33LIMA

There was I... ...well on my way home, with two out of three flight-mates having managed to find me and tag on behind. Except that they weren't flight-mates. They had two wings, not three. More Huns! They were Albatrosses again, this time with blue tails. Now, I was in real trouble – alone against two, at under 5,000 feet and not quite yet over friendly territory. I ran for a bit... ...but the Huns slowly gained on me, so I turned to meet them. I picked the nearest Boche and got into a turning fight, in an effort to get him quickly and even up the odds at the outset. This proved impossible, for the Hun kept up his speed and while his turning circle may have been wider, his rate of turn seemed just as good. And the longer I stayed in a turn, the more the drag of my three wings seemed to give the sleeker biplane a greater advantage, getting around the circumference of his outer circle faster than I could get around that of my smaller, inner one. I tried to counter this by going vertical with a low yo-yo. That did the trick and I got some rounds into him. He sheered off, but now rounds whacked into my machine, in turn. I looked around for the second blue Albatros but could not find him, at which point I was hit again and realised that this time at least, I was under MG fire from the ground. I quickly re-oriented myself and fled westwards. Over No-Man’s Land the second blue-tailed Albatros caught up with me and round and around we went again. This time, though, it was his turn to be hit by ground fire! As I watched, I saw his nose drop and down he went, in a vertical dive from under 500 feet. Did he pull out? I didn’t hang around to find out, but sped away to the west. I’ve been re-reading from my books of RFC and RAF daily communiqués – ‘Comic Cuts’ as they were known – and I know well enough that many a hostile machine reported optimistically as 'going down vertically' wasn’t actually shot down, but I have a feeling that particular Hun had fought his last battle. Serves him right! I was soon leaving the shelled area behind me, with the unspoilt countryside of northern France opening out again below and around me. The sense of relief was very real – from the point we spotted the two-seaters, the transition from a cross country flight to a fight for survival had been rapid and unsettling. Behind my tail, all was now clear... ...but looking out ahead and to the right for the nearest friendly airfield my map revealed, I saw two specks, low down and about a mile off. At first I thought they were making a bee-line for me. But as I watched, I was relieved to find that they appeared to be making a gentle approach to the same airfield I was making for. The fact that no-one on the ground was shooting at them was a further indication they weren't more Huns up to no good. In fact, they might have been from my own flight. I was soon making my own approach, keeping an eye out for traffic. The other two aircraft may have been making a circuit or coud have flown on, for I didn’t see them again. I was soon back on terra firma, switching off in front of the canvas hangars.Time to introduce myself to my hosts and call Squadron to report my whereabouts and seek news of the others, before asking the fitters to check my machine before I set off on the last lap back to la Bellevue. Back at base, I claimed one Hun definitely shot down, and left it at that, on the basis that the Albatros with the dud motor was high enough to have glided back into Hun-land. I was, however, much relieved to find that all three of the others had made it back, and had in fact claimed another Hun. All in all, not a bad show and an all together more satisfactory one, than I'd had flying a very similar mission in the alternative Rise of Flight universe. That's no reflection on the relative merits of two great WW1 combat flightsims - I just put it down to the fortunes of war!

Looking at this screenshot of my Pup after a Quick Combat mission, I noticed an unfamiliar object in the woods - visible on the ground under the nearest wing. Zoomed in, it's very pixellated but looks like it might be a giant glove puppet that's been dumped or dropped there by a giant glove puppet user. What could it possibly be? I don't think I've seen one before. It doesn't look like a plane wreck. The grey object on the deck just beyond the further wingtip looks man-made and might be a Ford Model T pick-up or similar, or perhaps a large cow disguised as one, to deceive the enemy. But the closer object, I can't make out. I was over friendly territory so it's likely 'one of ours', whatever it is. Any ideas?

I have seen trains, usually soon after takeoff, just not on the runway, as sighted by Jim - someone of a less charitable disposition than I might wonder if this was possibly during a joyride after a liquid-fuelled BOC mess party Once en route, I find that trainspotting - or giant glove puppet spotting, for than matter - is not conducive to avoiding being shot down, which happens enough to me, without making it any worse

