Hauksbee

An Albatros in Russian service? Captured no doubt, or, perhaps a pre-war purchase?

Four more! This thread is becoming an embarrassment of riches. 'A brave DH4 pilot who really knew how to fly' ...he certainly knew his business, and he wasn't even human. It was a shocker when that hole opened up in your top wing. Shocker #2, when the camera pans over to the right and there's another hole; same size (Do you think it was from just the bullet spread from one burst/two guns) 'DR1 I felt like Werner Voss for a moment'...Shocker #3; when the Camel above you blew apart!

Very nice. There's no better way to start the morning than getting that first cup of coffee, bacon & eggs, (sometimes doughnuts) and finding a fresh Hellshade video (or four) on Combat Ace. You're really cranking them out lately. On average, how many hours of stick-time do you get in a week?

Indeed you do. The Tripes were all over you in the D.III; much less so in the D.V I notice that in these recent postings, you're in the same D.V. Are you in Campaign mode? (Just wondering. Were I you in Quick Combat, I'd opt for better weather.) If in Campaign, does the appearance of von Richthofen mean you're flying with Jasta 11?

Sopwith Pups over the target! Great dogfight! Those last three Pups were really fighting hard. You took out the one, then were spending a lot of time on the second. I kept thinking "Check Six! Check Six!". I was sure #3 was going to come out of left field and hose you...but you got away with it.

Never saw this happen before...WOFF UE still surprises. Did that collision save your life? Did you get back to base?

"Jasta 2 20 Dec 1916 Finally allocated an Alb DII!"...The Albatros came on-line to counter the ascendancy of the F.E.2b's and DH.2's. Good demonstration. Winter kills are especially satisfying; you can see them against the snowfall and mark where they went down. "Jasta 2 Late December 1916 Sopwith Triplanes!"...I can see why the Sopwith Tripe came as such a shock to the Germans. Poor sod. You got your butt handed to you on that sortie. Got to say...if one flies in northern Europe, there's a lot of dismal, crummy weather.

Outstanding! Thanks, mate. "They Just Won't Die!" I presume those were R.E.8's. Any idea why there was no response from their rear-seat gunners?

Wandered over to SimHQ this morning to celebrate the lifting of my ban. Found another rich harvest of videos by Hellshade. But one thing in particular caught my eye. These cables (?) on an Albatros D.V. Are they control cables to the ailerons?

33LIMA: You're right; the objects are terribly pixelated. However; I presented the photo to Air Intelligence (showed them 'round at the BOC bar) and your suspicions were largely confirmed. 1. Five golf carts 2. A Ford Model-T pick-up. 3. It is a giant abandoned glove puppet. Although five of those polled declined to tender an opinion on grounds that it's 'Classified'.

Hellshade: In the "D.III Engagement" I thought I saw an all-red D.III in several shots. Was von Richthofen flying with you? In the last video, the SPAD tracking you seemed to be struggling for altitude. Was this the case? Does the D.V have a better 'max. ceiling' than the SPAD? At 5:07 the SPAD seemed to tumble in the air. Did he stall out? If so, it was a fatal mistake; he never recovered from it as you had the B&Z advantage ever after. I discovered these latest videos almost by mistake this morning. Could you post future vids in the 'general discussion' section? Or post a 'heads-up' thread announcing a video in the 'Screenshot & Video' section? Thanks, Hauksbee

Thanks, 33LIMA.

On several occasions, I've found that the site had logged me out (for no discernable reason) and will not accept my password. Once you're out, there's no way to inform them of the problem, or request a new password. So I created a second account. Essentially a backdoor in. 'Turns out, that's very much against the rules and I got banned. Initially, I thought the ban was permanent but as things turned out, it expired yesterday. Ah well.

