JimAttrill

Standard 6 7/8" although all the hats were a bit 'big'. We weren't allowed to take the wire out of our 'parade' hats. If you look at the cap badge carefully you will see that it has a 'kings crown' like the one of the RFC and even the OFF badge I can see on this screen. It was my father's old badge which I took when he wasn't looking. I should have had a badge with the 'queens crown' on it but only one person ever noticed it.

Looking good, but do you have permission to grow that fuzzy stuff on your face? What do you think this is, the bloody Navy?

Well, this isn't exactly a 'silly pic' although I must say that at 18 I looked very serious. Check the Buddy Holly glasses, all the rage in 1967. The photo was taken before we set off for the Nov 11th Cenotaph parade. An interesting place to be, for we could watch all the Guards fainting. Of the twelve teenage trumpeters none fainted because we had been told how to look as if you were standing at 'attention' while moving toes and legs a bit all the time. IIRC we had to stand in one spot for over two hours. I can be hired to play 'last post' for your deceased pilots

Eventually I have shot down another aircraft - a Roland CII with my Fe2B. When asked to fill out the claim form I had no idea of the names of the other pilots, so I put in my own pilots name. and it was confirmed!

Actually my pilot is called Fred Bloggs For those who don't recognise the name, it is the sort of idiotic name you give when stopped by the police for riding your bike without lights. Come to think of it, ALL my pilots are called Fred Bloggs, so maybe it was one of the others that was a witness. No, that can't be right unless there is OFF after death or imprisonment. Anyway, giving them a silly name stops me getting upset when they (inevitably) bite the dust. If there is anyone reading this whose name is REALLY Bloggs, I apologize in advance. I think my next pilot will be Claude Shufflebotham, just for a change. I'll put him in the DH5 and see how he does. Just out of interest, what does it mean when I get sort-of black tunnel vision, can I actually pull enough G to blackout? Sometimes the vision comes back just before I hit the ground. This seems to be a HitR feature, I don't remember it from before, and I have had plenty of practice at spinning into the ground. Talk about 'immersion' I spend most of my time immersed in mud. But I haven't had as much fun for years.

No matter how many times I hit <ctl> 4 it still wants to roll right. After a sortie (without warp) my wrist is just about solid with the effort. Sometimes I think what I need is a joystick with trim adjustments - do they make such a thing?

Ok, after mapping the aileron and elevator trim to the arrow keys I have had a wonderful time with the Feee. After turning to get on track I just let go of the stick and it eventually sorts itself out. I have it set to climb a bit so if I leave all alone I eventually end up at a reasonable height. I even managed to shoot down a Roland CII (well my gunner did) and that makes a change. I got shot down by Archie, but lived to tell the tale somehow (am running Did). Yes, once trimmed I can go to the kitchen for a beer without any problems. As you all may tell, I am a bit of a newbie to flight sims, having only previously flown WOG a loooooong time ago. But I have always liked WWI sims because they are so uncomplicated (that is not the same as 'simple') ie. there are no ecm, missiles, brakes, flaps and all that modern stuff to worry about. Ok, the aeroplanes have strange flying characteristics and almost no power so they stall easily and some are almost impossible to fly at all for me (DH2). But this is right, so I stick (so far) to planes like the Be2c and the Fe2b in the early years of the war. When I first joined this forum I didn't know what 'immersion' meant, but I know now. I always fly campaign and see how long I can keep my pilot alive. I have this hope of getting a pilot through the whole war. However, like in reality, I don't reckon I will manage it. Maybe I can take a few pilots through the same squadron though the war. This is what I love about OFF. I know I am preaching to the converted but .....

Hi Olham, we have a new Seth Effriken member - his name is 'captain sopwith DCF' and he has pm'd me a couple of times. I have pm'd him to post today - I reckon he can't get added to the pilot's map if he has never posted. He lives in Durban on the coast by the way. He definitely has OFF because he asked me how well my download of HitR went. (our ADSL is a bit slow by international standards). Merry Xmas and don't shoot me down on my birthday (the 25th) as we shall have a truce. haha regards Jim I tried to pm you but it said that you could not receive any new pms. Mailbox full or what?

There is an English saying which is something about fires and frying pans

Like some others I bought HitR mainly to support the Development team who are doing a great job for very little. I have had a go in the DH5, just for the fun of it. I don't worry about the download limit because I downloaded it once and wrote it instantly to a CD - one with the SuperPatch, the minipatch G and HitR on it. So with the original DVD and this CD I can completely reinstall OFF.

I must say I have noticed this but put it down to my being a crap pilot and overcorrecting all the time I never know whether it is the aircraft, the wind or whether I have had a brandy too many I take it to offset the Castor Oil fumes haha (as advised in 'Goshawk Squadron') Well, that's my excuse anyway.