A fighting finalé... I managed to get there in time and shot the Hun off my flight-mate’s tail.The latter then seemed to make himself scarce, leaving me to deal with the second red-tailed Albatros, who seemed a tad cross with me for interrupting his attack, not to mention for having seen off his friend. This fellow seemed if anything more detrmined than the other Hun not to get shot down. However, I had the better aeroplane for the turning fight that quickly developed. He was hot stuff, though, and he managed to turn inside me when I pulled around too hard to get my gun onto him in a hurry, without balancing the turn. By now we were quite low and being more patient, I tok it a bit easier, and allowed my better turning circle to bring him back around and into my sights, more gradually. I got some hits on him and he reversed his turn. This didn't do him a lot of good. I overhauled him steadily, snapping out short bursts - with head-bobbing active, it takes more skill to line up your shots, without going to the gunsight view, a feature I like as it seems much more like you're in a three-dimensional world sitting in a manoeuvring aircraft, not sitting at a bitmap superimposed rigidly upon a moving monitor image. Sensing victory, I throttled back so as to stay behind him, rather than having to break and stop shooting. This did the trick. His wing structure suddenly collapsed and he disappeared somewhere under my nose. His friend might have well glided to safety, but this machine now had the gliding characteristics of a streamlined rock, and wasn't going anywhere, except down, down, down. Time to go home! There isn’t a fully-functional ‘recall’ command in WoFF and anyway, there was nothing to be seen of the rest of my flight. So I oriented myself and turned west, towards friendly territory. By this time, I had lost a fair bit of height and drifted over the enemy’s reserve trenchlines, happily still high enough to avoid ground MG fire. Behind me as I sped homewards, a smudge of dirt and dust near some trenches marked the spot where my erstwhile foe had crashed to earth. As I flew west, Archie did his best to stop me getting away. At which, glad to say, he failed. He did, however, play a part in deterring me from having a go at a nearby enemy kite balloon, which I left unmolested behind me. The excitement wasn't quite over yet, thought! ...to be continued!

Back on patrol! My parallel Triplane campaign in Wings over Flanders Fields is not a new one – this mission is the second in a campaign started for ‘Sopwiths over Flanders Fields’, but left ‘on the shelf’ since that mission report. The show featured here took place later on the same day, 1 May 1917. It was a patrol over to the lines from our airfield at la Bellevue, and my squadron was 'Naval Ten, rather than 'Naval One', as in Rise of Flight. I’m not yet using JJJ65's Mission Editor which enables you to do things like control the number and identify of flight-mates as Pat Wilson's Campaign Generato does in RoF. I was happy neverthelss to find that I was allocated three companions for the trip - not too many, not too few. I did use WoFF to reduce our fuel loads to 80%, to lighten our aircraft from the outset. As is common in WoFF, ‘A’ Flight was taking off with us, supposedly to fly ‘top cover’ (one of those slightly jarring post-World War One terms, like ‘Intel’, that WoFF uses in a few places) although whether or not you see them after take off is doubtful, unless you conform to their movements. Which I usually disdain to do. Having ticked the ‘Always lead’ option, I was in charge of ‘B’ Flight’s four Triplanes. For some reason, I had picked a ‘skin’ for a machine from 9 Naval, rather than from my own squadron. Unlike RoF, the WoFF weather is often dire, but today was bright and sunny, with little cloud cover. I’m experimenting with some of the settings in Ankor’s indispensable DX9 feature which accounts for my nice, glossy Triplane. The head-bobbing and mouselook Ankor has added to the original dynamic shadows make it much more attractive for me to spend more time in the virtual cockpit, as I do in RoF, and less time in the external view; so the shine wasn’t too distracting. Also as in RoF, the short flight times and pleasant visuals make flying the mission in real time a pleasure rather than a chore, although from la Bellevue, we had rather longer to go than in the RoF 'parallel' mission, to get to the front. On top of that, when we got there, nothing much seemed to be happening. All around us, the skies were clear of any sign whatever of other aircraft. As we reached the front, having got to somewhat under 10,000 feet, I turned right so as to fly east-south-east down the trenchlines, hoping we'd bump into something, sooner or later. Still the skies remained obstinately clear. The sun was behind and to our right, so I threw in a few random course changes to reduce the chance of somebody creeping up on us, unseen. But nobody did. I began to think that this was liable to be one of those parties the Huns weren’t going to join – a ‘milk run,’ to use another anachronism (one I haven’t seen in WoFF). One of my gentle zig-zags took us a little closer to Hun-Land, and this attracted the attention of Archie, as the RFC called AA fire. The black bursts seemed to be good for line and height and kept going, so I opened up and led us in a climb to put them off. No point tempting fate. Archie soon gave up, only for another battery to take over, just as we were coming to the southern limit of our assigned patrol line. At that point, scanning the blue skies all around, my gaze lingering in the direction of the sun, I noticed a group of specks above and behind us, to our right, on the friendly side of the lines. There seemed to be four of them, in a V formation. ‘A’ Flight has showed up after all, I thought to myself. But I kept a watchful eye on the newcomers, mindful of Mick Mannock’s tenet that sighted aircraft should be taken to be hostile, until proven otherwise. Sure enough, a closer look revealed that they were Hun two-seaters, possibly DFWs. While I was making up my mind whether to turn left or right to get at them, the decision was suddenly taken out of my hands. A small, fast biplane whipped in from our left, coming straight at us. He was a Hun in an Albatros V-strutter, and he wasn’t alone! Our attackers were at least two Albatrosses. What they may have lacked in numbers, they made up for in aggressiveness. Their red tails and noses seemed to explain their feistiness – they were from von Richthofen’s circus, no less. I picked out the nearest one, gave the order to attack – just in case anyone was in any doubt – and the fun began. I avoided the Hun’s first pass and after what today would be called a flat scissors, with each of us turning into the other repeatedly to try to get the other out in front, I managed to get above him. I rolled over and into him and made several attacks, before zooming back up. From the bits and dust that flew from him, I could see that I was getting hits. After maybe my third pass, the V-strutter broke off and flew away, wings level, slowly losing height. After clearing my tail and seeing that the other Triplanes seemed to be holding their own, I went after my Hun and made another pass. As I broke away, I saw that his propeller had stopped turning, so I left to return to the fight, where I could see a solitary Triplane being pursued by another Albatros. So far, so good, but the fight wasn't over yet! ...to be continued!