If you hang around in WWI circles long enough, sooner or later the name "Biggles" will come up. "Biggles" (Bigglesworth) was the creation of Capt.W.E.Johns (himself a WWI pilot). Starting around 1932, Johns embarked on a project that would last his lifetime: taking the story of his hero through WWI, the inter-war years, and through WWII. These books were, admittedly, adolescent reading, but a good cut above the rest of the field. The standard narrative usually went something like (1) two young stalwarts, Frank and Jack (2) inadvertently find themselves posted to a place which is about to erupt into a slaughter of historical proportions, e.g., The Somme,The Battle of Jutland, or Bloody April. (3) They soldier on manfully, rarely garnering so much as a scratch, (4) defeating scads of Huns, (5) all the while spouting patriotic nonsense. Biggles is more of a well-rounded character; one who is heroic only reluctantly and respects the German pilots. Biggles often experiences real fear. This is undoubtedly because W.E.Johns wrote from his own experiences. Over his lifetime, Johns wrote 102 Biggles novels.(made it through WWII) He died in 1968. Amazon.com has a goodly sampling of the Biggles books. I just finished reading the first, "Biggles Learns To Fly".

Sad, but I know what you mean. A year or so ago I tried to re-read "The Lord of the Rings" and somehow, the air had gone out of the tires. All things must pass.

Looks like another winner. I'll dig into it latter today, but I've got a list already started of friends who will have to be notified. Thanks.

Watched the "Dad's Army" clip. Then, finding myself on YouTube, I searched out a few more episodes. Great stuff! Second only to "Blackadder Goes Forth". (Pretty hard to top Rowan Atkinson's dry sarcasm. Never could stand "Mr. Bean, tho')

Perhaps I'm just hard to please. I was looking forward to an 'outside-the-box' solution. Some real cleverness. And it came so close: a head-on attack concentrating on chewing up the propeller was a pretty good solution. Only to lose the camera from a bullet that had to travel through the engine, travel through the pilot and into the observer's compartment and precisely strike the lens. Yawn. I also am skeptical of W.E.John's statement that the lens took five years to grind. Once upon a day, I and some friends got enthused about about hand-grinding a telescope lens. It was a lengthy process, and we never did get on with it, but five years seems a bit long.

Well, "Biggles of 266" finally arrived. It's a collection of short stories; some of the earliest Biggles tales dating from 1932. I searched out "The Camera". It proved to be a disappointment. The story revolves around a one-of-a-kind German-made camera with an extraordinary lens which took five years to grind. It allows clear photos to be taken from extreme altitudes. It fell into British hands when the plane carrying it was forced down on the Allied side of the lines. Then the British used it to great effect until they too were forced down on the German side. Now Biggles is tasked with bringing down the Rumpler carrying it without destroying it. In the event of his success, the Rumpler crew have orders to drop the camera over the side. On his first attempt, Biggles finds that no matter how hard he tries, the Rumpler is about 3000 above him. He returns to base and has a talk with his crew chief. They pull the gas tank and replace it with a much smaller one, thereby saving fuel weight. He halves the length of his MG belts. They remove all the instruments. From their store of replacement parts, they cannibalize a few feet of wing and jury-rig extensions. The next day, as soon as word arrives that the Rumpler has been seen crossing the lines, Biggles takes off in hot pursuit. It's a long hard slog, but he manages to arrive at the same altitude. He decides that the best attack is a head-on and he shatters the propeller, but seriously wounds the pilot. The Rumpler goes down. Biggles sees the observer trying to wrestle the camera loose to jettison it. A few extra MG bursts put a stop to that. The Rumpler makes a hard landing in a field. Biggles tries a desperate side-slip to get down before the Germans can destroy the camera., but the wing extensions force him to land long and the Camel crunches into the Rumpler's top wing. Biggles gets out safe, extricates the German pilot, friendly troops arrive, congratulations all 'round and the camera is pulled from the wreckage...with a single bullet hole entering at back and exiting front, shattering the precious lens. Very disappointing.

Nice account of early German aviation, and the rise of Claude Dornier and Willi Messerschmidt. The latter half turns into a puff-piece for post-War revival of the German aviation industry.

There y' go! That would be my choice of explanations.

If there is a million trees and you cut them down, all except one, some pilot will find it on landing and put his plane into it. [Murphy's Law]

They always are. In every war.

'Been watching a lot of YouTube videos on WWI lately and folks seem divided on whether von Richtofen is pronounced with a hard 'ch' [Rik-tofen] or a soft 'ch' [Rish-tofen]. The former is to be expected of northern German, the latter of southern German.