33LIMA

Prosit! (hic) So, will this CFS3 or OFF mod enable French or US pilots to do their primary training at Pau, using Bleriot Penguins or full-span jobs? Fine by me, then they will have at least half a chance before they meet me in my Albatros (or Pfalz, after HPW's latest mod has made it less skittish).

Oh, you mean Pau, then? edit - as in this place:

Rheims? sorry, spelling, meant Reims, as in this: http://www.centennia...s/Reims/EX2.htm (north-east of Paris not south west but I doubt you mean le Mans where the Wright Flyer was demo'ed in 1908) ..and is this the plane, or is that too obvious? http://bleriot11.pagesperso-orange.fr/CFS3.htm

Thanks for the EII, Ojcar! Tho alas, I am sad to say, this comes just too late for Leutnant Richard Boelcke, who, still flying his inferior 80hp Fokker EI, met an untimely end on his first flight in September 1915, after colliding in mid-air with a Nieuport believed to be one of the new Bebé types, which he had mistaken for one of the more-easily-despatched Nieuport 10s and then found himself the hunted, not the hunter. A n especially sad loss, as Richard had managed to get through all of August in his EI, including many close-fought combats against the superior Morane Bullets. His brother, Garth Boelcke, is looking forward to avenging his late brother's demise, hopefully now in a Fokker EII at least!

I perferred 'Jane Austen Does LA', myself - hang on a moment, I'm getting that mixed up with something else aren't I? ANYTHING but Jane Austen - even the soft cushions administered by Cardinal Biggles himself would be better. 'Persuasion' was even worse that 'P&P', I pray the Dreadful Aunti Beeb won't ever dramatise THAT - except ''drama' and 'Jane Austen' are mutually exclusive terms. Anyway, it was 'Emily Bronte does LA', wasn't it?

If I recall right, Tab then 2 ('Attack Ground') should be the command but I have done little ground attack and am not sure how well it works, I vaguely recall trying to get a flight if SE5s to attack some tanks and not being convinced the wingmen were responding at all to the 'Attack Ground' comamnd. It may help if you select a ground target with 'Target nearest ground target' (use the Options/Controls menu to see which key this command is assigned to and allocate a key to it, if it's not already) THEN issue the 'Attack Ground' command.

Art Obs missions - to use a common RFC abbreviation - were generally flown in a figure of 8 pattern, according to WE Johns. Gentle turns would have prevented problems with the trailing antenna, and a figure of 8 would probably have made them a harder target for Archie than a 'racetrack', while keeping them in view of their target area - and possibly the battery whose fire they were controlling. IIRC they could usually see both at the same time - in fact that might have been necessary or at least desirable so they could see the flash of 'their' battery firing and know when to look for the fall of shot. With no WT comms TO the plane, there could be no such thing as the modern infantry/artillery co-operation drill where the Forward Observation Officer announces 'shot' on the radio for that purpose ie 'My battery has just fired a ranging round, look out for it, and send corrections'. I'd guess that the vertical axis of the figure 8 would have been flown roughly at right angles to the line of fire - up and down the Lines roughly, probably no further away from friendly teritory than was needed for accurate observation, which might have varied with different factors. I don't recall the height usually flown at but 3-8000 feet seems to ring a bell with me. In British forces parlance anyway, 'wireless', or for that matter, WT, depending on the context, can mean Wireless Telegraphy or Wireless Telephony ie morse or voice. The sources I have, and that's quite a few, all indicate the latter was not in use in WW1 aircraft, in the RFC/RAF; and that Wireless Telegraphy, notwithstanding experiments or exceptions, was used only for art obs, with recces being camera and notepad jobs. PS I did find the piece online below but it appears to refer to VERY late-war use (like the last few days) and even then reads to me like field trials if anything. IIRC the square hatch behind the SE5a's cockpit was intended to be a hatch to a compartment for some kind of radio but one was never fitted. Anyway I think we can fairly safely rule out the use of voice radio comms for WW1 planes. Telephony, November 23, 1918, page 17: American-Developed Radio Telephone Success in Airplanes Squadrons of American airplanes fighting in France were maneuvered under vocal orders transmitted by radio telephone. News of the successful development of this device, hitherto a military secret, was allowed to become public last week by John D. Ryan, director of aircraft production. W. C. Potter of the equipment division of the bureau said: "For some months it has been possible in our offices in Washington to hear the planes flying miles over the city, talking to each other and to the ground as they worked out and perfected the telephone device." The fact that radio telephones were a regular part of American aerial equipment has only been permitted to become known since the capture of a German order to aerial squadrons, demanding that an American plane with wireless telephone equipment be shot down and brought to the rear for examination. According to the statement of Mr. Ryan, the device was put into practical service some weeks ago and its advantages proved in actual air combat. By means of the radio telephone, it was possible for a ground observer to talk to pilots in the air miles away. Commanders of aero squadrons could voice warnings to all their pilots as to the movements of enemy aircraft, and squadron formations of all sorts could be maintained in the air as easily as infantry units on the ground. The wireless telephone messages could be delivered at a distance of several miles. "There are some details concerning it which we cannot discuss yet," said Mr. Ryan. "I have, myself, standing on the ground, given orders to a squadron flying in the air and watched them maneuver according to instructions. The transmission of the voice is clear enough to be heard distinctly over the noise of the airplane motor."