A winch truck, skillfully camouflaged as a giant glove puppet! Now I see, makes perfect sense really. Another mystery, de-mystified :)

Dunno. I see that it's based on a non-fiction book, which is a good start, but from the trailer, it looks a bit tightly-wrapped for my taste, and perhaps a tad self-indulgent or heavy-handed, a war film child of our times.

Revenge of the green tails! Having just lost my WoFF Jasta 5 campaign pilot, here I was up against what I soon found to be my 'former comrades' - the two Albatrosses had the distinctive red-edged green tail of that unit. I turned into them, but my motor didn't sound quite right by this stage, and my Triplane's handling seemed sluggish - in the pic at the end of the previous post, you can see that my fin is looking somewhat bent, for one thing. I went for the nearest Hun, but I was beginning to feel that not only had the DFW got away, but his observer had set me up for his friends in these V-strutters. Not only that, but I was fairly sure that I had shot off most of my ammo. After a few turns, it was clear that my engine was failing and I needed to get out of Dodge, as the saying goes, I was about the middle of No-Man's Land so I didn't have too far to go, and I took the earliest opportunity to nose down and run for it. I hadn't got very far, when one of the Huns caught me up. You can see that my engine cowling is looking bent, too, and there are some little holes that weren't there when I took off. So it was no wonder the power seemed to be fading away. I took some hits but managed to survive the first attack. I quickly looked for somewhere to put her down - the next attack would likely be the last one. Inconveniently, at that point I found myself above the widest part of the river that snaked through the shelled area. I didn't especially want to break my neck when my undercart caught in the water and flipped me over, nor chance an effort at a nose-high, tailskid-first ditching. So I kept on going. But not for long. Rounds slammed into me from behind and before I could get out of the way, I slumped forward and my machine nosed down, caught the tops of some stunted tree trunks and broke up as it somersaulted into the mud and craters. This is the fellow who got me. He hadn't entirely got away scot free - you can see that all his interplane bracing wires have been shot away. This unconvincing disappearing act is not one of the better features of RoF's damage model, but I was in no position to complain at that point. I think that the only thing that saved me was that I had left the PWCG setting in place, that limits the injury to the player to severe, rather than fatal. To wrap up this part of this dual mission report, here's the PWCG summary, plus the combat report I filed after viewing the animated debriefing, but without yet having seen the screenshots. This mission was flown by: Flt.Cdr Richard Collishaw Flt SLt Roderick S Dallas Flt Lt Delmar Ufford Flt SLt Oliver Thursby The mission was flown from Villers Bretonneux aerodrome. Pilots lost were: Flt SLt Roderick S Dallas: Killed in Action Flt SLt Oliver Thursby: Killed in Action Flt.Cdr Richard Collishaw: Injured "At about 09:40 we reached the lines over the objective but due to heavy shelling, I could not see the ground troops we were supposed to attack. Instead we climbed to attack two enemy two-seaters who flew past, heading north at about 1500 feet. They split up and I attacked the nearest, a DFW, which turned hard but was eventually damaged by my fire and flew east. I pursued him, and was rejoined by two other triplanes, but we were then attacked from behind by at least two Albatros V-strutters with green tails. A dogfight developed but my machine had been damaged by return fire from the DFW and the motor became very sluggish, so that I lost much height trying to turn after the Albatrosses. As I was also very low on ammo I tried to disengage but was attacked from behind, hit again and crashed near the river in No Man's Land." Not an auspicious start - Jasta 5 had taken down 1 RNAS more than a peg or two, with just one machine out of four getting away, two pilots killed and no victories to show for any of it. Leaving aside the extent to which my own tactics, flying and shooting were to blame, I can certainly see why it's all very well having an aeroplane with a superior performance, but that only goes so far if the other fellow has two guns to your slow-firing one. Perhaps I should have started with a Camel squadron! Hopefully, even if I change the PWCG setting to 'dead is dead', I'll live long enough to see the squadron re-equipped! ...to be continued!

