33LIMA

A bit OT now, but I prefer the 're-enactment' in the film 'Theirs is the Glory' to that by the re-enactors in the 'War and Peace' show clip above - the movie clip has real PIAT fire, real German tanks, and pretty realistic tactics: ...although the German 'tanks' in Oosterbeek at the end were really Stug IIIs; there is some good move footage of them and the Waffen SS troops in the TV series 'The World at War' and some excellent still pics from the same camera team in the 'After the Battle' magazine issue on Arnhem.

In my install (HitR with latest patch, if that makes any difference) my OFF.dll is in the main game folder ie C:\OBD Software\CFS3 Over Flanders Fields. It's dated 1/10/2009. If it's corrupted, and was updated by one of the patches, I wonder if you may be able to get away with installing the various OFF patches, in sequence. Take it you've already tried the 'reset OFF' option in the Workshop, not sure what that actually does apart from simultaneously retire all pilots but it's got me out of trouble once.

Strange one, this. Wonder if it could be a DirectX problem. Maybe try running dxdiag, I recall the DirectX diagnostic tool has a 'sound' tab with a couple of little tests in it, if you can't hear the sound play (sort of birds chirping), there's a prob. Maybe just go straight to re-installing DirectX, latest version.

There is a mod which replaces the exhaust effects (for the stock flyables at least, maybe also some AI) with a much less visible, 'toned down' version; couldn't find it here but it's in circulation somewhere, use it myself as the stock effects look overdone to me.

Not at all certain this could help, but you said you installed it recently; when doing so, did you set the Setup file's 'compatibility' tab main option to Windows XP SP2, and then right click again on the setup file and select 'Run as administrator'? If you're running Vista or Win 7, anyway. Don't think I recall ever getting the 60% problem but I have generally found that installing that way can prevent probs with pre-Vista programs like FE(1).

One CFS3-related thing that is worth trying is the game's keystroke that turns the sound off. - Q i think it may be, or maybe it was S? I've hit it by accident and then wondered why CFS3 had gone quiet, till I remembered that MS had put this daft keystroke in the game. Probably not your issue if you don't even get the miaow, but worth a try. Edit - just looked at the CFS3 keymap chart and Q is 'Sound (toggle)'

Thanks HPW; think I could not lean the mixture as I use auto-mixture (just tried that anyway when I found the performance fall-off issue). Just happened to notice right after installing the mod, not at all sure it had anything to do with the FM mod. Might instead have been the effect reported by Olham, or maybe I had un-noticed damage (I fly with skins at hi-res and no in-flight messages). Back flying a DIII with your 3 mods at the moment and all seems ok.

One thing I like about first Eagles/First Eagles 2 is that the AI react to being shot at, in a varied but seemingly realistic fashion. I have used this many,many times to save a comrade who is under attack, scaring off his attacker and saving his life even tho the range is too long to have any real hope of a kill. Not just realistic but encourages me, flying as leader, to try to look out for my men as much as go for the kills. One of the reasons I have to say that I still rate FE/FE2 as a better sim for dogfighting than OFF, just as good dogfighting is the hallmark of most Third Wire sims.

I'm just back using HPW's FM mods but one reason I stopped for a time, was finding my Alb DV 'ran out of puff' at about 10,000 and could not catch a Strutter 2-seater that was only a little higher. I used to fly P2 without auto-mixture and it was like the FM mod had disabled that but would not let me lean the mixture either (I tried). I know the Alb DV's performance figures are worse than the DIII in some respects (climb?), the AI fly unladen, and that IRL as described by AG Lee, the light little Pups can outclass V-strutters at high altitude, but none of the above sounds right. Try again in QC with the stock FM perhaps, and see what happens?

