternoon spent researching my great-grandfather. After an afternoon of pouring through about 6 year's worth of documents from the 1920's I stepped out into town with a real connection with the past. There was where the corn exchange was - now a bank, but the same building. And didn't the tram go down that way? And that's where Kings tailors was. They had a sale going on for nearly as long as modern discount furniture stores. Such connections are really quite magical.

The photo I scanned was from Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War I, which is a sort of anthology version of the Jane's publications from around the time.

I wouldn't have got it if it wasn't for the bomber clue.

You two posted just as I was scanning. I was going to say that it looks very like the Friedrichshafen scout.

I suppose the pigeon camera might have had a timer but given that this is the era of photographic plates, it must have only given one exposure. And no focus either. Is that real?

Beautiful. That's all there is to that.

Poor cousin Walter.

They do look great. What's the story behind the black squares? Did the Germans block out their crosses to avoid antagonising their Turkish allies?

With regards to Dowding seeing and hearing dead airmen; shortly after WWI there was an upsurgence in the popularity of seances, belief in the power of mediums etc. I suppose it was part of people's coping mechanism, having last loved ones. Dowding of course lived through that (he served as a pilot in WWI IIRC) and so may have been a part of it. I wouldn't go back and fight if I had the chance. Pixels and fantasy is one thing, but actually killing men is another. If I could go back and see the sights/smell the castor oil and dope without getting involved, that would be amazing. Perhaps tag along with Trenchard on an inspection tour.

Wasn't this machine in Red Baron II (and RB1, but that is an even hazier memory)? I remember that Geoffrey de Havilland mentioned the ban on monoplanes in his autobiography. Apparently there was an unfortunate series of crashes during military excercises and the structural weakness of a monoplane wing was blamed. de Havilland also suggests that a variable propeller was in development at the Royal Aircraft Factory before the war and that cutbacks due to pressure from private aviation companies quashed that one.

Just off the top of my head. It is probably connected with the way you don't zip past anything (except that 2 seater you just dived past). When you're down at treetop level, you don't seem to be going very fast. The reason for that was given before (on here somewhere...) as being because speed is scaled in order to make the scenery managable. Or something like that, we're at the limit of my understanding on the subject.

Wings and Frontiers Elite were pretty much all I played in the early 90s. I remember showing my first girlfriend Wings, expecting her to be enthralled. Funny the things you learn about women.

That's no way to treat a nice stove.

Do you have anything more that we can go on? When you say 'explode', what actually happened? Any error messages or graphic freezes. Your computer specifications might help too, but more importantly can you give more detail of what happened please.

Some areas seem more easy to 'read' compared to others. I've tried using Rabu's maps and then gone further and bought (admittedly modern) road maps of the Flanders and Somme region. The northern region is readable (i.e. you can find your way around using a map)- for example, in a recent mission I lost my flight, but returned home to Clairmarais from Poperinghe by keeping the river Yser to my right. In the main however, the roads and rail lines in the north are hard to follow using either modern or older maps. In comparison, the Somme region is a joy to fly using map navigation. Especially around Arras, Cambrai and Albert, where you can clearly identify and navigate by the rivers roads and major rail lines. So, while it is true that it isn't always easy, you can indeed navigate by map in OFF. I warmly recommend using the western front map posted by Rabu here with 54 RFC squadron in early 1917. Take off from Chippily, on a bend in the Somme, fly north to Albert and follow the main road NE through Bapaume and on to Cambrai, or stick with the river Ancre and its rail line, taking you north to Arras. You won't need to pull up the in game map at all. On a similar matter, there's a large circular lake on the front line north of Ypres. It's very distinctive and in an area sadly devoid of many handy landmarks. I can't find anything similar on the map. Does anyone have any ideas what that might be?

A very happy Christmas, one and all. Happy flying and safe landings!

All the original query answered: What? you don't already keep sufficient beer in the cockpit? Tut. Have a word with the mess officer.

To make it a little more complicated; ham was a Saxon word for a farm or small collection of buildings. So, particularly in the south of England, you get settlements with ham (Westham, Nottingham, Hampstead). In the north of England, the Danish influence on place names was stronger (Hulme, Denholme) but Oldham may be a case of southern Anglo Saxon being re-asserted by a landlord more familiar with southern place names. I read about the Frisian man-made hills only a few weeks ago. Interesting coinicidence. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I could make a comment back on the original topic about how breathtaking missions in OFF can be, but it is preaching to the converted in here.

Given the insignia; 4 Squadron. A rare survivor of many squadron reorganisations. I appreciate its a little late, since you now have pots and pans, but you could have eaten the top few ravioli cold to give enough space to stir.

I used to be a fan of the WW2 FPS genre. Medal of Honor, Call of Duty etc. but seem to have drifted away from it. CoD4 was fantastic, good gameplay and strong storyline. CoD 5 was a dissapointing follow up for me. It looked the same but lacked the story. Other than flight sims, I mainly play 1 game, which has had my attention for years now; the Europa Barbarorum mod for Rome TW.

Drunk Marine Causes Chaos in Aviary. "I thought it was 'der adler von Lille'"

A quick look around the net suggests that there won't be any pictures of flaming onions in action, unless the Germans took the pictures from the ground. They were only effective at low altitude and close to the battery. You'd be mad to fly there and point a camera at it. Based on the descriptions I've read, the weapon is a series of flares fired in succession, so you would see something looking like the WWII anti aircraft fire seen in films and games, but slowed down a fair bit. Possibly a modified ground machine gun effect could do the job. But I don't know if you can have a third type of ground fire. You probably can't with the game engine.

rockets? I know petrol is in short supply and all, but is that not a little drastic? I did have trouble with the model T myself (the tyres seemed 'stuck in the mud') but I can't say whether it was the new graphics card or the latest patch that fixed that.

Wings? I liked that grumpy old colonel. He and I saw out the war together the first time around. There are soldiers with rifles dotted around the aerodromes. So ground crew hanging around the hangars are certainly possible. However, as far as I can tell, mobile people (marching soldiers and cavalry) are restricted to roads, so your crew would be stationary and always in the same place. As Olham says, this might get a bit repetitive. Nice idea though.