JimAttrill

IIRC the rockets were inaccurate and short range and were only used against balloons which were a rather large and inflammable target. They were called 'Le Prieur' on the British side. However, who knows what might have happened? I've personally never heard of an aircraft kill with a rocket.

I started with the Biggles books by W.E Johns and read as much as I could about WWI aircraft. A trip to the Imperial War Museum helped me along. Ok, I am also interested in every war since then, but I have always been impressed by the fliers of WWI. A recent trip to our War Museum and a look at a genuine SE5a made me wonder how they could go up and fight in such a fragile-looking aircraft. And yet by the standards of the day it was a 'strong' aircraft. These were courageous men. With modern Health and Safety regulations none of them would get off the ground

I haven't had such a good laugh for ages. I love this forum

I have been trying to get WOG to run in Dosbox. I can get the sound to work and the game to work, but I can't get Dosbox to recognise my USB joystick. In the WOG days I ran it on a 286 with a long soundblaster card with a games port on it, so the joystick used the games port. OTOH WOG taught me bad flying habits. In a dogfight I would go into extreme turn mode until I got behind the enemy and fill him full of holes. In OFF if I try that I normally stall and dig a hole in the ground. I did like the automatic landing in WOG - in OFF I have had to learn how to land properly Sometimes with not too good results if I'm not concentrating.

Nice Defender that. Just like the one in my driveway (except no snow here) I've never been to the IOW but apparently my name comes from there ....

The OFF Campaign is terrific. I went in today and was told I couldn't fly because the weather was too bad! The ability to stay with the same squadron/Jasta through changes of airfield and aircraft - all authentic, is terrific. And to do this the sim requires many different aircraft. I think it great that the devs added the DH5, not because it was a fantastic aeroplane, but because it was required to go through the war with (for example) 24 sqn. So my point is - a sim without a decent campaign is just a game. shooty shooty bang bang. OFF has pulled me in to something greater. I want to get a pilot (or pilots) through the war in the same squadron/Jasta, while shooting down a few opponents on the way. But the requirement to stay alive makes me more careful, just like in reality.

The fuses were time fuses which could easily be set as the shell was loaded. I reckon the Archie batteries in WWI had a lot of practice so became good at what they were doing. In fact a lot of aircraft were shot down by direct hits which seems amazing. And when the armies were setting up huge barrages prior to attacks it was not surprising that some aircraft were shot down by accident so to speak. Many pilots noted seeing the shells in the air which must have been quite scary. Lots of practice was why the WWII German flak was so deadly especially when used with radar rangers. On the other side of the channel the gunners spent most of their time drinking tea and waiting for the war to be over

YEP - same problem. The format was done using the XP installation disk program. I had to take Xubuntu off before the laptop went back to the suppliers as they would have blamed that for the problem. I have done innumerable installations of XP pro on many different machines and have only come across this problem once, and it was fixed by changing the drive, notably on a brand-new untested laptop. I have asked all my friends about this and they have never had this error on a new installation.

How can I stop these idiotic wingmen running into me? I have now been killed twice in two sorties by these assholes. It's hard enough fighting off the enemy without this happening and its not as if they do anything useful. Immersion yes, but this is ridiculous. I am certain that this did not happen in reality as often as it is happening to me.

So how do I send the wingies after the tail end Charlies? (I obviously have a lot to learn here, being a newbie to sims).

I gave up on Win 7 for OFF because my joystick wouldn't calibrate properly (and my webcam image was upside down ) I still have Win 7 on one drive, but XP on the other boot drive. I like Win 7 as it's very pretty and the thing of the future, but I'll wait with OFF until I replace my joystick with one which comes with the proper driver. And even then, what the hell, OFF works fine in XP.

I think I know what a DRM is in that you have to sign on to their web site to play the game, but what are the words behind the acronym? Do you have to stay signed on to play or is it just at the start? Not that I'm thinking of buying it at all....

Clean install every time with format of the drive. It's the only way to do it. The supplier thought we were doing something wrong, but after a few days trying to install XP they also gave up and changed the hard drive. It gave the messages as above in that it thought there was a virus on the drive etc. As the drive had just been formatted this was pretty surprising. I also tried other XP installation disks and they all failed in the same way. So XP was spotting something wrong with the drive, and changing the drive fixed the problem for ever. If it quacks like a duck.... The strange thing is that Xubuntu installed fine. I didn't try any other OS.

