I was more than a bit miffed that not one of our three observers had engaged the impertinent Sopwith. Maybe it was a moment of weakness in FE's otherwise above-par AI, or bad luck. Or perhaps FE was just doing a good job of bringing to life Albert Ball's observation that formations of enemies can keep a poor lookout as they are lulled into a false sense of security by the proximity of their comrades.

Anyway, finally my observer woke up, as I mentally urged him 'Get that b***dy gun going before it's hanging up in an English mess!' [borrowing from the notable reaction of an Australian pilot whose BE2 was attacked by German ace Felmy in the Middle East].



The Englishman - still on his own, as his other countrymen seemed to be fully occupied with the more distant combat - swept past and came around for another pass.



After waiting for what seemed a long while for all three observers to open fire and blast him from the sky, I gave up and decided that, it being three to one, a more active defence was better than us playing the part of targets in a flying shooting gallery. I gave the 'attack' command. I was rather delighted with the response, as the big DFW's wheeled valiantly around and went for the solitary Sopwith, leaving me their leader in the clear.



My satisfaction with this most excellent result was, alas, short-lived. The Triplane evaded the big DFW's with what looked more like contempt than mere ease, knocked one of them down in a swift counterattack...then latched onto me again. Oh, the pain...the pain!!!



I wrestled desperately with the controls, trying to jerk my clumsy packing-case aside, and for a moment the Sopwith hung in the sky just above me, trying to avoid an overshoot. I tried to get my nose up and get my gun onto him, anticipating that he would swing down, trying to return the favour. There was a nasty jolt, as our machines met somewhere in the middle, me nosing up, him nosing down.




I had barely taken in the fact that I'd had a collision, when I had another one. There was a second nasty jolt, seemingly coming from below this time, and my kite seemed to lose most of its forward momentum, and then fall earthwards with the all grace of a streamlined brick.

The cause of the second collision was not too hard to spot - a silver French Nieuport, which had picked a bad time to compete with the Sopwith for an easy kill.




The Triplane I'd collided with first wasn't too far away either. He was now well below, going down vertically towards our reserve trench lines, trailing fire and smoke.



From here on in, it was just a case of pure survival, me versus Sir Isaac Newtown, it seemed. I tried desperately to push the nose down, to gain some flying speed, but with a dead engine, little or no forward velocity, and only half a tailplane, we didn't seem to have too much going for the two of us.

Eventually, just when I'd resigned us to a sudden end in a mangled pile of burning wreckage, the nose at long last slowly went down, our speed picked up, and we glided to a decent dead stick landing amongst the fields behind our rearmost trenches. Phew, what a fright!





Well, that was that. The mission went from quiet, to anxious, back to quiet again and then to 'completely t*ts up' in a matter of minutes. We lost two DFWs destroyed and one damaged. I was credited with the Triplane and the Nieuport though! I haven't flown a lot of two-seater missions in FE but it's my impression they can be short and brutal affairs, the skies being fairly full of scouts who are keen to add you to their victory tally. After this latest mission I will check my data files tho, for the gunner settings. I use Peter01's improved FMs and this dumbs down gunners as well. I hand-edited them all back to stock as they really are too weak otherwise, but I may have restored the original mod's nerfed gunners after a re-install. That may well account for the poor performance of our observers. Or perhaps it's as just as the great Albert Ball remembered it

Finally it's a DFW campaign mission with Rise of Flight, using the latest version of Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator, which adds more balloons and real AA fire in the vicinity of the front. I had held off posting this comparison till this new version was available...then held off some more, because of some real weirdness encountered in my first try...then flew this mission, only to encounter still more weirdness.

The first mission - a photo-recce - started well enough, with more balloons and (at last!) AA fire, both in evidence. But during the flight, as I was scooting up and down in the objective area, pretending to let my observer take virtual photographs, I realised the two flight-mates I had brought along as a close escort had completely disappeared.

After flying another mission for this report, I think I may have found out what happened to them. But more of that anon.

I opted to fly from 1 April 1917 and of the units PWCG offered me, chose to fly with Flieger Abteilung 46b, based at Lagnicourt in the British sector of the front. I scrubbed the first mission offered - another recce job! - and instead picked the next one that came up, to bomb troops in the area of the enemy front lines. At this point, I noticed the first piece of weirdness - the PWCG mission brief listed a Sopwith Camel squadron with the 'enemy forces'. This is quite wrong as the Camels didn't become operational until about July 1917. This is not the first time I've seen planes appear in PWCG missions months before they actually entered service.

I cut down the suggested flight size from five to three, and accepted the default loadout - one big-ish bomb under the fuselage, and four 'tiddlers' under each wing.

I had chosen a plain green 'skin' for my DFW, leaving my flight-mates in the rather more attractive mauve and green scheme. The only other one available in my RoF install was lozenge fabric with late-war crosses.



In the mini-map in the screenie below, you can see our flightpath; the objective is just off the left-hand edge of the map. The prominent ringed red circles seem to indicate balloons; friendly ones, in this case. If I could find out a way to turn off their display on the mini-map, I would. I have turned off the display of other aircraft.



The RoF DFW is a beautiful bird, with nice touches like ripples in the fuselage fabric. The cockpit is equally well done. The aircraft is the later model with radiator in front of the upper wing.






