Stiffy

Cool, alot of classic car restorers... sadly I cant afford to run one anymore. My first Car at 17 was a 1957 Rover '60' Saloon (sedan to americans). I ran it for 10 years....except of course when it wasnt running. Then replaced it with a 93 Jaguar XJ6... until I couldnt afford that, now stuck in a very dull peugeot 206. As for hobbies..... British dark age history WW1 history Napoleonic History Compuer gaming Art (quit my job and gone back to university studying Illustration) Wargaming Roleplaying games Live Roleplay (no... nothing like the wierd and terrifying thing you call LRP in the US! Over here its more like reenactment and doesnt involve many teenagers).. in the process of planning a ww2 event in fact. DIY (when pestered by fiance sufficiently) I play piano and sing at open mic nights (mainly blues) Oh and of course as an Englishman I binge drink at least once a week! But over the last couple of weeks I mainly just play OFF... youve ruined my life!... oh well back to the airfield...

Found this on youtube, some nice info and aircraft. Its in several parts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmu-UdAAKdY&feature=related

So ive installed the multiplayer patch program and backed up as offline, backed up as onnline. I start multiplayer.... and it crashes. Just after the loading screen. Right clicking cfs3mp and running as administrator has the same effect. What am I doing wrong?

When do you guys play? looking for my first MP session!

Thanks Sitting_duck it was the compatibility! Now.... when is there a game on?

odd that it should crash only the multiplayer. single player works fine... dont forget I'm running a dual core, far better than a single core 2ghz... Dont think there was much as good as even my dual core back in 2002

Recieved my 1918 Distinguished Flying Cross today. Unusual to see how shiny they are new!... I'll get a decent patina on it eventually.

I'd love to join you guys but unfortunately I cant get MP working, followed all the instructions but just crashes when I try to start it!

No sorry, not yet! did you find a solution for your problem?

What nationality of pilot? One standard with all is that you wear your officers uniform at all times, even when flying... so if you are wearing your leathers open, there had better be a full RFC uniform underneath! RFC uniform consists of officers tunic, riding britches, khaki shirt and tie. British ww1 flight gear tended to consist of a long brown leather coat, leather flying helmet (make sure it doesnt have radio ear pieces!), goggles, fur lined boots, fur lined gloves. And of course a white silk scarf! The scarf had two functions, firstly it was kept long to use as a cloth to wipe oil from goggles. Secondly it was made of silk to reduce chafing around the neck; a pilot was constantly turning his head to look out for enemy craft so the silk acted as a buffer between the neck and the sheepskin collar. Here is a picture of some original flight gear http://www.awm.gov.au/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/e02661_2-small.JPG

Anyone know wher I can get hold af a cheap track IR? Maybe a 3? Not available on Ebay UK but maybe someone knows where to get hold of one in the US? Ebay US is no good as anyone willing to ship to UK would show up on Ebay UK.

September 1917 The Gotha obsession continues! And the Yanks are coming!!

Finally got a pilot to survive long enough to get a medal! Just recieved my first DFC for shooting my 7th German plane down. Getting the hang of the DH2 now... if its not all over by Christmas maybe I'll get a nieuport 16.... One thing is odd though... Ive recieved the Distinguished Flying Cross in September 1916... It didnt exist until April 1918... not that I'm complaining! Now to find one on ebay...

Thanks... but I already found an early type on ebay. Likely that they are easier to come by on ebay.co.uk than on ebay.com Theres another one there at the moment if anyone is interested! replica i mean... not a real one!

Apologies for the lapse in news! Someone foolishly sent me OFF to take up all my time. Scanning some more stuff this evening.

Truly amazing landing in this post war footage of Ernst Udet. Can anyone duplicate this in OFF?... i know i couldnt!

