Eeeh, heinkill, you do know that there is a emergency release lever for the canopy, the red one, in the cockpit of the 109, don't you?
And you also know that there is a emergency release lever for the gear, working with gravity, and this pump is to get fuel pressure without running engine?

What? And take all the fun out of crash landing?! It's my favourite part of every mission!

H

Heinkill, nobody will take your beloved crash landings away, it's just more variety to decide to release the canopy
and get squashed when the plane lands on its back, or keep the canopy and see the fuel pooling below you, waiting for a spark while you are trapped inside.
And with the gear, on even ground you have a good chance to stay upright, or if you descen too fast that it breaks at the impact and
takes enough energy that the plane doesn't explode.
Decisions, decisions.

Thanks! I actually managed to fly one of the missions (#14) without getting shot down, blown up, or crashing on landing...quite proud of myself. Here is the AAR, for posterity (though yes, I do realise I don't have a screenie of me landing. You'll have to trust that even I can land a Tiger Moth...)

Seelowe 14: Sept 25 late afternoon, S-tag +3

Following concerted British air and sea attack throughout the afternoon, 87% of shipping in Transport Fleet E was lost, along with 3 destroyers and 15 torpedo boats. In the air, the RAF has so far lost 23 aircraft today, to 13 Luftwaffe. The British armoured thrust at Elham was successful, and the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler has been cut off from Folkestone and is making a fighting withdrawal north toward Denton, pursued by the British 1st Armoured and elements of the NZ Division. Meanwhile, the 1st and 2nd Canadian succeeded in re-establishing control over the River Stour crossings at Kingston and is reinforcing for an early morning counter-attack against the 10th Panzer and troops of the Germany XXXXI Army Corps regrouping at Denton. The German VII Army Corps and 8th Panzer has succeeded in penetrating to the streets of Dover, and fighting is taking place from house to house, within sight of the Port. In the West, the 7th Flieger Division has withdrawn to Hythe township and is digging in. In the East intense fighting continues near Manston, with Kampfgruppe Bauer reporting their light mortars are within range of the airfield.

Major Hereward de Havilland, chief test pilot for de Havilland aircraft company, was at home with his wife and two children when the telephone rang on September 22 1940. His wife had noted he had been distant during the meal - she assumed because he was worried about the latest tests on the de Havilland Mosquito prototype. She was wrong.

The male voice at the other end did not identify himself. "Major de Havilland?", he asked.

"Yes. Who is this?"

"Banquet lights," was all the voice said, before the line was disconnected.

It may have been a short message, but he had been waiting for it, and it was one de Havilland had been dreading. He walked back in to where the family was having their tea. His wife knew, without asking, that he had been called back.

He had kissed her on the forehead, pinched the cheeks of his two toddlers, and then gone to the hall cupboard and taken out his attaché case. He had driven immediately to the de Havilland aerodrome at Hatfield where frantic activity was already underway, with engineers fitting each of the six Tiger Moth training aircraft of the 1st Elementary Flying Training School with bomb racks holding 8 x 20lb anti-personnel bombs.

de Havilland had opened his locker, and taken out a parachute, flying suit, service gas mask, tin helmet and gas cape. The gas mask, helmet and cape were tied into the student's seat of the Tiger Moth, together with a service pistol, in case he was brought down behind the lines. He had reflected on this - behind the lines, in Kent! German troops had landed overnight, and now the Western front had come to Britain. The thought made his blood run hotter.

But operation Banquet Lights had been a suicide operation, as he'd expected. Of the six Tiger Moths that took off from Hatfield, weighed down with the small ineffectual bombs, only five had made it to the invasion beach head, and only one had made it back to Hatfield.

Now it was 25 September. Could it really only have been 3 days? His short lived career as a combat pilot had been curtailed, but he still had a choice - return to Hatfield to continue work with his brother on the new Mosquito aircraft, or fly recon missions for the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS. He knew his temperament could not cope with test flying the next generation of fighter, when war, real war, was being waged just a hundred miles away. So each day, five times a day, he had taken one of the company's Tiger Moths up, with a photographer in the student's seat, and flown out to find and fix the advancing German lines.

Each day the front line got depressingly further from Folkestone, closer to Canterbury. Yesterday Panzers had advanced as far north as Kingston on the Lesser Stour, and Elham in the West. But they had been thrown back from Kingston by the 1st and 2nd Canadian Divisions, after being carpet bombed by Bomber Command Wellingtons and strafed by the new cannon armed Beaufighters. In the West, the Stugs and truck mounted flak batterie of the Liebstandarte SS Adolf Hitler were routed by Valentine and Cruiser tanks of the British 1st Armoured Reserve.

