JimAttrill

I don't like to see the use of the modernism AAA in relation to WWI. Just my own personal opinion, of course. I notice nobody mentions 'flak', that being a WWII use. Good, lets stick to Archie or AA.

Hi all, got a bit bored with chugging around in the 4sqn BE2b, even though I have made it to 5 hours and been promoted to 2nd Lt. As I have just re-read 'Combat Report' by Bill Lambert and being very impressed by 24sqn's kill ratio - it must be 20:1 or maybe more, I signed on a newbie pilot for 24sqn at the beginning of the war, flying DH2's. Well, all I can say it is a bit of a toss-up which is the greater death trap. The DH is slow, unmanoeverable and gets shot down very easily. Further, when the red guys appear on the TAC display, all my comrades-in-arms disappear and leave me to my fate. I am getting a bit fed up with emulating Lanoe Hawker all the time. I also find it very difficult to spot the German aircraft. At the moment I have an old and well-used MAG 14" CRT monitor (I think I bought it with my first AMD processor machine, which was a 386 DX4 IIRC). Will a Samsung 19" LCD improve my eyesight? At the moment I know what it is like to be a newbie pilot and not spot anything in the sky. Without the TAC I would get shot down even quicker by an aircraft I would only see after the bullets start flying Is there any way to stop the other aircraft in the flight from leaving me to my fate? BTW I can heartily recommend the above book. I 'lost' my first copy by lending it to the granddaughter of Southey who gets a lot of mentions in the book. He came from around here, and we worked together (with the granddaughter, that is). I found a copy for 1p on the Amazon.co.uk site. Unfortunately the barstewards charged me seven squid to post it! Oh well, the book is worth it being out of print for a while now. If anyone is interested, the book was published in 1975 by Corgi in paperback with good illustrations, originally in 1973 by William Kimber.

In the RAF they are called 'fairies' Engine guys were called 'fitters' although this went out of use by my day as all trades were called 'fitters'. My father was a fitter IIE (ie engines) and eventually became a fitter I after WWII (engines and airframes). I was a A. Fitt (P) (ie Aircraft Fitter Propulsion which was their new name for engines). Airframe fitters were always called 'riggers' though there wasn't much actual rigging to do on modern aircraft - if any at all. And the armament guys were called 'plumbers'. Radio and Radar guys were 'fairies' as above, and I can't for the life of me remember a nickname for electricians. There were a few non-commissioned aircrew in the RAF in WWI, and occasionally a Sgt. observer would become a pilot, though they were normally commissioned at the same time. By my day in 1966-1973 there were a few Warrant Officer pilots left over from WWII although they were getting on a bit by then. I do remember at least two on 115 sqn, they were both Poles. Terrific pilots, terrible English even after 25 years, used for flight checking of ILS, TACAN etc. They couldn't go home, so stayed on in England.

Thanks Godzilla I will try that. In fact I deliberately signed on as the lowest Sgt rank and ticked the 'lead by rank' in the hope that the leader would look after me. I don't really want to lead the formation because that would be, of course, not as it was at that time. And having a Sgt. rank available is a bit unreal as 99% of RFC pilots were commissioned. Doubtless someone will prove me wrong, but I would love to see some sort of stats on that. The greatest number of RAF Sgt pilots were RAFVR volunteers in the WWII era. 1938 onwards And don't think I am against the NCOs because I was one, though only a Corporal Aircraft Fitter (Propulsion) ie A Fitt. (P) as they called it. 1966-1973 And my father ended as a Flt.Sgt Fitter 1 (1923? - 1958) He started on Vickers Virginias with RR Eagle engnes.

This game is getting expensive - first I had to buy CSF3 which was not much, then OFF, then I redid my whole pooter (which needed doing anyway so that is free), bought another joystick as my last 1994 version required a game port. And now I realise my old 14" CRT monitor is not good enough - the only reason I am keeping it is because it works and was wonderful in its day which was in 1989 - there is a local importer of TrackIr and it is pretty pricey, but maybe I should bite the bullet and go there along with an LCD monitor. I can justify the monitor, at least.....

I have looked at the pilot files .... I reckon I can easily write a program to duplicate those files - all you will have to do is enter: numbr of pilots wanted: Squadron: date of enlistment: Rank: (default to Sgt?) Press Ok and they will be there! What I do need is a list of first and second names from somewhere in a table. Maybe I can use an electronic telephone directory.... Does OFF have a limit on the number of pilots?

