von Baur

My personal exposure to this policy was in the wake and directly because of My Lai. That's when/why the US military started stressing the importance and responsibility of each individual to follow the procedures laid out. Yes, you take a risk of being charged with insubordination, dereliction and a few other things I forget right now if you disobey an order. But if it's shown that it was an unlawful order to begin with then those charges are null and void. You are only required by the UCMJ to follow the lawful orders of your superiors. An order clearly violating the rules of warfare (something of an oxymoron, to be sure) is not lawful and therefore you are not being insubordinate in disobeying them. We rquire our soldiers to be courageous enough to stand up for what's right, regardless of who they're standing up to. Personally, I don't consider Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Detention Center, or any of the other 'violations' the bleeding-hearts are upset about as such. The POW conventions do not and never did apply to terrorists, only to uniformed combatants. And people who send a squad of men armed with assault weapons to murder a teenage girl for the heinous crime of wanting to go to school deserve not one more iota of compassion than they show to others. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" could be interpretted to mean that since they have already shown that they care so little about the rights of others why should we now care about theirs? Snaliman, change "every" to "many" on each side of that judegment and I'll agree. leave it at "every" and even you will have to admit you're oversimplifying and wrong. **edit** One more point, and then I'll say no more on the subject. One does not scold a rabid dog, a runaway bull, a bear that's attacking people. One kills it before it can do more harm. Next time I have a mountain lion prowling my property I'll call you. You can come over and try to reason with it. Me? I'm reaching for my firearm.

Still using Track IR 3Pro hardware, without problems. Not happy with the TIR5 software but I'll get used to it, seeing as how that's all that WOFF recognizes. And even if I was considering upgrading TIR, the potential of Oculus Rift would have me holding off. I know I've posted that it's seeming less promising than first anticipated, but I'm not prepared to write it off based on supposition which is based on guarded releases by the manufacturer. Final decision will only come once the product is released. The TIR 4 software also had a light filtering feature, which helped with reflected light but it's no match for a hot light source. My solution when I had the computer in our living room with a reading lamp behind me was to line the inside of the lampshade with aluminum foil on the computer side. Blocked the light completely, was barely noticeable to visitors and even reflected more light onto what my wife was reading...a win-win-win situation.

In his defense (not that he needs defending), false reports of a war's being over in order to get soldiers to surrender are nothing new, I'm sure. Indoctrinated to distrust one's enemy, to be sure. But he wasn't going to surrender until he was satisfied. I think the Phillipine government showed great restraint when he finally did, considering it's believed he had gone as far as to kill people after the war was over in order to continue his cause. Might have been difficult to prove, but the fact that they did not even try to prosecute him is remarkable. Especially considering the hard feelings over the treatment of Phillipino prisoners by the Japanese during the war. I say salute to both sides. And I agree with Jug. Not only are you not to follow unlawful orders, but you're required to report those orders up the chain of command.

I've got my OS and all the essential drivers on one 250GB HDD and my games and general storage on a 500GB. Works fine, lasts a long time. At one point I was running a dual-boot system with XP (for general computer ops and Track IR games like Richtofen's Skies and IL-2) on one HDD and W98 (for Red Baron) on the other. In each case I had only the OS and essential drivers on their respective disks and the games themselves on a third. With the dual-boot system you'll need to go into your BIOS on startup and select your primary boot drive if you're changing from the last time. **edit** As I understand it, the OS registration is tied to the CPU/Motherboard combo, so you shouldn't need a second key.

A guy walks into a bar.

China has the economy to keep going, like we did in the 40's, 50's, 60's and even early 70's. We couldn't possibly keep pace with them in an arms race from that standpoint. The danger isn't this one ship, or even the strikeforce that accompanies it. The danger is that we could, like the Soviet Union before us, completely bankrupt ourselves trying to keep up with them.

Negative, Raven (unless you're going for the pun). The lead rotates so all take turns breaking the wind (no pun intended there) and deriving the benefit of trail. Which raises another question I don't believe has been answered before. Does the leader simply shift back one position and one of those in the rear comes forward or does the lead drop to the back and slowly rotate to the front again?

My favorite: "Message for you, sir."

Half-explained. Wingtip vortices create the pressure that increases the lift. The Mythbusters quantified the gain based on fuel savings and, IIRC, even measured out how far from the preceding wingtip it's effective a couple of years ago. I don't remember, but I think they only used two aircraft, so I don't know whether or not the effect is cumulative. Actually, my first instinct was to respond... "...suddenly appear every time you are near?"