Churchill had held his armoured counter attack until he saw the enemy commit himself on Canterbury. He knew he had only one roll of the dice with the precious few tanks of the British VII Corps, but they had prevailed, and cut the throat of the German salient. The enemy was now bottled up at Denton - elements of the 10th Panzer retreating south from Kingston, while the German XXXXI Corps and Leibstandarte SS were pushed north.

de Havilland had been told that upward of 30,000 enemy troops were being bottled up at Denton, but where precisely? It would be his job to find out.

In the hills north of Selstead, guns of the Royal Artillery 58th Medium Regt., veterans of France, are readied for a night time bombardment of German positions at Denton, as soon as they are identified.



de Havilland decides to start his search at Kingston, the scene of the previous day's hard fought battle for the vital bridges over the Lesser Stour river.




He would follow the main Canterbury road south from Kingston, through Denton, toward Hawkinge. There should be German forces heading south from Kingston, and others advancing north away from Elham, converging on Denton. Maybe their positions would give him a clue as to where the main body of the German forces was lurking. In the distance he could see smoke pyres - perhaps indicating burning vehicles...



In the sky above, 111 Squadron flies a protective combat patrol, their job to deter any interest in the low flying and defenceless Tiggie.



They soon have their work cut out for them as LG2 109s out of Hawkinge begin to object to their presence. They do their job, keeping the 109s busy, but it does not go well.











The wounded 111 Sq Hurricanes fight back gamely, but the more experienced pilots of LG2 have their measure









No matter, it is just enough to keep the sky clear for de Havilland.

5 miles out of Kingston, he sees a line of Panzer IIs heading cross country. They try to pull under cover, but are too slow.







He marks their direction and position.



Looking in their direction of travel he sees a small fire on a hilltop outside Denton. Too small to be seen from altitude...but could it be a visual marker for scattered German troops to home on?



Squinting between the spars of his wings, he thinks he can make out tents, or camo netting.



He turns the Tiger Moth toward the hill. Within minutes his suspicions are confirmed as angry flak begins to erupt in front of him.





He doesn't dare overfly it, but gives his photographer a nice beam shot. The hillside is swarming with Boche!







A large portion of the trapped German XXXXI army seems to be digging in on the hill overlooking Denton.





He scurries for cover, flak from 88s and lighter 30mm chasing him all the way.





As he dodges and weaves, his observer points at the ground. There below...a lone Stug pushing through a field. Perhaps a remnant of the fleeing Leibstandarte SS.



It hides in the shadow of some trees, invisible to high flying recon, but not to his Tiggie...





Then his observer punches the air with both fists, pointing ahead. Hot on the heels of the Stug, surrounded by the shattered hulks of German flak trucks, they can see Cruiser tanks of the 1st armoured, ploughing north, up the road toward Denton.







It occurs to him that this one road tells the whole tale of the German advance so far. On the first day they took Folkestone. Then broke through the GHQ stop line, and captured Hawkinge. From there, this road led them directly north, to Kingston, the furthest point of their advance, 12.9 miles from Folkestone - where the 1st and 2nd Canadian finally threw them back. Meanwhile they tried to widen their front to the West, before the Cruisers and Valentines of the 1st Armoured gave them a bloody nose. They were only 12 miles from their target of Canterbury but now they were trapped on this road, the Canadian Divisions pushing them southward...the 1st Armoured pushing them north.

To a hilltop in Denton.

He leaves the Cruisers to their pursuit.



As he turns back toward Hatfield, he hears flapping and banging outside his cockpit, and notices the fabric on his right wing is starting to come away, as small rips caused by the flak start to tear open in his slipstream. The flak had passed right through the lightweight construction of the Tiger Moth without exploding, which was a blessing. But it had been an uncomfortable few minutes!



Luckily the Gipsy Major engine keeps singing its two note song without complaint.

"I'll have to tell Geoffrey about this one", de Havilland thinks quietly to himself. Geoffrey his brother, the man who designed the Tiger Moth. The man who was no doubt, right now, pouring over drawings of his beloved Mosquito.

Tell him wood and fabric is all well and good for surviving a good flakking, but what his Mosquito really wants is speed

***

It is the end of day 4 of the Sealion invasion. 90,000 German troops are ashore, and Germany holds the port of Folkestone, and Hawkinge fighter command field, but has been held out of Dover, and the paratroop attack on Manston has not yet succeeded in taking that airfield. The supply situation is critical, with no further prospect of resupply due to the dominance of the Royal Navy in the Channel. A Fuhrer Conference has been convened for 0500 Sept 26 to review the situation.



Now encircled, 30,000 troops of the XXXXI Army Corps, and including remnants of the 10th Panzer and Leibstandarte SS, are digging in at Denton. With de Havilland's report to guide them, it is just a matter of time before they will hear the banshee roar of British long range artillery.



(This AAR is from the mission set 12-14, available here: http://www.box.com/s/79qsxei5k0bzc0e4jyyx . In this mission the player flyables include the LG2 109s, 64Sq Spits out of Manston, Erpro 210 109s on patrol over Dover, 111Sq Hurricanes patrolling Denton, and of course, the Tiger Moth. And trust me, the German encampment is not as easy to find as it may seem - as mission designer I knew where to look and it took me a while! Darned rolling hills all look the same!)

Exciting stuff!

Still some fun yet to come... I just discovered how to create spawns in mission! Yes, I am a slow learner...but a happy one!

Very cool.


Wheels

A little progress update. I have decided the next installment will complete the mission pack. Missions 18-24 (Sept 27 to 30) have been completed, and I am fine tuning the various sorties in each mission. Should be finished in a week. The last 7 missions will be released as a pack, and then I will compile the entire 24 mission pack into a single download.

By rough calculation the 24 mission files in the mission pack feature 120 flyable sorties.

I can't tell you if it ends well, or ends poorly for Britain, can only say I hope the ending retains a little surprise...

Have just plucked out an element from one of the last missions in the pack, which is actually the mission/sortie I found hardest of all the missions.

It was inspired by the efforts in 1940 to develop night fighter tactics using the completely unsuited Hurricane Mk Is and IIs. To quote Leo McKistry in his book "Hurricane"...

In practice the plane proved woefully inadequate (for night fighting) during the long winter of 1940-41. Hurricane squadrons flying at night rarely even saw a bomber, never mind intercepted one... Without any navigational aids, no airborne interception radar, the Hurricane pilots could do nothing more than grope in the dark.

"On a pitch black night, when there was no moon, it was virtually impossible to expect any form of contact at all." Douglas Bader, leader of 242 Squadron, said, "Your best hope was to look for the burst of AAA and search somewhere ahead of it, because it was always behind the bombers. But really, none of us saw anything except fires, and gun flashes below."

This didn't stop the pilots from going up.

So I created a night fighter mission, sending the RAF up and into the sky over Canterbury. The sky is actually full of German aircraft but only once in ten missions did I manage to find them!

And as if flying around in the dark isn't hard enough, try a) finding your airfield again and b) landing on the blinking field with only some pale white and red lights to guide you!

I've left these screenies virtually untouched to give the impression that, well, its DARK up there...


One of the briefings. The RAF pilot can either go up as wingman and follow his flight leader, or take off solo.


Red and white marker lights have been placed on the airfield to help landing. In reality these were hooded so that they were not visible from altitude (the system was called Jakobs Ladder) but in CoD they are visible from all angles.


The best way to find enemy bombers, as Bader remarked, is to look for heavy AAA bursts.



You are almost right upon the bombers before you can see them, and they usually open fire before you do.


Canterbury burns. Very disheartening to see the flashes of bombs bursting, knowing the bombers are up there somewhere but you can't find the blighters!

Anyway, just a taster. Next steps in the mission pack development

- Release final installment, missions 18-24 (this week)
- Compile full package as one download (next week)
- Create 'alternate ending' package so that both fans of LW and fans of RAF will have the ending they are looking for (March)
- Use the missions to compile the first of 4 'single squadron point of view' campaigns: probably RAF 64 Squadron (Spitfires). April or May probably. I am open to alternate campaigns, because it can be easily done from the POV of 111 Sq Hurricanes, LG2 Bf109s, or Erpro 210 109s and 110s. So feel free to post if you would for example rather have a LW campaign.

Cheers,

H

These missions look incredibly cool! I'm new to COD, so I haven't even completed the in-game campaigns yet (although quite disappointed with the first one until I found a bird sitting on my lap in the spit :P) but you can bet I'm gonna try these missions. I can only imagine the incredible amount of work that's gone into them. My hat's off to you Heinkill.

Thx, and welcome to the forums! Yes the RAF campaign is a joke...but the LW campaign is ok. You can find a walkthrough for both on my website to help you decide which campaign missions to fly and which to skip. There are some good user msde campaigns out there now...go to Airwarfare.com to find them.

Cheers,

H