I am sorry, but I don't log in to Russian web sites at all. As a computer professional of many years, I do not like the idea of my pc contacting any site without my knowledge, as who knows what data they will be sending. This also applies to to M$, I spend a lot of time getting rid of their WGA spyware. This is normally caused by silly users that allow all 'updates' from Bill Gates. I use Firefox as a browser, and have added 'Flagfox' which shows you where the physical web server is located, no matter what the ip suffix is. I have found South African bank sites which look good but are actually in the Ukraine ... I normally reply to these phishers and give them incorrect bank details just to waste their time. I have a good firewall - any program trying to get out to the Internet has to have my permission. And those trying to get in can't. I am very happy with OFF and see no reason to try another WWI sim. I like this one and reckon I can carry on playing it for ever. After all, I am still in 1915 with both my squadrons, and to get all squadrons to Nov 11th 1918 would take me about 500 years at the rate I am going!

What isn't nowadays? When I was young (a long time ago) a favourite expression was 'you lie like a cheap Japanese watch'. And a couple of years later I bought my first Seiko.....

Thanks for those figures, Steve. Very interesting. As (I suppose) all combat reports had to include the serial no of the aircraft, someone has ploughed through them all to produce these very interesting data. I must save your post somewhere. As Capt. Little's records are from before the formation of the RAF, I must ask whether he was a Captain RAN or a sort of Army Captain. Or was he a Lt. RAN at the time and became a Captain in the RAF? Silly question, really as I have never heard of a combat pilot of above the rank of Major actually flying. (Those who really know can shoot me down in flames here). There is a fascinating article on the net somewhere about Maj. Barker and his Camel. He had a running fight with all the powers that be to fly his Camel when he was CO of a Bristol Fighter squadron, and they were forever trying to scrap it. IIRC he fought them off until he was returned to HE in 1918. What an exibit it would make now! The Germans in both world wars had less objections to the commanders of units flying different aircraft to their subordinates. One ace led his FW190s with a BF109 (Werner Molders?) and Rudel flew the anti-tank Stuka JU87G when the rest were in FW190s. I think Rudel has two records - the most tanks destroyed (about 360 or so) and I don't think anyone was shot down as many times as he. Something like 16 times, doubtless someone will give the accurate figures. He had a good gunner who also wore the Knights Cross.

I tried R but maybe they were too far away. Next sortie I shall play a tatoo on that key! And the H as well... I have to do something because my pc is full of dead pilots

I have a Rockfire FF joystick, not very expensive, but I mainly bought it because it is symmetrical and good for a leftie. BUT if I install the driver that came with it, Windoze will not calibrate it as it says the calibration is dynamic or some such excuse. But when I enter OFF with this setting, the stick is way out of calibration, with almost no left aileron. So I uninstalled the driver, calibrated the stick in Windoze and now it works fine except there is no vibration available. I didn't like the vibrating stick much, I don't think it adds to the realisim at all, basically the vibration was too strong.

And his well-loved and looked after Camel (B6313?) holds the absolute record for the most aircraft shot down at 40 IIRC. Some of those experienced pilots in 1917-18 were very dangerous to meet.

AFAIK (going back to 1966 here), the commands from the groundcrew to the pilot were: 'Switches off' - there were normally two magnetos in later engines by law. I'm not sure about the rotaries though, most likely single. 'Suck in' (the engine was turned backwards one revolution and then forward to a compression with the prop horizontal) 'Switches on' and then the prop was swung. My father had a scar on his lip and missing front teeth after a pilot forgot which way was on and which was off. Normally the switches were the aircraft normal 'up for on', with the idea that if you accidentally hit a switch it is safer to switch something off than on. At least that was the reason told to me.

I take it fps=frames per second. How do I get to see this? It is mentioned quite a lot on these forums.

Well I read the whole 22 pages of the readme and there is no mention of USB anywhere. Unless it will just work by magic?