I have a Win XP pro Volume License Copy which has been installed on many computers. Even when I buy XP pro for a new computer I keep the disk but don't install that one because of the hassle of activation etc. I have only ever had one failure to install from this CD and that was last year. I was overwriting the Vista Home on a new laptop - an ACER. No matter what I did it would crash with the same messages as you got above. I did manage to install Xubuntu on it though. The owner took the new laptop back to the supplier and they eventually agreed to change the hard drive. We got it back with Vista Pro installed and as that will work with Exchange Server I left it at that.

My especial thanks to Bullethead for his very good advice on how to fly a Feee - and how much fun it can be. And to Olham for all sorts of good advice (even though he is mostly on the other side) And to all the devs for doing such a great job - especially Winder who is so far the only forumeer I have actually met.

This could be the problem. I always press 'attack'.... I'll stop doing that. I also fly always at 100% throttle as the Fees and Be2s will stall if you don't (and often if you do). I do have TrackIr but am a bit of a newbie to flying with it. Also with the Fee I can't really see behind at any time. I am normally fixated on an enemy following them round to get my sights lined up when a wingman comes in from the side and takes us both out. I also fly with normal spacing.

Hey, I ended up as a Cpl Apprentice, though in the band I must admit. In fact being the trumpet-major I had six stripes on each arm, very pretty

The early gears were 'interruptors' in that they stopped the gun from firing when the prop was in the way, which slowed down the rate of fire. The later Constantinesco-type gears actually fired the gun. These were definitely used in the Camel, Triplane and SE5a and were hydraulic, not mechanical. I presume they increased the rate of fire over the early type. I also notice some aircraft (can't remember which) had Lewis guns firing through the prop, even though all I have ever read on the Lewis says it was not suitable for synchronisation. Maybe sometimes it got confused and shot the prop off

That engine could well be a 4-6-0 Class P8 of the Royal Prussian Union Railway (KPEV) 1906-. The smoke Deflectors look more like a later German version though. But definitely not an Entente engine

Airfield attack with the Fe2b. I get there, can see hangars and aeroplanes and even troops, but my gunner won't fire. The German gunners don't seem to have this worry as they shoot at me all the time. Is there any way I can order him to shoot? He doesn't seem to have a problem firing at aircraft. Maybe I will ignore this type of attack, as I ignore the scrambles as being suicide.

There is also a SPAD 2-seater. Billy Mitchell flew one because I have seen a photo. Don't know how much it was used though.