After takeoff I became aware of three other two-seaters buzzing around our airfield. These turned out to be Roland CIIs - in a light-blue scheme more appropriate for 1916 than spring 1917, but magnificent-looking representations of the 'Walfisch' nevertheless. It further turned out the Rolands were our escort, tho I don't recall seeing any reference in the briefing to us having one.





...to be continued!

By this time in the mission - as I led my three DFWs towards the Lines where we were to bomb the English troops, accompanied by the escorting Rolands - two bad things, possibly related, had become apparent.

First, my DFW's handling was decidedly twitchy. Wings dipped suddenly down, one side or the other. It was like flying in really gusty conditions that weren't there. I don't recall this from earlier DFW flights, some months ago, but it was there the flight before this. Keeping her wings level was a real, tiring chore, especially the moment I tried to raise the nose to maintain some rate of climb. Doing all this while maintaining my heading was impossible and I began to wander either side of my planned track.

Related to this, perhaps, my flight's formation-keeping, which had been mostly good, started to go awry.




Finally, as we neared the front, I looked back and could see no sign of the other two DFWs. I eventually spotted them, behind and well below, spinning down nearly side by side, like a pair of dead leaves.



Using the view system I had a good look at both of them as they spun down, thinking perhaps they had collided, and there was no sign of the slightest bit of damage.




I don't know if they spun after avoiding a near miss with each other or our escort, perhaps brought on by everyone trying to follow my own rather erratic course. But realising that neither was going to recover, I was rather disgusted by this display of ineptitude and confess that I was not particularly sorry for either of my flight-mates when they duly smacked into the ground.




Weird, or what? I'm beginning to think this may have been why two flight-mates disappeared on the earlier mission. As wrecks don't last long in RoF, I may just never have noticed their demise after spinning in, as I had spent a few minutes concentrating on flying photo-runs during the time the pair vanished.

At least the Rolands had stayed with me and soon, we were over the Lines and on the run-in to the target area.





...to be continued!

At this point, over the Lines, I experienced one of the improvements of the latest version of PWCG - Archie! In the past this was rare, but now as we crossed no-Man's Land, the English gunners let loose with a decent barrage.




My escort was more of a threat than the enemy AA fire. One of the ##@@### Rolands suddenly swept right over me and nearly wiped out both of us.



Incidentally, the RoF flak-bursts look a bit flat or weak to my eyes, but at least they now seem regularly there - near the Lines anyway. Overall, not as well done as either FE or OFF but better than it was..



As I neared the target area I could see nothing on the ground but trenches and some scattered ground bursts from artillery fire. I turned into the enemy trench lines and let go my bombs towards an area where a 'sap' - an approach trench - joined the parallel lines of fighting positions.




I saw nothing of the results, being preoccupied with turning around my bucketing machine and steering something resembling a course for home in something resembling straight and level flight.




At this point I paused the sim and decided to use the view system to 'have a nosey'. I had noticed some tracer fire low down to my right at some distance, on the run-in, and was curious to see what might have been going on.

A flight of Albatrosses was in the circuit somewhere, likewise some DH2s. The really weird thing was that there was also a trio of Sopwith Camels beetling about, a good 2-3 months before their operational debut.





As for the source of the tracer fire I'd seen earlier, this wasn't hard to find. Another four Albatros DIIIs were hard on the heels of a solitary RE8, low over No-Man's Land. This little battle was shortly to furnish some of the strangest incidents I saw in this particular mission.




...to be continued!

The rest of my own mission was uneventful - apart from another near-miss with one of my escorting Rolands as it flashed past much too close. I survived that, got home and landed without further incident.







But I could not resist using the view system to switch back to the fight, low over No-Man's Land, between the solitary RE8 and the flight of four Albatri. This was still in full swing. But the first of several strange things had happened. One of the Albatros DIIIs had lost a lower wing (and the interplane bracing wires on both sides) but was still merrily chasing the RE8 with the rest of the pack.




The second strange thing was that although the RE8 - now damaged and having passed the trench lines - was still snaking about to evade attack, and the Huns were still attacking, no-body was actually shooting. The RE8's observer had left his gun and sat down. None of the Albatrosses was firing. It was like everybody had run out of ammo.





At some point the Albatros with the missing lower wing did the decent thing and crashed, but the others kept harrying the RE8, which kept on trying to escape. Still, no more shots were fired.





By this time the damaged RE8's engine seemed to be faltering, with frequent large puffs of dark smoke emerging from the exhausts. I sensed something was about to happen. Sure enough, the RE8 banked around and made an engine-on forced landing in a field. As he came to a stop, so did his engine.





I thought this marked the end of this rather strange air fight. But the strangest moment of all was yet to come.

As I watched, the RE8's stationery prop flicked around as the engine fired back into life. As the revs built up, the RE began to move again, faster and faster, till the tail came up. Having forced-landed with a failing engine, he had re-started his motor and was now attempting to take off again!



The engine was still emitting gouts of dark smoke and although the RE8 left the ground, it seemed unable to gain altitude and climb away. It managed to slip past a group of trees but there was no avoiding a second, larger area of woodland, on rising ground straight ahead, and the RE8-that-would-not-die duly cracked up amongst the trees.





