Hasse Wind

And remember to take off with a reduced fuel load if you're going for a short mission. That's the easiest way of making your plane faster and more maneuverable. It evens the odds somewhat, and you'll learn to live with the issues we still have remaining from CFS3.

Balloon busting is fairly simple when flying a plane with strong wings and good diving characteristics, such as the SPAD or Pfalz D.III. Then it's really the best method to attack the gasbag directly from above it and pull up quickly to avoid the flak and not lose all of your precious altitude.

There's a new biography of Hermann Göring coming out later this year, written by Peter Kilduff. The name of the book is Hermann Göring - Fighter Ace. As far as I know, there have never been any Göring biographies that concentrate purely in his role as a WW1 fighter pilot, and Kilduff has done some new research on the subject in German archives. From Amazon: "Hermann Goring - Fighter Ace" is the first in-depth look at Goring's role as a military flyer and air combat leader from 1914 through the end of The Great War, and how those experiences shaped the personality that came to the world's attention in 1939. At the outset of the First World War, Goring was eager to prove his value to his fatherland in initial skirmishes with French troops. When struck by severe rheumatoid arthritis in September 1914, the twenty-one-year-old officer's burning ambition and ego could not tolerate being sidelined and the following month he forced himself out of a sick bed to begin a new career as an aviation observer. Goring went on to become a fighter pilot with twenty-two downed enemy aircraft to his credit, the last wartime commander of the Red Baron's own fighter wing, Jagdgeschwader Richthofen, and recipient of a row of prestigious medals including Prussia's highest bravery award, the Pour le Merite. Peter Kilduff has produced a landmark volume based on extensive research into Goring's early military records and thousands of German and Allied documents to put the neophyte airman's life and events into perspective. Among other resources, Kilduff drew on Goring's own combat reports and related writings. Illustrated with over eighty drawings and photographs, including many from Goring's private collection and never before published, "Herman Goring - Fighter Ace" is a tour de force of historical material covering the early combat career of one of the twentieth century's most infamous military figures.

I love these threads, even though I'm fairly sure they make the devs desperate. Since the Snipe and Pfalz D.XII have already been mentioned, let me add three French 2-seaters to the list: 1) Dorand AR 2) Salmson 2 3) Breguet 14 I could go on and on about getting more 2-seaters, but those three would nicely fill up some gaping holes in the French order of battle.

This happened to me once in quick combat as I was testing the Dr.1. It went into a tail-first spin and completely ceased to respond to stick movements. I'm not sure what I did that caused it, and I haven't seen anything like it since then. In my opinion, the biggest problem with the so-called energy fighters of WW1 is their weak armament. If you're flying a true energy fighter, like the FW-190, it really helps to have plenty of firepower so that you can quickly shoot down your opponents, perhaps requiring only one pass at the target to do that. With 20mm and 30mm guns of WW2 fighters, that's not really difficult. But a WW1 crate such as the SPAD has only one or two light MG's, and you won't be shooting anybody down with them as quickly as when using heavier guns. Flying a plane using purely energy tactics can be a lot more frustrating in OFF than turn fighting. But fortunately a plane like the SPAD is still a decent turn fighter, unlike the heavier, pure energy fighters of WW2, and so can be used in a more versatile role, in my opinion. That's one of the reasons why I like WW1 sims so much - it's not all about zooming and booming.

Fortunately digital joysticks are still being made and don't cost too much. If somebody's really into playing old games with C64 and Amiga emulators, they can't do without a real retro joystick.

Creaghorn is not the only one who thinks HASP is great. I found OFF P3 by accident while browsing the web for some extra content to RB3D + HASP. Without OFF, I'd still be playing RB3D + HASP. Actually it still has some things better than OFF, particularly the campaign engine. If OFF some day reaches that kind of level of immersion in its campaign system (which I'm sure it does at some point), I know I've died and gone to heaven.

I remember reading about those guys years ago. I thought then they were completely nuts, and that Wikipedia article only reinforces my opinion. Some intelligence officer, thinking that Japan could go on fighting for decades. If he really believed in December 1944 that Japan was going to win the war, well, all I can say is that they were pretty well brain-washed. But if we forget all that and consider his achievement as a survivor, that's indeed remarkable.

