Check Six

Respect indeed itifonhom...but you neglected to highlight he did this AFTER he had been wounded FIVE times! And he did this so his observer, who had been wounded SIX times could continue firing on the enemy!!!!! I suspect I would have gone home. As you say...that pair weren't going top die that day.

I saw a thread started by Dirk (dirk98?) about requiring more detailed maps so he could navigate by map and looking over the side, but he was a bit disappointed that the OFF maps weren't accurate enough or had aerodromes missing or some such thing. Rabu replied that he had supplied some good quality WW1 maps, but dirk was again disappointed in the fact there were no aerodromes on them. OK. Here is the answer. It's called "Project Aerodromes". (OK I knew I had it at home, but didn't want to mention anything until I had located it). A 40 page document (about 30 maps, pretty accurate in identifying aerodromes only) that gives a master map, larger detailed maps, and confirmed and suspected aerodrome positions for the four years of WW1. (suspected because, for instance, an aerodrome might be located half way between two towns, and some may refer to it as "town x aerodrome" and others "town Y aerodrome"...it's all explained on the opening couple of pages his methodology). Olham stated that Dej was looking at locating aerodromes as a long-term project but was unsure how far he had got. Devs...Dej...drop me a private message if you think you'd like more detail.

Copied withoput alteration from the London Gazette Third Supplement, Tuesday 30th April 1918: Victoria Cross Citations: "Lt Alan Jerrard, Royal Air Force (formerly of the South Staffordshire Regiment). When on an offensive patrol with two other officers he attacked five enemy aeroplanes and shot one down in flames, following it down to within one hundred feet of the ground. He then attacked an enemy aerodrome from a height of only fifty feet from the ground, and, engaging single-handed some nineteen machines, which were either landing or attempting to take off, succeeded in destroying one of them, which crashed on the aerodrome. A large number of machines then attacked him, and whilst thus fully occupied he observed that one of the pilots of his patrol was in difficulties. He went immediately to his assistance, regardless of his own personal safety, and destroyed a third enemy machine. Fresh enemy aeroplanes continued to rise from the aerodrome, which he attacked one after another, and only retreated, still engaged with five enemy machines, when ordered to do so by his patrol leader. Although apparently wounded, this very gallant officer turned repeatedly, and attacked single-handed the pursuing machines, until he was eventually overwhelmed by numbers and driven to the ground. Lt Jerrard had greatly distinguished himself on four previous occasions, within a period of twenty-three days, in destroying enemy machines, displaying bravery and ability of the very highest order." Eat your heart out Billy Bishop! What about THIS one... "2nd Lieutenant Alan Arnett McLeod, Royal Air Force. Whilst flying with his observer (Lt. A. W. Hammond, M.C.), attacking hostile formations by bombs and machine-gun fire, he was assailed at a height of 5,000 feet by eight enemy triplanes, which dived at him from all directions, firing from their front guns. By skilful manoeuvring he enabled his observer to fire bursts at each machine in turn, shooting three of them down out of control. By this time, Lt. McLeod had received five wounds, and whilst continuing the engagement a bullet penetrated his petrol tank and set the machine on fire. He then climbed out onto the left bottom plane, controlling his machine from the side of the fuselage, and by side-slipping steeply kept the flames to one side, thus enabling the observer to continue firing until the ground was reached. The observer had been wounded six times when the machine crashed in "No Man's Land", and 2nd Lt McLeod, notwithstanding his own wounds, dragged him away from the burning wreckage at great personal risk from heavy machine-gun fire from the enemy's lines. This very gallant pilot was again wounded by a bomb whilst engaged in this act of rescue, but he persevered until he had placed Lt. Hammond in comparative safety, before falling himself from exhaustion and loss of blood." Astounding courage and doggedness. I dare say both those chaps deserved their awards.

"The 2nd cause for concern was the emergency exits. These were in the cabin roof and consisted of circular holes in the plywood decking, over which was just a sheet of canvas. The inside perimeter of this canvas was marked with a dotted line that said "Cut here for emergency exit." Unfortunately, nobody's allowed to carry knives on planes these days....." I reckon if you were going down, and had the time to do anything other than cross yourself and say "Oh, how terribly unfortunate!" or words to that effect...well, I reckon you'd BITE a hole outta that sucker. But...did they supply parachutes? You might just sit there and admire the scenery till you Controlled Flight Into Terrain.