The fact the Italians rearmed early and were caught 'between re-equipment cycles' had a lot to do with it. Much of the bad reputation of the Italian forces at the time was down to such factors - and to downright prejudice, then and since, as reflected in such 'jokes'. Funny maybe but not fair comment. You only have to read accounts of how the Italian gunners in the border forts in 1940 often fought to the last against the Matildas, sticking with their guns until literally over-run. There are accounts which suggests we lost rather more Matildas to enemy action than the commonly-accepted low figures. As for the massive number of prisoners (measured at the time in acres) taken at the conclusion of Operation Compass, well we should all ask ourselves how well we would have performed, if sent to war in rickety, thinly-armoured tanks and ended up after a long retreat caught in open desert with little food or water. Even then, the Italian spearhead put in some determined and desperate attacks at Beda Fomm against the British blocking force. Given they were pressed somewhat reluctantly into war by Mussolini, and the state of their industry and kit, the Italian force's WW2 record was quite creditable and they had their share of heroic actions eg the Miale minisubs. They cannot be judged by the superior attitudes of their enemies (or allies!).

Thanks for the advice, will see what I can do; if you're getting 80% confirmed you are definitely doing something I'm not! I'd thought of giving more than one witness name but I'm fairly sure I saw somewhere (OBD's OFF FAQ, where it mentions avoiding the semicolon?) that you should put one, so will certainly start using at least 2, and will start using time as well, estimated from takeoff time or a preset desk clock if necessary (dunno if there's a way to see mission time in-game). I'd doubted OFF would be smart enough to interpret the text string in your kill claim; I had assumed that was mostly for your own post-mission edification. I'd expected 'Third crater on left. Sea of Tranquility' was as likely to get a confirmation as any other text string. OFF would have to be pretty smart to validate based on presence (let alone accuracy) of text even resembling a time, altitude, location etc in that text string but maybe it is that smart. Perhaps I should also make sure all my 'kills' actually hit the deck and don't recover but from those I have watched all the way down, when he looks like he's bought it, he generally has. Cheers!

My late dad was in the RAF post-war, ironically spending most of his time afloat, as he served much of his time on the RAF's famous air sea rescue launches. He remembered and worked on many of the famous WW2 types and it's to him I owe my fascination with flying, of course. Naturally his job didn't always involve pulling unfortunate flyers, or what was left of them, out of the drink. There was always time for a cup of tea and on one occasion, when he was stationed for a change close to home at at RAF Ballykelly, the thirst for a cuppa took him to the airfield's NAFFI van. As luck would have it, the van was on the other side of the runway from where he was working but undaunted, he got on his bicycle and seeing nobody around, ignored regulations and took a quick short cut across the tarmac, instead of going the very long way around. As he was refreshing his thirst, he was able to relax and enjoy the spectacle of a Lancaster making a neat touch down. It stopped short of the apron, however, and the flight engineer got out and came huffing and puffing across to the NAAFI van, to demand who it was, had just cycled across the airfield, and caused his Lanc to have to go around. He'd been sent by the pilot to take the offender's name and number, which he duly did. 'Jankers' I think they called punishment, in the RAF. On another occasion, he was working on the engine of a Beaufighter, test running it while standing on the tarmac undermeath its broad wing. Suddenly there was a brief bout of flame, roaring back, probably some unburnt petrol burning off in the long exhausts which ran back from the engine, beside the nacelle. His mates rushed in to collect what was left but found him standing up inside the engine nacelle itself, protected either side by the open gear doors, and wondering what all the fuss was about. Ah, the joys of Service life!

