Lewie

Sounds pretty typical for MS I think CFS3 and OFF still win for offline combat flight, but I also like SDOE. But here lately I've also been flying FlightGear and I've come to love plain ol' vanilla, non combat general aviation, flying onlinewith a group of like minded barmy sods. And their helicopters are not bad. I'm getting pretty good at flying helis. It's also a plus that I can add my own aircraft.

The German Ack field guns were highly accurate and effective into late 1917-1918, especially the big 88mm guns which could range up to over 12,000 up.

If Mike stops using his Polka dot scarf, how will the Black baron know who shot him down? I like the Sopwith Camel with the full trailing edge length ailerons, I'll be it's a snappy performer in the roll axis.

I think it would be a boon to do some sort of default Mouse Look where you could click either left or right buttons while moving the mouse to "scroll" the view side to side or front to back. With the buttons unclicked it reverts to pivoting the view about two axis'.

Depends on the sim, TargetWare had a well modeled head g force emulation, but FS-WWI's is just an annoying wobble that has nothing to do with the actual forces of climbing, diving, and turning. A couple of guys on the TW team were working on emulating the shock of nearby flak bursts, which BTW FS-WWI does also have. The flak bursts in OFF, if I'm hearing them correctly, are a bit soft, kind of like a fizzled firecracker. Can we have a healthy "Crump!" for nearby bursts and a series of varied other bangs and booms? I know the ambient battlefield noises are pretty loud, they could be a bit softer by comparison.

I'm not sure why the French Escadrilles don't have more pilots represented in our OFF ranks, some of the SOP Escadrilles are liveried in really neat designs. I've got 3 pilots that are French, but that's out of 18 that are mostly RFC and RNAS.

I've got a 1916 DH2 pilot who's first few days on the front were filled with contacts with Rolands and Einies going out of their way to press home attacks. At one point he lost three planes in four days.

I made a backpack engine powered parasailer or PPS for Flying Model Simulator, it was interesting getting the physics of the airfoil and 'fuselge/engine' worked out for that in the FM.

Does Infanview work with .dds files? I've always used DTXBMP.

As the more relaxed, if not actually reclining, member of BOC, ( for some reason I've always like the term 'Guild'..) I've found that if my test pilot prangs an airplane and dies in QC testing something, I grant myself the ability to play doG and breathe life back into poor sap.

Closer to the WWI era was the little airship fighter made by Port Victoria, the P.V.8 Kitten. 389 pound dry..

I'm sure cows would like Jaco Pasturizorious.......

If you download CFS3's Battle of Britain patch it comes with a neat little app that allows you to have multiple CFS3 installs without conflicts due to trying to load the last CFS3 install's aircraft and scenery, It's called MultiCFS3.exe. Multi CFS3 executable. Just install it in the separate folder of each install.

It would seem the Gotha's big Mercedes DIV 260 hp enegines would be even harder to find, especially in a matching pair. As I recall there's a Belgium Museum that does have some bits and pieces of a Gotha GIV.

I got a good lesson early on with my first ever pilot, he was in a Camel squadron in Dec 1917 and got jumped by overwhelming forces on his first sortie and wasn't even that far across the front. He lucked out in having a crash on the Allied side that wounded him for a couple weeks. This experience gave me a good idea of how difficult this sim can be. I've lost a few pilots who I've played boldly.

Where are they finding the Mercedes engines for these replicas? They've got to be pretty hard to find.

Aye, but my RFC 13 'arry Tate pilot has most of his kills with Albie V strutters. The man is a lunatic. He helps out the fighters that are escorting his obs flights.

If I was going to put that much time and money into something that flew. I'd probably be building something that would actually fly with me inside it.

But I particularly like this guy's ultralight which is powered by a giant scale model helicopter turbine..

the big jets use the largest RC model jets available. Some are upwards of 50 kg's of thrust. If you are aware of the French experimental the Cri-Cri there's a version running a pair of these larger model jet engines. They've also been adapted to some full scale gliders and also used by the Swiss guy who flew over the Grand Canyon in the "Jetpack Wing Suit". The smaller jet models use a high rotational speed electric motor/ducted fan arrangement, or some of the earlier glow engined ones used ducted fans.

The Bristol Fighter had the added advantage of being able to easily run away from the DRI. "Bye bye Manfred ol' bean."

Has anyone flown the EIII - EIV DH2 combo for CFS3 that AV History's website hosts?

I've been getting better acquainted with the other patches for CFS3. I have to say the OzForum downloads for both the Bob and the ETO 1.20 patches are a hoot. I've been customizing my installations to have a more Dunkirk to post BOB English Channel / North Sea RNAS, and Coastal Patrol War with the Avro Annies, Whitleys, Wellingtons, and Short Sunderlands doing Sub and anti shipping patrols. Great fun and there's nothing like chasing down big streams of Hienkel 111's with your squadron Hurri's all diving in and out of the bomber stream. Just keep an eye out for the occasional BF110 and 109. They can make your day unpleasant if you don't have any Spitty support.

Well I'm not saying that the scenery of either BoB or ETO is an improvement, compared to OFF. But the sheer number of unusual aircraft, some of the new special effects, and the ability to create your own missions and to add and customize new aircraft into these missions, through the mission editor, makes these patches more fun, at least to me. What Flyby said about our esteemed OFF crew taking on the task of improving these CFS3 patches has merits, but I'm all for the free nature of these uploads and the relative ease of customizing the scenarios. CFS3 with the add-ons has become my favorite sim in this past year. It's in a way carrying further what SDOE tried to do earlier. I mean I've been able to customize a Gloster Meteor vs. V1 buzz bomb scenario that I believe no other sim has.

I'll vote and post up once my account clears.