Wayfarer

I recently started reading Solzhenitsyn's 'August 1914', which has just been republished in the UK. Having only a superficial knowledge of the Eastern fronts in WW1 I am quite engrossed in it. Like 'War and Peace' some characters are civilian and some are army personnel. It deals with both their personal and professional lives so it's not a purely a 'military' novel, especially in the first few chapters - you read, for example, why one girl really wants to go to ballet school instead of training to be an agronomist. Other characters, however, include general Samsonov and a young staff officer who personifies the most modern thinking of the young Russian officers. Their chapters deal with the problems inherent in the organisation of the Russian army of the time, the hurried mobilisation, and the unrealistic strategic plan for the invasion of East Prussia. I am finding it fascinating. I think that that this theatre of the war is not always that well known in the West, so If you don't have an extensive knowledge of these particular times and places - and aren't averse to the non-military sections - you might find it worth trying. (The only mention of aeroplanes so far is that they can't use them for messages because they are all being repaired!)

Just like to add my best wishes too.

Thanks Louvert. That's excellent. I've just started operations from Bailleul so this is particularly timely.

Continuing circuits in my pilot training, I realised I had previously misinterpreted some of the instructions I had been given ( my mind works at an angle to most people's) and that I should follow my instructor down to land immediately he did, and not make another circuit myself first. And I did really good. My approach line was perfect ... and I can prove it! If it hadn't have been perfect, when I overshot my instructor at the last moment and landed before him I would have been off to one side and he wouldn't have run in to me. Yes, I know I was hospitalised, but I didn't actually crash! It's important not to lose sight of that ... or your instructor for that matter.

It's the obsessive concentration on trying to keep to the speeds and heights given in the flight instructor texts. I end up doing weird manoeuvres to try and keep spot on. I didn't wreck them with anywhere near such frequency flying missions in OFF. I've wondered about the E.IIIs myself. I actually found Roland two seaters more tricky because the observer could get you from a greater range of angles, and the OFF Rolands seemed far more manoeuverable than the Fokkers.

At least, with five hospitalisations out of eleven training flights (and I wasn't even the pilot in the first two) that has to be some sort of record, surely. Another point has occurred to me, I've already written off four aeroplanes in training, if I destroy another British machine will that make me a German ace?

... as they say in the modern parlance. Today I finally overcame my 'tweak-itus', stopped obsessive fiddling with WOFF and Facetrack settings - and aborted 'test' scenarios - and got down to properly undertaking the pilot training. It's only taken four months. I have completed the 'Take Offs' phase and one 'Circuit', so far, in a nice, stable BE2. I have ten flights in my log. I have crashed four times. I cheated a bit and used my test pilot, Algernon Crumpetly-Flim, with 'Pilot never dies', because I thought I might make a slight hash of it, but four times. Oh the embarrassment! For the first crash I'm allowing myself the excuse that I was so taken with enjoying using Facetrack and really looking at everything for the first time (just the shadows moving across the instrument panel were a wonder) that it's understandable that I forgot I really needed to be higher than the trees. For the rest, I have to accept I am rubbish at achieving and maintaining the indicated speeds and altitudes for the various stages of each flight. I can land the old kite fine in my own way but, of course, that doesn't count for the training, and in trying to keep within the acceptable limits of the designated height/speed I lose all sense of what's required to keep air flowing over the wings in a lift generating manner. It was always my intention to go through the training process just once, with Algernon, and let that stand for all the rest. I am definitely proving the wisdom of that decision.

Unfortunately, I haven't really had experience with enough of a range of WOFF aircraft yet to comment. I have only really been flying the BE2 about as well as I did in OFF. My particular problem seems to be keeping to specific heights and speeds, as designated by the training flights - which I probably would have had problems with in OFF anyway. I know people have discussed the flight models of the Albatros and Snipe (not in OFF, I know) at the other forum. I don't know whether any of those posts might suggest whether people found WOFF aircraft generally more difficult or not.

Hoping to start a 1915 campaign shortly myself, having recently bought 'Fokker Scourge', but it's interesting that they actually have those pictures in the Profile folder. I have an odd way of running pilot campaigns at the front in consecutive time periods, to get a feeling of the development of the war, but I'd be interested in bombers and airships for individual scenarios.