Not a fan of wish lists and this isn't one per se, but it IS one simmer's feedback - one not long in the tooth with P3 but who was in with P1 and 2 from early days and has a lot of propsim experience including RB3d, FCG, and FE. Some of these are already coming with P4, which is great, and noted below where known to me. A few may be specific to how OFF works on my modest rig or current settings (sliders 5-5-3-3-5-5, 1600x900, 4xAA, 4xAF, Olham's recommended settings otherwise). Others may be impossible for the CFS3 engine or otherwise ruled out for P4 (or as a mod or expansion for P3 for that matter). But FWIW this is my take on what I think would make the biggest improvements in the OFF experience. What do others think? Planeset 1. Priority - DH4 (even AI) to provide 1917-18 RFC/RAF/USAAS day bomber missions & interceptions and fill one of the few big gaps in the OFF planeset 2. Priority - BE2e, and/or realistic defensive armament for BE2c [observer-armed BE2c announced for P4] 3. Priority - flyable or AI Breguet 14 4. Flyable or AI later-war German 2-seater(s) [flyable Rumpler CIV announced for P4] 5. Flyable or AI early/mid-war 2-seaters [Morane parasol and Aviatik CII announced for P4] 6. Additional AI-only planes to fill, as economically as possible, significant ORBAT gaps and/or add a bit more variety eg AW FK8, Voisin 5, Nieuport 10/12, Dorand AR, Caudron R, DH9, SSW DIII/IV, Pfalz DXII, LVG CV/VI. Others (in no particular order) (i) Increase plane visibility so as to ensure they can be (a) seen & (b) identified in most situations at greater ranges [(a)1-3m, (b) c.1m] from external or cockpit views (if looking in right direction) WITHOUT resort to zoom, TAC, FOV changes or other 'aids' [increases realism, improves scope for better patrol tactics eg stalking, refusing combat] (ii) Reduce excessive spread of AA fire (especially vertical spread), compensate if needed to maintain low lethality [helps with (i), at present you can be staring at flak bursts and see nothing, let alone numbers, height and heading, let further alone type, till way too close] (iii) Increase persistence of AA burst effects [they tend to disappear on panning] (iv) Ensure all plane LODs have no poor transitions eg on my rig, all Albatros models don't displaying any undercart until within c.250 yard, then it suddenly pops in. (v) Provide separate AI planes, modded so as to prevent AI flying at unladen weights eg by adding, say, half of fuel & ammo weight to AI planes' ULW [an undesirable legacy CFS3 feature which makes AI planes unrealistically agile, and which may account for reports of OFF AI planes seeming to climb without speed loss] (vi) All default skins - bring up to same standard as best [eg Pup to Albatros standard] (vii) Reduce inability of player and AI planes to make successful forced or crash landings (viii) Improve 2-seater AI defensive tactics - preferably, vary between: formation flying straight & level for gunners, or limited weaving about mean course, or RTB'ing, or Lufberry circle, or counterattacking [latter 1-2 maybe only for some eg FE, Strutter] (ix) Improve rear gunner fields of fire or otherwise increase % poss of at least receiving return fire (not accuracy). (x) Rivers, railways & roads - remove/smooth 'corners' [P4 screenshots suggest this is coming for rivers at least] (xi) Scenery objects - improve draw-in of trees etc eg fade-in rather than sudden, hi-vis pop-up at medium or higher slider settings (xii) Remove/replace unrealistic damage visuals & effects eg inline and rotary engines falling out of otherwise intact fuselage (xiii) Delay instant jumpers from flamers (variable, min c.5-10 seconds) (xiv) Improve ability of wingmen to follow leader (eg stop them going well wide even in gentle course changes) (xv) Introduce sun glare AI visibility penalty, if not already in effect [to encourage player to use the sun tactically] (xvi) Remove/reduce assignment of unrealistic campaign missions eg Jastas on railyard attacks or patrols behind enemy lines. (xvii) Introduce numerous active (visibly firing) artillery battery positions - 4-6 guns each with command post, poss emplaced and/or camouflaged - in the 'gun zone' either side of lines [maybe already there but not seen by me; would be a primary feature of the combat zone and a high-priority recce, strafing or bombing target] (xviiii) Introduce facility for wireless-equipped (Morse not voice) 2-seaters to call in artillery fire on ground targets within suitable range of Lines (eg invisible bomb-armed wingmen for with wireless) (xix) limit range of wingman commands (say to 1m, to simulate use of flares) if not already in effect (xx) Remove modernisms like 'Intel' from menus (also an Americanism, it's 'Int' in the British Army, or at least was in my day, dunno what it was in 1917)

