Wayfarer

Olham, just out of interest, which would be your favourite photograph out of all these very fine fliers?

Oh my ...I just watched it! Literally the first instant is astonishing with the new smoke effects. The sequence where the falling, burning aircraft falls apart was breath stoppingly like actual gun camera footage I have seen from WW2. There is something about the tones of the new Fee skins that makes that first formation shot look like some quality aviation art. And ... I realised that within the 15 seconds it took to go to You Tube to watch it full screen I was already whistling Matt Milne's theme.

Damn, I'm at work. Stupid 'Access Denied' policy!

Glad to hear you came through your operation ok. Now you know you have to do what your nurse tells you (my wife is one so I have to say that).

So ... do you think I'll have to time my exposures in WOFF?

I have just come back off two weeks holiday (about 2 hours ago). I am feeling tired and very lazy I have tried to read the threads but I cannot concentrate. Please may I beg your indulgence. Can someone just explain ... SIM HQ? And where did 10 days go (I know I was in Cephalonia - where did everyone else go)!?

Elephant, we flew direct to Cephalonia, but we did see Myrtos bay. The number of small churches/chapels, and the roadside shrines were just one of the things that made an impression on us.

Elephant, we stayed at Skala, in the south east corner. There are a number of fairly recently built hotels there. We visited the standard tourist places; Argostoli, Fiskardo, Assos, Agia Efemi. We also, however, visited some of the mountainous areas, and remains of villages devastated by the 1953 earthquake, with a local driver who was very informative. We haven't been abroad for 11 years, and had never been anywhere in Greece. So we found it a really fascinating place - despite the fact that odd weather conditions meant it was warmer in the UK than in Cephalonia for most of the time!

Thanks for your replies. I managed to wend my way to Sim HQ in the meantime and am just waiting for my activation email so that I can post on there. Sorry for CA's troubles - these things are more than I understand but it's been a great forum.

An interesting post Olham. From descriptions I have read of the area, it certainly sounds like somewhere I would like to visit. I can understand why people would be deeply attached to it.

Well Shed!

I recently reached the end of March 1918, and the 'Michael' offensive has duly begun. I am flying RE8s with 5 squadron (RAF now) and have flown low contact patrols in the area to the north of Lens. There is much ground activity, and I have never seen so many allied aircraft, both in numbers and types, operating at once. I haven't seen any German aircraft though. I wasn't sure whether I should expect to. Has anyone else flown in that area at around that period? if so, how much German air activity was there? I have always been based in Flanders, and the most intense period of enemy air activity for me was during the 'Fokker Scourge' period. I have regional air activity set to heavy, and Bletchley's '1918 Active Sector January-April' mod activated. From some recent posts, I am beginning to wonder if something is not quite right with my installation.

Thanks Shredward. Looks like I have just been lucky and got handed the quiet spot!

Yes, as confirmed by Olham and Hauksbee, the white feather was a symbol of cowardice. In part of a WW1 memoir I have read, someone was on leave and out in his civvies because his mum was boiling the lice out of his uniform. A woman on a bus thrust a white feather at him. He took out his pipe and cleaned it with the feather, smiled appreciatively and said, 'thank you, we don't get these at the front'. This earned him great sympathy from the other passengers, and her a lot of dirty looks! I'm afraid Algernon's great aunt is a terrible, and rather huge, old battleaxe. Her poor late husband only finally gained her grudging approval by being eviscerated by the Pathans. Unable to personally go and give the Kaiser a thrashing, she badgered young Algernon unmercifully. She has, however, been able to make a valuable personal contribution to the war effort in apparently being the original model for the mark 1 tank.

Algernon Crumpetly-Flim. One of the Buckinghamshire Crumpetly-Flims. His OFF information line (where it usually says '... set out to help to win the war for ... ' etc.) informs us that he set out to avoid getting a white feather from his Great Aunt Primula.

The only two aircraft I have flown on 'active service' in OFF - together in the same video! Thanks for posting Olham. And that is a great sound. Would it be a 'Griffin' rather than a 'Merlin' for that mark?

This thread has emphasised an aspect of OFF that I have long been impressed with. The variety of approaches that people can take to flying in OFF and still get such enjoyment out of it. From quick combat flyers, through shorter period fighter campaigners, to a long haul plodder like myself - running two seater pilots in chronological order through the war. I don't know whether this is a peculiarity of OFF, but it is certainly a strength.

OFF is the only sim I have ever managed to play in a somewhat realistic manner. Before, I always generally chased after everything in an attempt to see just one more thing get hit. Strangely, I got the attitude before I got the sim. I was looking for something that I felt I could fly in that way. I read a lot of reviews of OFF and ROF and chose OFF because it seemed the most likely to reward that type of flying. I have certainly not been disappointed. It took me a while to do without most of the visual aids. I just use the compass now because the RE8 doesn't have one the cockpit. I also found it helps me to maintain that attitude by reading around the period. Not just the air war, but the whole war and the background to it. There's a kind of vicarious sense of participation in history that seems to fill up the less eventful parts of long reconnaissance flights.

With awe and reverence ...

That reminds me, I haven't seen any update photos of the OFF2 pigeon lately.

I don't know for certain, but I am not sure I have read of any accounts where they did have fighter support ... at least over Britain.

Olham, flying two seaters - BE2s and RE8s - my mission objectives have been different to yours and I have always justified avoiding combat, if possible, in order to complete the mission. I have, also, always tried to protect my flight members as best I can. Flying BE2s, I virtually never fired my guns except to try and drive off attackers from other pilots, without any serious effort to bring a machine down. I still haven't ever shot down an enemy aircraft - even on the one occasion I actually ran out of ammunition! I still remember the virtual guilt feeling the first time I returned from a mission without any of my flight members. With the advent of more advanced enemy fighters I spend more time in my RE8s trying to defend my own tail, but I still try to look out for my flight when I can. it's certainly a good feeling when you have been flying over a reconnaissance objective for 20 minutes in really heavy AA if you find all your guys straggling back into formation on the homeward journey.

When I saw the date of the photograph, I thought that it might have been part of the reconnaissance effort prior to Third Ypres. I realised it probably didn't count as particularly heavily shelled compared to what came later.

I imagine a lot of people like to see a bit of combat action on the package of a military flight sim. If, however, I had never heard of OFFand saw it for sale with that shot of the two Dr1s over the airfield as a cover I would want it without knowing anything else about it.