From what I've been able to find out (mostly inference) it may not be all we hope. Apparently it's not plug-and-play and the games have to be 'compatible'. I take that to mean, like Track IR, it won't work out of the box with older games: older meaning before this was developed. IOW, CFS3 (and therefore OFF/WOFF) probably won't work with it. Not sure if they plan on working up compatability software for those games or if they plan on leaving that up to game developers. If the latter, I fear this may be a dead end for us. I hope I'm wrong because I've been waiting for someone with the expertise to come up with something like this since I first conceived it over 15 years ago. Another potential drawback is that several of the pictures they've posted seem to indicate you'll only see one side of the screen per eye. If so, it won't deliver the wraparound world it could if a passive 3D technology similar to that used in movie theaters and newer 3D TV's could deliver. Of course I may have misinterpreted some or all of that. I'm definitely going to follow it and see what develops, because it is promising. Could be as revolutionary as Track IR. (And could make TIR semi-obsolete, since it will have its own internal...and probably inertial...head-tracking system. Inertial will mean no more scaling and all view movement will be on a 1-1 ratio.)

Cynics repeatedly cite examples of religion (or corrupted versions of them) being used as excuses to wage war. And, unfortunately, they are all too plentiful. This is an example...the only one I know of, in fact...of the heart of a religion shining through the haze of rhetoric and stopping, albeit briefly, a war.

Now that you've identified the mixture as the problem, Shiloh, I'll give you the secret to keeping it correct manually, thus increasing the realism and immersion. First, note your rpms as you take off. This is that aircraft's maximum power. It will be different for each plane, so don't assume you know what it will be...LOOK. As you climb and the rpm's decrease (usually starts being noticeable about 4,000-5,000 feet) lean out the mixture slowly. As you do you'll see the rpm's increase. I've never seen it go all the way back up to sea level maximum, so you can't use that to know when it's optimized. Instead, keep going until the power drops off sharply then increase the mixture until the engine comes back to life. That will hold you for another couple thousand feet. On the way down you simply increase the mixture when you notice the engine cutting out. That's the method my father learned as a bomber pilot in WWII and it's worked in OFF for me. Like with anything else, as you get used to each airplane you'll learn what your maximum rpm's are at various altitudes and you'll be able to stop before the power drops off. If you don't want to go through all that (and it's not as complex as it sounds when being explained in writing) you can simply set the mixture at about 50-60% when you hit 5,000 feet and be good to 10,00-12,000. Even easier (though less immersive) is leaving auto-mixture on.

A desert island with electricity, that is.

I'll give you some more, Duke. I ordered the DVD last wednesday and it arrived yesterday.

God bless us, every one. (not exactly TT but it's the only one I could find with a crutch)

Although I successfully downloaded WOFF to an external HD at work last week and will be doing the same with the skin pack monday or tuesday it will be a couple of weeks until I crank it up. First I have to replace the PSU in my flying computer. It's already here but so is my son, home on Christmas leave from Texas until January 3rd. And while I may take some time when he's out visiting with friends to tinker with things I expect to have more important things (**he did not just say that**...****oh yes, he did****) to do with my time for the next couple of weeks, up to and including just sitting and watching him play GTA and Battlefield 4. When I do get started I will do as I have always done with OFF. To goof around I might pick any random time/nationality/squadron that suits me at the moment. But the first pilot I intend to see through to the end of the war will be German and will start at the earliest possible date to fly the Eine. Given the addition of "pilot training" I may or may not indulge in that to heighten the immersion. I've not yet had to consider the second.

Just taking a shot here, Shiloh, and I apologize if I'm off the mark, but could it be your mixture settings? Not leaning it out would cause you to lose power as your altitude increases (although the bad effects should kick in long before 10,000'). I would guess that the AI are programmed to keep theirs adjusted properly at all times.

From what I've seen/read if anything was underestimated it was the Russian Army's ability to delay a German victory until the Russian winter could become a factor. Ocean currents have little effect on the temperatures even 100 miles inland, less if there's a mountain range like the Caucusses in between. Not-too-distant history showed what happened to Napolean in the same circumstances. The German High Command knew what the Russian winter was like. But Hitler figured they'd be safely indoors at the Kremlin and beyond by the time it set in. And no one could, or would try to, convince him otherwise. The German Army chose not to consider failure, or even delay, a possibility and therefore did not plan for that eventuality. It cost them. Eisenhower always, and maybe first, asked "What if it doesn't go smoothly? What do we do then?" By planning for failure he was able to reduce its likelihood.