Good advice there chaps. Re whether the 'Help' command cannot be regarded as a signal, in 'First of the Many' on the Independent Force, Alan Morris lists the following Very light signals in use, which would have represented early 1918 practice if not earlier, and at least for 2-seaters if not also scouts: Above the aerodrome after takeoff and assembly - colour unspecified - 'Leave rendezvous' (begin mission) White (Leader) - 'washout' (mission abandoned; fired East of lines, also indicated 'hold formation' Red (leader) - 'Rally on me' Red (any other plane) - 'Attacked, need assistance' Green (any plane_ 'Forced to return' (if fired by Leader, is also signal for deputy to take over) I like Olham's idea of treating the H key as a trigger for your flight, as well as a valid signal under the above circumstances; also confirmation that the A key without use of the TAC/radar can still get them stuck in, in stages/pairs. Confirms my belief that the CFS3/OFF AI and command system is at least adequate for WW1.

Spot on, Dej. It's not that there were no tactics, only thing i would add is '..if you were lucky enough to end up with a McCudden or a Mannock OR A BIGGLES'. Personally I believe OFF's current AI is on balance a reasonable approximation of WW1 air combat tactics. Especially for the 1915-17 period, but at a push even for the somewhat better organised last year or so of the war. The things that would make the most difference - and this is just a comparative observation, NOT another 'please fix this/is this being done?' point - are: - remove 'FM gap' between player and AI planes due to weight issue [already coming in P4] - better formation-keeping; - somewhat more varied 2-seater defensive tactics, formation and individual, eg sometimes forming a 'Lufberry' [defensive circle'] or some RB3d-style weaving; - ability of AI to signal to player flight leader their having seen the enemy (IRL one drill was move down level with the leader, waggle wings, and point). At the moment, I simulate this by setting the TAC/radar to 1-mile range, only, for aircraft targets, as part of my pre-flight drill, the equivalent of a final reminder to my chaps to 'keep your eyes peeled!'. Then I turn it on at intervals during the flight, tho I could just as easily leave it on. And possibly also, tho this is based on limited observation: - some way of issuing a general command to attack nearest aerial target(s), without having to 'turn on the radar/TAC and/or hit tab first. From what I can see, while they react to a threat without instructions, your AI flight mates ('wingmen' is established simmer shorthand but is not really appropriate for WW1, I hope P4 will banish this modernism, like 'Intel') are liable to ignore enemy planes you are attacking and even fly right up to or past them with you. Re-interpretation of the CFS 'Attack mission target' command (in CFS2 it was 2 presses of the 'A' key no more than 3 seconds apart, think CFS3 is the same) to 'attack nearest air target'. If anyone has found a way of achieving the effect of a 'Get at them!' command, or noticed that it can actually happen this way, or has noticed if 'AA' does the trick with the nearest air targets, I would be glad to hear of it. I think you CAN already get a co-ordinated/successive attack by a flight you're leading, on one or more targets, by targeting the desired victim(s) with the TAC/radar on, then issuing an 'attack [my selected target]' command. fiddly but not too bad and it works I think. If anyone has found a way of doing the last point above, would be glad to hear of it.

