Hauksbee

I've always wondered why, during the Battle of Britain, Goering gave in to the bomber pilots and ordered his fighters to fly close in. Being a former fighter pilot himself, he must have known that it only made them low-energy targets.

C'mon, Robert. It's only a short walk.

Sounds great, Jim. Consider me first in line, got my money in my hand.

Another book on von Richtofen? What is left that hasn't been published yet?

Awwright! Good to see you again, Typhoon. Seems like there's more than a few of the old gang hangin' around.

A much more complicated affair than I had thought. All that work, and still, one careless dive gets you this: . .

Looks like Widowmaker has moved on to other pursuits. His reply... Thanks Kell..but i'm so far removed from all that these days...I don't even play OFF/WOFF anymore :(

Thanks, mate. PM sent.

Bad luck. JFM's e-mail address has disappeared from my address book. Very strange, because I had a conversation with him (within the year) when I was looking for information concerning the Sablatnig pontoon triplane. We'll just have to hope he stops by.

I just happen to have his e-mail address. I'll poke him with a vstick.

This gets stranger and stranger. The one photo shows tape applied before the fabric goes on, and speaks of it as "reinforcing tape". Is it really beefing up the wood structure? And what would have been used as a glue/adhesive in 1917? The second pic. shows tape being applied over the fabric, over the ribs. Perhaps if it were tacked down to the rib itself, it might have stopped the fabric from tearing away in a dive. (and we've all experienced that). But still, the fabric could just as easily be stitched to the rib, or glued, or tacked down. Why the tape? .

Actually, I'm happy to hear that. The D.V is an elegant airplane and I was always sorry to think of as a bit of a dog. I'm pleased to leave that bit of misinformation behind. ( besides...if it were a dog, why would our very own Olham be so passionate about it?) I think too many people have heard von Richtofen's comments, not knowing that they were made at the end of the Albatros's operational life. (me among them).

...and how does one collect on this fine banana?

Back in the days when we were undergoing the split between CA and SimHQ, I posed a question to you and never got a clear answer because you were calling down a pox on all Forums and declaring that you were off to Facebook, You were ever the greatest advocate of having a Sopwith Snipe added to OFF/WOFF. Now that there is a Snipe, is it the ride you had always hoped it would be? (Truth to be told, I've not tried it yet myself) Was it a straight line improvement over the Camel, or a disappointment as was the Albatros D.V over the D.III?

Their attachment to day jobs would indicate the strategy is working. But I'd like to see a day in the near future when WOFF would support them. Imagine what they might do if they had all day to work on WOFF?

One telling bit of info was that 777 has been acquirred by, or, is "under contract to" 1C. The latter is a big company and 777 must take their marching orders from the big dog. I'm willing to bet that the 777 dev's and modelers do not have 'day jobs' like our guys. I've often marveled at the fact that our guys do. I don't know how they pull it off, but the fact that they do means it's a labor of love and they need not answer to anyone.

As I suspected. Laying out, and painting, those long straight lines would be an enormous amount of work. But why the tape in the first place? Was the fabric only loosely stitched to the airframe and the tape sealed it? It seems to be a practice that didn't last too long.

Seems reasonable. Who wants to write the pointer?

I know that feeling! I spent many years on the San Francisco Penninsula trucking up and down Highway 101. Somewhere, down around Mt. View, there was an overpass that crossed 101 at 90 deg. Just before you crossed over 101 there was an entrance ramp that peeled off and dropped down to the highway. Every time I started down that ramp, my VW morphed into a Hawker Hurricane and all the traffic on 101 became He-111's. Every time.

One thing I've never been clear on is the black trim on early Nieuports. Was it painted on (seems like a lot of work for no great gain) or did they tape over the canvas stitching? In any event, it seems to have disappeared on later Nieuports. .

One of the threads at SimHQ mentioned that RoF seemed to be withering. I just got back from checking it out. There's a thread entitled "The Future of RoF" and the general tenor is that it's time to hold the wake. "Battle of Stalingrad" has apparently done so well that 777 is now full bore developing "Battle of Moscow". (Why not? Same adversaries, same planes, same snow, etc.) The drips and drabs of information that the boyos have been able to elicit from the Devs seem to say, "Well, we haven't completely turned our back on RoF, but we're completely tied up on BoM so don't expect much, if anything, in the near future." Too bad. It was/is a great looking sim tho' I think WOFF overtook it.

It would appear that many others do too. If we can get them to post a 'hello', perhaps we could start to re-build the community.

Who's hanging out here these days? Who's breezing by on occassion? 1. Hauksbee 2.

Do I detect a nostalgia for Combat Ace? I am restoring it to my bookmark list...right above SimHQ, and I shall be checking in here on a regular basis again. 'Hope to see you all.

Incurable romantic that I am, I'd like to see the good fellowship of the OFF days gravitate back here, and Sim HQ can be resevered technical questions where the expertise of the Devs is needed. I loved the breadth of subject matter that people were interested in, the wealth of WWI history discussed. But...that's not going to happen.