Brilliant, many thanks Stephen, another beauty and another gap in the FE hangar is filled! Both sky blue and mauve-green examples look superb!

Wow! Another beauty from Stephen, another gap in the FE hangar filled! Brilliant!

I'm fairly sure that at no stage in WW1 was wireless used to communicate the results of a recce of any kind. For sure, RFC/RAF wireless was wireless telegraphy not wireless telephony* (and was definitely one way - air to ground, not ground to air ie the planes had a transmitter not a receiver, generally to a single battery who- having set up their aerial to receive the plane's signals - communicated with it by laying out stips of cloth on the ground which the crew could see). The more complex and/or varied messages needed to transmit accurately the results of a visual recce would not I think have been practicable with wireless telegraphy, one-way or two-way. The simpler messages used to range artillery, as described above by Hasse Wind, are probably at about the limits of what was possible with WT at the time. Even if the Germans (or the French or British, experimentally) had tried 2-way wireless telephony, I doubt very much if it would have been sufficiently reliable to replace the early-war expedient of getting any urgent messages back by dropping a message bag at, or even landing back at, Corps HQ. * to cite just one source, in an undated article written I think for the 1919 'Janes' (but definitely written after the war) the author, a serving British General Staff officer, described the introduction of the radio telephone as something which will (in future) make 2-way communication feasible and improve speed and accuracy. If we want to get it reasonably right, there's no substitute for contemporary sources (like 'Wind in the Wires' cited above, possibly also accounts online). These provide reliable details of the sort of missions flown and I would recommend consulting these, which make speculation or even educated guesswork pretty-well un-necessary. To take another example from a book readily and cheaply available now; Joshua Levine's good (if melodramatically and inaccurately-titled) 'Fighter Heroes of WW1' contains extracts from many letters written for 'the folks back home' in which aircrew, not just scout pilots, describe their work in laymen's (but authentic) terms. On pp.226-9 (of my Collins PB edition) he quotes just such a description by an 8 Sqdn observer describing an artillery shoot.On pp. 131-137, there are similarly-useful accounts of photo-recce work. Peter Hart's 'bloody April' is another good recent source, as is Ralph Barker's 'A Brief History of the RFC'

Hit Alt+D then Alt+D again. This should cycle you thru: 1. Both red and white text boxes; or - 2. Both text boxes plus FPS readout; or - 3. No text boxes, no FPS readout. IIRC if you have gameplay difficulty set to 'Hard', you also eliminate the 'direction to next waypoint' cone and the red box around your selected target, which is how I PLAY (plus screen cleared as above), never mind just for taking screenies! I also have the huddata.ini edited to 'comment out' (// prefix) the line that creates the red target info box so this NEVER appears; and another .ini (can't recall which one, might be the same one?) edited so that when the in-flight map appears, there are no plane icons visible, just your waypoints and the legs between them. Means the map doesn't act like a radar screen or AWACS type info. This isn't bragging - one of FE's big strengths, I have found, is that you can play the whole time with ALL the visual aids turned off, just referring to the (decluttered) map from time to time to get your bearings, and occasionally bringing up the white info box to check height and heading (speed hardly matters with a c.100mph max). Much more immersive, plus easier to take screenies.

Nice one, Quack! Now all you need is to work out a way to make a 'Nine' 'wash out' from a raid every ten minutes or so

That's interesting. Nice pics, too, tho the loco is missing a tender (it's obviously not a tank engine). A mod enabling them to be damaged, and to be a regular sight, would be good. I see there are 3 different locomotives (by nationaliy?) and several different wagons in the 'Vehicles' folder (none prefixed 'off'). It may be ok that rifle-calibre MGs don't cause them visible damage, but bombs may be another matter. I have no idea what controls the frequency of their appearance in a campaign, tho. They are appearing, so the disabling of 'spawns' in OFF isn't killing them, I wonder what could be tweaked to make them more common.