Thanks Widowmaker, that was just splendid. I noticed that when he did appear to get affected while talking about people who had died, they seemed to have the decency then to cut pretty quickly. Now I once watched a documentary about the making of the 'Great War' series, and they mentioned the girl who used to go and meet the veterans to help them up the steps, and to the studio, as some of them couldn't manage it that well. I am sure they said that Cecil Lewis turned up in his sports car, jumped out the door and, by the time they had got to the top of the steps, had already asked the girl if she would like to go to the Lake District with him. I can't believe I can have imagined this, and would very much like it to be true.

After downloading AMD's Dual Core Optimiser I suddenly appear to be running WOFF ... properly, at last. To celebrate, I finally got to grips with photosharing and have updated my BOC badge, and present the picture below; It is the first representation of early WW1 aerial combat that I ever remember seeing - we are talking the mid 1960s here - and I have been trying to track it down for years. It is from Ladybird Book's 'Story of Flight'. The following page had a fairly conventional picture of a rather pale green Sopwith Camel shooting down an all red Albatros, but this picture always fascinated me and there is a definite strand that links this illustration with me spending the last 11 weeks trying to get WOFF to work on our computer. I am not sure it exactly represents any genuine aircraft types (don't know if any eindecker pilots took off with hand held weapons) but I still find it has something. The Eindecker pilot still seems rather cool and unperturbed (his goggles actually freaked me out somewhat when I was little - they seemed insect like) whilst the whirling propeller and poses of the pusher crew still seem to have an urgency about them - like they feel they have something to be worried about. So I still personally find it has kept it's sense of drama for me and when, in OFF, those first virtual Eindeckers came down on me from out of a blue late summer sky you can be sure it took me right back to this picture, and when I've downloaded my 'Fokker Scourge' I'm sure it will again.

Just trying to see if my badge displays correctly - not too bad now.

As it happens the first Airfix model I saw made was the Fokker Dr1. I was only about three or four and my father said if I chose one he would make it - I didn't really understand what a model kit was but, being in the days when they were sold in transparent plastic bags, I was attracted by the red plastic of the kit. The WW1 aircraft models I made in my later teens were only thrown out from my Mom's loft in the last couple of years. Even then I left them for her to do it because I felt a faint pang at the thought of getting rid of them!

Well, my memory update and new graphics card came Monday, and I only ordered them Saturday - yay! Now I always research things before I buy them ... so how the freak did I miss the fact that DDR3 memory is physically not going to fit in our DDR2 slots!? So, one Amazon return label later, I find out that new DDR2 memory is now a rarity and far more expensive than the DDR3 memory that I was worried about spending so much on. 8GB of DDR2 memory direct from Crucial is over £200. So, I would like to ask if anyone has any experience of using second hand RAM. Am I just being dumb to consider it? At least the new graphics card, a GTX 650 (it's what I felt could justify) which I was worried might not physically fit, slotted in nicely. Our original hard drive, the one that doesn't run OFF, recognised it and it's drivers and seems to be running fine. The new second hard drive, that one that did run WOFF, showed it on device manager for an instant then replaced it with the on board graphics device and refuses to recognise the new one. I have found at least one person who had a similar experience and I have disabled the on board device and reloaded the new drivers, but to no avail. I continue to search the web, but at the moment I can't run WOFF at all. Having stopped up till about 2:00am trying to fix it I had a hard time keeping awake at work. I kind of wish they'd taken 5 days and turned up for the weekend now!

Thanks again for looking. Unfortunately with the just the two slots, and these already having 2GB each in them, I have no room to use them. It's not too bad though. I have made some adjustments to my graphics card settings, as detailed by Hellshade at the other forum, and its raised my fps by an appreciable amount, especially in the early war period that I intended to start with. I have a couple of leads that might yet yield 4GB DDR2 sticks so I remain hopeful. Thanks Wayfarer

Mr_Dirt, thanks for the offer. Unfortunately I only have two RAM slots and they already have 2GB each in them, so my only option to expand is to get sticks that are larger than 2GB. Human Drone, thanks also. Even I wouldn't suggest that WOFF should come before a new grandchild! Thanks both, Wayfarer

Corsaire, that's about the fps I was getting with OFF as well, but with slightly lower settings. That wouldn't be too bad if it manages that. JimAttrill, thanks for the offer. Unfortunately I only have two RAM slots, with 2GB of RAM in each at present.

