Check Six

The BBC TV Series "Wings" is also watchable. All early war aviation, with unarmed (at first) BE2's up against Eindekkers. Like I said, very watchable. Speaking of Wings...that is a l-o-o-o-o-n-g (140 mins) 1927 film (silent). Really quite good air scenes. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018578/ Typical hollywood style storyline. Two guys from the same small town, both in love with the same girl. They get into a fight during basic training, beat the snot out of each other, then become best buds. Despite all that, still pretty good.

I read the thread on "Angel's Wings" and while the reviews aren't very glowing, it's about WW1 aviation, so I buzzed off to Amazon and ordered a copy. Whilst there, I saw this... MANNOCK: The Life and Death of Major Edward Mannock VC, DSO, MC, RAF - Norman Franks http://www.amazon.co...60372806&sr=1-1 Has anyone read it? Apparently THE definitive book on Mick Mannock, and details of his life and death, exact details of his final resting place, and Norman Franks correspondence with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to recognise that this is Mannock's grave. (I believe it is "unknown airman" grave at present). I'd appreciate any reviews or opinions. Really immaterial as I ordered it anyway.

You can get a partial idea by the temporary imprisonment in a Turkish prison at that time by watching the brilliant film "Lawrence of Arabia". The transformation of Lawrence after his "release" to a "NO PRISONERS!!!" character is very moving. Lawrence never spoke of his treatment inside the Turkish prison, though he alluded to it only slightly in "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom". (And he only spent a few days in there - to be fair, he was a suspected spy, and was treated harshly...Mannock, as a civilian unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time SHOULD have been treated merely as a detainee...but who knows what went on...and if he saw the harsh treatment of others). Speaking of which...there is ANOTHER great book. One of the finest books I have ever read...T.E. Lawrence "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom". A thoroughly remarkable book, made even more remarkable by the fact he wrote it from memory. He lost the manuscript and his diaries and notes on a train somewhere, and had to hurriedly re-write it. If you get the chance to read this, please do so.

Happy Birthday UK_W, Sure hope no-one buys you underpants for your birthday. (ASK ME WHY!) 'COS THE PANTS HAVEN'T BEEN BUILT YET THAT CAN TAKE THE JOB ON! WOOF! (in the background...from Baldrick...) Bark!

I saw this in "The Aerodrome" Forum, but this article doesn't include the actual document. This is the paper mentioned... I posted this as an addition for the interest of members there. Its a re-evaluation of the medical examination conducted on MvR, and eye-witness accounts of the events on 21st April 1918. Make what you will of it. I don't want to create an argument. I just present it for your information.

It would probably feel "right" to have wind gusts pushing you slightly this way or that when flying. Riding a motorcycle in the city, with tall buildings forming "wind corridors", funnelling and increasing the wind speed, and restricting it to a narrow area...when you pass into an intersection, and it pushes you into the next lane, which may or may not be occupied...SCARY AS HELL!

I am constantly looking above my head for the "KILL THIS GUY!!!" sign placed there by "God" or "intelligent creator" or whatever your beliefs are. I ride a motorcycle and am constantly staggered at the profound stupidity of fellow motorists (though some don't realise they are in fact motorists...they are in some kind of dream-like trance, and don't even realise they are driving, let alone driving responsibly, to the regulations of the state, or to simply bloody LOOK WHERE THEY ARE GOING!). I take my life into my own hands every friggin day. And when they have scared ten shades of s**te outta me, nearly bowled me off my motorcycle, oblivious to their surroundings, they think that all is made good by a friendly little "I didn't see you" wave. Is my motorcycle a stealth job? Camouflaged perhaps? GRR.

