19RFC, back in my day...

Had a go in one of Mr Sopwith's flying animals (Pup) last night online to have a go at a bit of the ol' dogfighteroo (as opposed to boom and zoom.)

Had a dance with a Hun or two, jolly good fun I thought:

I say chaps, one more for the Officer's Mess tonight - I've caught a Hun!

must say i loved the flight that me mj and speedy did yesterday. great fight we had 6 confirmed kills on a very short time for 2 losses. ( i collided with a pfalz III ( suddenly appeared and could not avoid as i was in a turn )speedy crashed landed rather hard and mj limped back home )

i want more of this

Aye it was fun.

I got 4 kills altogether from the two sorties, but then on my fourth kill I was diving after a Pfalz, shot his wing off - then I tried to zoom below and left of him, but his wreck snapped to the left (having lost a left wing) and my right wings clipped his nose.

Result, we both ended up crashing into a river.

At least it was a soft landing though eh!

As for that fight on the deck the previous sortie, I turned up late - having gotten lost and chased off by a Fokker Dr.1, then dove in - got an Albatros glued to my six, seen the Pfalz crash into Hinkel (though I got the kill on the Pfalz at least, as I'd damaged him before ) been wounded by the annoying Albatros on my six, then wounded again, then ran away.

Though we did manage to shoot down the Albatros that wounded me on the next sortie (same markings anyway) which was nice.

I'm uploading a video of that deck fight in the first sortie, and another of the fight against the red and white (Jasta 18) Fokker D.VII from the second sortie.

that last flight we did together i stressed my plane to much and lost all my wings so made rather hard landing
after you left i shot down a gotha bomber ( AI ) then left myself

Agreed good fun all round! Bagged my first kill of WW1

Shame I couldn't quite pull off a successful crash landing. It was rather tricky keeping tabs on each other, as mentioned in another thread, but I did quite like the confusion giving a real edge to it.

Well, if you want real confusion you should all stop using voice comms (like me) and stick to flares, hand signals and wing waggles.

You and your new fangled telephony!

Although I did like how when I had that Fokker on me and was lost I fired off a yellow flare to show where I was - and no one came.

By the way, did you see any aircraft icons or the like on that server? I didn't, but that might be because I have them turned off in singleplayer anyway - just wondering as you mentioned HUD Icons at the start of the flight.

I think the option to show the heading, throttle/mixture and clock icons is still available in realistic mode isn't it?

press I to toggle I think.

I'm excited about this no icons no GPS stuff anyway - on my single player missions its a lot of fun trying to work out where I am in relation to the map - especially after a jolly good old dogfight with the fiendish pink baronet!

Good skills to have, keeping close to flight lead, having proper rendevous points, and using comms to work together - stuff we should all be good at!

Not sure about the icons for throttle/mixture/radiator and the like on the realism servers, mine are turned off by default so I haven't checked.

I think with the no icons, no GPS stuff sortie pre-planning is going to be important, ie something along the lines of:

'Skip is flight lead (red streamer) - sortie to destroy enemy balloon at <insert place> after that we'll patrol the front , if seperated rendezvous over <insert place> at 4000 feet, yellow flare for assistance'

A nice little feature I noticed whilst playing offline with regards to the no GPS thing is that if you land it shows you were you are on the map, so you can land and ask a battery (not sure if it only works on airfields, or just anywhere on the ground), just don't forget to phone back to the aerodrome or they'll be very angry!

And make sure you remember which side of the lines you're on before you go putting down at the nearest aerodrome!

MJDixon wrote:

By the way, did you see any aircraft icons or the like on that server? I didn't, but that might be because I have them turned off in singleplayer anyway - just wondering as you mentioned HUD Icons at the start of the flight.

The icons I was talking about were the blue text over friendly planes, which show their name if you're close enough, and the black 'contact' markers showing a plane just beyond visual range, and the blue and red arrows around the edge of the screen to help locate a plane nearby. My question was whether they also appear on the syndicate server.

I did see your flare, and very nice it was too, you also send out a green flare at some earlier point, I just thought you were showing off.

Think that was Hinkel that fired the green flare earlier, I only fired a yellow one when the Fokker was after me (there was also a yellow flare coming from the enemy AF just afterwards which might have been confusing)

Though I did shoot vaguely near one of you with my Colt M1911 for a laugh.

i did see a yellow flare but i was at a good distance from me. as i was engaged with 2 more snappers I decided to concentrate on them first so i would be in the same situation as the one who fired the flare for help ( even could be a german calling for help )

i shot 2 flares towards mj little after we lifted ( guess to blind him so he could not fire his colt at me :p )

and those icons do not appear on syndicate. no markers for planes / balloons / ground targets / nothing on map ( so if you can t read maps you are fucked damn why did they cancel public army training duty )

I find the best way to navigate by map is to find a forest and find one that looks the same shape on the map, either that or find a river, which are the easiest landmarks to follow, then for closer navigation try to find a town or village, then find the main road (you can tell a proper road that would be marked on the map, as they are actual 3d roads, as opposed to a road texture on the terrain) and follow that to your aerodrome.

Here's the video of Hinkel, myself and a random Sopwith Triplane vs a Fokker D.VII of Jasta 18, from the second sortie:



Having tried to fight the more maneuverable D.VII with two SE5as and a Sopwith Triplane, now I understand why it took 7 or so SE5s to shoot down Werner Voss' Dr.1

The friendly fire / friendly collisions also add another dynamic to dogfights, as if you notice when Hinkel is behind the Fokker and I'm behind Hinkel I have to try to hold back and look for an opening, rather than just dive in guns blazing.

this is quit exiting
in our second sortie and we flew quit close together and if you are not paying attention you can easely collide ( think that happens a couple of times that it was allmost happening)

have taped a sortie where i m flying a nieuport 17. there were several friendly planes on a fokker. a search a hole get on his six and start blazing the guns. then suddenly i feel my plane shake, look back and see my rudder is gone. did not manage to saftly land the plane.

After reviewing my flight i see that a sopwith triplane dove behind me and when pulling up take away the rudder with the wings. will try to post it later.

Here's the video of the big deck fight from the first sortie:



(Note the wires shot away from the starboard elevator at the end - probably explains why I hardly had any elevator response.)

One of these days I'm going to work out that I shouldn't try to turn fight in an SE5a - what I should have done was stayed above the fight, kept my E and tried picking off the enemy Aircraft in slash attacks.

Then when I got the Albatros on my six I should have headed for the deck and tried to extend away to either A, get out of range and come back with altitude, or B, hope one of the other SE5s got him whilst he was levelled out trying to chase me.

And here's a bonus video of me scaring the s**t out of Hinkel.



Honestly Hinkel, stop worrying - I had it under control the whole time!

you must say it was mighty close