All in all, this was a bit of a strange mission. My own trip was fairly dull, with little more than the frustrations of my own plane's super-twitchy handling, my incompetent flight-mate's display of synchronised spinning (and synchronised crashing), and my Roland escort's repeated attempts to scare me. The 'mission within a mission' was even more strange, what with one Albatros manoeuvring happily for quite a while with a lower wing missing, a long fight with no shooting, and then the forced landing and unsuccessful takeoff effort.

I haven't yet attempted to use ROF's facilities for simulating photo or artillery observation missions and overall, it's the sim that I've spent least time in, flying two-seaters. But on my experience to date, I still rate OFF as best for flying these machines, followed by FE (because of the more interesting or intense mission experiences). There's no question, tho, that RoF's two-seaters come out well on top, visually; and I dare say that if I put more time into flying them - I currently have the DFW, the RE8, the Breguet and the Brisfit - I would come to appreciate flying and fighting in them even more.

Hi 33lima,
still enjoying your reports. Actualy I downloaed ROF camapainf generator to try it today. BTW by any chance do you have Morane Saulnier N for First Eagles? One with proper cockpit from here: http://combatace.com/topic/19508-morane-saulnier-n-%E2%80%9Cbullet%E2%80%9D-biggish-images/

as CombatAce downloads are still tits up I cant find this plane.

Glad you got sorted, Ataribaby; even tho I wasn't able to help, the CombatAce downloads came back up soon after.

Well, I thought I'd wind up this series of mission comparisons - for the time being anyway - with a conspicuous absentee from the set planes so far featured, that most iconic of WW1 combat aeroplanes - the Fokker DrI triplane.

Perhaps because I prefer planes like the Albatros and the Pfalz, and the Spring-Summer 1917 period, I've flown very little with the tripe in any of the current 'Big Three' WW1 sims. Of course I've built the kits and marvelled at the CGI-free Blue Max triplanes flying under that bridge and scaring the bejasus out of those sheep. Despite the fact that apparently, there were so many takes, that the sheep became bored with the aerobatics and ended up having to be stampeded by the farmer every time the stunt pilots did the business.

Rather less impressive were the more recent CGI triplanes in 'Flyboys', painted red to a man (except the real bad guy who was - you'd never have guessed! - in a black one). In plentiful supply they were, a good year and a bit ahead of the DrI's August-September 1917 combat debut and each carrying more crosses than a thing with a lot of crosses. I pray the same director will never subject us to his version of 'All Quiet in the Western Front' which would doubtless have the French Army wearing nifty little pink cocktail dresses (with matching accessories, of course) so an audience which he doesn't trust to distinguish Horizon Bleu from Feldgrau, or one helmet from another, can tell which side is which. Why let a little thing like authenticity get in the way of a good story, eh?

Anyhow, I think it was Manfred von Richthofen who observed that the Dr1 'climbed like a monkey and turned like the Devil'. Or maybe it was, 'climbed like the Devil and turned like a monkey'. The RFC's 'Jimmy' McCudden was apparently not impressed with reports of its appearance at the front, writing in a September 1917 letter to a friend that 'the Triplane is an awfully comic old thing and I am awfully keen to see one out of control. I reckon it will be like a Venetian blind with a stone tied to it.' I suspect he may have changed his opinion after the 23rd, and that epic fight with Verner Voss, on which his oft-quoted conclusion was 'As long as I live I shall never forget my admiration for that German pilot, who single-handed fought seven of us for ten minutes, and also put some bullets through all of our machines. His flying was wonderful, his courage magnificent, and in my opinion he is the bravest German airman whom it has been my privilege to see fight.'

First up, it's Over Flanders Fields, and I elected to fly with none other than Jadggeschwader 1's Jasta 11, from March 1918 at about the time of the German Spring Offensive. OFF based us at Avesnes le Sec near Cambrai. I had selected 'historical weather' and duly got two successive days of 'All flights are cancelled!'. Finally the OFF/real weather improved and off we went. I had selected 'always lead' as usual and was given a flight of four to escort five Hannover CLIIIs on a recce mission over the Lines, not too far away. OFF often places a second flight ready to take off beside you but this time, there was just us. The whole flight was in triplanes. I accepted the default skin and got a machine in typical Fokker factory finish, with the soon-to-be-replaced 'Maltese' crosses and Jasta 11's usual red paint on cowlings, struts and wheel covers.



I set the CFS3-style 'radar' to display aircraft, reduced its range to 1 mile, then turned it off. This means it is inactive but ready to be turned on quickly when needed to padlock enemies during an air fight, without at the same time revealing more than it perhaps should.

I took off immediately and the tripe came unstuck quite quickly, climbing noticeably faster than other planes I've flown, as I made the necessary circuit or two of the airfield, to allow my flight to 'imprint' on me and the 'radar' to register all waypoints.




Having gained a little height I set course for the front, leveled out and throttled back to allow my flight to close up, as I flew over a rather snow-bound Cambrai. Compared to RoF and FE, the OFF DrI lacks the dynamic shadows outside and in, and has little or no pilot animation, but it is a nice bird, well skinned.






The cockpit is not bad, with effective leather textures around the cockpit coaming and on the padding around the gun breeches.