Let battle commence! Turning around, I could see that the newcomers were a pair of enemy two-seaters, DFWs most likely. They were higher, about a thousand feet by the look of it, so I put my Triplane's high climb rate to good use. The Huns split up, and I continued to climb up under the nearest one, hoping to get my first crack at him from behind and below, out of the field of fire of the observer. My DFW was having none of it, though. Before I got into range, he started turning hard. He threw his big kite all over the sky like a real professional, and with a rather slow-fining single Vickers Gun, it was hard enough to get and keep him in my sights, let alone land many hits. Finally, I got into a good position, and let him have it. That did the trick. He levelled out and ran east, back towards Hun-land. I ran after him - straight into the field of fire of his observer, who now had a nice, steady firing platform, and duly let me have it. I broke away hard, but he seemed to have knocked out my padlock, for it promptly stopped working at just that point. I mouse-looked around and picked him up again, this time making my attack from the approved position, before slipping out slightly to one side, to see if he would now do the right thing and go down, like a good Hun. He did no such thing, but instead flew doggedly on, homewards. Another attack brought more return fire and more hits on my Triplane, after I again wandered into the observer's arc of fire. By the time I had extricated myself and resumed my pursuit, he was well to the east, and still going strong. At this point, I decided to look behind - just in time to see that I was at the head of a small conga line of aircraft. The last in the line was a Triplane, but the closer two were Huns - Albatros Scouts. The Triplane obligingly shot them off my tail, but as they broke, it was apparent that I was going to have to let the DFW get away. I now had more dangerous foes to worry about. ...to be continued!

An unusual start Both my Triplane campaigns are with No 1 Squadron, Royal Naval Air Service, which was the Navy's assertion of its entitlement to its own aeroplanes, rather than relying on those provided by the Army's Royal Flying Corps. It took daylight Gotha attacks on London and the resultant Smutts report to get both air services merged into the RAF, from April 1918. In the meantime, one of the benefits of independence was that the RNAS often did better by buying designs from private industry, rather than sticking to the products of the Royal Aircraft Factory like the B.E.2 general purpose two-seater and the F.E.8 single-seat 'pusher' fighter. The Sopwith Triplane is one such example. Both campaigns start on 1 May, in the immediate aftermath of Bloody April. This particularly suits Rise of Flight, because the latter lacks a B.E.2c, and thus suits the period when the B.E's replacement, the R.E.8, was taking over. As is my wont, I used Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator to chose side, squadron and start date. Choosing 1 RNAS placed us at Villers Brettoneaux in Flanders; while the Channel Coast further north was the RNAS's main stomping ground, it transferred several squadrons to the south to help the RFC in the Battle of Arras and after. In PWCG, I neglected to chose a 'skin', for my own aircraft, and went straight to generating the first mission, which I would pick up when next launching RoF. The generated mission was an odd one - what today would be called close air support. Our stated target was enemy troops attacking our lines just south of a 'U' bend in a river which crossed the lines. I was tempted to scrub the mission and generate one more to my liking, as in, a patrol, but I decided to go for it. I did make sure I was the senior pilot and thus leading the flight, and I bumped up our numbers to my preferred four, by adding another pilot. Here we are, lined up and good to go. After take-off, our route took us north-east, then east, to the lines. Here I am on the first leg, with No Man's Land on my right. Given we're attacking ground targets, I haven't climbed too high. What I have done is forgotten to take a load of little 20 pound bombs - I suspect my Triplane could carry these, but I've got too used to flying German fighters, which don't carry bombs. About this time I noticed that my three flight-mates had fallen behind and below, so I throttled back for a spell, to let them catch up. This I find is not infrequent in RoF, with one or more flight-mates, unlike in WoFF, where formation-keeping was one of the really big improvements over the previous Over Flanders Fields. Here we are, after everyone is back where they should be. I really like the scenery in RoF. Perfect it ain't - the trenchlines are a bit too zipper-like, expecially where they cross unshelled countryside - but it's really rather nice, with the fields criss-crossed with realistic water, roads and tracks and dotted with towns, villages and airfields. There was a bit of a crosswind from the south, and after turning east, I could see my kite visibly crabbing as I applied rudder to maintain heading. Coming up to the lines, I picked out the meandering river which helpfully marked our target area, and then changed course to the right. I wanted to come in just to the south of the objective, so that it would not be hidden under my nose as I came in. Having got there, I wasn't at all sure how I was going to spot what it was, that I was supposed to be shooting at. What I could see was quite a lot of shellfire hitting our trenches, throwing up grey clouds of dust, or waterspouts, where the rounds fell. I banked around, trying to pick out something, anything, worth attacking, doubly anxious because our marked target seemed to be right on top of our own trenchlines. But looking back, I realised I was about to be spared further difficulties in that regard. Anti-aircraft fire was peppering the skies and my three flight mates were climbing up and away, going for whatever it was the gunners were shooting at. ...to be continued!

