Hasse Wind

Aber natürlich, Herr Leutnant/Oberleutnant/Hauptmann! (Don't know your current pilot's rank I'm afraid.)

Thanks for enlightening us, Pips. I was wondering also about the Se.5a having only one Vickers, but it turns out the reason was the same as with the Spad. Every day I learn something new here.

Knowing how meticulous the German military and civilian administration has always been, I'm absolutely sure there are documents available somewhere that could easily solve these questions. Maybe you'll have luck Olham, but I think they may well give you some advice and expect you to come and do the research yourself in some archive, if that's possible. I doubt they'll give you any detailed information for free if it requires a lot of work on their part. I agree with Creaghorn, we've all come to expect the greatest possible historical accuracy from OFF and don't want to see any ahistorical situations in the campaign. But that doesn't prevent using aircraft in the quick combat, so the more planes to fly the better. And whatever the outcome of all this will be, I'm sure we'll be getting many other planes to fly, planes that most certainly did serve long in the war and in great numbers. :yes:

Yeah, the N.17 is wonderful - on one day I think of it as my favourite turn fighter, on another I prefer the Pup. I can very well understand why many French pilots were disappointed when they received the Spad to replace the Nupes. It takes a lot of time to get to grips with the totally different tactics that clumsy but incredibly fast crate requires to be succesful. Does anybody know why there's only one Vickers in the Spad VII? I know the reason for the N.17 and Pup not having two guns (too much weight makes them slower and less manoeuvrable and they lose their advantage), but would the additional gun have weakened the Spad's performance so much?

I'm a hodgepodge of nationalities actually. I was born in Estonia into a family who are descendants of Germans who migrated to the Baltic area centuries ago. There are also Russians and 'original' Estonians in the family tree. But I'm now living in Finland where I went in the 90s and have been a citizen for 11 years now. I've also lived in Germany for a couple of years, but decided to stay in Finland mostly for cultural and language reasons.

He was indeed lucky, because during the last months of the Third Reich the Volkssturm was recruiting men who could be over 60 years old at worst. I guess he was able to stay under their radar, so to speak. All of the vets that I know about in my family served in the army during WW2, most of them in infantry, but one was a medic and another an artilleryman.

SirMike, my experience is exactly like yours. I love both the Nieuports and the Pup - they are just superb fighters in their time, the Pup in particular because it's made of stronger stuff than the Nupe. Olham, I was a bit unsure about the Alb at first, but I've learned to love it almost as much as the Entente turn fighters. Especially the D.III is a wonderful fighter in early 1917, fast, easy to fly and very nimble for an Albatros. D.II is not bad either. I've had the most kills in D.V though, but that crate doesn't feel as great to fly against improved Entente fighters of late 1917 and early 1918. Still it's a much more enjoyable fighter to fly than the Pfalz D.IIIa! I hope we get the Pfalz D.XII in some expansion, it was a much better scout... I actually like the Spad VII more than the XIII, because the latter is not as manoeuvrable. I can't understand why they chose to put only one MG in the VII, because that crate doesn't lack power like the lighter turn fighters of the same period.

I believe many forum members here are related at least to some people who served either in WW1 or WW2 or both. They were such huge conflicts that it was practically impossible not to have some part in them if you were a young (or not so young) man back then. I know my family had plenty of war veterans, though none of them are alive today.

Terror Twins, I think you were just soundly 'owned' by Mr Launchbury.

Your collection has great historical value. Amazing stuff! You must make some arrangements to preserve all those items for the future generations (but I'm sure you already have). :yes:

These questions could be most accurately answered by someone who has access to both Fokker archives and German military archives. Especially the archives of the Luftstreitkräfte's war materiel department or whatever it was would be very helpful. But I guess it would be too much to hope that somebody with such documents in hand would join this forum and provide the devs with all possible data available.

Interesting. If it's that easy (no screenshots or anything required to prove my pilot really has the stats I claim he has), I may well send something there. Unfortunately my longest-living pilot ever from Jasta 10 (the Pfalz guy) passed away last week after trying and failing to run away from some Camels. But maybe something will come of my three active fighter pilots, the two French and one Marine pilot in MFJ I.