At this point, I was having difficulty spotting the Hannovers we were to escort, whom the briefing had advised would be over our airfield as we took off. I cheated and turned on the 'radar' which revealed they were about a mile ahead of us. I'm not sure a CL-type machine - designed to escort C-types and fly close support missions - would have commonly flown recce missions like this. But there they were!




Spotting the Hannovers was one thing. Getting into position was another matter. Even after my flight had caught up and I opened the throttle, it took ages to close the range and get up to their height. They were climbing steadily and tho they are not the fastest of planes even compared to triplanes, we closed only slowly.




Finally, we drew more-or-less level. The Hannovers are one of those OFF planes in need of an improvement to their level-of-detail 3d models - like the Albatorsses and others, their undercarriage disappears at too close a range; you can see both with and without, in the screenie below.



Anyway, soon we were over the Lines in the sector for the recce and the Hannovers started to fly up and down the assigned track. At this point OFF's erratic formation-keeping promptly showed up. One of the Hannovers - the leader I think - became well separated and was seen little, thereafter. My own flight went very well wide on every turn, at one point practically merging formation with the Hannovers, so I forgave them for that much.




So far, so good. It was at this point - keeping a careful eye in the direction of the sun, in particular - that I noticed another aeroplane sailing past in the opposite direction, somewhat higher up. Was it the errant leader of the Hannovers, ahead of everybody else and flying the reciprocal leg of the patrol line? Just when I had decided that he didn't look much like a Hannover, I noticed that he was being trailed by another group of unknown machines. I tensed up and prepared for the worst.



...to be continued!

Yeah already downloaded morane Damm this screens forcing me to run OFF again today. Aslo today Roden Fokker Dr.I 1/32 arrived in post today

Who were the newcomers, flitting past above my flight and the Hannovers we were escorting? The machine in the lead looked to have the square-cut wings and short nose of a Sopwith of some sort. But so far - if enemies they were, and I was pretty sure of it - the unidentified flight was not showing any inclination to attack us.

Resisting the temptation to go after them, I made a plan. I had a job to do, and that job was making sure the Hannovers got their work done. I would not be drawn off into an engagement with the newcomers, unless they directly threatened us. So I stayed with the Hannovers and kept a wary eye on the other flight. They seemed to be intent on a similar mission to our own, flying up and down a track near the Lines. I don't generally do so but this time, I turned on the labels and confirmed my suspicion that the other folk were a flight of French strutters with a Nieuport escort.



After a while, our courses seemed to be converging to the extent that I judged that a clash would likely develop very soon. So I took the initiative, wanting to pre-empt our Hannovers becoming the first targets, and ordered a flight attack. I singled out for myself the impudent leading enemy 2-seater who was still way out ahead of the pack.




He was quite fast and I opened fire at quite long range in the hope of slowing him down. In OFF I have gun jams turned off as stoppages which kill both guns simultaneously and can't be cleared in flight are worse than useless IMHO. I still fire short bursts tho and these soon took effect.



There was some return fire but it was ineffective. In OFF, even with my ArcMod giving observers a decent field of fire downwards, two-seaters are not a big threat, unless in formation when their crossfires make an attack very dangerous.

I began to close more quickly and after a final burst, the Frenchman's lower right wing fell off and he flipped over and down.





However, my activities had not gone un-noticed. Things were about to hot up considerably!



...to be continued!

PS I know the strutter is in RFC markings but I called him a Frenchman as the label identified him as a Strutter 1A2 which is the French version...anyway the escort was definitely French even if my victim wasn't and they seemed determined to do something about it regardless!

Well, I don't know about you, but after I've had the great good fortune to knock down an enemy, the very next thing I do is turn my kite and look around me, to make sure that I'm not next in line for the chop.

So I spotted the Frenchman behind me - and he really was a Frenchman, unlike the Strutter 1A2 whuch turned out to be from the RFC - turned into him, and then had a crack as he swung past across my nose.

I was quite surprised that he didn't come straight at me, but there was a reason for this. He had turned in behind one of my flight mates and I had to do the honours, by shooting him off my man's tail. Which I duly did. I find it just as satisfying as making a kill myself, to save one of my flight from being clobbered. So even though I certainly didn't bring him down, I was thoroughly pleased to see the silver Nieuport break off his attack as my tracers swept past him.




This is where things got a tad frustrating. Perhaps in part because I wasn't flying with one of the 'empty weight' mods (which compensate to a degree for the AI flying without the weight of fuel, crew or ammo), the Nieuport seemed rather hard to keep up with, as he twisted and turned to avoid me. Sometimes the OFF AI, when flying defensively, will head for the deck, but other times - the variety is a big plus for OFF - they will make fast climbing turns, not particularly tight ones, but apparently at full power. If you are at all low or flying a slower machine - as I was - this can make them very hard to nail. To make matters worse, my triplane felt like it was fighting against my every effort to turn inside the Frenchman, whether going right or left. I didn't feel in danger of stalling but it was like I was chasing a speedboat in a barge, rather than in a machine which, as MvR said, climbed like a monkey and turned like the Devil. I think the problem was possibly that I was trying to do both, quite hard, at the same time; ending up with high angles of attack, extra drag from my three little wings, and a lot of what I took to be adverse yaw, where a plane can tend to roll you around and out of a turn, into the opposite direction you want to go. Bad flying on my part perhaps, compounded by very little experience on the type.