Looking forward to that, Quack. With a new more FPS-friendly DH4 coming from Stephen, I wonder if it is possible to have the name 'WE Johns' in the 55 Squadron roster, for us old Biggles afficionados? (for those who aren't, Biggles creator 'Capt' WE Johns flew DH4s with that unit and was shot down in one)

Apart from 'close reconnaisance' (not sure if that was an official term) to take the overlapping photo-mosaic of enemy positions to which Bullethead refers, for at least the middle part of the war, if not throughout, the RFC flew a different type of mission, the 'Long Reconnaisnce' (that IS an official term, there are regular references to them in different memoirs and histories). Here is a description of one, from 1916, in Duncan Grinnell-Milne's 'The Wind in the Wires', which reveals some details, applicable to 16 Sqdn in 1916, flying the BE2c: " 'There's nothing to laugh at' I was told...'This squadron does the Long Reconnaisance next week next week and it's the turn of our flight to go.'...I asked to be enlightened, for this particular reconnaisance was known to me by name only...'You fly south from here' he explained, 'cross the lines between Lens and Arras at the greatest height your machine can get to, pass over Douai, Orchies, Denain, Anzin and Valenciennes, circling each place - slowly, mind you - so that your observer can take notes and count the rolling-stock in the railway stations. Then, you turn around and come back, well to the south so as to avoid Douai like the plague, recross the lines if you're lucky and come home.' 'Sounds rather tiresome,' said Wilhelm, 'But what's the matter with Douai?' Rare Earths chuckled. 'Well, it happens that the Germans have put a full-size aerodrome there. When they see you go over on the way out, they stand by to wait for you on the return. And it's not very nice to find half-a-dozen Fokkers sitting on your tail when you're heading back against a strong westerly wind and running short of petrol!' 'Short of petrol? Why, how long does this show last?' 'About four hours from start to finish. More if there's anything worth seeing at Valenciennes.' " The mission as described by DG-M was flown with two BE's, one to do the work, the second as an escort Things like tactics will have varied as the war progressed but I think the practice of the RFC/RAF Corps squadrons (the 2-seaters) flying a regular Long Reconnaisance on a rota basis to cover a prescribed set of targets (probably mostly the same set each time, so patterns could be spotted), with notebook as much as camera, continued. On a slight tangent, has anyone ever seen moving trains in OFF? You did see them in CFS3, and they would be a nice thing to see on recces, and to bomb or strafe on occasion. I don't recall ever seeing a moving train, and they were such a prominent feature of the WW1 Western Front scene. If they are not often present, maybe a 'train mod' could be made.

It seems that sometimes, dreams come true! I feel rather guilty about making suggestions for stuff I can't really help with apart from my library and beta testing but am delighthed that Stephen at least is making such a massive contribution to the future expansion to the planeset of what's likely to continue to be one of the best WW1 flight sims available, if not still the very best, for some time. And for the contribution of folk like Ojcar and Quack, in bringing this content to life. An Independent Force campaign with a DH9 would be another great campaign addition - not least, some suitable action for the excellent SSW DIII we already have! I recently got a copy of Alan Morris's 'First of the Many' that I'd last read in my teens and look forward to being able to fight it out in FE2! The sheer variety of aircraft types that could be encountered, even at a single point in time, is one of the defining features of WW1 air war and the RB3d mods delivered this. As for FE, it's great that a sim that started out with such a basic planeset has already surpassed this and is within a dozen or so planes of having covered its subject to an extent that will leave very little to be desired and that will probably never be surpassed. Long live First Eagles and its mod community!:drinks:

I only fly as flight leader, and while I have the AI empty weight mod installed, that has never happened with the mod enabled - besides which, my experiences suggest that your flight mates do not use the AI empty weight mod, they fly with the same FM as the player - at least, when the player is leading (if not also when he's not, tho that's just a guess). I am pretty sure this is an occasional glitch in the AI. A while back, flying Strutters against a flight of Fokker E3s in campaign, in hilly terrirory, I saw the Fokker leader fly quite leisurely, in a gentle descent, right into a hill and pile up. His flight mates flew steadily behind him and piled up in the same area one after the other, all quite slowly and deliberately. This was before the AI weight mod was even a distant dream. No mods. Stock as stock can be. Regularly, when leading a flight, (again, both before and after AI weight mod) I often see my flight-mates have fallen, not behind me, but well below my level, while I am climbing hard. It is like they consider themselves in formation because they are level with me in the vertical plane, even tho they are a lot lower in the horizontal plane. They seem not to detect, or react to, the separation in height. To get them to climb back up - which they manage to do very readily, once they 'decide' to, the AI weight mod does NOT significantly inhibit them from climbing steadily up again - I have found I can 'trigger' the 'oops, we're too low, must climb back up' response by levelling out and drawing a little ahead. At that point, they seem to realise they are out of formation, low, and climb back up quickly. Like I said, the AI weight mod does NOT inhibit them from climbing back up briskly, even with low-powered planes like the Pup. As I think Polovski has observed, mileages will presumably vary depending on which plane you are flying, which AI setting you're using, and whether modded or not, but I'm fairly convinced by what I have seen there is an AI issue behind thisbehaviour. Apart from the Eindekker Lemming impersonation, and your account of Lemming DH5s, I have never found it more than a minor inconvenience

