Wayfarer

The Two Seaters went in about 50 miles, 1 1/2 hours across the lines, then back.

 

Good grief ... I feel adventurous if my RE8 goes 10 miles behind enemy lines!

Very interesting info in this thread though.

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?

The weather is awful this year!

If everything else was OK...

You were just unlucky, normally this time of year is IMO the best for vacation in the Islands.

In mid summer the heat and humidity and in August the winds are sometimes unbearable...

especially in the Aegean Islands though, not the Ionian you've visited.

If you went in Cephalonia by boat you must have visited my hometown Patras, (the port).

My house is just opposite Gate 1 of the old harbour, 500m from the dock of the Cephalonia ferry.

My grandfathers village is of the mountainous ones: Komitata.

I spent the whole season from May to October '07 in Cephalonia, restoring the wall paintings of a chapel near Agia Efemia.

I went for swimming to Myrtos every day!

 

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.

Hey Wayfarer, where did you go to to Cephalonia?

It's my grandfathers village there...my origins.

 

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.

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)!?

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.

No, no. Look. This shed business -- it doesn't really matter. The sheds aren't important. A few people called him Two Sheds and that's all there is to it. I wish we'd talk about the pilot names. We're talking about the sheds. We've got it out of proportion -- we're flyers. I'm going to bomb the shed. I'm fed up with it!

Well Shed!

For P3, it was set up based on units operating from their historical aerodromes, and very generalised activity levels p4 will be much more closely integrated with the war on the ground

That being said, the first phase of Kaiserschlacht was aimed at Amiens, with the northern flank of the push just south of Arras. The next phase, in early April, came down the Lys, through Armentières. Lens lies between those two major battlegrounds, and was relatively quiet

Cheers,

Shredward

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

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.

And Wayfarer, is the "white feather" a sign of cowardice?

 

Best,

 

Tom

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.

... it's a slow process with me as I like to be in the middle of the action. Yet with every post or book I read, every documentary I watch, it brings me a bit closer.

 

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.

... Is it safe to assume they'll have fighter support?

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.

... those are shell craters. And if you should ever see an aerial photograph

of the Paschendaele area after the third Battle of Ypres, you will see even many more.

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.

Ok, thanks Olham. I keep a copy of my pilots' files so I can recover some detail if it comes to that.

DonL, this is the first time I have had this happen. If I have to resort to Olham's suggestion I will let you know if it works or not.

I took off for a mission today, ostensibly with three other flight members according to the briefing room. It vaguely registered in my subconscious that none of my flight were getting away before me, which is very unusual, and I was feeling quite pleased at being first off.

After reaching 1000' I turned and brought the airfield into view. The rest of my flight were still on the ground. They hadn't moved an inch!

I circled the airfield, gaining height, and they didn't budge. I tried the wingman rejoin and help commands but - nothing doing.

Fortunately I actually found my escort of SE5s and completed the mission myself. As it was a fairly lengthy trip home (and Easter Sunday dinner was at 1:00pm) I tried warping and got the message 'cannot warp your flight are taking off'.

They were, however, still on the ground as I landed sometime later. I don't know whether anyone else has encountered this, and if there is an in-game solution, or if it you would have to restart the mission if you really didn't want to fly it solo.

Thanks for all the work your putting here, really appreciated.

 

Regards MarkL

Just like to second that. The maps are particularly appropriate to my campaign at the moment.