I've never seen the train on the runway...but then, I'd never seen the giant glove puppet in the forest, either, until the other day. Now, I can't go anywhere, but I'm looking for one. Hence presumably the saying 'Beware of the giant glove puppet in the woods'...or was it the Hun in the sun? Something like that. :)

Albatros B.II, possibly.

Making good use of one of the many features of Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator! One of the many good things that PWGC lets you do in Rise of Flight - apart from create and change RoF campaign settings in about as much detail as most would want - is write detailed combat reports. Some may regard this as tedious paperwork, but to me, it can be highly immersive. And while Wings over Flanders Fields will also let you describe your achievements for later review (as well as giving you the option of making acceptance of your victory claims dependent on your reports thereof), the equivalent PWCG facility lets you type onto a decent sized page, rather than into a single, short window; this encourages a fuller description. As I'm still spending much of my sim time working on scenarios for the upcoming Panzer Elite Britpack '44-x mod, and just dipping into actually playing other sims for a change of scenery, I thought I might relieve the break in mission reports here on CombatAce by reproducing some of my RoF/PWCG combat reports, illustrated by screenshots taken at the time. These are from my Richard Stachel campaign, flying the Albatros D.III with Jasta 2 in the heady days of Spring, 1917. First off, here's one I see dates from a patrol up to the lines on 27 April. We took off at 10:30 and as usual, I had used PWCG to ensure that I was leading the flight (hence the blue streamer that's attached to my left upper mainplane) and had three other flight-mates with me, usually the same fellows each time. To 'get in character', I try to replicate some of the language of the time in these reports, complete with references to 'Englishmen' (or 'Huns' when flying for the British) and incorrect identifications - for example, the Germans tended to describe British 'pusher' aircraft as Vickers types, regardless of the correct manufacturer. Anyway, here's the report, as I recorded it immediately after looking at the handy animated mission 'debriefing' in PWCG. "At about 10:40 I spotted five aircraft heading east over the lines at about 3000m, slightly above us. Although they were not being engaged by our flak, I observed that they were Vickers 2-seaters. One of the Englishmen broke off to the north-west and the others swung around to the south-west, flying in two pairs, one pair below and slightly behind the other. By this time, I had drawn away from the rest of my flight. All the Vickers flew back towards their side of the lines, diving slightly, which made them hard to catch. I finally got in range of the right-hand machine in the lower pair... ...and hit his engine after several bursts, causing white smoke to trail behind. The other enemies did not intervene and I stayed out of the arc of fire of the enemy observer, despite the aircraft weaving from side to side. Finally I appeared to have hit the enemy pilot and the Vickers fell away to the right and dived to the ground, about 3 Km on his side of the lines. I then spotted the second Englishman further west, still diving, and although I dived after him and hit him, my ammunition soon ran out and I had to turn east for friendly territory. As I crossed the lines I was rejoined by Oblt Bohme and Lt Tutschek. I claim one Vickers-type 2 seater shot down and another one damaged." The 'Vickers 2-seaters' are of course F.E.2bs, a type I haven't bought as a 'flyable' yet, but which still appears in-game as AI-flown. Not a bad morning's work, it was. And although only two reappeared initially, I brought all three of my comrades home with me, which is always a priority of mine. The next mission was to be rather more eventful. ...to be continued!

