Hauksbee

I've enlisted with RNAS No.9 (RAF No.204) out of Bertangles in April 1918. I've got a Camel which saves me from the DH.2 deathtrap. The instruments I need are the OFF instruments, not the ones on the model's instrument panel (which I can't read...especially the compass) Just as you can press 'T' to bring up the TAC, there's another command for the other instruments. Gotta be something like CTRL_I, or some such. I just haven't found it yet. You crashed your bike going downhill? There's hills in Picardy? Everything I've seen shows Picardy flat as a board. It's the tail end of Flanders: the Low Countries. .

This comes as a complete surprise. I had always heard that Germany used the worthless Marks of the Great Depression (when it took as many as 5,000,000 to buy a loaf of bread) to pay off the reparations demanded by the Versailles Treaty. A few minutes spent on Wikipedia shows this was not true at all.

For starters, it's a Sopwith Pup.

I've had an itch to scout the Ameins/Corbie/Vaux-sur-Somme area where von Richtofen went down. I've tried and failed twice by flying a mission out of Clairmarais. I figured I could fly nearly due south and cross the Somme, then follow it to Amiens to Corbie. On both occasions I flew for about forty minutes without seeing either the river or the city. But Claimarais is out there a bit, and I thought perhaps I'd just given up too soon. Today I tried again. This time I did it in QC because you can choose the airfield you leave from and I didn't care what I was going to fly. Bertangles is just up the road north of Amiens. (the red square on the Google map) I flew a Nieuport 17 due South for 40 minutes, at an average speed of 80-90 mph (or is it kph?). Either way, I flew at 6500 ft. for forty minutes. I most certainly should have crossed the Somme. I failed to spec the weather, so it was cloudy, but I had TrackIR going and constantly scanned side-to-side just to be sure I didn't overfly my objective. As you'll see on the WOFF map, they have Amiens/Corbie/Cappy lying well south of a pale blue line I take to be the Somme. But in any event, I should have crossed the river. Any ideas on how to navigate to these landmarks?

I'm always up for a good heresy. 'Keeps the pot stirred up. I take it then, that flying from Bertangles to Amiens-Somme was possible in OFF, but no longer so? Lou's mapping underscores that. I keep wondering why, after 25 minutes in the air, I never saw the Somme? Perhaps I'll solve that another day. Which leaves this question: As I understand it, WOFF does not spawn planes because all the missions flown on a certain day in WWI are being flown in WOFF on that same day. Can I assume, that if I hang out in the area of Corbie on April 21, 1918 (regardless of its geographical accuracy) I will see RAF No.209 clash with Jasta 11?

It better get settled pretty quick. I'm running out of time. One question remains: As I understand it, WOFF does not spawn planes because all the missions flown on a certain day in WWI are being flown in WOFF on that same day. Can I assume, that if I hang out in the area of Corbie on April 21, 1918 (regardless of its geographical accuracy) I will see RAF No.209 clash with Jasta 11?

Lou: Firstly, thank you for taking on this prodigious effort. It has restored faith in my sanity. I began to fear my years of youthful debauch had burned out one brain cell too many, after all, Amiens simply had to be there! My other fear was that someone else would fly the same route and declare that it was there: I had just missed it. (The lads in the BOC would laugh me to scorn). In addition, I am reeling with shock. To think that the Devs, our Blessed Devs, would have misplaced the Somme! And Amiens, to boot. Corbie and Cappy do not appear? My child-like faith is shattered. That said, even if Amiens were moved 5 miles up, it still wouldn't be on the Somme. And it certainly wouldn't lie 7.5 Km south of Bertangles. But I guess all this is moot because we have to take the Sim as we find it. Its geography can't be moved to square with reality. I find this disappointing because I had hoped to be able to fly a few recon missions in the area on April 20, 1918 to see the lay of the land. Then, when ready, fly another on April 21 to see if RAF 209 and Jasta 11 actually show up. I know that Historical Aces cannot die before their actual death date. What I hoped to find out was, do they die in the same historical way? Would I see Roy Brown slip in on von Richtofen's six, and if he missed (as now seems likely) might I get a shot? Now, with the battlefield so skewed, I'll never know. 'Guess I'll fall back to my original plan: flying Roland C.II's into Verdun 1916 where historicity is not an issue.

Because he played ice hockey when he attended Oxford in 1912?

