Hauksbee

Upon second thoughts, the tail looks like it could be another Albatros. (if you squint real hard.) And if it is, the nose could be an Austrian spinner-less Alb. Maybe.

I realized that after I posted it. It's the Lloyd FJ, the bottom illustration in my first post. I did think it was the pilot's position, though. the Schwarzlose: So not only were they tap-dancing around the variable propeller speed, the gun's rate of fire varied too? It sounds like an invitation to blow your own prop off. How did they deal with it back in the day? Was this a common problem, or no?

There we go. A place name. Thanks.

At first I thought it might be a D.VII, but probably not. The vert. stablizer looks wrong.

Some of the small details about the Lloyd just keep getting stranger and stranger. I read through the text accompanying Scout 77's link and found the following: The machine was completed on June 8, 1916 and was ready for engine testing at the airport in Aszód. The aircraft was found to be heavy on the nose, its gravity center set too high. During ground tests it received a small-scale damage. Therefore, chassis was revised and a third wheel has been added under the nose. I don't see the wheel in this pic., but what possible use could it serve, way up there? Unless it was a huge tricycle gear? Seems a bit looney, but then it does not appear that the designers let the idea of drag bother them too much. I.J.Boucher, (who did the illustrations in my first post) described the Luftkreuzer as a plane whose faults were many, and virtues were few. (...and it does translate as Air Cruiser)

I'm sure I will. Please tell me that you included a Hansa-Brandenburg W-19 so I can scout Jellicoe's fleet. (If only!) ...and, what does the word "Famers" in the title of this topic mean?

If you've settled on a squadron you expect to stay with for a while, go to a bookstore, get a paper map, and then fly some 'lone wolf' missions and scout the territory. Get to know it. Make a screen cap. of your base from the air. Keep it handy. Fly short distances from home, then turn back and land. Then increase the distance. Pretty soon, you'll know the neighborhood and you'll be able to fly 'dead reckoning'...and with a bit of compass thrown in.

Another outstanding link! Thank you much. I downloaded every pic. and stashed them in my "Flying Oddities" file. I especially like the pic. that showed the cockpit of the "Luftkreuzer". It looks as though the pilot flew standing up. Am I right in assuming that "Luftkreuzer"=Air Cruiser?

I think you've got it right, Stump. I heartily recommend the link to anyone interested in aerial gunnery. It turns out that there's a lot more to this synchronization business than meets the eye. In a nutshell: the time it takes a bullet to travel from the muzzle to the propeller is fixed, but the prop will "continue rotate, moving over an angle that also varies with engine rpm. Because of the relatively long delay time of the Schwarzlose M7/12, the synchronization systems that were developed could be operated safely only in a narrow band of engine rpm. Therefore the Austro-Hungarian fighters were equipped with large and prominent tachometers in the cockpit." (Italics from the original) As though one doesn't have enough to think about in a dogfight, now you have to speed up/slow down to get off a shot.

I don't think so. The Schwarzlose was a heavy, water-cooled, tripod mounted, crew served MG. Even without the tripod weight, I'd suspect that it would be too heavy. Same problem with the French Hotchkiss MG, which lost out to the Lewis MG. In any event, the illustration doesn't show a water-cooling jacket. Thanks for the Lloyd info. BH.

Very interesting looking game, BH. I took a flyer on it, laid my money down, and it's downloading as we speak.

Pretty close!

Interesting observation, seeing as Admiral Scheer had rehearsed his fleet in a similar maneuver called the 'Gefechtskehrtwendung, or "battle turn-around", only this was not a 90 degree move, but a full 180, in which the fleet reverses direction and comes up on the new course in the exact same formation as when it started. Scheer used it twice at Jutland to foil Jellicoe's attempt to 'cross the T'.

Oh, those models? Indeed I do. I hail from the pre-plastic era. I spent hundreds of hours cutting balsa wood sticks, cutting formers out of print balsa sheets, gluing them up and covering with colored tissue paper. As kids in the 40's and 50's, we couldn't afford X-Acto knives (we'd see them advertised in model airplane magazines, and drool with envy). We'd filch double-edged razor blades from our Dad's supply, then snap them in half, making two single-edge blades, then take a pair of needle-nosed pliers and snap off one end at a steep diagonal making tool not unlike a No.11 X-Acto blade. Add a layer or two of masking tape on the top edge, and we were in business. Happy days.

I solved that problem by getting a second monitor for the computer. Now I can put my Modeling Window full size on one screen, and all my other Working Windows, like Animation Timelines, etc. on the other.

Indeed. In fact, I saw some at a local store last week, and shall get one today.

On a whim, I went to amazon.com to check it out. They have it! Oddly enough, a new hard-back copy is $16 while used copies go for $27. (go figure) I got the new copy, but they did not specify whether it was in German or English. If it's in German, someone in Europe will be getting a Christmas present.

Sorry to hear that. Thanks, Olham.

An odd, but strangely appealing paint scheme. Do you know if Oblt. Josef Loeser survived the war? If the point of the Flying Circus paint schemes was to draw attention to yourself, this had to be one of the best. Everyone in the theatre would have wanted to kick his butt.

Nope. No disagreement.

I only queried that because the phrase "...nothing more than..." carries the sense of something of minor importance. ("The power went out last night all along the whole Eastern Coast, but it was nothing more than a software glitch") I feel that declining to punch somebody out in a heated barroom argument is an act of civility, but deciding to spare the life of somebody who has been trying to kill you is a profound act of humanity

Really. Someone would have to have been using an ASA 400 film (or better) to stop that prop. I recall reading that a German plane dropped a black wreath on the burial ceremony for Manfred von Richtofen. Does anyone know whether this was common, or an occasional gesture? Either way, it had to be dangerous flying that close to the ground, and that deep into enemy lines.

Not to be a doom-sayer, but there are worse skins lurking in the wings...and with real wings at that. Somewhere in the past few years, and on this Forum, there was a thread showing American planes with red, white and blue Flying-Circus-esque paint schemes. As I recall, these were done near the end of the war, or shortly after.The fact that they were all red, white and blue and all burst on the scene at once (or perhaps it was one whole squadron) makes it seem as though it was a WWI propaganda photo-op, seeing as the Allies were loath to encourage that sort of thing. The upshot of all this is that they were uniformly horrible. I'm all in favor of the ol' red, white and blue, but these looked as though the pilots were paraded and shown many cans of paint and told, "Allright, lads, we're painting the planes this afternoon. Get to to it!"

"...nothing more than..."?

I found this pic. of a 1914 Italian seaplane while researching seaplanes. This has got to be one of the most complicated collections of struts, bracing and wires in the history of aviation. But what are the things hanging off the pontoons?