Anyway I did manage to get in some shots, but it was rather hard work, and when I finally saw some pieces fly off him from some hits, I felt I had really earned it.






...to be continued!

At this point the Frenchman I was chasing finally lost some height, and was promptly attacked from behind by another triplane.



Trusting my flight-mate to finish the job on the damaged enemy, I swung in behind another Nieuport and left them to it. Off we went again, round and round. The latest Frenchman managed to get above me at one point but I somehow made up a bit of ground and then tried to force the nose of my seemingly-unwilling machine around and into a position where I could have a decent crack at him.





Just when I thought I had him dead to rights and let him have it, my guns stopped firing and I got the 'Dead Man's Click' of hammers falling on empty chambers.

I continued to whirl around after him for a bit, but during one turn, rolled out as my nose came around onto a heading back to our side of the Lines, and dived hard for home. Essentially, I was re-enacting the words of that classic RFC song (sung to the tune of 'John Peel' - no not the disc jockey, the other one):

"When you soar in the air in a Sopwith Scout
And you're scrapping with a Hun, and your gun cuts out
Well, you stuff down your nose till your plugs fall out
'Cos you haven't got a hope in the mor-ning!"

I wasn't exactly expecting my Fokker to dive like the Devil and she didn't. But I was at least hoping that I might draw far enough away from the Nieuport, to get such a head start as would make pursuit uneconomic. Things started fairly well, but looking back after a few more seconds I could see the Nieuport was now diving after me - and looked to be gaining.



I don't know whether it was our AA fire bursting around him or something else, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the Nieuport soon turn back and leave me in peace, rather than displaying the sort of fixated AI you often see in this sort of situation in most sims (OFF included, but not this time, so credit where credit is due).



I had rather bugged out on my flight. But since clobbering the two seater, I had saved one of my men, set up a kill for another, and kept an enemy scout tied up for as long as I dared. So I felt that I had taken the principle of 'noblesse oblige' about as far as was reasonable in the circumstances.

Not seeing the point of stretching my luck with a long return flight without the means of self-defence, I headed back to a friendly airfield just on our side of the Lines. I had dived away in its direction, so that if pursued I could at least lure my tormentors over the airfield's MG defences, but that had not proved necessary.



As I landed I noticed some plumes of brown smoke to my right, just beyond the airfield boundary. As it happened, it was enemy shellfire!



It didn't seem to have quite the range to hit us so I switched off and rolled to a stop on the flight line, noting that - as seems common in OFF - the planes on the ground seemed to be identical in type and markings to mine. Strange but True.



All in all, despite some frustrations - bad formation-keeping, rather agile AI enemies and a truculent mount, the latter perhaps the fault of a truculent rider - it was a busy and engaging mission, and a good advertisement for the sort of WW1 air war experience provided by Over Flanders Fields.

OK next up it's First Eagles 2. I'm using Ojcar's Armchair Aces month-by-month campaign set and April 1918 had Jasta 11 flying Triplanes; so that's what I picked.

The campaign based us at La Brayelle, south of Lens and north of Cambrai. The first mission was a patrol up as far as the Lines and as I usually do, I chose three other pilots - picked from the bottom of the squadron roster - to be my flight for the campaign.

FE2 gave us similar schemes to OFF, factory 'streaky olive' uppers and blue-grey lowers, with Jasta 11's trademark red cowlings, wheel hubs and struts. FE2 gave us all white horizontal tailplanes as well, but allocated each machine a different individual marking from its library of historical ones. Most of ours were actually featured on Jasta 5's Albatros DVs - I got the bone marking used by Joseph Mai.



The FE2 DrI is a typically well-executed representation. It has bump-mapped textures which make ribs and other details stand out (they missed the lowest wing but it's not much noticeable). As well as the data panel on the port fuselage side, a nice touch is the Fokker company script on the lower rudder.



As I'd selected April 1918, FE2 correctly changed my national markings from the previous 'Maltese' cross to the first, broader version of the later 'Greek' cross. Another neat touch is that you can see a trace of the original cross beneath, reflecting the fact that the markings would have been changed in the field. The original white rectangles around the early crosses should probably have been painted over in a solid colour (which some FE Dr1 skins do replicate) but in this case the streaky finish runs right up to the borders of the crosses.




The cockpit is also nicely done. As well as the control surfaces, wheels, pilot, cockpit controls, instruments and rotary engine, the animations extend to the 'Spandau' machine guns, whose cocking handles reciprocate when you fire.



The weather was fine and I was soon nearing the Lines at what I judged to be a sufficient height, with my flight weaving about a bit behind me as they often do in FE2. But at least they kept up - in FE2, AI formation-keeping is much better than either OFF or RoF.




We were still short of the Lines when I noticed some black, and therefore German, AA bursts below and to our right, near one of our airfields. The war had arrived!



...to be continued!

I banked right, to get a better look at the air fight going on below us. I wasn't going to lose precious altitude unless I really needed to. What was going on down there?



It looked like a couple of English two-seaters being attacked by some triplanes like ours; one of the enemies was already going down, trailing grey smoke. Sure enough, it was a pair of RE8s being harried by some friends in Fokkers.







It wasn't long before the damaged RE8 fell away and exploded on the ground.