Mick Mannock (or that matter possibly also MvR) was outstanding by definition - because he was exceptional - and cannot be regarded as typical. in the level of instruction and mentoring he gave his pilots. Instead you could just as easily cite the example of Arthur Gould Lee ('No Parachute') who joined 46 Sqn in (IIRC) May 1917, who, having gained extra flying time after a training accident, ended up more with more flying time than usual. He didn't get much in the way of training or encouragement from his flight commanders, indeed he recounts how one of them told him off for 'stunting' in another pilot's Pup, then asked him to explain how he'd flown the manoeuvre (the squadron having fairly soon before having converted to pups from Nieuport 2-seaters). I was never in the Paras but I have been in the Army and there is only so much you can cover at briefings, in your 'Actions on' (pre-arranged drills to be initiated in particular circumstances). In any event, I don't think you can compare the approach of relatively modern professional soldiers, based on experience of two world wars and a lot of fighting in between, with what your average WW1 pilot would have got, in a discipline only a few years old and unrecognisable by 1917 from what it was at the start of the war. I'm inclined to think that WW1 RFC & RAF flying instructor and (for the 6 weeks he lasted at the front before being shot down) DH4 combat pilot WE Johns was at the better end of the scale in the briefing he usually has Biggles giving his new pilots, I suspect it was probably nearer what the average new pilot got. So to complete the picture after the Boelcke Dicta and Mannock's golden rules, here's the Biggles Dicta: 'First of all, never cross the Lines alone under ten thousand feet - not yet, anyway. Never go more than a couple of miles over, unless you are with a formation. Never go down after a Hun. If you see a Hun looking like easy meat, make for home, and if that Hun fires a Very light, kick out your foot and slam the stick over as if somebody was already shooting at you. Act first and think afterwards, otherwise you may not have time to act. Never leave your formation on any account - you'll never get back into it if you do, unless it's your lucky day. The sky is full of Huns waiting to pile up their scores, and it's people like you that make it possible. Keep your eyes peeled and never stop looking for one instant. Watch the sun and never fly straight for more than two minutes at a time unless you can see what's up in the sun.Turn suddenly as if you've seen something - and you may see something. Never mind Archie - it never hits anything. Watch out for balloon cables if you have to come home under five thousand feet. If a Hun gets on your tail, don't try and get away. Go for him. Try to bite him as if you were a mad dog; try to ram him, he'll get out of your way then. Never turn if you're meeting a Hun head on; it isn't done. Don't shoot outside 200 feet - it's a waste of ammunition. Keep away from clouds, and, finally, keep away from balloons. It's suicide. If you want to commit suicide, do it here, because then someone else can have your bus. If you see anything you don't understand, leave it alone; never let your curiosity get the better of you. If I wave my hand above my head - make for home. That means everybody for himself. If I shake my wings it means a Hun - I may go for it. If I do, you stay upstairs and watch me. If anything goes wrong, go home. When in doubt, go home - that's the motto.' [biggles briefing new arrival Algy, before taking him up for his first flight near the Lines, in 'The Boob', from 'Biggles, Pioneer Air Fighter'] . .

I've been enjoying the wide scope of Over Flanders Fields/HitR since buying both recently. So I decided to widen similarly the scope of First Eagles - which I continue to enjoy equally for its particular strengths - by adding in some of the excellent extra planes, campaigns and terrains available here and at the A Team Skunkworks. Not that I have exhausted the stock FE campaigns by any means but I fancied a crack at making better use of the FE/FE2 Albatros DIII. So I made a start with the Bloody April campaign, the Flanders terrain ans the planes needed for both. I installed the complete package in both FE and FE2. Apart from some flight model oddness with the FE2b, the only problem I've had is that in both FE and FE2, the weather seems to be 'stuck' where it started. In FE, it's a horrible, rainy foggy day, every time -'inclement' I think it's called. In FE2, it's the reverse - clear blue skies every mission, with just the odd puff of cloud in the sky - 'clear' weather type I believe. After checking the FE Knowledgebase, in FE2 I added a [weatherchance] block to the Flanders terrain .ini file, in the FE2 mods folder. Also added that to the Flanders.ini file for First Eagles, tho I think the [weatherchance] block may be for FE2 only. I've played enough missions for there to be some change by now, if the weatherchange %'s were working, but the weather seems to be stuck in both sims, at opposite ends of the scale. I've obviously missed something but can't find what it is. In the Knowledgebase article on adapting FE terrains for FE2 there's a ref to getting the .ini file's 'catpointer' line right, but I can't find the advice on how to do that and anyway, the problem is affecting FE not just FE2. Both the terrain, and the campaign, seem to be working fine otherwise. Any suggestions most welcome!