Just something I've noticed while trying to play 1916 campaign in DH2s... In a fair fight of 3 Fokker EIIs vs 3 DH2s the fokkers always win, and I mean in seconds. This isnt right... DH2 was a superior aircraft so why the imbalance? Germany should have strong numbers but poorer aircraft at this time... until the Albatross appears of course. Note I'm not reffering to my skill, talking AI vs AI. DH2 took a major role ending the fokker scourge and stayed in service for a very long time due to it's merits... is it just pure chance that this keeps happening or are the flight models way out in comparison? Would be interested to hear if people playing EIIIs are finding DH2s too easy to kill... Heres a nice quote from the time! :) "... the de Havilland machine has unquestionably proved itself superior to the Fokker in speed, manoeuverability, climbing and general fighting efficiency." Sir Henry Rawlinson, 23 May 1916

You know I think you should spend some money on this site... that way you can really show it off! http://www.schipperfabrik.com/ger_uniforms.html or is that taking OFF too far?

Ok I'll try some others... I have to say that through this thread I am starting to learn just how amazingly impressive the amount of factors effecting AI are! Not just pilot skill but also moral... its sometimes hard to believe that it is CFS3 hidden beneath all this.... why havent microsoft offered you all jobs! perhaps they are embarrased that you can do the job better than they can lol

My god yes the First few years of the RFC where a joke! When it was founded in 1912 it had just 11 pilots compared to Frances 263! And by May 1915 the RFC had 166 planes... whereas France had 1,115! I think alot of this was due to the early passion the french had for aviation spurred on by people like Bleriot... somewhere I have some prints of French pre-war air race posters... As for the DH2... It is a nice plane but wouldnt say my all time favourite, just the best option for me for 1916 flying ( I like early war stuff!) so keen to make sure it flies right (although i suspect the problem may be the EIII more than the DH2). I also have a soft spot for the Eindekker but know its limits, love the primitive technology of it... wouldnt look out of place in a 1909 air race. I think the real star of the show around this period was the nie16 and after that the 17, fantastic planes! Far more advanced than anything else about. Just a thought... wouldnt it be nice if the earliest Eindekkers in OFF had something to simulate deflector gear instead of interruptor? would be nice to seee the odd blade fly off followed by the craft shaking itself apart! And perhaps the odd bullet firing off to the side?... or into the pilot!

Now that is pretty :)

And of course this one from ww1 online... note - inferior to morrane saulnier! Please note I'm smiling while writing this! often the lack of expression and tone of voice can make a post seem confrontational when in fact its only meant as friendly banter... I meerly enjoy a good debate on crates! "In spite of its innovative use of deflector gear the German Eindecker was in many ways an unexceptional aircraft.In April of 1916 a captured Eindecker was tested by the Allies, and found to be inferior in performance to its Morane-Saulnier opposite number. The interrupter gear was also far from perfect - both Boelcke and Immelmann survived shooting off their own propeller. The impact of the interrupter-gear Eindecker, however, was enormous. The heretofore appreciated stability of the Allied aircraft became a liability as they could not escape the more manoeuvrable Eindecker. The French were forced to curtail their successful day bombing operations and turn to night bombing. The RFC began to suffer losses approaching two a day. The great German offensive against Verdun began in early 1916. In accordance with the German plan to bleed the French army dry, Falkenhayn determined to use their control of the air to do the same thing to the Armee de l'Air, and to blind the French artillery by shooting their observer aircraft out of the skies. Boelcke, who had done much to develop the tactics of aerial warfare, was moved to Rethel, nearer to Verdun, to command a new Kampfeinsitzerkommando - a single seater detachment. Immelmann remained in command at Douia. For the opening six months of 1916 the Germans maintained control of the air. It was wrested from their grasp, but slowly. By the opening of the Battle of the Somme in July, the Eindecker was obsolete. Boelcke was to refer to July and August of 1916 as "the blackest days in the history of German military aviation." The Eindecker, ironically, was unseated by aircraft already available before Fokker's invention of the interrupter gear, and none of them ever had interrupter gear installed. It was the combination of four types of aircraft that defeated the Eindecker. Three of them were British, and they were all pusher aircraft - the Gun Bus, the FE2b, and the DH2. The fourth was the altogether far more impressive French Nieuport 11 "Bebe" (Baby). This was a tractor sesquiplane (a biplane, but with the lower wing significantly smaller than the upper wing.) Its armament consisted of a Hotchkiss or Lewis gun mounted on the upper wing, much in the same configuration as that tried out by Louis Strange, but on a sliding mount allowing the pilot to pull the machine gun down towards him. This was intended to allow the pilot to shoot upwards at an angle, in addition to removing the need to stand when reloading or servicing the weapon. The French officially adopted the "ace" system during the battle of Verdun. Many of these pilots were concentrated in a famous squadron, the Cigognes (Storks), and the aces Navarre, Nungesser and Guynemer, all flying Nieuports, became household names. It was not just the aircraft themselves that returned control of the air to the Allies. It was only during 1916 that these aircraft appeared at the front in significant numbers and that they were organized into fighter units. The Allies, with the French taking the lead, learned the value of flying in defensive formations of four to five aircraft, matching the three to four plane offensive patrols of the Germans. If the Fokker Scourge was symbolically opened by Boelcke's first victory, it was symbolically closed when Max Immelmann was killed during a fight with an FE2b on June 18th 1916. Whether he was shot down, as claimed by the Allies, or shot away his own propeller, as claimed by the Germans, is still a matter of debate."

