VonS

Ah yes, the B.E.2a - I remember re-skinning/toning that old A-Team model for myself several years ago, and also popping in Stephen's cockpit from his B.E.2c, as well as Stephen's rifle-armed observer - and one of the excellent Geezer pilots -- for better immersion. A couple of representative pics below, cross-linked from p.28 of the now ancient FE2 "New Aircraft" thread - and even further below, an "in-action" video with a Fokker E.I attacking the B.E.2a (Mesopotamian front). Modified skin and overhauled FDM available, as per standard procedure, in my large, consolidated FM & Realism Package for FE2 (Ver. 11.5). Cheers all,

Interesting thread development gents'. To save weight and improve rate of fire - perhaps the two biggest problems for a Da Vinci Flyer - I went down a bit of a rabbit-hole and dropped a question to Gemini/Google AI on the topic (June 25, 2026) --- see below for question and response. Good Renaissance-era flying to you, --- Topic: Hurdy-Gurdy Stiletto Organ Gun VonS question: Providing that you are aware of the Renaissance volley or "organ" gun - would it be possible to devise a hand-cranked hurdy-gurdy as a kind of spring (loaded) weapon that shoots out slim, Renaissance-era daggers/stilettos? Gemini response: Yes, it is conceptually possible to design a weaponized hurdy-gurdy that operates like a spring-loaded Renaissance volley gun (organ gun or ribauldequin). By replacing the traditional musical components with a rotating barrel or magazine and using the hand-crank to compress heavy-duty springs, you can create a mechanical weapon that fires stilettos in rapid succession. The Mechanical Blueprint: To turn an 11th-century stringed instrument into a Renaissance weapon, the musical architecture must be repurposed for mechanical ballistics. The Hand-Crank (The Power Source): Instead of turning a rosined wheel to vibrate strings, the crank turns a central camshaft. This cam sequentially draws back heavy, individual leaf or coil springs for each firing chamber. The Wheel (The Camshaft & Cylinder): The large wheel is replaced by a rotating cylinder—similar to a multi-barrel volley gun. As the cylinder rotates, it aligns each dagger chamber with the firing line. The Keybox (The Firing Mechanism): On a standard hurdy-gurdy, keys press tangents against strings to change notes. In this weaponized version, the "keys" act as individual triggers or sears. Pressing a key releases a compressed spring, launching the stiletto from that specific slot. The Ammo Magazine (The Renaissance Stilettos): Stilettos are uniquely suited for this design. Their slender, needle-like, triangular blades fit perfectly into narrow, barrel-like slots where a traditional instrument's strings would run. Engineering Challenges & Realities: While visually spectacular for fantasy or steampunk settings, a real-world build faces severe physics constraints. Spring Fatigue vs. Human Strength: To throw a heavy steel dagger with lethal force, the springs must be incredibly stiff. A human hand-cranking a small handle would lack the mechanical advantage to compress multiple heavy springs quickly without a massive, slow-moving gear reduction system. Aerodynamics: Stilettos are designed for thrusting in close combat, not throwing. Without flight fletching (like an arrow) or spin-stabilization (like a rifle bullet), a launched stiletto would tumble in the air, ruining its accuracy and impact force. The Weight Distribution: Organ guns were notoriously heavy and required wheeled carriages. Shifting that firepower into a handheld, torso-braced instrument would make it incredibly front-heavy and exhausting to aim. Historical Inspiration: If you are writing a story or designing a game weapon, you can anchor this concept in real Renaissance engineering. Leonardo da Vinci’s Designs: Da Vinci famously drew multi-barreled 33-barrel organ guns and rapid-fire crossbow mechanisms that relied on heavy gears and cranks. Spring-Driven Automata: The Renaissance saw a massive boom in complex clockwork and spring-driven novelties. Scaling this technology up to weapon deployment fits the exact spirit of 16th-century experimental engineering. ---

Nice to see the Da Vinci Flyer again, Stephen. I have your variant installed with the simpler tail - video link included below. Cheers all,

Aye, Geezer's windshield crack on the Halb. D.V was inspired by a real WWI photo with a similarly, purposefully cracked windshield (unfortunately I am unable to track that image down now - it may be somewhere, buried deep, in the long-running "new aircraft" thread that Geezer was prolific in). The theory was that the crack was made on purpose to facilitate aiming, owing to the discoloration and frosting of the celluloid screen. Good times reading those posts and other arcana. Cheers all, --- Higher up and most participatorily I view through celluloid windshield a deadly dogfight while far below in studio Chaplin as Champion is via same medium projected too. ---

Pre-Buchón Era Spanish Bf 109 H-0 Before and After a Surveillance Mission, Circa 1950* * Originally posted under the SF2 screenies thread on SimHQ in April 2019.

Ki-43-I ("Army Zero" First Variant) Going Down Somewhere in the China Theater, Circa 1941* * Originally posted under the SF2 screenies thread on SimHQ in April 2019.

@OP, I would consider properly modded mini-WW2 theaters in SF2 to be superior in FM and AI fidelity to the old CFS3. I never really warmed up to IL2-BoX (although I did try the BoM package when it was on sale), and I'm irritated by the horrible/limited padlock view in IL2-1946 so I avoid that one as best I can (also troublesome is that the AI in '46 uses its own special, super FM parameters). That leaves me with nicely modded mini-WW2 arenas in SF2 as a first choice for realism, as well as with the decent (but requiring tweaking) WoTR (Wings Over the Reich) by OBD Software - as a second choice. To build effective WW2 arenas in SF2, prepare to devote time to ini file tinkering, downloading of appropriate WW2-era weapons packages, as well as WW2-era terrains (in particular I would recommend some of the North Africa and China/Formosa maps). It also doesn't hurt to have a gander at my little, consolidated FM realism package for SF2 (that focuses on late 1930s/early WW2/early Cold War propeller aircraft). Didn't bother tweaking anything for mid and late WW2 because I spend most of my time in WW1, in FE2. Lima33 mentioned several years ago under the ThirdWire thread on SimHQ (under the screenshots thread there) that SF2 could have become the "holy grail" of WW2 sims had enough focus (and interest) on modding that period been invested into SF2. Cheers and good tinkering to you,

Nice to see a lively FE2 thread for a change - reminds me of the golden age of Geezer's aircraft factory and pleasant ini file tinkerings. @Spear_Head, excellent catch with the Kondor E 3; a quick glance verifies it as the aircraft that the MS.230 substitutes for, in the film. Although I doubt that those present on the movie set were too concerned with what the MS. was substituting for exactly. Interesting that a Kondor D.I/II was experimented with as well in 1918 (more info. about the biplane Condor variant over here). Cheers all.

@OP, also see this post that I am cross-linking here, regarding custom dx9 DLLs and FE2, to improve frame-rates. Good flying (and tweaking) to you,

Will comment in point form vis-à-vis the supplied questions and concerns - and hello to you too legendary terrain builder of the FE universe. Original qsts.: "[...] Visual immersion is very important to me — I struggle a bit going back to the older FE-era models and visuals. What I’m really looking for is: jump into a mission, read the objective, get into the cockpit, enjoy the atmosphere and visuals, and have fun — even if my average life expectancy is measured in minutes, as I’m a rather poor (virtual) pilot. With that in mind, I’m currently torn between WOFF: BH&H and IL-2: Flying Circus. From a budget perspective, I’ll most likely stay with the basic versions of either option. A few questions for those with experience: How good is the offline experience in IL-2? I understand separate campaigns are available — but how enjoyable and seamless is the overall experience? How demanding is WOFF performance-wise? I’d prefer to avoid slideshow performance or micro-stutters. AI flying sophistication is honestly not my highest priority — I’m usually the weakest pilot in the sky anyway. How is ground activity represented in both titles? Which one better captures that authentic “flying over the trenches in WW1” atmosphere? [...]" My thoughts: - for mostly modern visual immersion, choose either RoF modded or the FC series - to jump into a cockpit quickly and go at it, I'd wager that RoF and/or FC are more geared towards that than the WoFF series (the WoFF series has a quick dogfight option, but WoFF centers around and excels at full-blown campaigning instead) - in terms of the offline FC experience, can't speak for FC (since I was never interested in it), but the offline experience in RoF (with mods installed) is satisfactory/passable/good enough if you want fairly modern visual immersion - the WoFF series is demanding of hardware, particularly CPUs (limited to single-core processing); depending on your hardware, WoFF requires a decent amount of time devoted to settings toggling, to dial in a decent and fairly smooth frame-rate (keep in mind that WoFF may require medium visual quality settings to run smoothly; while max visual settings are desirable, double-check your hardware specs) - if AI flying sophistication is not your priority*, but instead modern or semi-modern visual immersion and with less demand on your hardware, the RoF/FC world is the slightly more logical (easier) choice I'd say - the WoFF series is a bit better on atmosphere in terms of flying over trenches, random ground activity, etc., in my opinion, when compared to RoF and FC - I am tempted to comment on FM and AI fidelity (i.e., the real worthy successor of FE Gold is FE2 fully-modded), with (I think) better FMs than RoF/FC, and AI of similar quality to the WoFF world; as I often like to mention, the FE world excels at "rolling single missions" (an interesting middle ground that is not really to be found in the other sims) - having said that, if you prefer something with more modern visuals but that is not taxing on hardware, the most logical choice is RoF modded and/or FC; WoFF would be a lateral move in that context, and perhaps a slightly downward move (since it is more demanding of hardware than FE/FEgold/FE2) - for fully-modded FE2 "at work," see representative clips on my FE2 on a Mac channel Cheers to you & good luck with your flight sim choices. * NOTE: have responded to your thoughts in the context in which they were presented; if you become interested in AI flying sophistication, I would then recommend, instead of RoF (or especially instead of FC) the base BH&H2 version of WoFF - it's a handsomely spent dollar and will give you the same AI quality of the later DLC packs - in case you don't care to extend your wallet to the DLC packs. --- As you look for new flight sims, Further away from the FE world, And its quaint vintage hangar, a tinkerer's dream, Do keep in mind that visual immersion is not always as it seems, For what may be a fine explosion or high fidelity wings a' flutter, It all turns quickly into an FPS drop, a CTD, and oftentimes - a hardware stutter.

View File First Eagles 2 FM & Realism Package - Consolidated Hello fellow fliers, Please find included in the download package my streamlined/consolidated FM/AI upgrade(s) for First Eagles 2, by ThirdWire. Suggested is to drill through the relevant folders and sub-folders, to find all relevant files. Take note that, wherever possible, the folder installation hierarchy and logic of the "user mod" folder for First Eagles 2 has been preserved, to facilitate easier installation of all included files. Also strongly recommended is to look at older, more extensive Read Me files included in the folder titled "Older_READ_ME_Files," should you have any questions regarding FM details and/or the installation process. Included for your convenience are Geezer's excellent, beta-stage aircraft (circa 2019) that were never officially released, and for which I had tweaked the FMs several years ago. FMs for said aircraft and all corresponding files are found in the relevant folders. All included aircraft 3D models/objects and related assets, in the supplied beta aircraft folder(s), are copyright Geezer. Many thanks to him for the excellent work, as well as to other 3D modellers who have worked over the years on FE2, such as Laton, TexMurphy, Vernon Bowden, Stephen1918, and others. Cheers all & happy flying in FE2, Von S. DISCLAIMER & LEGAL INFO.: Von S tweaks for FE2 and SF2 are released under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0* "Creative Commons" Licence that is similar to the general CombatAce "Freeware" terms of agreement. * The CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Licence allows other modders and users to share and distribute my FE2/SF2 mods in their original state freely and non-commercially, as long as original credit is given and as long as no further modifications are done to said mods. Modifications to my FE2/SF2 mods may of course be used personally, but not distributed publicly. Furthermore, Von S takes no responsibility for ideological injuries or historical fixations that may result from flying heavily tweaked flight/damage models for any of the flight simulators specified above or from attempts to enjoy real flying without aid or instruction from a qualified flight instructor. To see any included, tweaked flight models in action, and as following the "VonS FDM Philosophy," recommended is to have a gander at FE2 on a Mac. Submitter VonS Submitted 04/24/2026 Category Flight Models  

View File Strike Fighters 2 FM & Realism Package - Consolidated Hello fellow fliers, Please find included in the download package my streamlined/consolidated FM upgrade(s) for Strike Fighters 2, by ThirdWire. Suggested is to drill through the relevant folders and sub-folders, to find all relevant files. Upgrade packs focus on the late 1930s and early World War Two period, as well as on several Cold War prop aircraft and a series of MiG-23 (Flogger) tweaks. Take note that, wherever possible, the folder installation hierarchy and logic of the "user mod" folder for Strike Fighters 2 has been preserved, to facilitate easier installation of all included files. Also strongly recommended is to look at older, more extensive Read Me files included in the folder titled "Older_READ_ME_Files," should you have any questions regarding FM details and/or the installation process. Many thanks to all 3D modellers who have worked over the years in SF2. Cheers all & happy flying in SF2, Von S. DISCLAIMER & LEGAL INFO.: Von S tweaks for FE2 and SF2 are released under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0* "Creative Commons" Licence that is similar to the general CombatAce "Freeware" terms of agreement. * The CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Licence allows other modders and users to share and distribute my FE2/SF2 mods in their original state freely and non-commercially, as long as original credit is given and as long as no further modifications are done to said mods. Modifications to my FE2/SF2 mods may of course be used personally, but not distributed publicly. Furthermore, Von S takes no responsibility for ideological injuries or historical fixations that may result from flying heavily tweaked flight/damage models for any of the flight simulators specified above or from attempts to enjoy real flying without aid or instruction from a qualified flight instructor. To see any included, tweaked flight models in action, and as following the "VonS FDM Philosophy," recommended is to have a gander at FE2 on a Mac. Submitter VonS Submitted 04/24/2026 Category Other