Olham, yes I do. One of my first careers in OFF was with an American pilot. I couldn't fly the Spad properly back then, so it was a very short career. Now I have two Spad pilots, both of them French in early and mid 1917. I've never had any pilots in that killboard. I'm not very familiar with how the system works there even though I fly with all the DiD settings, except warp, which I must use if I want to have enough time to play the longer campaign missions.

I don't think there are any plans to make the Spad more nimble, just to reduce its stall speed which is now unrealistically high. I've now gathered quite a few flying hours with the Spad (mostly the VII) in campaign, and given enough altitude, I won't have to fear anything in that crate. It's very easy to fly away if the odds don't seem favourable, much easier than in the Pfalz (another clumsy brick with which I have plenty of experience). But getting kills takes a lot more effort than in the turn fighters, because going after nimbler enemies in a wild chase will only result in certain death.

Jasta 6 seems to have been favoured by the bosses of the Luftstreitkräfte, as they seem to have always received the new types of fighters first among all the Jastas. I'm sure the E.V will be a great fighter in OFF, but I think I'll have to agree with Widowmaker and rather take the Snipe to a fight if I had to choose between those two scouts. A faster version of Camel without its predecessor's nasty flight characteristics, sounds very good to me. :yes:

What a great site! Too bad I'm not much of a French speaker, but fortunately good pictures need no words to describe them. Rabu, I'd stay away from animal activists when wearing that huge fur coat.

Somehow "Flying Nipple Clamp" doesn't sound as convincing as "Flying Razor" as a fighter plane's nickname. A question to the devs: on a Nieuport - Spad XIII scale, how would you rate the strength of that single upper wing of the E.V in OFF? Are hard manoeuvres simply out of the question when flying the Razor?

Often I don't lower my throttle before entering warp, and yet I have more than enough fuel to complete the mission and also do some fighting if necessary. And I've only had one problem with warping during all the time I've been playing OFF, and that had nothing to do with fuel. I wonder if there are differences in this behaviour between various PC configurations, or something. But I also refuse to fly missions that put my flight in danger because the range is too long for our planes. Just yesterday I had to skip a mission that required my flight of Alb. D.IIs from MFJ I to fly something like 250 miles to attack a British airfield - I couldn't get much closer targets than that even with using the optional flight.

Pol mentioned in the long thread about P4 that they are looking into the Spad flight model.

Fascinating stuff. You never know what you may find when you dig into history - places and areas you thought you knew like your own pockets may well hold secrets and little-known stories like in this case. Edit: Wikipedia has some info about Entente airships: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship#World_War_I

Thanks for these pictures, I've never seen such good ones about Albatrosses! Such a beautiful construction! I love those wooden parts, they really show how these aircraft were made by skillful carpenters and were each much more individual than modern robot-made aircraft with their plastic and metal parts. It's amazing to think hundreds of such beauties once filled the European skies in various colours and models. Too bad they were made for death and destruction... I'm looking forward to reading your comments about how that old engine behaves in action, and how close to the original performance you can get.

Bad luck. It's so easy to forget insignificant things, like the amount of fuel remaining, when you are chasing an opponent. I've lost a couple of pilots when enemy fire damaged their engines and the oil run out behind enemy lines. On both times I was very close to the frontline, but not close enough. And my guys were no good at sneaking through the lines...

Herr Leutnant Mahlo, herzlich willkommen zurück! Der Kaiser braucht uns alle. I hope you had a good time in Ostfriesland. I know Berlin is not the most peaceful of places to live in, everybody should abandon big city life some time and go to the countryside. All has not been quiet here on the Western front. Many interesting posts have been made, especially in the thread about P4. We live in exciting times. :yes:

Looks great! I'm looking forward to taking her for a flight. But one should be really careful with this plane in combat, the wing construction isn't exactly like in a Pfalz or a Spad... :yes:

Your mod is definitely making combat more exciting by showing more damage on the planes. I like it. It would be great to see these changes make their way into the official content.