Glad you've discovered another great combat flightsim, Scott! You may find the stock career/campaign mode fine, but for me, Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator is indispensible, not least as it enables me to start at whatever rank I choose and even if I am still outranked, chose my own flight-mates (as I can in First Eagles) so that I can enjoy the extra tactical challenge of leading my flight and avoid the chore of formation-keeping. Good hunting!

From a fellow-sufferer of the vicissitudes of SimHQ - they are aileron control cables, I believe - the D.III and D.Va had them running out the lower wing, then up behind the rear V strut to the aileron crank. In the D.V, the cables ran via the upper wing.

Scenes from my latest PWCG campaign mission, accompanied by the combat report I filed later. Date: 02/09/1917 Time: 9:30 Type: Fokker DR.I Duty: PATROL Altitude: 3300 meters This mission was flown by Obltn Richard Hippel [me] Ltn Lenz Friedemann Ltn Oswin Rietschel... and Fw Benjamin Breitner [rank hath its privileges, so he's the one in the Albatros]... The mission was flown from Phalempin, N Douai aerodrome. Successes include the following: Sopwith Triplane shot down by Obltn Richard Hippel Bristol F2B (F.II) shot down by Obltn Richard Hippel "At about 09:45, near the northern limit of our final patrol leg, over the enemy trenches east of Bethune, I saw two Sopwith triplanes approaching us from the north-west, at about the same height, around 2500m. One of the triplanes broke off from the fight and I dived down onto him, hitting him with my second or third burst. The Englishman turned away and dived slightly, back to the north-west. I attacked him again from behind. The pilot slumped forward in his seat and the machine fell to the ground near the enemy's reserve trenches. As I was turning back to rejoin my comrades, I saw a second triplane heading the same way, trailing light grey smoke. I chased him for a time but could not close the range, so I turned back towards our patrol area, firing a green flare to recall the flight. I flew east and began to descend as Fw Breitner in the Albatros... then Lts Friedemann and Rietschel in the other two Fokkers reappeared and rejoined formation. As I flew east towards our airfield, I observed a single machine crossing our path behind, between us and the lines, at about 1000m, the same height. I turned to cut him off and saw that he was a single, fast enemy two seater, which I identified as a Bristol. I gave the order to attack and flew to one side as my comrades shot at the Englishmen, who was very agile and turned hard to escape. I cut him off and made several attacks from the rear quarter, observing several pieces fly off from my hits. After another attack the enemy observer disappeared and the Bristol fell into a shallow dive to the west, still under control but not flying so fast. I attacked again from astern, setting the enemy's engine on fire. He went into a steep downward spiral and crashed in open country near Mearchin at about 10.05. I recalled my flight again and led them all back to Phalempin. I claim one Sopwith triplane and one Bristol two-seater destroyed."

I like the Roland, but as I can fly him in WoFF and in FE2, if and when I buy another German 2-seater for Rise of Flight (I already have the DFW, as well as the Gotha) it will be this one, I think:

If you liked Dad's Army, you might also appreciate another character from the pen of the same writers, Croft and Perry, namely the Welsh equivalent of Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann...

Gosh, you're a hard one, with that 'willing suspension of disbelief' thing! Maybe it's partly down to national rather than individual, preferences - I'm not sure the sometimes childlike, sometimes understated humour of (say) 'Dad's Army' appeals to many on your side of the pond, although 'Don't tell him, Pike!' is part of our shared national identity, over here,

Each to his own! 'The Camera' remains one of my firm favourites. So many little word pictures are painted in such a short story, which convey the experience of the WW1 pilot as only someone who's been there can really do. And the twist at the end is a fine piece of writing! When someone at work tells me something is impossible, I tell them what Biggles told his crew cheif, when the latter said Biggles's request to add several thousand feet to the ceiling of his Camel was impossible.