Tried the Z. Very interesting except I need better glasses to read those little characters well I seem to get fps in the high 20s most of the time. I've looked at the tips for setting up the ATI card, and I don't seem to have the utilities mentioned. But there are ASUS utilities and I'll see what joy I can get out of them. The card has 512Mb and runs at 600Mz with the memory at 1000Mz. I have 2Gb memory (used to have 3Gb but the extra 1Gb had slow timings so slowed the whole thing down). Not worth going to 4Gb as I am running XP pro 32bit - a volume licence version so no mucking about with 'activation'. I have been warned off XP pro 64bit so won't go there. 4-3-3-4-1 ? Is this the recommended 'realism' options? I will download the team speak overlay and see how it goes. I don't think I will be good enough for multiplayer until I get a few more flying hours in; I'm very out of practice, not having flown a sim for at least 10 years. But I do like OFF, even to fly around at low level in the old BE2b and look at the scenery and try to land without crashing

Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh. I must admit to pressing the Z key once, but found it hard to read all the info. Now I know to use it to get the co-ordinates of my 'home' field (so I can get back there) and to see the fps reading. If the fps is low, I suppose I back off on the realism options in the workshop until the fps is ok. What is an ok fps reading? I have an AMD 5200+ running at 2.97Ghz and an ASUS 3450 graphics card.

I was a member of 4sqn RAF 1969-73 (the early Harrier years), and have just signed on again. In a way I have always wanted to fly something as stable as a BE2c, though I don't suppose I will last long in one of those. Anyway, I do get to fly in a squadron aircraft at last (I was not a pilot, but an engine fitter). And now I have a nice shiny commission as well :yes:

The first sim I flew was WOG back in '94 or so. I eventually finished the game, winning all sorts of medals etc. I have tried to install it on my new computer using M$ Virtual PC dos box. I found that firstly WOG didn't want to install because it thought I didn't have enough memory - obviously some sort of integer overflow problem. Anyway, I got round that. The problem I have is that my old game port card doesn't fit in the new mob (ASUS M3-SLI) and the joystick was an old cheapo crappy thing anyway, never keeping its calibration for more than a minute or two. So I bought a decent USB joystick, but can't seem to get DOS to recognize the USB connection. It is no fun to fly WOG using the keyboard. So I ordered OFF and bought CFS3 (first time I have actually PAID Bill Gates any money for anything). Didn't like CFS3 much, but am getting the hang of OFF, chugging around in a BE2b at the moment.

I must say it is jolly unsporting of you Yankee chaps to shoot down the hun at 10:43am on the 11th November. (You have to imagine the accent, best done like that interview in OFF itself )

What's a 'sooty'? (though I can guess...) On Harriers we only had the aeroplane drivers In the 20's the Hillman bus company started an airline. They paid the drivers of buses and aircraft the same pay ....

Just about all extant RAF squadrons have histories going back to WWI, in the low numbers there are 1(F), 3(F) and IV(AC), all flying Harriers from Cottesmore at the moment. The F stands for F(ighter) and the AC for A(rmy) C(ooperation). At the start of WWII, 1 sqn was flying Hurricanes in France and IV was flying Lysanders, afterwards replaced by PR Mustangs and Mosquitoes. Strangely enough, IV sqn was written 4 when I was there (although the squadron badge always was in Roman numerals), and the AC seems to be a sort of 'retro' thing used relatively recently. About the only squadron dating from WWII is 617, the 'dambusters', flying Tornados at the moment IIRC. I'll pop over to the RAF web site and see what is going on. BTW, no 24, a famous SE5a squadron (see the book by the US flier Bill? Lambert) has been flying transports for a long time now. Some ex-naval squadrons in the 200 series still exist flying ASW Nimrods.

I decided to sign up for a campaign. The first time I started off, I selected 'turkey shoot', not knowing that I was the turkey! I didn't even take off, all of a sudden was flying along, with the TAC display showing lots of red spots. Shot down within about 5 seconds. Had another go, enrolled yet another pilot, and decided to select a different mission this time. Selected 'Current Campaign mission - Custom missons available' PC hangs, OFF manager 'not responding'. Did this about 5 times. Decided to try something else. Can't remember exactly what mission it was, but not one of the two above. Aeroplane should have been an FE, but the cockpit view looked a bit strange. Looked left to discover I was on the ground surrounded by Fokker Eindekkers. Anybody got any idea what is going on here? I do want to start using the Campaign rather than mucking about in free flight and dogfight missions.

I have been back for a look, and the confusing thing is that once you have entered Campaign, there is no direct 'go to airfield' option. You have to go via Briefing. So I assumed you had to exit campaign (having sort-of signed on) and then re-enter Missions. I still wonder how I managed to become a traitor and change sides suddenly

I'll get the hang of the software sooner or later.... To be accurate, the Campaign must tell you what mission to fly with no options. The squadrons were mostly allocated missions from above from what I have read.