Conscious of the principles of war that recommend maintenance of the aim and economy of effort, and expecting my comrades below should be able to manage the remaining Englishman without our flight needing to interupt our own mission, I pulled up and away again, back towards the Lines and our patrol's furthest turning point, which was over a village just on the enemy side.



...to be continued!

We had just about crossed the Lines into enemy territory when we came under some pretty accurate AA fire from the English gunners, down below.



We were not the only ones providing some target practice for the flak. Below and slightly left, I noticed some more AA fire, dark bursts this time, indicating German fire. The English fliers had arrived!



I banked left and looked down. Just visible against the woods below, but coming straight up at me it seemed, like a winged rat up an invisible drainpipe, was a machine with a pronounced dihedral and a radiator in his nose - an SE5!



He fired as he came and it was all I could do to get out of his way, though not without collecting a few holes in my wings for my trouble. In no time, the SE5 and another of the same kind were up at our altitude and a spirited fight developed.







My own target was the first victim but in nailing him I had lost some height and drifted away from the others. I wheeled around and climbed back up towards the air fight, without delay.




Despite being damaged himself, the second SE proved a tougher opponent and sent one of my flight down, diving gently but anxiously for home, trailing smoke and minus a large chunk of his left middle wing and interplane strut.



As I drew closer to the scene of the action, I noticed that - as often happens in these matters - the fight had attracted others, in the form of some Sopwith Camels, who had evened up the odds.




Pitching into the fight, I managed to sneak in behind one of the Camels and let him have it. He twisted around in a wicked right-hand turn but I managed to get behind him again and this time, I stayed there.







After a final burst from both my guns, the Camel's left-hand wings fell off and he rolled over drunkenly and sideways.



But the fight was far from over. Above and behind me, even as my second victim fell to earth, another Sopwith was right behind one of my flight-mates, ready to even the score.




...to be continued!

The Sopwith attacking my friend had reckoned without me. There is nothing I like more that shooting an enemy off the tail of a friend and by good fortune, I was well placed to pull in behind and below the unsuspecting Englishman. A short burst from close range into the Camel's vitals was all it took.




The pilot has disappeared, in FE indicating a 'pilot kill'. Either way, the Camel was doomed.



I broke off and spiral-climbed, scanning the skies around me. No more enemies - the battlefield was ours! Elated at my hat-trick, I recalled my two remaining flight-members and gained height in the direction of friendly territory. Granted, two of my victims I had caught by surprise from behind and one of them had not even had time to react before he went down. But three victories in one patrol was still cause for celebration!



At this point, a glance at the in-flight map revealed that I had not actually reached the limit of my patrol objective. Usually in FE - and helpfully for visual navigation - the allocated waypoints (which you can mostly drag about, in the planning phase) are set at actual landmarks in the 3d world, most often at some of the little villages which adorn the FE landscape.

Feeling by now that I was the master of all I surveyed, I decided to turn back and make a little circuit up to and around the waypoint village, to show you, my fellow WW1 simmers, that it was thus. So as you can see, here I am, with the waypoint landmark in the background - it's close to the Lines so the village in question is rather the worse for shellfire. You can also see the fading plumes of smoke from some of the victims of the air fight.



Job done, I turned us around and headed back the short distance to the Lines, the lack of enemy AA fire further contributing to my sense of general well-being. Of course, this was all too good to last. First Eagles 2 had not finished with me yet. I realised this when, from nowhere that I could see, there was a yellow flash of tracer, streaking somewhere in between my top planes, inches to the right of my virtual head. To say that I got a shock, somehow doesn't quite cover it.

The party responsible for rudely interrupting my self-congratulatory little reverie was a pair of Bristol Fighters, which flew right into us, from more-or-less head on, zipped past, then whipped around after us.





Recovering from my total surprise, I pulled up after the nearest enemy, but in my initial, clumsy avoiding action, I had lost height and the Bristol turned into me, for a head-on pass.



I fired, he fired, and there was a bang as we met in time and space.



Now, I knew how that Camel pilot felt, whose wings I had just before shot off. No parachute, nothing to do but ride her down to certain destruction. No consolation, that the Bristol had just lost an aileron and was still very much in business, while I plumeted down to my virtual doom.




My flight's survivors counter-attacked, but it wasn't long before another triplane was going down. The fight seemed pretty one-sided.






I never saw what happened to my fourth flight-mate but he was gone by that stage. The Bristols just formed up and went about their business, having punished my sloppiness pretty savagely.



I neglected to check the full debrief after the mission, which would have told me exactly what had happened to whom. I knew that I had lost, and that was enough!

Ultimately, not exactly a successful mission, but it was a thoroughly engaging one and a good example of why I find First Eagles 2 really top-notch for reproducing the experience of patrol-leading and air-fighting in WW1 skies; the two most important things for a WW1 combat flight sim to do well, in my view. And FE/FE2 does both exceptionally well.

Finally, a triplane campaign mission in Rise of Flight...watch this space!

OK next up, it's Rise of Flight.

The good news is, my Jasta 11 campaign mission, flown with Pat Wilson's Campaign Generator, was a real cracker, one of the best I've flown so far in RoF.

