Hasse Wind

Phew indeed! I read about Avsim's demise and the next thing is Combatace goes down! I hope there are good backups available if something similar ever happens here. I guess there's not much else you can do if some criminals decide to destoy a website...

Actually he became fat only many years after the war, and morphine addict after the failed Hitler-Putsch of November 1923, when he was wounded by a bullet to the groin. But by all means shoot him down if you meet him Over Flanders Fields, and you won't have to worry about the Battle of Britain either, 'cause this OFF Hermann won't die no matter how many times you shoot him down. (That's why I once adviced Olham to shoot MvR down if he's stealing kills - no harm will be done!)

My condolences, Olham! If only your pilot had gotten all those kills confirmed, he would have been quite an ace! Reading these KIA reports is always very sobering. It makes me remember that only a small mistake or some bad luck is needed to put an end to the most promising pilot's career.

Bad luck! But such troubles are very common, especially for athletes. Fortunately inguinal hernias are quite easy to repair with modern surgical methods - I've participated in several such operations as an assistant (I'm not a doctor though). These days they use so called minimally invasive surgery, which means that they usually don't have to make any big openings that require plenty of sutures and take a long time to heal. Just a couple of small incisions through which they insert a small camera and the other surgical equipment and then fix the hernia(s) with mesh patches or plugs that you won't even notice are there (Lichtenstein method is probably the most common now in use). In some cases though the hernia can be so big that it requires more invasive surgery, but even then the recovery time is much shorter nowadays than, say, 30 years ago, because the methods have been improved so much. I'm sure you'll be quite well before you even know it! Best of luck with the treatments!

There was a quite lot of air activity on the Italian front during WW1. There were also many plane types in service there that weren't on the much more well-known Western front. The Austrian air force (K.u.K. Luftfahrtruppen) had several own plane types in service, as did the Italians (but both sides also used plenty of planes made by their bigger allies). The Italian front would be something that's never been seen in flight sims, if it were included in OFF some day. (A hint to the devs. )

Add-ons AND Phase 4?! Okay, you just made me a very happy man!

Ouch, losing that long-lived a pilot must be terrible! That is a very remarkable amount of flight hours gathered during his career. I'm trying to achieve something similar with my Pfalz pilot, though with 30 hours he's still far from your achievement. But it is very immersive to try to fly with no help and keep it as real as possible. Creaghorn, if OFF had Austro-Hungarian air forces, would your pilot be flying for them? As far as I know, the Austrians had quite a few Croatian units (and many elite units too) in their service over the centuries, and used them effectively against the Ottomans, for example.

Jani, You've just bought the best sim available on the market and definitely the best WW1 flight sim ever made! But be prepared to lose a lot of pilots - this sim is HARD. But also extremely enjoyable...

Å, Ä and Ö, naturally.

I would have been surprised if OFF had a dynamic campaign similar to Falcon. WW1 aircraft simply didn't have such a huge effect on ground operations or the course of the war as modern aircraft do with their heavy armament and ability to cause damage to ground troops and infrastructure on a massive scale never before seen in the history of war. In OFF, if I drop a bombload of about a few dozen kilos maximum on some unsuspecting target and even manage to hit something, it's a small miracle in itself. You don't win the war with such weak and inaccurate weapons! A microscopically small cog in a huge machine, that's how I picture my pilot in OFF. :yes:

Maybe those guys should just stick with the camels, and I don't mean the ones made by Sopwith... incredible stupidity!

Hey, I love Fees! After Quirks, they're the best helpers in my quest for Pour le Merite! But seriously speaking, I think OFF has a chance to become an even more extraordinary WW1 sim than it already is by including all those planes you never see in any other sim by any other developer, and the best part is you can actually fly all these weird and primitive crates and not just watch as the AI pilots them. There's something really fascinating about the early air war (1914-1915), and I'd eagerly fly in campaign mode in 1915 if there were more planes of that period included in OFF. Variety is one of this sim's greatest strengths.

Kinda makes you miss the Norden bombsight, eh? I had forgotten to use the sight in the Strutter, but if it's just a map, I guess I haven't missed anything terribly important. Though so far my bombing efforts have been so unsuccessful that I might as well try to aim using a map!

Well, flares can be used to make good fireworks. When I was in the army we had a great opportunity to get rid of some old flares - we fired quite a few of them up during one evening in the artillery range. And we even had permission from our company commander, so everything was done by the book. But it is a mystery to me whether or not flares have any purpose in OFF, except to add to the immersion.

Yes! Having flyable two seaters is one of the reasons why OFF is so great. I've been learning the secrets of the Strutter in the campaign mode for a few days, and I'm very much enjoying myself. It's a very different experience after flying only scouts for a long time.

I've spent quite a few hours flying the Spad VII in OFF, and if only it had more firepower, it would be one of my favourites. Therefore I was a bit surprised when I noticed the unforgiving low speed characteristics of the Spad XIII, with which I have much less experience. I agree with Bullethead - the video shows the Spad perform quite beautifully at low speed.

Pol probably revealed only a small fraction of the new planes in development, and we'll also be getting a bunch of early German crates... right? :yes:

Looks great, keep up the good work! Can't wait to take that N.24 up for a flight Over Flanders Fields... I love Nupes! And I'm sure the Parasol is going to be a challenge to fly. Fokker Fodder!

Very exhaustive list, OvS! However, I'd add the Salmson 2 two seaters for the late war French Aviation Militaire. At the end of the war, about one third of French reconnaissance aircraft were Salmsons, and over 3000 were built in total.

The F-35 is one hell of a jet, and if all those futuristic systems work as planned it's going to rule the skies anywhere. The next step must be to get rid of humans with their frail bodies and limited senses altogether and replace them with computer pilots. I've never been a big fan of modern combat flight sims. There's just something about those WW1 and WW2 crates that's totally missing from modern era aircraft and their fancy radars, missiles, computers and whatnots. :yes:

After that extensive study of the Spad XIII by Herr Doktor Bullethead not much remains to be said! Let me just add that I agree with your observations completely. Having flown only a few hours and missions with the Spad, I'm far from being an expert on her, but I find it strange that she seems to be a much more difficult scout to fly than the Sopwith Camel, which according to all the history books and memoirs I've read wasn't an easy plane to fly and fight in. So maybe the Spad's flight characteristics are a bit too harsh when at slower speeds? Otherwise the Spad XIII in OFF feels to me pretty much like a heavy, powerful WW1 fighter should feel. If used correctly, it can be a deadly fighter, but it's definitely much more difficult to get kills in the Spad than in the Albatrosses of the same period, at least in my experience.

The year 1915 (and 1916 also to some extent) in particular suffers from the lack of two seaters - there really isn't much to shoot down as an Eindecker pilot.

Maybe his family name is Frankenstein...

I agree with Winston - having a 100 different skins for every type of aircraft is not absolutely necessary. The community skinners are more than capable of adding extra skins. Of course it would be great to have even more scouts, but OFF absolutely needs more two seaters. The French for example don't have any. Bombers and reconnaissance aircraft were the main prey of scouts, after all.

I've never used labels and try to fly without TAC, but I do use it every now and then. It sometimes annoys me the AI pilots seem to have telepathic powers and know exactly what's going on in the chaos of air combat, so using the TAC helps to even the odds. And in my Strutter bomber campaign (a great two seater, by the way!) TAC is very important for seeing and targeting the ground attack objectives. But maybe the aggression rating of a squadron is decisively important in determining the activity of aerial combat? I usually fly in offensive units. It may be even more important than I've ever realized...