Well, despite swearing that I was not going to have another go at the graphics card tonight, of course I did ... and I seem to have got it to work! As far as I can make out the trick was to stop the standard VGA card drivers reinstalling every time I uninstalled it. Then I let the NVIDIA site scan for the appropriate drivers and downloaded them. So that is something. Tranquilo, the second hand RAM does feel risky, although I have no real technical knowledge myself to back that up. I have just about been able to justify what I have spent so far (with the generous encouragement of my wife - it must be said) but the DDR2 from reputable suppliers is really steep. Using VISTA with 4GB RAM I am not sure how well WOFF will run but I'll give it a try once I have reinstalled it (I cleared everything off the harddrive during last night's efforts).

I know it's old hat for the rest of you already but, having only got WOFF running in any way yesterday after our computer rejected CFS3 last year, me and my 0.5Gb graphics card took a Morane Saulnier up for a look around at 05:30 today, just after dawn. It certainly was pretty up there and I even took a quick skip across the lines. The card chugged along at around 28FPS with everything set at around 3 and it didn't look too bad at all. I have already realised that, when you are panning quickly around, some of those small darker streaky clouds can look like an aircraft closing in on you when glimpsed for an instant. I am just trying to decide what graphics card to update to. I was planning not to try a flight before I upgraded but I ran out of patience. Only thing is, now it's getting near to running properly, I'm going to have to go back through all those posts that I only half looked at in order to get all the useful tips!

Yes, I see that our desktop uses around 1.3GB doing nothing but background activities. I was just being cheap (as usual) by loading what we we already have the disk for. I'm the only one that does anything that warrants upgrading the the thing and was trying to keep down the expense. My wife and daughters use their laptops/kindles/tablets whatever for just about everything they need. Makes me feel really old fashioned sitting in front of this massive desktop!

Thing is, we got on ok with VISTA generally, although we've never tried anything particularly advanced with it. It even ran some of the kids' games that had given up with XP. That's why I was so hurt when it turned on me! I have managed to get the second hard drive on line and activate the clean install now. I have the computer case open at present, trying to work out whether an NVIDIA GT640 will actually fit (it's going to have to be something in this price range) - it seems to be rather deep.

Thanks guys. I'll try those graphics settings shortly. RAM is the other thing I could do with updating as I only have 4GB at present. I want to upgrade to 8GB but I think that may have to wait a couple of months or so. My immediate concern is that I have not 'activated' the clean install of VISTA I made on my second hard drive yet. I am loath to connect the drive to the internet at all as I'm paranoid about letting VISTA updates through in error, but I understand it defaults to some kind of skeleton system if you don't activate it in time. Got to find our internet installation disc and a curious yellow cable from wherever we safely put it. And ... I also have problems with long sentences unless I really think about it.

Well, I have my second hard drive installed. I have a clean version of VISTA installed on it. I have installed WOFF and the computer appears to be trying to run a WOFF campaign (and basic CFS3 for that matter). This is all good. Now I can justify upgrading the graphics card because ours is currently 0.5GB. I also only have 4GB RAM but that will have to wait a little while. The fact that WOFF/CFS3 will run with a clean install of VISTA supports the suggestion that it was a Microsoft security update that caused our computer to reject everything CFS3 based last autumn. One person who had experienced the same problems as me suggested that an update had effectively told VISTA to ignore all DLL files over a certain age. This suggestion is supported by the fact that last night I managed to install WOFF on the new hard drive, but with the old updated version of VISTA running (because I am not used to having two hard drives/operating systems; was tired; and am a dumbass) and it gave me 'library not registered' error messages that are apparently caused by principal DLL files not registering, according to the Microsoft official site. So I intend to avoid updating the clean install if at all possible. I have already told it not to automatically update. At worst, as it is on a different hard drive to the rest of the family's files, I can wipe it and start again if needs be without losing their stuff. BLOODY MICROSOFT!

I still have a couple of his albums on vinyl. I have no turntable now but you've prompted me to see if any of his music is available on Itunes. Some of my great grandfather's on my Mom's side were Welsh harpists, being part Welsh and part Romany. My great great grandfather and his sons played together as 'The Cambrian Minstrels', to Queen Victoria amongst others. On my maternal grandparents' wedding certificate my grandfather's father's occupation is recorded simply as 'Welsh harpist'.

I check both forums most days but I am still in the process of trying to get CFS3, or its derivatives, to run on our computer so I haven't any of my normal OFF type misadventures to report. Still, the new hard drive came this week so I'm hoping to make more progress shortly. If I do, I plan to mark the event by working out how to get my new BOC badge to display.