I find another image of another famous ace very haunting. The first photo shows him a recipient of the Pour le Merite, awarded to him in January 1916. Look at his eyes in the second photo. The PAIN he has seen. I don't know when the photo was taken, but he could not have been any older that 25, as that was his age at his passing in October 1916. There can be no more than 9 months between the two photos. He has aged twenty years! Scary. Mick Mannock was considerably older than most of his contemporaries, and had endured internment at the outbreak of WW1, and there is no doubt that he saw much suffering, so it is not really surprising that he looks so...haunted. Boelcke at 24 or 25 is frightening. I sincerely hope the child lived a LONG way from the front lines. Still, living in Paris, she would have seen much hardship. For such a young one, it is heart-wrenching.

I ordered one from Amazon... Here's the link if anyone wants to also order. http://www.amazon.com/Angels-Wing-Bernard-Ballet/dp/B00199PP7E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1260373573&sr=1-2

Well, I don't know if it's silly or not, but here's a pic of me and a Tiger Moth (I believe 1935 vintage, though I could be wrong...if you CAN correct me, please do). I wasn't the pilot of course, though I have stunted a Robin aerobatic aircraft in a lesson from Sydney Aerobatic School. I went to Coolangatta (south of Brisbane) to visit O'Reilly's Rainforest Guesthouse to go on an arduous trek out to the grave of a WW1 RNAS pilot, Reginald "Rex" Haslam. His aircraft and passengers were lost SOMEWHERE between Brisbane and Sydney, and as there was no radio fitted, the search area was massive. Some 10 days passed, and everyone gave up looking. Except for Bernard O'Reilly, a chap who lived on the Lamington Range. He figured out if Rex didn't turn out to sea to get around the storm over the mountains, there were several high ridges that might have jumped out at him. He searched for three days. Remarkably, he found the wreckage. Pilot and Co-Pilot both died on impact, and a few passengers. But three passengers had survived. After a week or so, the least injured passenger set off to try to get help. In the darkness, he stumbled over a cliff and perished. The other two were unable to travel, though one could crawl down to a creek and return with a thermos flask of water. After Bernard got out to them, he promised them he'd be back, and gave them his meagre supplies. He made his way to the nearest house, some day and a half away. Telephone calls were made, and two parties of men set out. One with doctors, medical supplies, and food hacked their way through the rainforest to get to the survivors, the other started from the nearest road, hacking their way through the heavy undergrowth to enable them to carry the injured out. In Coolangatta, I decided to hire the Tiger Moth, asking him if he would overfly Rex's grave. We did so, and even stunted over the site, looping and rolling all the way back to the airfield. Mighty good sport. I didn't make it out to Rex's grave. Even today, it is a very strenuous trek up and down mountain ridges, and due to the remoteness, a strict and rapid pace MUST be kept up, as it's too inhospitable to camp overnight. I'm afraid I didn't make it, and was forced to turn back. Our Rex had already served in the infantry, suffering a horrific stomach wound at Gallipoli. He laid in a hole in no-man's land for 3 days, passing in and out of consciousness, packing his intestines back into his trunk when he "came to" again. Eventually returned to the beach by stretcher bearers, they told Rex "The sun is a bit hot mate, here...I'll put your slouch hat across your face for you". Essentially it was a signal to the stretcher bearers to not bother loading him on a lighter to take him to a hospital ship...this one was a "goner". Yet he survived. Repatriated home, he'd "done his bit for King and Country". No white feather for this chap. After he recovered from his injuries, he tried to rejoin, but they refused. So he paid his passage to England, and joined up with the RNAS. Did nothing really remarkable, but was an above average pilot according to his service record. Hope you like the pic and the short story.