Triplane troubles! Sadly, I find that I didn't actually write a combat report for this next mission. This was possibly because the ending was not quite as had I hoped, and thus not much worth writing about. But happily, I can recreate the chain of events from the screenshots taken 'on the day'. The day in question was 1st September 1917, and I had opted to fly as Oberleutnant Richard Hippel, for Jasta 11, based at Phalempin, near Douai - although as locals will realise from the distinctive, moated fortifications, the town in the pic above is actually Lille. Jasta 11 of course is the unit Manfred von Richthofen was posted to command after his successful stint with Boelcke in Jasta 2. He's still listed as the Jastafuhrer in my PWCG campaign, but for my first mission, I gave up the opportunity to fly behind the master, and opted instead to lead the flight of four. Our task was to intercept enemy aircraft reported to the north, near Lille. Here we are, lined up and ready to go. We are flying the default aircraft allocated - two Fokker triplanes and two Albatros DVs, all sporting the red colour for which the staffel was famous. You may be able to make out that my Dreidekker, nearest the camera, has a little external, wind-driven airspeed indicator fitted to its left-hand interplane strut. The instrument fit of German WW1 aircraft seems to have been particularly spartan, and where fitted, the instruments might not be where you expect to see them. This particular fitting used to be an optional extra, but I believe it's now included when you buy the flyable Fokker triplane. And here we go. Nearly all the RoF airfields seem to have the distinctive water tower that you can see on the right of the picture. The large tracts of woodland around our base might make forced landings a bt tricky, depending on timing, I remember thinking as we headed northwards. The Fokkers tended to leave the Albatrosses behind if I climbed too hard. You can just about make out one of the latter to the right of the distant airfield, in the pic below, just above my port tailplane.Like many RoF aircraft, the Tripehound flies very tail heavy and it takes a fair bit of down elevator to stop her standing on her tail. Every so often, so as to keep the formation together, I eased off a bit... ...but even so, the Albatrosses tended to lag below, even though not too far behind. One of the nice things about RoF/PWCG's campaign missions is that the distances to be flown are so short that flying them in real time is a pleasure rather than a chore, all the more so because of the beautiful visuals and the precise rendition of the landscape features - not I think since Rowan's Flying Corps Gold have we seen such a faithful representation of the localities over which you fly. Lille was soon just ahead and with it, came the temptation to do a bit of sight-seeing, especially as this was my first sortie in this area. Natually, I still tried to keep a half-decent lookout, especially to the South-West, in the direction of the Autumn sun. In the pic below, you can see the external airspeed indicator more clearly, with the little cup-shaped windmill thngy spinning merrily, on top. Meanwhile, to my left front, Lille was slipping towards me underneath my lower wing, as I began to come around in a wide sweep designed to orbit the town, where we have been briefed to expect to see some enemies in the air. Behind, though I was - as usual in RoF - struggling somewhat to keep my feisty aircraft on an even keel while looking around, the formation wasn't in too much of a mess. That was soon to change, though. It was only after flying this mission that I realised that I had heavily nerfed AA fire by dropping the ground object level to low in PWCG while experimenting with settings - so depriving myself of the possibility of being alerted to the presence of other aircraft by flak bursts. So it was, that the first indication of trouble was when I looked back again during a fresh scanning sequence, to see my flight-mates were slipping purposefully off to my right. I quickly saw why - they were chasing a pair of brownish aircraft with shorter lower wings, identifiable as R.E.8 two-seaters. As the others were all ahead of me in the queue, I hung back, until one of the R.E's tried to escape by jinking towards and underneath me. I briefly pushed down the nose and gave him a burst as he zipped past. I'm not certain I hit him - I have a vague recollection of seeing pieces come off him, but it may not have been from my rounds - but he certainly hit me, as the oil smears and dead motor in the pic below, taken soon after, indicate. In this next screenie, you can see me diving away gently in the background, trailing light smoke, presumably vapourising engine oil. My tormentor, while scarred, was also on his way home, but looking relaxed, as his observer has left his gun and sat down. RoF observers tend to do this too readily, only to have to stand to their guns again when an enemy comes closer. After that, with the battle over for me, it was the old 'good news, bad news' routine. The good news was that I managed to extend my glide far enough to reach a nearby airfield. The bad news was that my subsequent dead stick landing did not turn out quite as I would have wished. You've got to look on the bright side, though, as I would likely tell my crew chief and the CO later. Some new wings, a new motor and prop, and she'll be right as rain, eh? Whether and if so, when Rise of Flight will receive any further developer attention remains to be seen. But especially when combined with Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator, I'm still very much appreciating its virtues as a single player WW1 air combat sim, which virtues for me very much outweigh its weaknesses. Given that the base version is free - with flyable Albatros D.V, SPAD XIII and now also a Nieuport 17 variant, all the rest AI-flown and buyable cheaply individually, as and when you may wish - RoF is in my book a 'must have' for any flight simmer with any sort of interest in leaving the Sidewinders and Hispanos behind, and getting immersed in a sim which brings to life one of the truly classic periods of combat in the air.

