Lewie

Nice video, Thanks Olham. I'm not finding a Youtube cut from the BBC mini series 'Piece of Cake,' where the pilots of the Hornet squadron are sliding down the stairs of the Chateau on dinner trays, so this one will have to do.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFhK59yua3c&feature=related

I think a particular 3rd season episode of the IT Crowd sums up my feelings about Friendface, er.. I mean Facebook.

I'm tired of the spotty electrical service we have here. I have some 3D work to finish on my desktop we've been without power for over 4 hours. This happens at least once every two months or so.

I've downloaded the Alsace Lorraine map myself, and it's really quite detailed, it even shows the forward airbase that the Escadrille Americaine used for long trips, the one that Kiffin crashed at after the Oct 16 Obendorf raid. Corcuiex I think it's called. Great detail. I also have the original paper maps that Flying Corps Gold came with, which were supposedly well researched and based on period Obs photos. It covers the Somme and Arras fronts, and Verdun.

Ah! Thank you Olham, that is a nice website. Quite a bit of old airplane data available. The Morane Saulnier "H" page has some nicely detailed drawings.

Well I'm pretty excited about OFF in this regard. Boiry always seemed to be a hot spot of activity in RedBaron3D, as the Flying Circus used to target it frequently for airfield raids in the Bloody April, and because the Arras area seemed to be a favorite point for the AI to send German bombing flights over. You could rack up a bit of a score just by doing frequent CAP's over Arras.

Hellshade, In your comments in the video you mention that staying low keeps the attacking targets outlined against the sky, For the player this is a given, but now I'm guessing the AI in OFF doesn't have the ability to discern whether the camouflage of the Albatri is harder to see against the backdrop of the ground than the CDL of the Nupe 16's, or compared to either of these two planes underbellies against a brighter blue sky? has anyone from the Dev's talked about the abilities of the AI, in this regard?

Is Boiry St. Martin represented in OFF? I seem to remember that Flying Corps Gold, (the Rowan WWI sim from the late 90's,) had you flying out of there in your training flights. It was also in The Western Front Patch for Redbaron3D. It would also be cool if OFF3 has St. Eloi, Bellevie and Villers Bretonneaux, as airfields.

Holy Cow!. A woman shows up on a mainly men's hobby sim forum, asks some intelligent and pointed questions, and you guys send in the cranky curmudgeon to help her out. Whole lot of chivalry there guys.. Yeah, she's married, and still learning the sim. But uncleal? And he berated her about her 'ignorence' ( spelled with an 'e",... brilliant..) Hi Kelly Mo, if you're still on the forum, greetings and good luck with the sim. I'm waiting on OFF3 BHaH myself. I thought I'd share a few things about Fighter Squadron-WWI, the free SDOE download Mod, if you still want to play it. There's a keyboard .ini file editor that will get you up and running using keys you are familiar with, available as one of the additional downloads with FS-WWI. I make 3D models for FS-WWI, and I have to say that give it time to soak in, the game play is actually better understood when you figure out the various 'F' key views. What you have is the ability to jump to any other aircraft in the sim running at the time using the F5 key. You have to remember which plane you are flying, usually jump to external view, (F2) and cycle quickly through your aircraft while waggling the joystick if you lose your place. It's all in real time, and there's a bunch of different manable positions in the two seaters. Plus the latest version will have 1914 and earlier kites as an option, in addition to the AEG GIV and Handley-Page O/400 bombers, both with a half dozen different functions. You can also tweak the bullet loadout in the loadout .ppf that's in the aircraft's 3D file folder. Just remember that additional ammo weighs more. Yes I know this is a really old thread..

I guess I'm not finding the alleyways shot from the Snipe cockpit. Darn these Enigma translations..

Well I figured that they added an umlatt 'Function' key combo, seeing how your Germans are so clever and all... ( Lewie, whose last name, when his ancestors still lived in Germany, had the umlatt 'o' . My Dad tried to explain the pronunciation of all the umlatt letters one evening, many years ago when we both had both consumed far too much beer. Strangely enough they all sounded the same...)

Well this is odd indeed. I'm suspecting that you might have another set of keyboard keys assigned to what should be the hat switch's positions in controls? If I'm not mistaken I believe that they number the hat switch positions and you can assign them to snap left, snap right, and such? It's a pain but you might have to manually add each switch position in control assignment editing. The only other thing I can think of is a some sort of joystick software glitch. My Saitek loaded fine from just plugging it into the USB port. Windows XP had the drivers in the .cab files and loaded them after asking for information about the joystick, so I can't be of other help here I guess.

