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Not for the faint of heart - battling Huns and high ground in scenery to die for! The latest campaign for World War 1 air combat sim First Eagles/First Eagles 2 is by Gterl and covers the fighting between Italy and Austria-Hungary, 1915 to 1917. Those of us who have been following the development of this new terrain have been slavering over Gterl's screenies and waiting keenly for its release, which has now come: http://combatace.com/files/file/14440-italian-terrain-incl-1915-1917-campaign/ Better still, the terrain comes complete with a campaign, which - as usual with FE campaigns - you can play from the perspective of any of the flyable planes in any of the featured squadrons, on either side - so it's actually a set of campaigns, covering both scouts (as fighters were called in those days) and the two-seater 'working planes' which mostly did the important stuff - reconnaisance and bombing (although this distinction evolved over time and was only coming into vogue about the time this campaign starts). As the download page says, you need also to download and install the listed freeware aircraft, most available here at CombatAce, the others at the A Team Skunkworks. Be careful to respect and observe the different registration and download rules at each site. http://combatace.com/files/category/360-first-eagles-add-on-aircraft/ http://cplengineeringllc.com/SFP1/ Many FE players will already have most or all of these planes installed - I had all but one of them! If not, it's more than worth the effort. The campaign is built for First Eagles Gold (=original First Eagles plus the Expansion Pack) but works equally well in First Eagles 2, which is what I play. Only thing to note here is to observe the slightly different installation drill for FE2 - for example, the stuff in the folder 'Groundobjects' [plural] should, for FE2, go into a mod (sub-) folder called 'Groundobject' [singular]. Old hands with Third Wire sims like FE and Strike Fighters will know the drill; anyone else can get the 'gen' here at CA on the SF2 knowledge base, or ask for advice. It's not needed, but I made a second install of FE2 just for this campaign; amongst other things this means if I fly a single mission, I'm less likely to find myself fighting against or alongside planes that didn't serve on the Italian Front. Again, there are posts here at CA which describe the drill for both first (FE) and second generation FE2) Third Wire sims; ask if in doubt. Not difficult and second nature once you know the drill. The Campaign begins! I elected to kick off playing for the Italian air arm, which I gather was called the Servizio Aeronautico before it became independent of the Army and adopted the more familiar title of Regia Aeronautica. I usually favour the 1916-1917 era as the earlier planes are decidedly underpowered even by 1917 standards. But this time I decided to start at the beginning, in June 1915. So I created my pilot - Umberto Bernadotte - and found myself assigned to 1a Squadrigilia Veneto, based at San Giovanni. First thing I noticed was the quality of the opening campaign briefing. It was short but nicely written, I thought, and brought a wry smile to my face. A perfect mood-setter. We were allocated the Voisin LAS, 120 HP engine version. This is a pusher biplane with a radial engine, unusual compared to the more common rotaries. It's also a two-seater, with the pilot in front and the observer behind, with a Hotchkiss machine-gun mounted on a frame above and behind the pilot's head. I believe this type of machine scored the first recorded air-to-air kill back on the Western Front. Although later, bigger and more powerful Voisins gave sterling service as night bombers, even by mid-1915 they were rather obsolescent and I was not entirely looking forward to taking one of these machines to war, over potentially mountainous terrain, and likely against better-equipped foes. But I had signed up and orders were orders! And for my first mission, those orders were to carry out an offensive patrol over Flugfeld Galital. This was an Austro-Hungarian aerodrome some distance to the north, on the far side of what looked from the planning map to be some rather high ground. I decided to take five of us, using the 'Roster' screen to select four companions from the bottom of the list. I got Biron, Pinna, Buscaglia and Novelli - yes you get decent localised names! I'm not sure if this is because I have Capitaine Vengeur's medals pack, or some other mod, installed, but it's a neat touch. I didn't waste any time, accepted the default loadout (no bombs, I was not going to weigh us down on our first flight over high ground) and headed to the flight line, where my virtual mechanics had the prop swinging as I popped into the cockpit. I opened the throttle immediately, countering a tendency for my machine to nose up on its four-wheel, cart-like undercarriage. Any attempt to pull her off quickly seemed futile and my heart was in my mouth as we got closer and closer to the trees at the end of the airfield. In FE you can 'ghost' through trees but it was still pretty scary! I managed to edge her gently off the grass just as the boundary came up and just about cleared the tree-tops, knowing from past experience with the Voisin that she would happily stall if pushed too hard. Phew! I gained height slowly, being careful to keep the speed up and not pull the nose up too steeply, for fear of a stall close to the ground, which could have only one ending. Gradually, as we gained height, I was able to spare a bit of time to observe and admire my immediate surroundings, which consisted of pleasant, arable land, fairly level and scattered with many tracts of woodland. So far, so good! But there was a long way to go. If I had known what lay ahead, I would have been a lot less keen to keep going! ...to be continued!