I think today is going to be a float in the swimming pool type of day. Our pool is now at 30deg C with the solar heating on. It is very hot, unlike Europe at this time - I have been keeping up with the news. Who knows, you might get a 'white Christmas' up there. I have some cold Czech beer to drink today - Pilsener Urquell I shall drink one and think of you all. I've now been in SA 34 years exactly - arrived 25 Dec 1975 (it was the only flight I could get and very unpopular with crew and pax). I remember jumping into a pool and thinking that this is the sort of Christmas I like

I have a book somewhere of incredible aviation escapes, most from WWII. One gunner was blown out of a Lancaster at 20000 ft or so without his parachute. He fell about half the way to the ground and then collided with an parachute and aircrew from a different Lanc and managed to grab his legs and hang on to the ground. His 'rescuer' wasn't too happy about this as he had a broken leg

Done in red wine sauce I hope

And most English speakers don't know that die is the singular of dice

I fly along the blue line and get to a waypoint on the map. It looks like a circle with an arrow on it on the map, I don't know if this is trying to tell me something. I can fly around in circles until I am blue in the face or run out of petrol and the TAC blue line always points back the way I came. So I go back and fly around some more at the waypoint. Eventually I give up and fly back home using the map. I unfortunately cannot warp any more because that just takes me back to the waypoint that I circled. With all this circling I eventually ended up at 10 000 ft in a Be2c, which takes some doing. Then my engine stopped and wouldn't restart until I came down to 9 000 ft. (I have auto-mixture on btw). Just as I got the stupid RAF engine to start, my wingman ran into me and everything went red. It must have been him because there were no EA about. Not the most enjoyable sortie as no Fokkers turned up. I was hoping to dive on them from a great height

To be historically accurate you should always fly 100% fuel in a Fokker triplane. Mainly because they always did, for the aeroplane had very little endurance. I read the other day that 'only an experienced pilot could keep it in the air for more than 80 minutes', whereas all British fighters could do at least 2 hours. Out of interest, what was the fuel load in gallons or litres or whatever of the aircraft we fly in OFF? I know these engines were not particularly efficient and tended to use fuel to cool the motor by running very rich by later standards. The specs I find of WWI aircraft rarely mention the fuel load. (In fact the specs I find of most aircraft don't mention the fuel load). I have an interest in this because I spent ten years refuelling aircraft when not doing other more interesting stuff

Maybe we should get the choice in the workshop, though how to describe this would be difficult - maybe 'aggressive and stupid AI - on/off' As a computer programmer I have been presented with these 'semantic' problems for years. OTOH maybe the two types are not separable so we will have to have one or the other. The Devs will tell us. I didn't even know that the HatR extension would affect the AI. As the older version shot me down all the time I am perfectly amiable to a less aggressive AI.

me tooo actually I voted for ROF (puts on bullet-proof-vest and leaves stage left)

At least you didn't meet it at 1000 ft

Hi all, I have an ASUS EAH4670 graphics card that sometimes in the last week shows light green instead of white. This occurs in the POST and from then on which means it cannot be a driver problem. I have fixed it three times now by switching the pooter off, removing and replacing the card. Is it possible that it may be the mob and not the graphics card? Also I am running 2 x SATA and 2 x IDE hard drives and a SATA CD, off a 350w ps. Could there not be enough power for this lot?

I am running an AMD 5200+ oc 10% and 3Gb Memory. The temps of the CPU are always < 60c. It has a std AMD fan, and the psu has a fan. There are two case fans which are not connected because of the noise. I don't think this is a temp problem because it occurs from cold boot. I have dusted off the fan on the graphics card. Not much dust, it was fitted in July. The pooter has been ok now for 2 days.... I do have a older ASUS EAH3450 gpu which I can swop in. This would check the mobo I reckon.

Some very good pilots have been killed because their 'roll axis was reversed' ie their ailerons were connected backwards. IIRC the designer of the Avro Lancaster (Roy Chadwick) was killed this way. Of course this doesn't matter so much in OFF.

The Be2 was what it was designed to be - a stable observation aeroplane which eventually was also used for photography work and artillery observation. When it was originally designed it could not be shot down by other aircraft because they did not carry more than a rifle or a pistol. The pilot was behind the observer, and when the observer eventually got a machine gun it could not really be fired anywhere without hitting bits of the Be2. As usual with the British Army, it carried on being produced long after it was obsolete and many poor men were sent out to their deaths. Its replacement was somewhat better eventually, the RE8 which at least had the observer/gunner behind the pilot with a better field of fire. With any aircraft the designer has a choice between stability and manoeverabilty. Maybe with fly-by-wire and computers you can have the best of both worlds but in WWI you could not. Especially as most pilots hardly knew how to fly at all, the Be2 kept them alive until they were shot down.

Mahlo => Olham => Marlowe .... clever:ok: