33LIMA

My luck runs out! Our base at Cappy fell slowly astern as I led our three BE12s northeast, towards our rendezvous with the BE2s of 2 Squadron. Referring to the inflight map, I oriented my track against the prominent landmark afforded by a small and then a large U-bend in the river north of our airfield. You may have noticed that I'm flying in my virtual shirt-sleeves. This is because of an install issue I need to correct with Geezer's excellent Martinsyde 'Elephant', whose desert pilot as a result has taken to flying all my British aircraft. Meanwhile, back at the mission...I hadn't been told what our charges would be doing at the objective, Marcoing, but from the low altitude we were assigned, I guessed they must be tasked to bomb an important target. And so it proved! One of the neat features of First Eagles, inherited from the base Strike Fighers sim, is the 'next encounter' key (Alt+N). It's a real time-saver and I use it often, especially, as in this case, where I have quite a long leg to fly, over friendly territory. As usually happens, when I hit the magic key combo on this mission, I was 'warped' to the last RV (Waypoint in modern terminology) before the objective. I'd neglected to drag this back in mission planning - and now I think of it, many waypoints are locked, when you fly an escort mission in FE. I 'came out of warp' and saw the area of the objective right away, maybe a mile off, straight ahead. Below and to my right, on the same heading as my own flight, were two BE2s, their clear doped linen finish standing out against the scenery below. Clearly, these must be the machines from 2 Squadron who were entrusted to my care. The bridge up ahead of us - or the supplies commonly stacked near these bridges, in FE - I judged to be the mission target. We were maybe one minute out, by my estimation. Archie burst around us. Looking ahead, I could see the gunflashes of at least one of the AA guns doing the shooting, as well as some yellow tracers zipping up from the same general area, near that prominent river bridge. It's another neat feature of FE that you can often spot the AA guns firing at you; they are actual weapons placed in the 3d world and they are destructible, if you care to get low enough and take a crack at them. Nervously scanning the skies again, I quickly realised that our little armada was not the only force in the air on this stretch of the front. Slightly ahead and above, also headed towards the bridge, was a pair of large 'pusher' biplanes, a type little used by the Huns and thus almost certainly friendly. Deeper into Hunland, I could see what looked like a small swarm of midges or similar insects, whirling around - an air fight in progress, for sure. Further away, a series of dark smudges in the sky marked German AA fire directed at what must be other friendly aircraft. There wasn't much I could do but press on after my charges. So that is what I did. I would have liked to have gained a bit more height but I quickly gave up the attempt, once I saw how much I fell behind the two BE2s, who were by now nearing the bridge. Instead I pushed my nose down and led my flight ahead of them, thinking that I might at least be able to draw off the Archie. As we arrived over the bridge, the latter erupted into a clound of smoke and debris. But this wasn't the work of 2 Squadron; too soon for that. At this point I decided to pause the action and invoke another of FE's excellent features - its view system, which enables you to 'tab' around the other aircraft in the sky. I don't like to do this in the middle of a mission, preferring not to have a magic eye in the sky and to remain with a more realistically limited view of what’s going on around me. But this being flown for a mission report - and because it wasn't going to change my tactics anyway - I gave it a go. And this is what I saw. The bridge had been bombed by the two big 'pushers' I saw earlier. They were French Maurice Farman MF11s, known as 'Shorthorns' or 'Rumpeties'; rather out-of-place on operations in September 1916. In fact I thought I had hand-edited Ojcar's campaigns to replace these with Voisins; maybe I lost this loading a campaign update, tho the newer Caudron G.IV might be a better substitute now. But I digress. Obsolete they may be but the Farmans had done a good job on the bridge. Not too far away were some Huns in Halberstadts, probably the best German fighters, until the imminent arrival of the new Albatros D-types. Fortunately for us, they were being engaged by some very helpful people in FE2s. The dogfight I had seen was between some silver French Nieuport 17s and a bunch of Huns in the rather un-loved Fokker D-types which had replaced the Eindekkers, pending the availability of better types. The bad news here was that some of the Fokkers had apparently broken through and were making straight for us! These weren't the only aircraft in the area. Two other BE2c's, bombing targets amongst the trenches, were under attack by yet another Fokker while over the lines, two Aviatiks were receiving similar attention from a Nieuport. Un-pausing the action, I swung around to orbit the objective while the BE2s below ran in. It wasn't long before they had added their own bombs to those of the Farmans, producing a most satisfactory series of explosions on the far bank of the river adjacent to the bridge, hopefully obliterating anything Hun-like waiting to make the crossing towards the front. I levelled out of my turn facing roughly west, towards home, and looked down for the BE2s, whom I expected would now do the same. And sure enough, there they were, heading west, now somewhat further below. But they were not alone. One of the BEs was straggling slightly behind the other, and there were two Fokkers on his tail, seemingly vying to see who would get the first kill. Crikey! How did they get here so quickly and without my spotting them? Paying too much attention to the pyrotechnics, I was. But no time for self-recrimination now! I stuffed down my nose and went for the Huns, leaving my throttle wide open and doing my very best Bat out of Hell impression. As I dived down - without at the time noticing that the Archie had holed my wings - I signalled my two flight-mates to get stuck in also. Time we got busy! …to be continued!

Into battle in one of WW1's least successful fighters! Perhaps only the much-maligned Royal Aircraft Factory could have imagined that they could make a fighter out of the BE2, a low-powered and badly-armed reconnaisance machine renowned for its inherent stability...and as 'Fokker Fodder', vulnerable to the little Eindekkers, let alone later German fighters. In fact the Factory seems to have had no such illusions. The BE12 was designed originally for single seat longer-range reconnaisnce and light bombing. BE2s often left the observer behind when carrying bombs - and the pilot operated the camera on a recce - so a single-seater BE with a more powerful engine and more fuel doubtless seemed like the proverbial good idea at the time (mid-1915). The resultant BE12 had a more powerful engine but wasn't even intended to be armed, at first. By the time it was ready for service, though, the situation at the front had changed and - a forward-firing Vickers gun having been fitted in place of early efforts at synchronised and unsynchronised Lewis guns - the BE12 was pressed into service as a fighter, serving in the Royal Flying Corps with No.s 19 and 21 Squadrons on the Western Front from the summer of 1916. Within a few months their unsuitability as a fighter seems to have become obvious and they were back at their designed job as a (rather vulnerable) light bomber. Later, they moved onto rather less hazardous duties on Home Defence. So, why would I want to chance my virtual life in such a machine? Well, what better reason than the fact that a BE12 is one of a series of new planes released for First Eagles and FE2, by prolific modder Stephen1918 http://combatace.com/files/file/15121-raf-be12/? Not only that, but the later BE12a version is also available: http://combatace.com/files/file/15124-raf-be12a/ ; note the different wings with shorter span below, as also fitted to the BE2e: And having checked out the BE12 in First Eagles, I was minded to savour the same experience in Wings Over Flanders Fields, which has featured the BE12 from release. So that I could fly the BE12 in an FE2 campaign, after installing the aircraft, I hand-edited Ojcar's Armchair Aces Flanders month-by-month campaigns for the summer and autumn of 1916, substituting Stephen's BE12 for the previous mount of 19 Squadron, up to the time it moved onto SPAD VIIs. This is a simple Wordpad job, changing a single entry in two files for each campaign (FlandersFrontxx.ini and FlandersFrontxx_data.ini, starting at xx=12 and ending at xx=16). That done, I created a new pilot and off we went! My chosen campaign based us as Cappy, starting on 1 September 1916. Our first mission was to escort some 2 Squadron BE2s to Marcoing, just over the Lines near the big town of Cambrai. Our assigned altitude was a mere 1700 feet. I chose two pilots from the bottom of the squadron roster to accompany me. Before launching the mission itself, I had a good look at the map, which is a zoomed-out but exact replica of what you can see in the 3d world. But I forgot to apply my usual practice of moving the last waypoint further back from our objective area. This is a good idea because it gives you a longer run-in and thus more time to suss out the situation, ahead. The other thing I forgot to do had more serious consequences, later. Some modder-made FE planes have a very restricted horizontal field of vision for the virtual pilot from the cockpit, often giving you no view much aft of directlty sideways. Invariably, I hand-edit the relevant data file to increase this wherever I find it, so I can look over my shoulder and past my tailplane. A restricted rearward arc isn't too bad in most 2-seaters, where your observer, sitting right behind you, blocks your view in that direction. But in a fighter, it's potentially catastrophic. The padlock is also blocked, beyond this same arc. Unfortunately for me, the BE12 has one of these restricted arcs of rearward vision. But such things were far from my mind as I left Cappy behind, pleased with the superior pulling power of my 150hp motor - superior, that is, to the bog-standard BE2 - and levelled off with the throttle back while my two flight-mates caught up. So far, so good... ...to be continued!