Here is a story about the Big Ack or A-W F.K.8: Designed by Frederick Koolhoven, the F.K.8 - known as the 'Big Ack' by its crews - equipped Nos 2, 8, I0, 35 and 82 Squadrons on the Western Front in late I9I7. Its I60 hp Beardmore engine gave it a top speed of around 90 mph and it carried an armament of one synchronized Vickers gun, operated by the pilot, and a Lewis gun in the rear cockpit. Although heavy on the controls, especially the ailerons and elevators, it was well built and robust, could absorb a lot of battle damage and was well liked by its crews. Major K. D. P. Murray, No I0 Squadron's commanding officer, said of it: 'The big A-W was slow, but my pilots liked it for the particular job hey had to do, and never regarded themselves as "cold meat". Owing to the nature of their work, they were rarely in a position to attack, but when attacked, as they were frequently enough, they gave a good enough account of themselves.' One of No I0 Squadron's crews who definitely gave a good account of themselves were Captain John Pattern and Lieutenant Leycester, who took off together on a photo-reconnaissance sortie on 29 November I9I7. Pattern himself, shortly before his death (he was then in his nineties), told the story to the author: ‘I was due to go home on leave the following day, and when you had been warned for leave you weren't supposed to fly. But after several days of fog and rain the weather had finally cleared and there were reports of large enemy troop movements south of Passchendaele, so as the Squadron's most experienced pilot I was detailed to go out and get the photographs that were urgently needed. It wasn't that I was a particularly good pilot; it was just that most of the others were dead. On average, a crew doing our sort of job, flying straight and level over the enemy lines, could expect to last three weeks before being shot down. Some of us, myself included, were lucky; I had been shot down only a week before, and had walked out of the wreck with only a few scratches. That was one of the good points about the big A-W: it was so strongly built that crews could often walk away from the most horrendous crashes.' On that November morning, Pattern and Leycester - it was their seventh mission together - took off from Abeele and climbed to 5,000 feet, heading towards Ypres and the front line. Unknown to them, some thirty miles away another pilot was also taking off from an airfield near Lille. He was Lieuten­ant Erwin Boehme, a Staffel commander in the Richthofen Jagdgeschwader. This was a big day in Boehme's life. In a few hours' time he was due to receive Germany's highest award for gallantry - the Ordre Pour le Merite or 'Blue Max' as it was nicknamed - from the hands of the Kaiser himself. The medal was Boehme's reward for shooting down twenty-four British and French aircraft, but to him its significance was much greater. It would help to remove a burden of guilt he had carried for a year now, since October I9I6. Together with his Staffel commander, Oswald Boelcke - the most famous German air ace of that time - he had been involved in a dogfight with some British aircraft. Boehme had made a slight error of judgement. His wingtip had touched Boelcke's and the ace's aircraft had gone down, breaking up as it fell. Boelcke had been killed instantly. Desolate, Boehme had gone to his tent on landing and taken out his revolver, intent on committing suicide, but had been prevented by von Richthofen. Now, in November I9I7, Boehme commanded Boelcke's old unit, Jagdstaffel 2. Boehme headed for the front line, accompanied by five more Albatros Scouts, intent on claiming one more victim before he received his decoration. That victim should have been John Pattern, whose F.K.8 was crossing the front line just north of Westhoek. Pattern takes up the story: 'About a quarter of a mile on the enemy side of the lines, I turned south-east and Leycester started to work his cameras. The anti-aircraft fire, which had been intense, had stopped, but I didn't take much notice. I should have known better; it was a sure sign that enemy fighters were in the vicinity. Suddenly, I heard the clatter of Leycester's machine-gun above the roar of the engine. I looked round to see what he was shooting at, and nearly had a heart attack. Slanting down from above, getting nicely into position thirty yards behind my tail, was an Albatros. I immediately heaved the old A-W round in a split-arse turn, tighter I think than I had ever turned before. I felt a flash of panic as I lost sight of the Hun, but Leycester must have been able to see him all right as he kept on firing. My sudden turn had done the trick. The Albatros overshot and suddenly appeared right in front of me. Because of the relative motion of our two aircraft, he seemed to hang motionless, suspended in mid-air. I could see the pilot's face as he looked back at me. I sent a two-second burst of Vickers fire into him. His aircraft seemed to flutter, then slid out of sight below my starboard wing. I was pretty certain that I had hit his petrol tank. Behind me, Leycester was still blazing away. He was using tracer, and it may have been one of his bullets that ignited the petrol pouring from the Hun's ruptured tank. When I caught sight of the Albatros again, it was burning like a torch and side-slipping towards the ground, trailing a streamer of smoke. For an instant I saw the German pilot, looking down over the side of the cockpit. Then the smoke and flames enveloped him. I pushed the A-W's nose down and headed flat out for home, aware that the other Hun scouts were coming down fast after me. They would probably have got me, too, if some friendly fighters had not come along just in time and driven them away. To say that I was relieved would be the understatement of the century. In due course I learned the name of the man I had shot down, but I didn't take much notice at the time. It was not until fifty years later that I came across the full story of Erwin Boehme's career in some book or other. My first reaction was that if I had known who he was at the time he attacked me, I would have shoved the A-W's nose down and landed in the nearest available field. But then, maybe I wouldn't have. Who knows? All I do know is how lucky Leycester and I were, on that day in Flanders. From “Aces’ Twilight”, Robert Jackson. (Underlining mine)

What I have done is to burn the Super Patch (1.31) and the mini G patch and HitR onto one CD. Then, given the CFS3 DVD, the OFF DVD and this CD I can always recover. Which reminds me I must add the HitR patch to the CD before I forget.

Talking of walking sticks, do you have one of those canes to stick under your arm? I don't know exactly about the RFC, but in the RAF of 1921 the stupid things had to be carried by all airmen when outside the camps. Read 'The Mint' by T. E Lawrence for confirmation of this. Written long ago, but only recently published. I had a cane once - when I was trumpet major of the RAF Halton band. The trumpet major normally played facing the others and conducting with the left hand. On major occasions the cane replaced the trumpet. I never saw any other cane in use, although the drill sergeants often carried a pair of those huge wooden dividers under their arms. I think the dividers were supposed to be used to measure the standard stride which was 30" IIRC. They were mostly used for poking us in the stomach

If we look at planes that might be 'easy' for the Devs to do (we must always remember that what seems easy to us may not in fact be easy to do at all) the Fe2d comes to mind. All it needs is a change to the Fe2B undercarriage and the RR engine with more power. Then I could do some night bombing missions with the squadrons numbered from 100 onwards. Might be a bit boring though with no real night fighters about at that time. Could find an ammo dump and make a big bang