There's a good chance it's under C:/Program Files/Microsoft Games/... or.. /Over Flanders Fields/ Mine's in the root of main game folder.

I'd really like to get this kite flying but no matter how I play with the .cfg it continues to dance on the tarmac like a 6 year old who got into the RedBull. Then of course it explodes if I don't get it fired up and off the ground. Anyone here familiar with odd .cfg anomalies like this? I've played with the MOI's thinking I had a bad entry, but nada, it still spazzes around like it's got some really weird inertial feedback thing going on.

If someone from ol' Blighty does go to Kemble, can I request a couple of 'cockpit' pictures of the Bristol Boxkite and the Bristol Babe?

I may some day, when I get my OFF installation dialed in, and I will make the freeware LED type of head motion tracker. It would be nice to be able to actually move from side to side in addition to rotating the view, without hitting the F6 key for the various gunsights and what not. Is there an option in CFS3 for 'mouse panning'? My little cheapy joystick only has 6 buttons and the excess buttons are already mapped to a few functions like 'drop fuel tanks' and incrementally set flaps. It's hard to keep both different sim's keyboard function buttons and joystick buttons straight.

The only problem I see with engine power in models is the vibration and fuel proofing required, so that the airframe is especially heavy and overbuilt. I wouldn't attempt to model something with an engine if I was trying to capture the feel of an old kite's fight envelope. Especially if the plane is a lattice tail. I've seen far too many scale WWI models that charge around like they were WWII fighters.

When you hit esc to quick exit the game, you get a drop down box on the right with a number of options to change the sim, like graphics and realism. There is also a keyboard command configuration in the list. By default you should have Scroll Lock as your toggle for 'panning' and 'snap views'. You can change this in the configuration just make sure the key you choose isn't something already being frequently used. Hit scroll lock, (or what ever key you mapped the toggle to..) while in the game and see if you can pan now with the hat switch. I would also check that your hat switch is working as expected in Game Interfaces in control panel in Windows.

OK Shredward here's the image, it's not a great scan

Would a faint line drawing from an in-field rigging manual suffice?

Well judge for yourself. http://www.youtube.com/user/memorialflight#p/u/10/K0vha6PEz8Y

Cool, a LeRhone rotary powered giant maple seed... What the hell was it doing in a lake?

Does hitting "T" repeatedly show where the nearest balloon targets are? I have a hell of a time finding balloons in FS-WWI when air spawned, unless they're somewhat inline with the horizon or slightly above it. Can you spawn at a lower altitude? I noice that CFS3 limits you to 2500 and 5000, most balloons seem to about 3000' to 5000' up.

Hellshade's video does a good job of illustrating combat tactics. Interesting in that the attack scenarios I use to better success when stalking and shooting JU88's with a Typhoon in the CFS3 CAP campaign, has a similar pattern, except that the JU88 is generally more interested in dive bombing ground targets. Not that I haven't been nailed by the tailgunner. I tend towards the attack from underneath tactic and have been using the flaps set on the first notch to damp my speed of closing. Yeah i know, apples and oranges.. Which brings me to two seater gunnery. The Bleriot is a two seater with one forward firing fixed gun and a pintle mount Lewis for the rear gunner. When I switch cockpits the joystick control of the free aiming gun suffers from a bit of inertial over swing, something that SDOE FS-WWI has spoiled me on with it's tighter control. The problem I notice is that despite this over swing, that the AI of my opponents in CFS3 have no problem being as deadly an aim as the opponents in SDOE's gunner's AI, and there's less spray in SDOE's guns, 'generally speaking'. So two seater gunnery in OFF is going to take much more practice. But hellshade's demo of setting up your fight so you're not suddenly rushing your opponent in a dive, by cutting throttle is something I've already picked up with SDOE. And just judging by hellshades video, SDOE's ships tend to be more draggy in a dive when you reduce throttle. Not stand on your nose and have it slow down, but you can reduce your airspeed considerably while in a less than 40 degree decent in some kites. Of course both the Farman MF11and the Caudron GIV tends to shake themselves to bits in any speed over 105 mph. Of course slowing down like this in a dive really should not that possible with prototypical fixed throttle rotaries like the early Gnomes. yeah, more apples and oranges..

Shades of the 'Tipsy Nipper' in Those Magnificent Men... The Piggot.. Makes you wonder about the whole fuselage structure and if the wings spars are actually connected to the longerons, I mean otherwise it's kind of a neat looking airplane. I'm tempted to make one for my SDOE-FW-WWI pioneering mod.