33LIMA

Nice, got it, thanks!

I'm getting intermittent lockups if I try to access the planning map before campaign missions (that is, before selecting 'Fly'). It SEEMS to affect my current Armchair Aces 1917 campaigns, but intermittently. At first it seemed to affect every 10 RNAS mission, but just now, I also got the same problem flying a Jasta 10 campaign in September 1917. FE2 just freezes with the cursor over the 'Map' button, the instant I click it. I have to launch Task Manager to kill FE2 which shows as 'Not responding'. I haven't done enough flying in different modes to narrow it down much, as to when it happens, and when it doesn't. I can only think that I must have incorrectly installed some component needed for Armchair Aces but cannot thing which one. I have afeeling the culprit might be my nations.ini as I remember doing something to it to get RNAS squadrons to show up as such; I have a suspicion it started about then. I can access the map fine in flight. Any ideas or suggestions as to where the problem might lie, would be most welcome! TIA!

Beautiful! Fokkers mixing it with DH4s in close squadron formation! Another feather in the cap for FE and its community!

Sweet, thanks Hansa, a big improvement. Only minor quibble is that the fin/rudder stripes are still showing red-white-blue instead of white-blue-red as in Quack's as-yet-unfinished skins; otherwise, very sweet, thanks!

Sorry mate but I have been advised in terms which brook no debate that no redistribution is allowed! Gutted not to be able to help. Might be worth trying again to sort something out directly with Cesar/Capun at the A Team, directly. Good luck! If you don't manage to get all the A Team planes, it's probably still possible to play Armchair Aces by hand-editing the cappaign files, but that'd be a lot of work and it's really hard to do without so many great planes.

Have just flown a quick 'interception' mission in the A2, only for the 4 of us to be pitted against Pfalz DIII's escorting a bunch of Gothas. Nevertheless, I managed to get behind one and while I think I may want to tweak the gunner's capabilities a little, he managed to knock one down, just visible diving 'OOC' for the deck ahead of all the struts and stuff ahead:

Another nice one Stephen!

I find it's a different ball game with Ojcar's Armchair Aces. Yes the AA guns are still easy to kill (they way they fireball is probably more unrealistic than their vulnerability; an accurate burst should often be enough to put one out of action for a bit). But with ground AA MGs in the sim (I get the impression these replace some AA guns) it is a lot more dangerous to fly low, and quite deadly over enemy airfields where the AA MGs tend to be concentrated. You can probably get the same effect by installing the AA MG mod recommended for Armchair Aces in stock campaigns, if you don't have Armchair Aces itself installed (you should, it's so good!). Even without ground MGs I find it is unwise to loose altitude behind enemy lines just to annoy some Archie, especially with Armchair Aces, Bloody April and other campaigns which seem to have more enemies in the air, just waiting to descend upon you if you let yourself be dragged down into the weeds.

Hi WM! Could this be the problem? Main thing with second gen Third Wire sims like FE2 is to make sure that planes (and other mods) are installed into your so-called 'mods' folder and NOT into the main game folder wherein you installed the sim itself. You need to bear this in mind interpreting Stephen's separate install instructions for FE2, which sort of assume you know this. The FE2 'mods' folder is under your username, not in Program files. Actual folder names differ a bit between versions of Vista and Win 7 but I have Vista 64 and the DH4 is installed as follows (taking the 250hp version as an example): [myusername]/Saved Games/FirstEagles 2/Objects/Aircraft/AircoDH4_250 Create any folders manually, that you don't have - on first install, FE2 creates only a basic set of 'mod' folders. Then you have to create a similar folder under 'decals' and move (just) the 'D' subfolder and contents out from the above, to there - ie: [myusername]/Saved Games/FirstEagles2/Objects/Decals/AircoDH4_250/D I just copy the complete plane to 'Decals', like installing it twice, then delete everything in its Decals folder except the D subfolder, which I find faster. Seems tedious but you soon get used to it. Most FE extra palnes are designed for FE and their install instructions don't cover FE2 at all. If you have a framerate hit then I suggest setting shadows=False in the DH s .ini file. Stephen's DH9 and DH9A are also very highly recommended if you are a fan of the 'Four'.

Watch out, R*** of F*****! A certain other WW1 sim, ahead in other departments, is catching up on your aircraft visuals :) Great work there - love it!

Wow! another nice bird for First Eagles! Many thanks Stephen!!!

Hi there I've just PM'ed Capun over at the A Team to request permission to try zipping and emailing you their FE planes (assuming that is feasible and you're ok with providing me an email addie) and will do so if clearance is given. Otherwise very reluctantly it'll be 'no can do' as their rules clearly say no distribution without clearance, it's the modder's call and we must abide by that. Will let you know!

Well I just flew my first USAS campaign mission in Armchair Aces 1918 and it was my last! These 1918 skies are downright dangerous! Near our objective, leading a flight of four 94th Aero Nieuport 28s, I practically flew over what turned out to be a couple of Hun 2-seaters going the opposite way lower down, would have missed them but for the white AA bursts that suddenly appeared around the enemy aircraft. Rolled over and dived down after them. My flightmates got stuck in too, a bit too vigorously as it turned out, one of them suddenly colliding with one of the enemy planes after a risky head-on pass - a horrible sight and a bad start! My comrades got the other Hun before I could get a bead on him. After that it just got worse. We managed to see off a couple of sports in Albatrosses, again my flight-mates doing most of the damage. Breaking away after the last one went down, I saw one of my friends twisting and turning with a Fokker triplane. I needn't have hurried over to help him; a burst from my comrade and the fokker's top wing broke in two and flew off right in front of me; he nosed over quickly and went down like a shot bird. But there was another triplane out for revenge and he was hot stuff. We got into a rolling scissors which soon went badly when I stalled out and lost some height in recovering. He promptly went after my flight-mate which probably saved me, so I climbed back up and went after him again. Another scissors developed, with the wily Hun turning inside me and very nearly getting me more than once, not to mention several truly scary near misses as we crossed over. Not as scary as the last crossover, during which we promptly collided, thanks to my own desperation in trying to avoid being pushed out in front of his guns again. His prop removed most of my fin, rudder and tailplane and this time it was my turn to plunge vertically into the ground. A sad and early end for my first USAS career but what an air combat experience it was, from first to last! It's like LIVING the stories you read about in Flying Fury, Winged Warfare and the rest. What a sim this is! Armchair Aces 1918 plus First Eagles 2 - white-knuckle WW1 air war knife fighting at it's very, very best!