Found this one quite interesting as it mentions the DH2 being more maneuverable than an albatross d2 although it suffered from being slower. " if asked "what was the first fighter?" would likely answer, "The Fokker Eindekker." They would be wrong. Some of the more knowledgeable might suggest the Morane-Saulnier, the first airplane to carry a machine gun aimed by aiming the airplane at the target. They would also be wrong. Both of these aircraft began their lives as single-seat unarmed monoplane scouts. That they later carried weapons and engaged in air combat was merely fortuitous. The first designed-for-the-purpose fighter airplane was Geoffrey deHavilland's D.H.2, design of which first began in March, 1915 - well before any Fokker Eindekker flew anywhere with a machinegun mounted on it. The prototype first flew at Hendon aerodrome June 1, 1915. This airplane was designed to carry a .303 Lewis gun mounted in its nose; at first - since no one knew how air combat would happen - it was a flexible mount, and remained so officially during the aircraft's period of service. Service pilots, however, quickly discovered that the secret was to aim the airplane, not the gun, and most D.H.2s flew with their weapon in a fixed position, albeit a "temporary fitting" should some hidebound air staff officer appear at the aerodrome. In an action that demonstrates how litle real thought was being given to the air war, the sole prototype was sent to France a month later, on July 6, 1915, to be used by 5 Squadron, RFC, based at the time at St. Omer. By the middle of the month, the airplane had been lost when Captain Robert Maxwell-Pike, OC 5 Squadron, was on a mission in the vicinity of Ypres, Belgium. In a fight with an Albatros 2-searter, he took a mortal wound to the head, but was able to land just east of Ypres, though the airplane somersaulted in the rough . Fortunately, the Germans - though they repaired the airplane - made no attempt at a detailed examination and thereby left it to their flyers over the next year to discover for themselves what the D.H.2 was capable of. As development continued, it was discovered that the Gnome Monosoupape rotary would shed its cylinders in flight, which led to the danger of thrown cylinders and engine parts severing the tail booms - a fatal event. The reputation for unrelaibility of the early engines was unmerited, since many had been re-bored in an effort to increase their power, thereby weakening the structure at a crucial point - the joining of cylinder to crankcase. New-build engines were installed in all the D.H.2s flown to France by 24 Squadron R.F.C. - the world-s first fighter squadron - in late 1915. Once in France, the D.H.2 was unpopular due to their limited speed range and their tendency to spin under the influence of the rotary engine once turned off. Since pilots still did not know the proper procedure for getting out of a spin - pushing the nose down was entirely counterintuitive - this led to numerous losses until that information became common in the summer of 1916. During the fighting over the Somme battlefield in the summer and early fall of 1916, the D.H.2 played a crucial role in ending the "Fokker scourge." The German fighter was not yet present in organized fighter squadrons, with 3-4 being distributed to each squadron operating two-seat observation aircraft, for the purpose of providing escort to the other airplanes in the unit. The German pilots found themselves outnumbered and outmaneuvered by the "massed" fighter formations (6-8 aircraft) from 24 Squadron and its later stablemate, 32 Squadron. Oswald Boelcke may have "written the book" about fighter tactics, but he learned them watching the operations of the D.H.2 squadrons, and it was the knowledge the British were operating them as squadrons that gave Boelcke the argument he needed to get the German command to authorize the formation of JagdStaffeln. Captain, later Major Lanoe Hawker, the popular commander of 24 Squadron, became the first British ace during the fighting over the Somme. He had won the DSC for an attack on a German Zeppelin shed earlier in 1915, and was awarded the V.C. that September for his actions in a Bristol Scout prior to joining 24 Squadron, in which he shot down several German aircraft that had attacked him while flying alone. His standing orders to his pilots were "attack everything." By November, 1916, his score stood at 7. Unfortunately, 24 Squadron was now opposed by a far better fighter, the Albatros D.II, flown by Boelcke's Jasta 2. The D.H.2 had a top speed of around 93 mph, and a single .303 Lewis gun, with five 47-round drums of ammunition. The Albatros had a top speed of 106 mph, and carried two Spandau machine guns with 200 rounds each. No matter that the D.H.2 was the more maneuverable, the Albatros pilot could enter or break off combat at will due to superior performance. On November 23, 1916, Hawker and his wingman engaged a flight of Albatros D.IIs. Hawker engaged one unsuccessfully, then was attacked in turn by an obscure member of Jasta 2, a former Uhlan named Manfred von Richtofen. Had the mounts of each pilot been reversed, there is no doubt of the outcome, as Hawker was by far the more experienced pilot, though von Richtofen had 10 kills to his credit at the time; this fight is a demonstration of the effect of superior technology. The battle eventually wound down to tree-top height as Hawker traded altitude for airspeed, trying desperately to regain his lines. Richtofen later said that of all the fights he entered, the battle with Hawker was the most difficult. The aircraft went round and round, with Hawker pulling tight enough onto von Richtofen's tail to pepper his Albatros several times. Finally, Hawker ran out of ammunition and had to run for it. This gave von Richtofen the opening he needed, and the speedy Albatros quickly caught up with the slower D.H.2. With the last of his ammunition, von Richtofen fired a burst that hit Hawker in the head, killing him outright He was von Richtofen's 11th victory, and marked the beginning of the Baron being considered a leading pilot by his comrades. Von Richtofen paid Hawker the ultimate compliment of making his Lewis gun the centerpiece of his collection of "memorabilia" from his victims, displaying the weapon over the door of his bedroom at home" also note that it only flat spins when the engine is off