The bad news is I had some problems with PWCG and padlock, and even tho the mission was still great, it was the third attempt to get that far. First time up, it was another one of those missions where the bad guys were in the air but nowhere in sight. The second mission, same again but I cheated - I used the view system to locate the enemies, paused to orient myself and work out where they were in relation to me, then flew over to them. My cheating was duly punished when the view system went haywire during a dogfight and I got shot down.

The first mission did produce some truly beautiful scenes as dawn broke and we flitted through clouds. None of the other WW1 sims can touch RoF, for reproducing with such impact the visual, tactile and audio experience of being up there, flying a WW1 aeroplane. Brilliant. Truly, an experience not to be missed. Even my 512Mb 8800GT produced beautiful results.




Anyway, back to the mission. I had just updated RoF to the latest version, which includes the new FE2b. I used PWCG to generate a new German campaign and chose to fly with Jasta 11 from 1 April 1918. I selected the rank of Oberleutnant so that I would generally get to lead my flight. I don't recall where were based but it was close to the front in the British sector, correct for the period. I then generated a mission and got a patrol up to and then down the Lines. This was to my liking so I used the pilot selection screen in PWCG to check I was leader and then to increase my flight from the two allocated, to my preferred foursome.

The roster listed Manfred von Richthofen as CO; by this time he'd been in command of parent formation JG1 for a good while, but it was good to see he was flying with his old outfit when he could! Ernst Udet was also in the Jasta and he was in the flight for this mission.

I had installed the interface mod which integrates PWCG with RoF but the RoF update seemed to have broken this, even after re-installing the mod. Nevertheless I was able to pick up and fly the PWCG-generated mission, from the RoF mission list, in the usual way.

AFAIK, unlike OFF or FE, RoF doesn't automatically change German national markings as the war progresses. Udet got his own skin with the appropriate, broad Greek crosses but the rest of us, in the RoF Jasta 11 default scheme, got planes with the older Maltese cross. I could have changed my own plane's skin in the RoF 'hangar', but there was no Jasta 11 DrI skin with the Greek crosses so I stuck with the default.




I can't find superlatives sufficient to do justice to the appearance of the RoF DRI, externally and in-cockpit. So I'll settle for 'magnificent' and 'a feast for the eyes'. She is a fantastic bird, one of RoF's best, I think.







I confess that I was sort of dreading flying the RoF DrI as I expected her to be a real handful, but it wasn't at all bad. She was skittish on the takeoff run but if not over-controlled and allowed to fly herself off, behaved herself quite well.

In the air, she needed constant and pronounced forward pressure on the stick to overcome her strong tail-heaviness. She was also continually sort of buffeting about, very hard to keep steady, requiring considerable concentration. After experiencing this in the DFW, I had turned off 'wind effects' for this mission, but it made no difference that I could see.

Either way, the RoF DrI definitely climbed strongly. Soon, with my flight sensibly giving me plenty of room but keeping up well, we were approaching the front at a decent height...not decent enough, as I was soon to find out.





...to be continued!

So there was I, at the head of my flight of four Fokker triplanes from Jasta 11, nearing the lines. The question was now, would the Englishmen be joining us?



Up to now, RoF seems to be the sim most likely of the 'Big Three' to produce a great WW1 flight experience...but no actual fighting. The enemies are there; but unless you have all map icons active, turning your in-flight map into a sort of WW1 AWACS radar operator's display, it seems very easy to miss them, most of the time. Frustration City. The comparative lack of flak bursts makes them hard to see, and in the Beta career (the current stock SP campaign, along with some fixed mission-set campaigns) other flights seem to spawn suddenly, within a fixed distance of the flight leader, again often with no warning from friendly flak bursts. In PWCG campaign missions, the enemy flights are I gather spawned differently, so as to intersect your mission track, and often seem to miss me by miles, perhaps because the timing is somehow out, like I'm too fast, or too slow. The current PWCG features increased flak levels near the Lines which should help somewhat with finding the foe-man, and a new version in beta seems to have a new system for spawning AI flights, which may prove better again.

For now, having had problems in my first two efforts to fly this mission, I was anxious to see if I would draw a blank again. I scanned the skies, hopeful but skeptical. Seeing is believing.

What I saw was first one flak burst, then as it faded, another one, slightly right at the same level, a fair distance off. You can just about see the second burst in the screenie below, above the middle wing's leading edge, near the base of the right rear interplane strut. Not exactly an impressive display of military ardour. The boys manning the guns down below didn't seem to be putting much effort into it, today. Maybe the PWCG GUI mod wasn't the only mod that had stopped working after the last RoF update...maybe the dreaded 'environmental' flak was back? I stared hard, but there seemed to be no aeroplanes in the direction indicated.



At that moment, perhaps out of habit, I looked around, up and to my left, in the direction of the sun. Sun glare is really well modelled in RoF. But despite that, I had no difficulty noticing a more vigorous grouping of flak bursts, much closer in.



And then I saw their targets: several aircraft a few hundred feet above me, dark specks tracked by further bursts of AA fire and barely visible against the sun's strong glare.



This looked like it. As I watched, ready to break at the first sign of an attack, I saw that there were at least two aircraft, in formation, heading into German territory. These had the appearance of English RE8s, with their shorter lower wings. Higher up, I could make out a second formation, four smaller aircraft, likely an escort, and from the cut of their jibs, probably SE5s.