Death of the Prehistoric Packing Cases In one of my favourite WW1 air war books by one of my favourite authors - Alexander McKee's The Friendless Sky - the writer cites Manfred von Richthofen, no less, as using the above description for a 'pusher' aircraft, of the type mainly used by the Royal Flying Corps, 1915-17, to get around the thorny problem of shooting ahead through the prop disc in a conventional 'tractor' aircraft. 'Packing cases' seems to have been the German equivalent of the common British slang for an aeroplane, 'kite', and a neutral term. The 'prehistoric' bit reflects the fact that by late 1916, the 'pusher' formula had been well and truly left in the shade by more modern aircraft, not least the sleek Albatros D-types, like the D.III I've been flying in this campaign (albeit RoF's Ostdeutsche Albatros Werke version should not be at the front so early). Anyway it was arguably 'Bloody April' that confirmed the 'pusher' was 'past it', so it's perhaps appropriate that my last mission of that month saw my RoF alter ego, Richard Stachel, make his own particular contribution to settling the matter. If you don't believe me, here's my proof. My 30 April mission was another patrol up to, then south down the lines, from our airfield at Pronville, near the town of Cambrai in Flanders. As seen above, our aircraft have the black-rimmed white tail used by Jasta 2 about this period, although I have used PWCG to swap my own plane's skin for one with brown and green camouflage. The stock mauve and green is more appropriate for this period but the colours appear strangely pixellated and blocky from the cockpit view. As usual, I have also used PWCG to choose my three companions, and could also have used it to adjust many other mission parameters, including waypoints. Here we are, soon after takeoff, having turned around to overfly our airfield, heading back to the South-West and our patrol route. And here's the report of the action which resulted. It's rather short, and not entirely accurate as it happens, because even with the benefit of the animated debreifing in PWCG, the action once it started was not the easiest to recall so clearly - as indeed it might well have been in real life. "At about 08:45 heading SW towards the lines from Pronville, at about 2500m I saw four planes to the N, but when we turned towards them, I saw that they were Albatros scouts like our own. Turning SW again, I saw a flight of four enemy Vickers single seaters, just above and crossing our path, flying SE into our territory. We cut them off and they turned and dived SW for the lines. I overtook the last Englishman and fired 10 rounds into him from astern, after which his engine went on fire... ...and he rolled over and plunged down. I then attacked and shot down the next Vickers in the formation, I believe hitting the pilot and causing him to spiral steeply to earth, also on our side of the lines. [i definitely got well mixed up here, because the pics below show my next victim, and he was on fire and not spiralling down] Several more similar aeroplanes arrived and leaving my comrades to fight these, I dived to help two Roland 2-seaters... who were fighting with two more English pushers at low level. I shot down one of these, then rejoined my comrades who were still in action with other Vickers machines. My ammunition ran out after I hit and shot down one more Englishman, and my comrades left the second one smoking and going down as he flew westwards towards our reserve trenches. I claim four Vickers-type single seaters definitely shot down, the last one shared with the two Rolands." See? Richard Stachel is really a much nicer person than his more famous relative Bruno from The Blue Max movie, who I think it's fair to say would have been most unlikely to have wanted to share a kill with anyone, man or beast. Richard is now up to 48 victories but not yet fretting that after getting his Pour le Mérite, there's not much more in the way of formal awards to earn, apart from '...the deep satisfaction of knowing that you have served the Fatherland', as staffel adjudant Kettering told Bruno after he got rather vexed at the absence of confirmation for his first victory. I do recall that I was so concerned that my three comrades would collide or crash while all going for the last 'pusher' that I recalled them, even though it was possible that the enemy might make it back onto his side of the lines. Of course, the 'Vickers-type single seaters' are actually Airco D.H.2s. Next up, a change of scenery with a combat report from a concurrent PWCG/RoF campaign, this time flying the famous Fokker Tripane with the equally famous Jasta 11. ...to be continued!

I would highly recommend 'Biggles of 266' which is a collection of excellent short stories. Some are humourous like 'The Battle of the Flowers', some deadly serious like 'War in Hot Blood', and some are in between, like 'the Camera' - one of my favourites, where our hero is tasked with somehow bringing down an exceptionally high-flying Rumpler without destroying its special camera.

"Whatever happens, we have got The Lewis Gun, and they have not." Ok it should have been "the Maxim Gun" but I couldn't resist it :)