Fokker didn't have the capacity to build as many D.VII's as the German high command wanted, so Idflieg ordered Albatros to start building them too. Albatros didn't like it very much, being Fokker's competitors, and they had to pay a royalty to Fokker for each D.VII they built. But they really didn't have a choice in the matter, because they had lost the competition to the D.VII. After the Albatros D.III, they were never able to design a really good fighter.

I wish the AI knew how to flee. Then we would have much less bloody missions and more believable kill numbers in OFF. I regularly avoid combat when the odds are unfavourable, especially when using my DiD pilots. Maybe an AI improvement for P4, hm?

Considering how new the whole aviation thing was back then, it's almost a miracle there weren't even more problems with the rather primitive engine techonology of the time. But it tells something that more pilots were lost to accidents than in air combat. Of course many of those losses were not caused by mechanical failure but rather by the sheer inexperience of the pilots. I didn't know engine problems were simulated in OFF. That's good to know and much appreciated. I must have been extremely lucky that I haven't experienced anything noticeable - I get hit in the engine all the time, so maybe that explains my lack of non-combat engine failures. Sure would be exciting to sometimes burst a few tubes of the notorious Gnome Monosoupape rotary in my N.28. Preferably during combat behind enemy lines, of course.

If I remember the facts even remotely right, Nungesser was practically a walking war injury. He crashed so many times that he surely used most of his lives during the Great War. And his final fate is a mystery - he disappeared while trying to make the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean with his pilot friend Francois Coli. This happened in May 1927, a couple of weeks before Charles Lindbergh succeeded in the attempt.

Too bad some are unable to view that sketch, because it's HILARIOUS!

Lately all threads seem to quickly go under the belt level, from flying porn stars to nasty mental images of Olham and Widowmaker.

That looks absolutely amazing. May I move into your house? Too bad I don't have enough room in my apartment for such a huge set of monitors.

True. But I just realized there's actually one thing missing from OFF that RB1 already had - moving machine gun bolts! And there's also a Snipe in the sim. This one's for you, Widowmaker.

A great game. Here's a screenshot I just took from my Red Baron running on Dosbox. We've come a long way from those days.

Yes, these are the works of true masters. I'm just waiting for the day when one of the devs "accidentally" posts a pic of a Snipe among other skins. And maybe a Pfalz D.XII too.

It was Pol or somebody who once said to me the SPAD VII we have in OFF is the one with the 180 hp engine. The earlier version with the 150 hp engine is not included, at least not yet.

Obsidian was by no means restricted only to Stone Age use - in fact some of the sharpest modern surgical instruments are obsidian, making them VERY sharp. And in some surgical operations, particularly those made with the help of MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), you can't use steel blades because of the magnetism.

My neighbour had such a fire a couple years ago. Fortunately the chimney was made of strong stuff and didn't break or anything, and the fire stayed safely behind the thick brick wall. It sure did clean the chimney of decades of old soot though.

Good thing I stopped my model building hobby years ago. Compared to those superhuman masterpieces, my efforts were a disgrace to the entire human species. Those models are probably more detailed than the real planes.

You guys are true artists.

There's no such thing as a single Europe you just grouped together (forget the bureaucratic farce known as the EU, it reminds me too much of the Soviet Union). Europe is still a big bunch of nation states that have fortunately learnt to live together more peacefully than ever before in our history. Where I live (Finland), many people are genuinely interested in history, and the best-selling non-fiction books here have probably always been books about history. I imagine this is true in many other countries of Europe. Germany might be an exception, at least to some degree and especially regarding the two world wars, thanks to Herr Hitler and his buddies who tarnished Germany's reputation God knows for how many centuries to come and made even modern Germans feel shame about their history, even though they have nothing to do with the Nazi crimes. There are over 800 million people living in Europe, if we use the standard geographical definition of Europe. It's such a huge number of people that you'll find quite a few history buffs among them (and unfortunately also quite a few ignorant imbeciles!) Your post just made it sound like nobody is interested in history in Europe, and that is very far from truth.

It's not that scary, but it does have violence. But nothing compared to what you can see in some other movies or video games.