If you wish to post shots here, you don't have to go through Fraps. Simply take a screenshot using the command CTRL+; Sorry I can't recall WHERE it stores the screenshots, as I have too many scattered around my hard drive. Perhaps some other user can show you where.

Congratulations, Olham. Certainly a well deserved award. I'm sure you felt the same sense of pride that recipients of a PLM felt back in WW1.

I LOVE reading the citations for medals awarded for extraordinary acts of bravery in the face of the enemy. Some are just so amazing. Most are very humbling to know that such people exist. Here is the citation for the award of the Victoria Cross to Frank McNamara, the only Australian recipient of the VC of the air services in WW1 (many believed both R A Little and R S Dallas to have deserved to be awarded the VC, but it was a "political thing" that prevented their award). Awarded Victoria Cross for "most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty during an aerial bomb attack upon a hostile construction train, when one of our pilots was forced to land behind the enemy's lines. Lieutenant McNamara, observing the pilots predicament and the fact that hostile cavalry were approaching, descended to his rescue. He did this under heavy rifle fire and in spite of the fact that he himself had been severely wounded in the thigh. He landed about 200 yards from the damaged machine, the pilot of which climbed on to Lieutenant McNamara's machine, and an attempt was made to rise. Owing, however, to his disabled leg, Lieutenant McNamara was unable to keep his machine straight, and it turned over. The two officers, having extricated themselves, immediately set fire to the machine and made their way across to the damaged machine, which they succeeded in starting. Finally, Lieutenant McNamara, although weak from loss of blood. flew this machine back to the aerodrome, a distance of seventy miles, and thus completed his comrade's rescue."

rjw, To confirm your assertation that all is well with yout rudder pedals, and it is only the flight model limitations of the Dr.1 that mean you can't do a flat turn... Try quick combat, select a very stable mount such as the Sopwith 1 1/2 strutter, and take her up for a free flight. YOu should be able to get her facing North for example, straight and level. Remove your hands from the joystick, and apply full right or left rudder, and she should yaw around to face South (eventually). You might need to trim her a little to get her to fly level...Sopwiths like to climb.

Stiffy, Save up your bucks, do a lot of overtime,, busk, sell a kidney... Whatever you need to do.... Get TrackIR mate. An absolute ESSENTIAL to combat.

I am guilty of using the term "Hun" here, but I have never used it in a derogatory sense, and trust our German pilots have not taken offense at its use. I am a firm believer that "they" (be they German, Austrian, Hungarian, Turkish, Japanese) are simply the enemy. They are human beings, much like us, only doing a grim job because of their view that they are protecting their homeland or way of life, some because they were conscripted, others willingly. Some thought of it as a "great adventure" and a cheap way to see the world. Hell, it'll be over by Christmas anyway. Better get in quick before it's over. I am researching a book on Australians who fought in the Great War with the RNAS, and my co-author had a great-uncle who died whilst a Turkish prisoner on the forced march after the capture of Kut. He doesnt know if he was mis-treated, beaten, or died of natural causes, was shot or whatever. To this day, he harbours hatred for Turks. I personally look at Mustaf Kemal Ataturk who said in a speech to all mothers of foreign soldiers something along the lines that "your sons are buried in our soil, and so now they are OUR sons too" and promising to look after them. I sympathise with Bullethead and his fellow southerners being called yanks. That is simply ignorance on the part of those that refer to all Americans as Yank, and he is SPOT ON with his comparision with calling a Scot an Englishman. itifonhom was also SPOT ON when he mentioned that this sort of "name calling" or "labelling" was only necessary when opne feared the enemy or their capabilities. If you were stronger...MUCH stronger than them...you didn't call them names or spread propaganda...you crushed them swiftly. Many of these "nicknames" for other nationalities are bandied about light-heartedly with no offence meant, but in truth, their names are generally derived from times when there WAS a "hatred" or at least much ill-feelings between the two countries. UK_widowmaker was correct in bringing it up. The fact he brought it up to try to find out if the term WAS hurtful to our German friends shows how much respect he has for the German forum users here. And all the nice comments from Germans, Americans, And other nationalities here proves just what a GREAT community we all have here. Thanks to everyone.