There are some "purists" here that might consider using these little assistances here and there as "cheats". There was no TAC, no "radar", no "labels", no Brackets, no padlock etc in WW1. Some here fly FULL DiD (Dead is Dead) with no assistance whatsoever. They need to physically scan the skies for tiny little dots as they do not use TAC, they have to then fly close enough to them to identify the aircraft as friend or foe, and then decide whether to attack or not. They look at a PAPER map they have sitting on their lap (beacuse they will not "PAUSE"...there were no pauses in war). I think it's great that they enjoy the sim that much that they fully immerse themselves into it that deeply, and it's great that the game developers have adapted the sim so that persons who wish to fly DiD can do so...that you can remove your TAC from your screen, turn off labels, have realistic weapons loads and fuel loads, that you CAN run out of both. For "novices" like you and I, we can start out with all these "helps" (cheats if you will), and gradually discontinue their use as we become more experienced. I still find it fun, and I still almost break into a sweat when I pull my triggers and there is no ammunition (or my guns have jammed), and I realise I'm going to have to dodge enemy fire all the way home, and "virtually" kissing the ground if I land safely, and cursing loudly if my pilot dies, and actually mourn his passing. The targetting cone will operate whether you are in chase view (or external views of your aircraft) or in virtual cockpit, whether you are using TrackIR or not. It is just simply a toggle of the "I" key. If you have the target cone cone toggled "on" and it's not appearing, it is because you have no target designated (eg the designated target you selected earlier has plummeted to the ground, and is destroyed, so the cone "turns off"). You'll also notice it changes colour from red to green (I think this indicates whether the target is above or below you, I'm not sure). Print out Homeboy's Command Key Guide and go for a jolly jaunt on your side of the lines and work out your views and what toggles them on and off etc, then enlist a Joe Bloggs pilot in quick combat against a single rookie opponent, with you having the altitude advantage, and mess around with targetting an enemy, turning labels on and off etc until it becomes second nature, work out which is most useful to you, then learn how to map them onto your joystick. Once you're totally used to it, you can begin to wean yourself off these "cheats". I personally don't think they are cheats. There were other advantages a pilot in WW1 had that we OFF pilots do not have (such as different coloured flak from either side, so you can tell by the colour of the flak whether that tiny dot up there is an enemy or not), flares fired from your flight leader etc...so really, I think they're ok to use, but if you want a much more realistic immersion, you can turn them off. I think I'd go (even more) blind by peering around looking for tiny dots, and constantly be wiping my monitor to check if that is an aircraft, or a bit of dust (or when I sneezed that time). I sill enjoy the sim, and don't think of it as cheating.

I find it easier if and when I enter combat to just grab a post-it note for my fellow flight members and "A" or "B" flight during the pre-flight briefing instead of writing the same names down for each flight, and then to grab "Fokker Dr.1", another for "3", and another for the squadron they are flying for and stick them in the "active" part of the cupboard. It makes it much easier to fill in a claim form if and when you are presented with one. Basically, the only other thing you need is your location, and you can obtain that by hitting "Z" and writing down the lat and long, or looking on your map, and writing down "10 miles SW of Ypres" etc.

