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Taking on the RAF in the Fokker DVII's Bavarian competitor This campaign report is designed to do two things. Primarily, it's intended to showcase the Rise of Flight Pfalz DXII, flown in career mode using (almost) the latest version of Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator (PWCG). I found out after flying this mission that PWCG's now up to Version 15.6, but the changes since my version (15.3) seem mostly cosmetic. The second reason for this report is to celebrate the miraculous recovery of my trusty 8800GT graphics card, which had started displaying artifacts but was restored to health - I hope for some time - by literally 'baking' it in an oven to re-solder possible decayed connections. I'm not making this up - Google it and see for yourself! To digress a little, the recent PWCG improvement of greatest interest to me is the increased flak. In First Eagles/FE2, fairly often, you get warning of the presence of other flights when you see flak bursts tracking them. So I find it is quite often possible to spot other planes at a respectable range, without resorting to visual aids like 'radar screens', target boxes/pointers or labels. Combined with decent rendering of more distant planes, this has two big benefits. First, I often see aircraft I might otherwise have missed. Second, I see them far enough away to make a plan to deal with them, following Mick Mannock's advice that all aircraft should be assumed to be enemies until proven otherwise. In OFF, the flak is also a good indicator of other aircraft, althoigh the planes themselves are not visible as far away as they generally should be. In RoF, a big issue for me, flying 'aids off', has been how often enemies in the vicinity remained invisible unless our flight more-or-less blundered into them. If I didn't miss them altogether, I'd come upon them suddenly, with no opportunity to do any of that interesting patrol-leading stuff: stalking them, getting my flight into a good position, then timing and leading my attack. PWCG not only enables you to select a rank high enough to lead patrols regularly, turning the player from drone to tactical decision-maker; recent versions have increased levels of flak, so that it can now provide the patrol-leading player with the target indicator that flak so often was, in real life. At least, that was what I was hoping I'd find out, flying this mission! The plane As for the Pfalz itself, though a competent design, the DXII inevitably suffered from being compared to the contemporary Fokker DVII. The sturdy, agile and easily-flown Fokker was the plane the German fighter pilots wanted, to replace their outnumbered and increasingly-inferior Albatros DVs or Pfalz DIIIs. Anything less was regarded with suspicion. In 'Wings of War', Baviarian Rudolph Stark - by then in charge of Jasta 35 - told it like this: '1 September 1918. We are to have more new machines. Everyone is pleased...but their joy is soon damped down, for the machines...are not Fokkers, but Pfalz DXIIs. What is a Pfalz DXII? No one has ever heard of such a machine, no one knows anything about it. We decline to take these machines...we are told...there are no more Fokkers to be had. All right; we'll have the Pfalzs...the sight of them does not inspire confidence...with a multitude of bracing wires...the whole thing looks like a harp. We are spoilt for such machines. No one wanted to fly those Pfalzs except under compulsion. Later their pilots got on very well with them. They flew quite decently and could always keep pace with the Fokkers; in fact they dived even faster. But they were heavy for turns and fighting purposes, in which respect they were not to be compared with the Fokkers. The Fokker was a bloodstock animal that answered to the slightest movement of the hand...the Pfalz was a clumsy cart-horse that went heavy in the reins and obeyed nothing but the most brutal force.' My own references on the type are the old but valuable Profile Publication and - highly recommended - the more recent Osprey 'Pfalz Aces of WW1' which features other types like the DIII of 'Blue Max' movie fame. If I recall right, Pat Wilson's Western Front Patch for Red Baron 3d added a Pfalz DXII but if you want to fly one in a modern WW1 sim the choices are First Eagles or Rise of Flight. The FE Pfalz is from the A Team Skunkworks and it's a fine rendition, a great bird that looks the part (seen here with the fix that corrects the slightly offset wheel hubs and a great skin, by Quack I believe) Having read Rudolph Stark's book many years back, I was keen to add this plane to my Rise of Flight hangar and take her for a spin…literally, as it happened. While the Pfalz seemed a tractable enough mount, I found she was a bit more prone than , say, the albatros, to spin out of a tight turn...and to keep on spinning, all the way down, until stopped by something solid. I have to admit that spin recovery is a bit of a bugbear for me in RoF, generally. The classic advice for a WW1 pilot on spin recovery was to centralise all controls and pray. This doesn't work so well in RoF. For the DXII, even the classic modern technique - power off, opposite rudder, nose down - seemed not to work, quickly or at all, for the DXII. Happily, RoF pilot's notes are available on the sim's website and these include spin recovery. As described in the notes for the DXII, this is counter-intuitive - rudder (and aileron) INTO the direction of the spin. Practicing this in 'free flight' mode is recommended, before entrusting your virtual life to a campaign. Though PWCG by default renders your pilot less liable to be killed, best not to take chances, eh? Anyway here's that handbook: http://www.777studios.net/ROF_Guides/P12_Hanbook.pdf The man, the unit and the mission First challenge is actually getting to fly a DXII. Unlike FE/FE2, RoF models mixed squadron establishments and in Beta Career, starting as a lowly NCO pilot, I was liable to get allocated a Pfalz for a mission or two, then get moved onto a Fokker. In real life this would have been most welcome, of course...but not for this mission! Using PWCG, I decided to transfer my Jasta 11 Fokker triplane pilot, Richard Satchel, to Jasta 32b. Pfalz being a Bavarian firm, its products tended to go to Baviarian units such this. I opted to fly with it in August 1918, at which point Jasta 32b was based at Roucourt/Bohain airfield, between Cambrai to the south and Lille to the north. We seemed to be entirely equipped with the Pfalz so it was a simple matter to use PWCG to generate a mission. I was allocated a patrol up to the Lines, then north for a stretch. I was the leader and was allocated my preferred three flight-mates - Leutnants Wolf, Borngen and Balmer. So I accepted the mission and picked it up in RoF, in the usual PWCG fashion. There seem to be few skins available for the DXII so I just went with the default one and here were are, lined up and ready to go, with my machine bearing the blue leader's streamers. I don't bother with 'complex engine management' so it was a simple matter to check the controls and start up, at which point my virtual pilot gave a hand signal for the flight to do likewise. Once all props were turning I opened up the throttle and after an initial swing, my Pfalz bumped and rocked over the grass airfield and was soon airborne and climbing away. Our base was quite close to the front and for safety's sake, I climbed away from it initially, to gain some height. All seemed peaceful so I swung around and set course on the first leg of our patrol, which would take us west and into the thick of whatever might be waiting for us there. ...to be continued!