I use Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals with a Saitek X52 flight controller, and the only "modification" I had to perform was to remove the "toe brake" function. I can perform flat yaw turns. If you DID just add them by plugging them in, perhaps you do need to install the software. Perhaps it is the joystick... Did you remove the "toe brake" function of the rudder pedals? They do have an aileron "connection" and need to be disabled. Start in Quick Combat with a rear view of your aircraft and without starting your engine, operate your rudders and APPLY YOUR TOE BRAKES. Observe movement of your rudder, elevators and ailerons. Does operating your toe brake cause ailerons and elevator to operate? I think that might be your problem. Pause > drop down menu > Controls > then select the drop down menu under Saitek x-52 FCS joystick. That gives you the Saitek rudder pedals control system. Then, to make it easier, select the "control surfaces" drop down menu...that limits the number of choices available. You'll see there's a choice "x axis", a "y axis", and (I think) "rudder axis". You delete the x axis and the y axis and then save that profile as "Mine" and voila! No toe brake function. (BTW you don't need toe brakes in this sim. There are no brakes on WW1 aircraft. You have to cut your engine off).

"Based on the single piece value of just the Hohenzollern, the St. Henry & the Ernestine, the rpice is pretty good at $3,500.00 Of course that assumes they are all original with enamel intact, but the Hohenzollern and St. Hnry Alone almost add up to $3K from whet I have seen of recent prices."

A regular at the Aerodrome put together this replica of MvR's Ordenkissen some time ago.

How would painting your balls red help you to play golf in the snow?? oh... wait... i get it!

Lou, Forgive the unfortunate juxtaposition of "the attachments don't work". I tried unsuccessfully to post pics of shredward's bookcases and mine but it didn't work. I didn't try to download and/or unzip your link as I'm at work. I'll do that later when I'm at home.

I don't know how much it helps, but I like to add "COMPLETELY DESTROYED" to my claims.

Welcome to the skies Over Flanders Fields. Check your Six. That Olham is a crafty bugger. And deadly. Nice guy and all but...

Wow Lou, Thanks for that. Your bookshelves rival Shredwards, and leave mine for dead. Hmm...attachments didn't work. Anyway, remember this thread "What does your cockpit look like?" http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=44255&hl=office&st=80

At only $100, why not get three? Wonder if the serial number will be on all three pieces? Gee I HOPE so!

Well, if you can afford that, you might want this to accompany it. It is not anywhere marked as original cloth, but it COULD BE (cough)(Cough) (COUGH) http://cgi.ebay.com/...id=p3286.c0.m14 Whilst the medals are obviously not be touted as those awarded to MvR, they ARE WW1 original issue. This piece of cloth is obviously attempting to snare some FOOL into thinking they have an original piece of fabric from 425/17. (Or IS IT ? COUGH!!!) PS...just as an aside, some years ago whilst I was researching in the Australian War Memorial's great reading room, I happened to come across the personal photo album of an Aussie pilot of WW1. (Lt George Pickering, 3 Sqn AFC) (http://cas.awm.gov.au/privaterecord/3DRL/3134) Some great pics there, turned the page, here's a few newspaper clippings of MvR's funeral and an arrow pointing down to one of the pallbearers simply captioned "ME". Looking up, there was a piece of blood red doped linen fabric just lying loose in the album. NO! Can't be! Yes, it can, and was. I got a hold of "my contact" down there and told him of the find. Subsequent checks proved this to be a piece of fabric from 425/17, identical in every way with fabric they have STORED (not displayed!). It's still there, in that album, but now secured to the page and covered with a thin plastic film.

Stiffy, Got mine here in Australia in 6 days.

Maxtor TripleHead2Go is what you need to run three monitors. Review here. http://widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/Matrox_TripleHead2Go_(Featured_Review) When you get your three screens working, take a photo of your cockpit with a good screenshot for us OK?

Please read this thread in "General Discussion" http://forum.combatace.com/index.php?showtopic=47752&st=0

Ernst was indeed a superb pilot. I've seen this footage before, and some others, and I have been amazed as you were.

OK. Going to add some more favourites to my internet explorer. Thanks Lou.