Firstly I'd like to apologise if anyone has misread my comments as intending to be anything other than the friendly feedback they were intended to be. As I am new I have no idea what your procedure for bug reporting is. I merely wanted to point out the actually real history (that really happened) the DH2 was a far better machine... for what ever reason this has not been acurately represented in OFF. Nerfing it also seems a little disrespectful to the brave men of the RFC who flew these craft well against the fokker... yes I know the FE was more effective but the DH2 was still better, faster and more maneuverable than an obsolete wing warper from 1915! This is not conjecture lol this is solid 100% fact. Again absolutely no offence is meant to any developers a minor point compared to the amazing job you have done creating this sim. You have given me the opportunity to play the best sim I have ever seen! On the whole EIII vs DH2 matter... I would love to see any genuine evidence to support the notion of the Fokker being better... so far I can only find evidence to the contrary. Also dont forget that the EIII was designed to be an unarmed observation scout and was adapted to fighting wheras the DH2 was specifically designed for shooting down enemy aircraft.

Sorry to be picky lol but I have found one of the problems... you have completely the wrong rate of climb in your flight models! You have DH2 set at 320 feet per minute!!!! It had a climb rate of 545 feet per minute! no wonder it seems sluggish climbing in OFF. And you have EIII at 400 when it was only 328!... youve actually made the fokker a better climber lol LOL busted, I knew you guys had stacked in favour of the Fokker :) Sorry for being so annoying lol