That's all true, but you have to have your bank account linked to PP and, if I read their info correctly, there's a 3-5 business day delay in completing the transaction, which might be part of what is delaying some people. I stay on top of my account and fortunately my bank, or issuing company, or whatever does, too. I made several online purchases a couple weeks ago and even though their total was nowhere near my limit I received a phone call the next day stating that there had been unusual activity on my account and they wanted to confirm it all by payee and amount. In these days of fraud, hacking and ID theft, it gave me a real warm-fuzzy to see that these folks were on guard for me.

Congrats, Duke! I'll still use my debit card as a primary means. But I'm not letting my PayPal account get too far away any more, either.

It's as I've long said, Olham, an honest person believes others to be honest (until proven wrong once too often, at least) but a dishonest person expects others to be as dishonest as he is.

Nor did I, Duke. Not sure why, but now it seems to be an issue. The only thing I can suggest is that it's a restriction that's been added due to other occurences. The hangup seems not to be with the bank or Avangate, but with the people who issue the card (MasterCard/VISA/Discover/etc. ??). My bank said that they had asked about one-time autorization and were told an unequivocal "no". I'm guessing Avangate can't help you unless they have an alternate site in the USA.

Duke, refer to my "no...NO...NOOOOOO" thread again. Your debit card is probably like mine and is blocked from international use by the company that issued it, not even necessarily your bank. I was told by my bank that I couldn't even authorize a one-time use, it's strictly verboten. I re-activated a long-neglected PayPal account, added PayPal to my bill-pay list, plopped $100.00 in it monday ($72.99 for WOFF w/DVD and 27.01 left over for the skin pack), the money showed up yesterday (wednesday), ordered it and recently finished downloading it to an external HD here a work. Now all I need to do is install my new PSU and hope that's all that was keeping my PC from booting up. Good luck with your endeavors, sir.

THEY'VE GOT A NURSE??? They really did go all out. And that explains why it took so long to release. It's tough to choose between redheads and blondes (and Frau von Baur was a brunette, BTW. Although she did color her hair red a lot.) Actually, if the team is taking requests for P5/WOFF2 I'd like to put that in. You crash and have to be hopitalized, instead of a picture of some guy with his arm in a sling you get a 3D nurse with great big... B... B.... B.... BLUE EYS!!! And, sorry about all your misfortune, Widowmaker. Were they..."mentionable"...injuries?

Came home from work wednesday night, eager to buy WOFF on DVD and start downloading as well...maybe I'd get lucky and have it all before the weekend was through. Whipped out the debit card and filled out the order form only to get an error message. "Your card is restricted. Contact the issuing bank...blah, blah, blah". Thursday I call my bank, tell them what happened. They looked into it and said it showed up as a problem on the vendor's side and I'd have to contact them. That night, after trying again with the same result, I called Avangate. I explained what happened, including what my bank said. The person I got then looked up their history and repeated everything I had said to him almost word-for-word (as if he was reading it from his screen, not like he was confirming it), which rather pissed me off. Finally he said that the problem was with my bank, not Avangte. To quote that universally reknowned authority on frustration, Charlie Brown, "AAAUUUGGGHHH!!!" Friday I call the bank again. They can't find any problem, either, but the lady on the other end said she'd check with the company who actually issued the card. When she called back I found out that for security purposes the do not accept international purchase requests,,,Avangate is in The Netherlands...even if I vouched for it. (I didn't see a "crestfallen" smiley or I would have inserted one here) With no credit cards, I started looking for workable options. I'd had a PayPal account at one point, a million years and several states ago in California, so I figured that would be the best one. Of course, I had no clue any more what my password was, but that was easily enough resolved. Next problem, no money in the account. I see that they can be added as a payee to my online banking, which will only take 2-4 business days for the money to be available. Of course at this point it won't go through until monday so it's going to be 2-4 business days from then. So hopefully I can order it by the end of next week. Attempt the download (although my son will be home on leave by then and probably playing Call of Duty or Batlefield 4 or GTA 189 or some other X-Box game online, thus making it take even longer, if that's possible). If that doesn't work, it's wait on the DVD, which it's already been said may take longer than normal due to the holidays. Maybe I'll get in the air by the New Year. Hmm. Still no "crestfallen" smiley.