As I've said before, what FE needs most now, along with a Famman F-40, is a 1918 German 2-seater like the LVG C VI or Halberstadt C V, or perhaps a Rumpler C IV like the excellent WOFF version. The Junkers J I is interesting and would be welcome and a useful AI foe even if not popular player-flown but its slot could be filled by an AEG J I which, with an angular, armoured nose, would be an easy adaption of the C IV. The AEG is a great new addition; with its arrival, we will have plenty of 1915-17 German 2-seaters. A general purpose model that's really suitable for the last year or so of the war is arguably the last biggish gap in the FE planeset, along with the very common F-40 from the mid-war period. Next most important would be some of the many other French 2- or multi-seat aircraft like the Dorand AR 1 and the Caurdon R XI, and an AW FK-8.

Lovely job! 1916 in FE is about to get more interesting. RNAS markings would be appropriate, too.

Weird, never saw that in any Third Wire sim. Graphics card overheating maybe? Does your card play other demanding apps (reasonably modern games) ok? Are drivers up-to-date? Maybe re-install DirectX in case that's the problem If all else fails maybe download FE2 over again, uninstall and re-install the new d/l. Does look more like a graphics card issue tho, rather than a problem with the sim.

Strange...when you ran the copied & renamed .exe, it did create the additional mods folder, right? IOW if your copy was North Sea.exe, when you look in [your user name]/Saved Games/ThirdWire, in addition to a subfolder there called FirstEagles2, you now also have one called North Sea? Did you next install the North Sea campaign and all the necessary extras (aircraft etc) as described in the readme? Installing into that 'mods' folder in Saved Games, and not in the main install folder in Program Files or whatever? Creating manually the additional subfolders, beyond the basic set created at the start? Until you install the mod/campaign, into the 'mods' folder and not the main game's location, your copy of FE2 is exactly that, a copy of FE2 and no more, which will look and run just the same. That's all I can think of, apart from - open the file options.ini with Wordpad, the one in your north sea install mods folder, and check that mods are enabled - check the last couple of entries look like this, which is from my north sea install, which uses the exe name FE2 North Sea.exe: [Mods] ModsEnabled=TRUE Directory=C:\Users\Ivor\Saved Games\ThirdWire\FE2 North Sea Editors=FirstEagles2 [screenShots] Directory=C:\Users\Ivor\Saved Games\ThirdWire\FE2 North Sea\ScreenShots Format=JPG

FE is sufficient, inasmuch as most or all mods will work with it, including the new theatres - Italy, North Sea, Eastern Front and now Palestine. However, FE2 is in most respects better. Improvements include better performance on newer PCs, persistent plane wrecks and greater default view distances. I have both but play nearly always in FE2. Palestine and Western Front, with First Eagles: Italian theate and North Sea, with First Eagles 2: Unfortunately there is no 'mega mod'; there's campaligns and theatres a-plenty, notably Ojcar's month-by-month Western Front one, but you have to download the campaign, planes and other components separately. Two-seaters feature in Ojcar's campaign, the Italian campaitgn and some others, just select a squadron flying the mount of your choice. As in the stock sim, you can't man the observer seats though. Not sure in which if any campaigns the Br. XIV is flyable. EDIT - yes the Breguet 14 features in Ojcar's Armchair Aces - Verdun campaign. I believe it's the A Team's model.

Strange...doesn't happen to me if I follow the drill...are you clicking on the correct d/l link when you get there? As seems common in such file-hosting sites, the page is festooned with several links - this is the right one... ...you then get a choice of two options, click the free one and after a 20-second wait the download begins (if not registered on 4Shared, after offering you some further options IIRC). It's all working painlessly for me now, no bad stuff picked up or detected.

Try this, worked for me just now (had the same problem): Open the file Phonix_DATA.INI and edit as follows: [Pilot] SystemType=PILOT_COCKPIT PilotModelName=narrowpltA.LOD ----- change this from narrowplt.LOD to narrowpltA.lod, as shown. PilotHeadNodeName=Head Position=0.0,0.05,-0.01 MinExtentPosition=-0.27,0.2,-0.2 MaxExtentPosition= 0.27,-0.2,0.7 Clue was, I had files in my Objects/Pilots folder for narrowpltA, but nothing for narrowplt. Works fine, now:

I think you need to be registered on the STA forum, to access the download links there (otherwise you just get those popup ads). Register, then log in to the forum. Then the download links work first time, every time. Sorry, just realised this myself. After that, the download procedure is the same at it was, with the previous, NTA mod.

The new Steel Tank Add-on (STA) mod is based on the previous NTA mod, which at time of posting is no longer available. The new mod is available here. So far, three mission packs and compatible versions of the main terrain mods are available. More content is reported under development.