Elated that we now had a fight on our hands, but anxious at being caught at a serious height disadvantage with a strong enemy flight at such close quarters, I swung around and after the English two-seaters. At the same time I closely watched the four enemy scouts, ready to break up and into any attack, which must surely come at any second. My hastily-made plan - and as they say, better a bad plan, than no plan at all - was to go for the RE8s, and draw the SE5s down into a turning fight. The suspense mounted as I slowly but steadily drew closer to the RE8s, mouse-looking over my shoulder at short intervals and wondering whether I would get within range before the inevitable happened.





...to be continued!

It wasn't long before the inevitable did happen. The escorting SE5s above us weaved about a bit, then broke formation and fell upon us with a vengeance.



My flight-mates, still lagging slightly behind me, took the brunt of it and were soon in a close-quarter fight with the Englishmen.




For a few more seconds, I was unmolested, and I thought I was going to get a crack at the RE8s. Whatever they were doing, the two-seaters, not the scouts, were the ones I most needed to stop. Just as I finally came into range, I mouse-looked over my shoulder.



There, directly behind me, was an aeroplane, boring straight on in me. And it had two wings, not three. So I flicked my triplane around and joined the party.




Without much difficulty, I managed to avoid the chap who was trying to sneak up on me and instead, I did the sneaking-up - in behind another of the SE's, who seemed to be preoccupied with one of my flight-mates. I was soon behind him, and got in a good burst, which sent the Englishman reeling into a descending spiral to the left, still under control but hard hit and trailing white smoke.




I got in another good burst, at which point his left-hand wing structure collapsed and he fell earthwards like a shot bird.



So far, so good! Now, where were the others?

...to be continued!

I mouse-looked around. For some reason, my padlock had stopped working (or I had confused my joystick keymapping - I try to make it the same for all sims but there are usually some variations and sometimes I get caught out by these, after a long session on a different sim). But I soon picked up on another SE, and trying to keep him in view with the mouse, I went for him, too.

I'm not sure whether it's because I've suddenly 'got my eye in' and got used to shooting while controlling the tail-heavy and skittish RoF planes, or because the DrI is a better gun platform, or because its manouevrabilty - which RoF portrays well - suits my flying style. Or maybe the AI is such that faster, 'boom and zoom' planes like the SE5 don't make the most of their advantages in the dive or level flight. But it wasn't long before a second SE had lost a second set of wings, to the fire of my twin 'Spandaus'.





By now, I was beginning to get that 'Master of All I Surveyed' feeling I had in the previous triplane mission, in FE. But the battle wasn't over yet. Just above me, one of my flight was harrying a damaged SE5. This was the only enemy left in sight.



My comrades seemed hesitant to finish him off. Maybe they thought he was already doomed. Perhaps he was. But he made the mistake of crossing my nose in a descending turn. I'm sure you can guess what happened next.



That's right; I gave in to temptation, slipped in behind him, and popped him off. Once again, his right-hand wings came off.




All right, I admit it. It wasn't a nice thing to do. So much for chivalrous 'Knights of the Air'. But this is virtual war. And it's not pretty, sometimes

I banked around, but the skies were empty, apart from a couple of triplanes wheeling about, which responded to my 'rally' signal and swept towards me, ignoring the sporadic AA fire which still peppered the skies around us.





One of my flight was missing. The RE8s were no-where to be seen, and we were likely very low on ammunition by now; I certainly was. After orbiting for a bit, I led our three surviving triplanes home.

I paused the sim and used the view system to try to locate my missing comrade. I was relieved to find that he was gliding down with a dead engine, towards No-Man's Land admittedly, but at least, still in the Land of the Living. I checked again later and saw that he had made a decent forced landing, better than the ones I often make in RoF, forced or otherwise.




So, home we went. I came in to land without waiting for my flight-mates to do so.





My damaged flight-mate had made a perfect dead stick landing amidst the shell-holes. This rather put to shame my effort, with an undamaged aeroplane, back at the airfield. At least the riggers will get a bit of practice on my machine!



The RoF 'debrief' credited me with the three kills. I didn't attempt to run the PWCG debrief. Anyhow, I need to find out why the GUI mod isn't integrating PWCG with my RoF menus anymore.

Edit - reason for PWCG not showing in the RoF interface (even after installing the latest interface mod, available here) - was that I had 'mods off' in the RoF game settings screen. Mods turned back on, PWCG is now back in the RoF menu system.

Despite my problem with the padlock, which may have been of my own making, this was one of the most satisfying and successful RoF campaign missions I have flown. I would have liked the flak bursts to have indicated the enemy's presence at greater range, and I'm not sure why it was that the SE5's did not prove tougher opposition. But I'm not complaining. It was a fantastic mission, easily amongst the most satisfying I've flown in any WW1 sim, with peerless visuals. Great stuff. On this basis, I'd highly recommend the RoF Fokker triplane; she's a beaut, and a killer.

Those First Eagles images are amazing! Forgive me for now reading the whole thread but what are the main websites for getting downloads for this game please?

Would it be possible for you to summarise the main features of the latest patched game?

I am thinking of getting it - was thinking about WOFF after getting a bit fed up with RoF but this First Eagles looks really good and its certainly cheap enough to buy.