Oh, that's bad if the campaign weather can get somehow stuck, across the board. It would not be so bad if it wasn't stuck in a near-unflyable 'pea souper' fog in FE1 - which only happened when I installed the BA campaign, can't recall if the previous campaign weather was stuck, maybe I only noticed when stuck in a deep fog! Will check to see if it affects other campaigns. Less of a prob that if I'm stuck in clear blue skies in FE2 - again, will check to see if either the catpointer change fixed it, or if it didn't and I'm stuck in blue skies in FE2 across the board. Would not be so bad if it was stuck in 'broken' or even 'scattered'.

Yes thanks Wrench I guess that's the one. The FE2 Cambrai and Verdun terrains are just in the FE2/Terrains folder (no subfolder) so I just copied both files to the FE2 mods Terrains folder and changed the Flanders.ini cat pointer to read CatFile=..\wwiVerdun.cat ie removing the subfolder name. Will see if that works, but still at a loss to understand why the weather is stuck at 'inclement' for FE(1) as well as FE2.

Fantasy computer games seem to have come on a bit, since the first and last one I tried. It was a Dungeons and Dragons labyrinth quest-type thingy, and it had no graphics at all. Just a black screen with a text prompt. The bit I remember, went like this. The screen displays the text line 'There is a door here'. I type in 'Open door'. The screen displays "The door opens. There is a dwarf here.' The excitement mounts; now I'm getting somewhere. I type in 'Ask dwarf for gold' and the screen displays 'Nothing happens'. A few equally unsuccessful guesses and I'm typing in 'Hit dwarf'. And still getting 'Nothing happens'. After that, it was back to the video game thrill-ride that was Pong, anyone remember that? Never tried a fantasy game since then, for some reason.

I remember (re-?)reading recently an account of the loss of one of the German aces - Kurt Wolf maybe - where he went up with another experienced pilot on the mission he (the ace) was shot down and killed. The way the survivor recounts it, he clearly sees it as being his role to protect his leader's tail and he is much aggrieved when he is distracted by having to defend himself and the leader gets shot down. But in general, from all the many accounts I've read, I don't think we can read back into WW1 anything like the later concepts of wingmen and planes fighting in basic pairs, which is generally credited as a Luftwaffe Condor Legion innovation. In WW2 the RAF started off flying 3-plane vics and if you have ever read the contemporary RAF 'Manual of Air Tactics' from what I remember anyway, there is nothing like wingman tactics, just flight and section tactics, mainly for attacking bombers. Likewise the Japanese (Navy, probably Army too) flew in vics and there was little concept of 'finger four' tactics. In WW1, with no radios, unreliable and low-powered engines, and inexperienced pilots even in the better units, they seemed to have had enough trouble flying in the simplest of formations let alone changing them mid-flight, apart from those units who'd trained in it, doing a Lufberry (defensive) circle. CFS3's very limited wingman commands actually suits WW1 reasonably well. I have certainly noticed my own wingman (number two might be a better description) come in behind and beside me when I hit the 'H' key. The only limitations I'm particularly conscious of are the poor formation flying, the limited 2-seater defensive tactics and on the other side, my only real gripe and due a welcome change with P4, their ability to fly at unladen weight (in an account by Erwin Boehme of a fight with 84 Sqn SE's in Oct '17, cited in Osprey's excellent 'SE5a -vs- Albatros DV', Boehme says 'Because I had used most of my fuel on my flight home, my aircraft was quite light and rose like Charlemagne').' I'm very glad P4 is gonna even this out a bit. Apart from the above mostly minor limitations, I quite like the AI in HitR as it is now, complete with the facilities to vary gun accuracy. Players of the other 'big name' sims would have given their right arms to have as much as we have now, let alone what's coming in P4. I well remember the AI in P2 and was thoroughly pleased with how well it had come on with P3 and how much more convincing the single seaters in particular flew in dogfights.I just flew a Jasta 2 mission, cloud was hitting my FPS and making tracking targets hard (Sopwith Triplanes) but it was very satisfying to watch how my squad mates split up and went after the Tripes. The only thing was, taking no chances, before combat was joined I opened the TAC/radar, and handed out targets with a series of 'tab' and 'A' commands; I'm not sure whether they would have engaged without that, or how they would have reacted to 'AAA' which in CFS2 anyway IIRC, was a sort of a 'general attack' command; or maybe it was just one 'A' with no target selected, must look that up.