DukeIronHand, Hope I can answer your questions satisfactorily. If I can't, I'm sure others will be able to elaborate better. I forgot to mention that you should assign a key command and/or Joystick button to "Virtual Cockpit". If you enlist a Joe Bloggs pilot and take him to Quick Combat, sitting on the field. Hit Escape, and a drop down menu appears. Select "Controls" and another drop down menu appears. Scroll down to "Virtual Cockpit" and add the assignment "V". Save as "Mine" (without the quotation marks and with the default file extension). Now pressing "V" will take you to the Virtual Cockpit, a very useful view in combat. Now, to your questions...The "Toggle Views" controls goes through the views you are using...Virtual Cockpit, designated target view etc. This one isn't good for combat because it is a toggle of SEVERAL views, and you mostly want to switch between two views only...a general view (virtual cockpit or TrackIR and over the gunsight "Ima kill this bastard" view). "Target View" is a little more complex. Let's basically describe a scenario... You're chugging along, looking at the scenery, with your TAC on 8 mile range. A couple of target blips appear. (White because of their excessive range). As they get closer, you see both blips turn red (signifying enemy), and they seem to get bigger (because there's more than one in that group). Determine which is more likely to be the biggest threat to you (you should have been carefully watching as you approach). Say for instance it seems as if you're trailling the group at your 11 o'clock, and catching up reasonably fast...most likely two-seaters or heavies. Say also that the group on your 3 o'clock WAS travelling in the opposite direction to you, but has apparently turned in towards you. They are likely to be your most threatening. Keeping your eyes on your TAC (because these guys are still 4 or so miles away), toggle your "Next Target" key or button until the yellow blip signifying your designated target is one of the aircraft on that group. Then hit "Target View". The view will show you a close up of this aircraft with your aircraft in the centre of the screen some distance away, and not visible. Check out a few things here...is this aircraft a scout (and what kind...can he outmanoeuvre you or you him? Is he faster than you, or are you the faster? Is he higher than you (this should become evident in this view) Is he headed towards you or does he apparently not see you (or ignoring you as he has an important mission to fulfill). Got all that? Good. Now toggle "Next Target" again, keeping an eye on your TAC to ensure that the next target is still within that group on your 3 o'clock. Another scout, same type. Toggle "Next Target" again, again checking the aircraft is still in the 3 o'clock group. Eventually, the TAC will indicate that the designated target you have selected is in the group of aircraft at your 11 o'clock, and yep...he's a two seater. Toggle "Next Target" again and again, keeping your eyes on the TAC. You see he is one of three two seaters heading North like you. So far so good. Let's say the 11 o'clock group is closer than the 3 o'clock group of scouts. You decide to take one of the two-seaters out (which you can do well before the scout escort catches up to you). Quickly scribble down how many in this flight, type of aircraft (for your combat report). Toggle "Next Target" within this group, looking at "Target View" and ascertain which aircraft is the flight leader (you can tell because usually you can see the other aircraft in his group at this range). See which one is leading the group. Toggle "Next Target" until you've selected one of his wingmen. Now you're ready to attack. Have a look around to see that the scout escort is far enough away to perform an attack. Let's get YOUR wingmen into the action. I have assumed you are flight leader in all this, or it's all academic. Your flight leader MAY decide to attack either group or evade both. They should be close enough now to identify them with your "Labels". Scribble down their squadron (again for your combat report). Note your location (either with the in-flight map or hit "Z" to toggle info, pause and write down your lat and long and the time). If you are the leader, you hit "A" and tell your wingmen to attack the wingman two-seater. As they move in, settle behind and under the flight leader. When your wingmen start blazing away, your flight leader's gunner should open fire on your wingmen to protect his wingman. Give him a good long burst and take him out. When it's obvious he's in flames or dropped out of formation, hit "Next Target" again until you have selected your next target in that formation. Whether successful or not, the fighter escort will be close now. Tell your wingmen to return to formation. Select "Next Target", keeping your eyes on your TAC until you're on the scout group. Again note their numbers, squadron, location and time before the attack. Using the same method described above, select the flight leader's wingman, and order your wingmen to attack him. Now you can concentrate on attacking the flight leader. Once an aircraft is no longer a threat (beacuse he's on fire, or dropped out of formation etc, select next target within that group and concentrate on him. If you get eyes on him, and hes some distance away, you may have time to select another target within that group, assign your wingmen to attack him, then get back to your designated target. "Player/Target view" is a toggle, and if you select it, you will see the target in the centre foreground of your screen with you in the centre background (or invisible if you're far enough away). If you toggle "Player/Target View" again, you will have your aircraft in the centre fopreground, with your designated target in the centre background. Whew! Sorry for the long-winded reply. That's essentially how I might carry out an attack. I think it fair to "Cheat" a bit, and you may want (at first) to pause your sim whilst you perform all this toggling of "Next Target" etc, especially if there are many groups around, but after a while, you'll be able to perform a quick sweep of all enemy on your TAC and have ascertained which is the most threatening, which you will target first, how many in each group, which is at a higher altitude, which is at a lower, which is the flight leader...all within a few seconds, and you won't need to pause anymore. I keep a lot of post it notes stuck on the cupboard which forms part of my cockpit. The left cupboard door contains post-it notes of my squadron mates. In the briefing room, I remove those that are in my flight and place them in a taped-off area for "A" flight, the accompanying flight in the taped-off area for "B" flight (so that these guys can witness my claims etc). On the right cupboard, I keep some prepared post-it notes such as "Albatros C.I", "Fokker Dr.1", and "Jasta 1", "Jasta 27" etc. When I enter into combat, I simply take a post-it note "Fokker Dr.1", another "4", and "Jasta 27", maybe anoth one with an ace opponent's name on it, and stick them in my target taped-off area (for my combat report...so all I have to remember is the location...and I pause and look at the map, so I can quickly ascertain my escape route back to my side of the lines, and an approximation of the location of the combat). Long-winded...sure, but I hope this gives you a couple of good ideas that will improve your situational awareness, and answer your questions about the functions of a few of these commands. Print out Homeboy's Command Key guide to use as a guide, and to know what commands to assign to your joystick buttons... http://snomhf.exofir...commandkeys.jpg Sadly...Homeboy "went West" some time ago. We here at the squadron are all hoping he is convalescing in some pretty French maid's care until he can rejoin us. One more thing...beg, borrow, busk on a street corner, sell a kidney...WHATEVER you have to do to get the bucks...save up and get TrackIR. You will NEVER regret it, and will be amazed at how much easier it is to keep track of your enemy, and improve your SA twenty-fold. You will be astonished that you had ever gotten a victory without it. Hope all that waffle helps, and you don't get lost or fall asleep during the explanation.