Now that is good news! I HOPE if a Rumpler CIV is coming, it will be the blunt-nosed version (as in the Deutsches Museum) because the spinnered version looks too much like the DFW CV we already have. A few more 2-seaters - from 1915 through to 1918 - are what FE needs most now, plane-wise. Or even some 3-seaters like the Letord 4 or 5: My hopes would be that at least some of the following will come, someday (thinking of the main types needed to fill the biggest remaining gaps and/or provide a minimum of variety): German: Albatros BII; Albatros or Rumpler CI; Albatros CVII; LVG CVI; Rumpler CIV or CVII; Halberstadt CV (and improved Albatros DII and Fokker DII or DIII) British: BE2c (later) or 2e; AW FK8; DH9 (and an improved Elephant, and a BE12); French: Dorand AR1; Letord 4 or 5; Caudron GIV. Hopefully with a reasonable polygon count, as some like the DH4, tho lovely, are a bit of an FPS hit. It's nice to dream!

Wow- nice find - off to grab the update now! My info on the DII is that the long horizontal side exhaust is an early DII, the vertical 'smokestak' one (as above) is a leter DII; the DIII (and perhaps very late DII) is short horizontal (Albatros-style) exhaust. As these things might have been interchangeable in the field, the longer aioerons with the rectangular balance at each end, may be the only reliable way of distinguishing a DIII.

I know exactly what you mean; the reason I was so impressed by the clip from 'For those we love' is that it reproduces those scenes so authentically. To me the most hypnotic of the Kamikaze attacks filmed is the one at about 2.09 of this one; if you want a definition of sheer, unadulterated courage, I can think of no better example than that short clip of a torpedo-laden B6N Tenzan staggering over the vaves the last few hundred feet to its target, under a hail of point-blank AA fire that is churning the sea and air around it into a living inferno, yet he just keeps on coming. Not to diminish the bravery of those under attack, not least the guy who kept on filming the whole thing, but the chap(s) on that plane were as brave as they come; balls of steel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5slCTLrFHI

The two Japanese fighter types featured in the 'propaganda film' were the Nakajima Ki-27 (with the Stuka-style spatted undercart) and its successor, the Nakajima Ki43 Hayabusa (the more Zero-like plane). Both often carried an Aldis-type sight (tho the Ki-43's featured in the clip from 'For Those We Love' doing Kamikaze attakcs lacked these from memory. I'm currently reading Grub Street's 'Bloody Shambles' on the 1941-42 SE Asian campaigns and both types did fairly well against AVG P40s and RAF and Dutch Buffaloes and even Hurricanes, tho often thru superior numbers, no disrespect to the often highly skilled Japanese Army Air Force pilots who flew them. If it's any consolation the Ki-43 was often identified as a Zero by the Allied pilots! Both types can be flown in IL2-46 and the versions with the 'Aldis' have this cap over the outer end of the sight that you have to hit a key to swing aside!

She's still a pretty sweet-looking bird, the Halb, especially from inside with Ojcar's cockpit mod. the lower-nose countours could be a little more rounded and the interplane struts a bit less square and she's a DII I believe not a DIII but I'm quibling, with the 'pit mod I really like this plane, and Ojcar's campaign will bring it to life:

Ah I see, better still! I had started work on an RE8 campaign but this stalled when I could not work out how to position ground units and organise offensives. I hope and trust the 1917 and 1918 versions of Armchair Aces will feature one or more RE8 squadron campaigns from spring 1917 and ground attack missions will be fun later in the Hannoverana and Halberstadt CL types, whether or not the infantrymen can be destroyed. Anyhow, in the meantime, I don't mind 1915 being quieter on the ground, there is plenty happening in the air at the moment! The Halb DIII cockpit mod is working just fine for me thanks, she is a nice little bird, and I look forward to flying her for a time in 1916!

Thanks for the clear instructions, which I have just applied and am now off to check it out! I'm in FE heaven with this mod - other fronts and more planes are great but transforming the Western Front campaign experience to this standard is the FE killer mod and I'm very grateful for your work; which also beautifully compliments the work done by the other modders whose content this mod now showcases so very well. All that could be wished for, now, for the Western Front is just a few more planes to fill the bigger gaps still left (and maybe ground action to match the period - but FE has never really needed much ground action as its great strength lies where it matters most, in the air, and I am very glad you chose not to delay these releases just to make the ground action and front lines fit a little better).