I daresay it's Win-doze that's telling you 'This program has encountered an error and needs to close' rather than OFF and if you have XP or above the Windows error reporting service - unless like me you've disabled it - is probably creating an error log which is quite indecipherable to the likes of me, and sending it off, in the (vain?) hope it can offer you a solution or enable the crashed program's developers to fix it sometime. Suggest you do all the stuff one usually does to pin down an obscure software fault. EG run ChkDsk, see if that turns up anything wrong with your Windows files/file system; uninstall your graphics card in Device Manager (with the 'delete drivers' option ticked) then re-install it with a different driver (not necessarily most recent, I here there are some probs reported with NVidia 270+), make sure your HDD doesn't badly need defragmenting, all that good stuff. I have a fairly low spec PC and never had crashes with OFF. Apart from plane crashes that is. Might also be worthwhile using Task Manager to see what else is running on your PC, and then using MSconfig to disable at startup anything un-necessary or exotic that might be conflicting. Am inclined to think this is not OFF-specific; if it is then a reset in Workshop or failing that a re-install should fix it.

I was asking if this factor has been 'fixed' (or dispelled as an urban myth) - meaning in P3, not P4, because I was considering modding P3 for myself - no mean task in view of the many 'doubles' of planes for starters, tho worthwhile as you have to sacrifice personal skins to get the ability to cut your fuel load to even begin to 'level the playing field'. So, it is still a factor, then. The uneven-ness of said field can be seen from just one plane - take the N.17 - it's empty weight in the .cfg file (taking N.17 AC4 as an example) is 825 (lb) and it's gross is 1280 so even allowing for some reduction from climbing up and cruising to the combat zone, the AI-flown version gets a pretty big increase in power-to-weight ratio from flying 'empty', if, as it appears, that's what it's been doing. Especially if you're flying with a full fuel load every time (eg in HitR with skin selection chosen instead of fuel management). No wonder your own AI wingmen, flying the same plane, can do things you can't, regardeless of how careful you are. This is a big thing for me as well as some others. Each to his own, but on reflection, I think the best thing to do for those of us who are concerned about this - assuming a way isn't found to enable skin choice and fuel load management concurrently - is for HitR flyers to give up on skin selection, and to enable and use, every flight, the fuel management facility, to select a modest fuel load, optimised for the mission. And for BH&H-only flyers also to use it as a matter of course, to close the gap with the AI. I for one always use the 'alternative mission' option to generate a short flight in preference to a longer one and I in future I will combine this with selecting a realistic fuel load. I will also beware of engaging enemy scouts early on in any longer flight, even if flying at less than 100% fuel. Of course it's excellent news that this is being dealt with for P4; just shows, as others have said, that you guys are very well aware of what needs done, and can be expected to tackle it, within practical limits of course. I have equal confidence you will see/have seen the benefits of a DH4 as well Waiting out, for the features list.

Personally, when flying a scout, if I draw an airfield attack, or a railyard attack (or a distant offensive patrol when flying German) I somehow manage to misunderstand the orders and just go hunting. The OC hasn't complained yet and I'm not aware of any impact on wider hostilities. As far as I can tell it wasn't terribly common for Allied scouts to attack such things (excepting Biggles and maybe Billy Bishop if you believe him, which I don't, mostly) and would have been very rare indeed for the Germans.

Dunno about the airstart mission swap, but IIRC HitR gives you either the BH&H ability to choose fuel * ammo load, OR the ability to select a unique player skin, but not both, and it's the latter by default; dunno how you choose the variable loadout instead. I did a vanilla HitR install and I don't have the loadout option.