DukeIronHand, What you need to ask yourself is "What commands are MOST USEFUL to me in combat?" and "Which of these commands are NOT ACCESSIBLE to me during combat (because I have to take my eyes off my enemy to utilise them)?" These keys are the ones you need to map onto your joystick. (BTW, what Joystick do you use? Perhaps others that have that kind of Joystick will share their profile with you here). I have a Saitek X-52 Joystick, and use these keys... Some of these commands do in fact emulate TrackIR commands (and you said you don't need/want those, so I apologise, but if you have this type of joystick you can assign those keys to something else) and not all of the commands are shown (as the less important ones towards the end need to be scrolled down, and you can't do that in the provided photo, plus the key commands for the seperate throttle aren't shown). But these are the key commands that I use on my Saitek X-52, and are carefully thought out as to the questions above "What is most useful" and "What are not accessible" to me in combat. Now, other commands, such as fuel mixture cut-off (Ctrl+Shift+F8) is a very complex command with pressing three keys at once, but this is only used on landing, and (in theory at least) is performed when you have touched down and can afford to take your eyes off the screen momentarily. I do have this command mapped to my throttle, but I have many programmable buttons on both joystick and throttle (I also have 18 programmable keys on my keyboard, so I am very lucky). So, that's it...You need to understand what is VITAL to you in combat, and what you NEED to program onto your joystick. Next you need to put them into a priority list. Which of these necessary commands is the MOST necessary, and then allocate buttons that are most accessible or most intuitive or user-friendly (ie views to hat switches, weapons to triggers etc). I hope that helps you try to work out what to do. If not, tell us what type of joystick you use, and maybe a forum friend who has a profile can post it for you. The padlock command is dangerous, and it's easy to lose situational awareness and suffer CFIT (Controlled Flight Into Terrain). Zoom your TAC to maximum, so it only displays aircraft within the 2 mile radius (obviously these are the most dangerous to you) keep one eye on this when you have a brief moment. Try to identify those that MAY soon be in a position to fire at you (whether they are on your tail or not). Try to develop your situational awareness. If an enemy conducts a head-on pass at you, try to develop an internal clock that will alert you when he will become a danger. "If I continue on in a straight line after this enemy has passed me head-on, how many seconds will it take for him to perform a tight circle, and hence be approaching me from my Six o'clock? If he performs a right hand bank to get on my tail, can I get on HIS tail quicker by performing the same manoeuvre with my Camel's (or Dr.1, or D.VII etc) flight characteristics?" etc. Practice this in Quick Combat using a Joe Bloggs pilot.