Second go at it. This time I took off from the field and took care to spec. clear skies. On the previous attempt I still had my altitude set at 6500. I thought perhaps I had been too fixated on the horizon and the river was much closer, even under my wings. Not so. I flew dead south again and this time crossed a city. Not very big, (but what do I know about the size of Amiens in 1918?) I thought I had made it...but no river. I averaged 100-110 mph and 2500 ft. I flew dead south for a total of 20-25 minutes. Then, getting frustrated, I climbed to 7500 ft hoping with the long view I might see it. No go. Note that on the Google Earth map, Amiens, Corbie and Cappy are on the river. Flying out of Bertangles any angle within South-west/South/South-east has to put you across the Somme. edit: Just checked a distance calculator. Bertangles is only 7.5 klm from Amiens. .

My main question is how is it possible to fly straight south (I even put the Nupe on Auto-pilot) and not see the Somme, let alone Amiens? I want to see where the fight happened, so it's Corbie/Vaux-sur-Somme I'm interested in, not Cappy. (tho' I would be interested in seeing that too, but later) Look at the Google map. Amiens is huge. (even allowing for urban growth since 1918) Flying from Bertangles, you should cross it dead-center. I'll try again tomorrow.

When I fly OFF/WOFF the only views I get are (1) Cockpit, (2) 6:00 tail-end view, and (3) Fly-by. Are there more camera angles I don't know about?

There are those of us that do a 'cannonball' into the pond to test the waters, and those who prefer to dabble a toe. I am of the latter, tho' I frequently wish I were the former.

It's amazing the number of apps that think we don't need a manual.

While doing some web browsing, I happened a poor, snap-shotty picture of a smokestack ( two views of...) in Vaux-sur-Somme that implied it was where von Richtofen came to rest. 'Turns out it was the stack at the St.Colette brickworks. I poked a little further and here's what Vaux-sur-Somme looks like. Still a little villagey place on the Somme. I suspect it hasn't changed an awful lot since 1918.

Thanks, Olham. The German is a bit too much for me to follow, but I get the idea. A lot of it seems to be taken from the History Channel program, which I've see several times. From the pictures posted by Jim Miller, I now understand the smokestack that I originally found on-line. It's at the St.Colette Brickworks in Vaux-sur-Somme and the field where he landed is right behind it. Thanks, Jim.

Yes, I read about "J" at WOFF. It's the old-time basics that somehow slipped by me.

Nice model, Dej. You make me want to get back to building 3D models myself. When you say, "WIP", I assume there will be a canopy to be installed?

B'demned! 'Seems there are quite a few camera angles I was quite ignorant of. And after all these years of flying OFF. May I assume that WOFF follows the same rules?

When I download JSGME, which directory of WOFF does it go into?

If you stumble across it, I'd love to see it.

I assume you pan with the mouse?

Thanks Andy73. I deleted everything and started afresh with Lothar's download. It got installed and worked on the first try.

'Bit of an oversight, there. But...it's a very, very big pond we're being immersed in; even the Devs are bound to miss a detail here and there. A while back, a friend of mine and I visited one of his buddies. There was a Netflix WWII documentary on the telly that I kept one eye on. It was a B-17 raid, the camera was inside the plane back near the waist gunner's position. This footage had a soundtrack. You could see, and hear, the flak bursts outside. But, more chilling, you could hear the flak fragments hitting the B-17. They made a sharp 'snap' sound as they cut through the aluminum shell, then a 'hiss's as they traveled through the air, and another 'snap' as they exited the plane. It was the only time I had ever heard that sound recorded. One tends to think of a B-17 bomber as a big, substantial thing, but it's not. It's a thin aluminum box that can fly. Almost like going to war in a water balloon. Try as I might, I've never been able to find that program again.

Corsair: I took CFSWWI, pulled it to the desktop, put it in a folder and put that one in another folder now titled CFSWWI_Over Flanders Fields, and returned it. It now sits directly above OBDSoftware. That should keep it insulated from everything else. Now, when I open OBDSoftware I have WOFF and WWI Scenery. When I open WOFF, I have the same exact tree that you show. When I run the .exe, JSGME shows Hellshade as installed. When I open Hellshades Screenshots folder, it's the same as you posted above. And I still get pistols and gloves in WOFF. As in so many cases, I feel the solution is a minuscule change and probably hiding in plain sight. Not sure what JimAtrill did. Nowhere have I seen a folder named 'screenshots' or 'screenshots fixed'.

Can you show me a link to it?