Touche! Score...UK_Widowmaker - 1 Everyone else - 0

Many Christmas parties in the bars and restaurants I'm tasked to look after, lots of deliveries, with trucks, vans, musicians, even a mobile photo booth! Three incident reports, burning footage to three CD's. Five hours into my 8 hour shift before I get to relax a bit, and I log onto CombatAce and saw this. Thanks UK Widowmaker. Made me laugh when I really needed it!

Umm.. Shouldn't patriotic Dr.1's be trailing black, red, and yellow smoke?

Try assigning "Virtual Cockpit" first. Enlist a random pilot (one who you don't care if you mess things up and he dies), go to "Quick Combat", your aircraft sitting on the field. Hit "Escape" and the drop down menu gives you options. Choose "Controls", scroll down until you find that "Virtual Cockpit" is unassigned. OK. Choose an unused key...try "V"...assign that key command to emulate "Virtual Cockpit". Now try mapping that key command to your joystick. A good trick is to also assign that same button for Virtual Cockpit to F9. F9 on TrackIR "centres" your head, giving you a forward view. So in that way, when you select that button on your joystick, it transports you to "Virtual Cockpit" and also centres your head at the same time. Hope that helps you out. I can't think what command might return your cockpit back to you, but this might work.

HumanDrone, You are able to have more than two pilots in your roster, and so will be able to enlist a pilot for yourself, (for instance) flying Sopwith Triplanes with Naval 8 Squadron based at XXXXX base during the month of xxxx, 19xx, and your brother-in-law may choose to fly as a German pilot with a different aircraft, squadron, place and time. Then you could take it in turns if you like, he can fly a mission until he gets shot down, or until he returns to his aerodrome, then you go to the pilot's menu, and switch over to your chap. Or, as suggested, you can both fly in the same two-seater, one as pilot, one as observer/gunner. Please note, as already mentioned, you will not both be able to have control of your respective stations at the same time. The pilot can have control until enemies appear behind you. Then you can switch the piloting duties to the Artificial Intelligence and the gunner can then take control of the rear-facing gun to protect you. When the danger is over, the pilot can take control again. Another thing to note..."spraying ammunition" all about the place is not the way things work here, as you'll soon learn. Due to the very limited power of these aircraft, a minimal amount of ammunition was carried. If you get into a scrap, and you have no more ammunition, it is a VERY long flight home, swerving, banking, and avoiding the enemy pursuers. Even if you're "scrambling"...fighting above your own airfield, you must discipline yourself in your gun usage, as whilst in the case of a scramble, ammunition may or may not be an issue, but GUN JAMS are a real issue. Vickers, Lewis, and Spandau guns all suffered from jams, and this sim will force you to limit yourself to two or three second bursts at the most. Any longer, and you'll both run out of ammunition AND jam your gun. Of course, you can select "unlimited ammunition" and "no gun jams" in the workshop, but I guess as you get better and better (as you will), you will probably willingly set limitations for yourself, and this will be one of the first things you will attempt at "full" realism. (On any given mission, you can also choose to take less ammunition if you wish to challenge yourself, or to save weight). You will struggle at first. We all did (some still do). These planes aren't "easy" to fly (for the most part), as they are slow, underpowered, cumbersome, not very aerodynamically sound etc. You will need more rudder input than what you have been used to (if you've been flying WW2 planes), and it will be difficult to prevent these aircraft from stalling and spinning. Patience is required. Become a "stalker/hunter", take your time to gain altitude, and a more advantageous position. Do not feel you must attack if you are outnumbered or outgunned. We have ALL "snuck home". You're going to love this Tom. Take your time to learn to fly the aircraft, see if you can find "Boelcke's Dicta" (the rules for fighting in WW1 - try googling it) and try to remember them. They will help you stay alive. And the longer you can stay alive, the more immersed you will feel. Good Luck.

HumanDrone, Over Flanders' Fields: Between Heaven and Hell is an "adaptation" of MS CFS3. Whilst it is not an "add-on", CFS3 disc is required to play OFF:BHaH, as the simulator uses the CFS3 engine. Please do not be turned off by some less than enthusiastic reviews of CFS3, as the game developers from OBD Software have performed a magical transformation, converting a less then satisfactory simulator into an immersion par excellence. You can purchase OFF from http://www.overflandersfields.com/info.htm It can take between 5 and 10 days to the USA, depending upon whether there is snow or sleet or all that other stuff in your postal worker's creed. It took 6 days to reach me in Australia. If you buy OFF for your brother-in-law, you should make sure he also has a copy of MS CFS3, as that disc is required to be in the computer drive to play the sim (unless he is lucky enough to have the DVD version of CFS3, in which case, OFF can be played without a disc in the drive). Check out the link I gave you for the requirements of his computer. OFF has fairly heavy demands on computing power, but its worth it. You may think about buying OFF for yourself, as once you see it up and running on your brother-in-law's machine, you will drool on his carpet, and curse yourself for giving it to him, run home and order one for yourself. While you're waiting for it to arrive, download the latest updates from the link, and read all the "stickies" here to get a good idea of how to tweak OFF to suit you perfectly. Strap yourself in, you're in for one hell of a ride.

Indeed, if the weather is too bad, the meteorological officer tells you that there will be no flying today. You could make for clear weather in your workshop and cancel flights on random days is another ploy. But it appears you made your own bed, and now must sleep in it. If you ALWAYS start a new pilot just before Bloody April, there will always be atrocious weather, and very heavy enemy activity. I think I'll apply for a transfer, Sir. I DO admire that you don't shun that period if possible, nor begin careers long before it, to get used to the aircraft, rack up a few kills and a couple of medals perhaps. Well done!

During great floods such as Noah endured, being aloft doesn't seem to be any problem at all. No land to ...err...LAND on could be a concern though. Anyone got any floaties? Seriously. You can adjust weather conditions in the workshop. Make it nice and sunny all the time. Blue Skies.

I purchased a magazine today, and was saddened to read this... Gunther Rall 1918-2009 Generalleutnant Gunther Rall, the third highest-scoring fighter pilot of all time with 275 victories, died at the age of 91 on October 4, two days after suffering a heart attack at his home in Germany. Rall joined the German Army in 1936, but after transfer to the Luftwaffe he qualified as a pilot in 1938. Posted to JG52 as a Leutnant flying the Messerschmitt Bf 109E, he gained his first victory on May 12, 1940, when he shot down a French Air Force Curtiss Hawk 75A. During the Battle of Britain with JG52 he scored no more victories, and in the spring of 1941 he flew in the Balkans Campaign. During Operation Barbarossa Rall began to amass victories. In 1942 he was awarded the Knight's Cross, and in November he reached the 100-victory milestone. His most destructive month was October 1943, when he accounted for 40 aircraft. He flew a total of 621 combat missions, and survived being shot down no fewer than eight times. In 1956 Rall rejoined the Luftwaffe, and was closely involved with the introduction of the Lockheed F-104 into service. He retired in October 1975 after spending 18 months as a NATO military attache. RIP Gunther. Blue Skies. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125548213064683963.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/military-obituaries/air-force-obituaries/6299837/Generalleutnant-Gnther-Rall.html

Welcome back, Barkhorn1x

My pleasure. And yes, that's what I did. I searched through the "stickies" and found some good stuff that I might try out at home, and printed them out (some you might have to cut and paste the relevant bits 'cos there's all sorts of Off Topic comments in between the good stuff). So you got it right. Look through the stickies, see what other people's concerns are, find some good ideas etc, print them out. I got a folder full, but that's at home. If you can't find anything, or don't know anything, the helpful gents here will be happy to give you a hand. Just ask.