Hmm, Mohr Fahnn is not living up to his name... So far he is Lehs Fahnn...
Mission #5 Balloon defense!

Sounds like there should be some action, huh? I mean, who wouldn't want to send our juicy sausage down in flames right? Well, first of all, the front that was threatening yesterday showed up today, so the weather was miserable:

Nevertheless, the balloon needed defense, so off we went. At 11,000 feet we leveled off and headed southeast, skirting the front lines towards the Balloon about 15 miles north of Lille.

At about the halfway point, suddenly Oberflugmeister Knustler and his wingman dove away to the west. Thinking this might be a fight, I looked all around for some possible enemy scouts but saw nothing. By this time they had dove into a cloud and I could not find them. Not having anything better to do but still feeling saucy, I headed south towards the balloon. About 15 minutes later, I could see it below me. A single a/c was above it. Approaching cautiously, I was surprised to see it was Alex Kulbe, our high cover from Schwarm Eins. Amazingly, we arrived at the balloon at almost exactly the same time. I took up position on his wing and we circled above the drachen for about 20 minutes:

If there were any enemies in the area, we didn't see them and they apparently didn't see us. After burning some gas and making some pretty circles in the sky, we headed home, thoroughly soaked from the rain...

June 13th 1917

After 17 mins of flight I had a runtime error and game crashed. It does show up in my pilot dossier as a completed flight. This is the first time I have had this error. Do I refly a mission on this same day or advance it a day?

I would say advance a day...

Yep. I suggest advancing one because it may be a mission error and if that's the case it will keep crashing until you do.

Burk Willitz' Mission #4

We receive orders for a patrol over the lines & hurry to get into the action..





That was some serious damage on my D.III controls.. dropped like a rock once I started to turn right and it rolled over permanently.




NOTE:
I used the "Air Start" option to save the long initial climb to altitude, but I should've been more cautious knowing how the option occasionally spawns a sizable group of enemy planes directly overhead at the start with a big altitude advantage. Sure enough, seven SPADs were spawned about 500m over my little two-plane flight and the four friendlies flying top cover just kept on while we were pounced. I started recording a few seconds later, after they turned to dive on us. At first I thought they might continue on so I waited a bit.. but alas! There was no getting away although I tried to dive for home.

I've been wondering if this odd spawn situation is working as intended when using the "Air Start" option. When they spawn like this, they are always directly overhead and above, with a big advantage. I'll bring it up in another thread and see if it's WAI, because it just seems like a random punishment for using "Air Start" in it's current form.


For Those Of You Still Flying - Beware The Possible 'Air Start' Spawns!



My final outcomes:









I had actually been flying the Albatros quite a bit before this challenge. I like it after the fixes. A jack-of-all-trades and master of none. I've been wanting to do some more Allied campaigns lately, however, so I'm not terribly sad other than the poor showing I put on. Good luck guys! I expect to read some interesting hair-of-your-teeth stories and watch some great vids!

What are you all using to capture your vids? I'd like to record my flights.

One thing seems rather strange to me. I have all settings set to historical including the weather but I don't remember one rainy day during my 8 missions with MFJ1. I see that Rick had some rainy day mission (June 5, is it?) and I wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Do you also have historical weather Rick?

Nefaro, I'm very sorry for Burk, he was a very nice guy.
I'm trying to use Air Start sparingly, especially avoiding it in Airfield defense and Escort missions.
We scrambled on an airfield defense yesterday and took off only to find a squadron of Nieuport 23's recklessly attacking Aertrycke right behind our backs as we were taking off.
I wouldn't want to miss such fun because of air start on 2 km altitude.
Btw, the Nieuports were very stupid. There were 5 or 6 of them vs. 12 guys from MFJ1 (though they had advantage as we were still on the field) but I managed to take off safely and downed 3 of them in like 5 minutes.

No worries. It was fun while it lasted!



I've generally been avoiding it in Escort missions but I didn't think about Airfield defense. I don't see them very often. I just had this feeling that I might get one of those big enemy spawns overhead the first time I used it this campaign and sure enough it did. Doah! I asked in Tech Support whether they'd look at that because I would expect them to spawn a distance off if they were to spawn at all upon entering the game.

I think my earlier MFJ1 mission, where some allied planes started above our field, was some kind of patrol over a different friendly field. But I may not be remembering that one correctly.

Either way, I recommend you guys avoid using the "Air Start" option because you can be ambushed from above when the sim starts. For this challenge, at least.

For me, in every flight sim I played in the last 25 years, a mission starts at take off (and from the parking/cold and dark when features available) and ends with a landing (and parking of the aircraft when feature available). The idea of an air start never crossed my mind.
There are most of the time features like Quick Combat when I need to practice, or for a quick fix and don't have the time for a full mission.

Another of our brethren falls. A toast to the fallen and good luck to the living. I fear we will all die in this war!

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More outstanding reports everyone, great reading and viewing. Please keep them coming.

Nefaro, sorry to hear your pilot bought it. We toast another brave comrade gone.

MFair, well done on becoming an ace Sir. Drinks are on you!

BTW everyone, three weeks and a day for this competition places the end date on 18 May, not 11 May.


OK, so here is the latest from my pilot. Karl Heusinger’s second mission was late in the afternoon of 4 June, was uneventful, and short due to a dud engine. 26 minutes after takeoff the young flieger was making a dead stick landing in the wheat field next to his flugplatz.




The following morning saw Schwarm Zwei climbing into a bright blue sky. Karl took up his assigned position as they patrolled south to Roubaix in search of any and all enemy flights.




A few kilometers SW of Kortrijk they found their prey, a full flight of Nieuport 23s well below them and up to no good. A long dive gave the Kaiser’s crew plenty of time to single out their respective targets.




Karl found what proved to be easy meat and the fight was over nearly as fast as it started.




The rest of his flight finished up their work, after which it was a rather leisurely flight home to Aertrycke where Karl put in a claim for his second victory. It was approved the next day.



The young flieger has been presented the silver cup and the EK2 and he will be celebrating at day's end.



Lou

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I use FRAPS but I must admit I take some FPS hits for doing it. No negative impact on aircraft handling so far.

D'Oh, good catch Louvert, I'll update the front page!


I'm using Shadowplay, which is an NVIDIA program that comes with the free Geforce experience for newer cards:
http://www.geforce.com/geforce-experience



Yeah, I thought I did, but then I went and checked it and didn't. It's fixed now.

Just to wet your appetite a bit and give a little incentive for staying alive. These are 2 prints from Russell Smith that I have. Hector and Achilles. It depicts The Baron and Lanoe Hawker in their duel to the death. My photography is squat,the prints are sharp as can be, but you get the idea.

Good show, and hang in there Lou!!

Nice prints MFair!

Not much to report here ... two missions flown (doing one per day)and still alive. A few glimpses of the enemy but no major action so far.

Historical weather is so much nicer in this period.

I've been using Nvidia ShadowPlay beta, at someone's suggestion (Rick?). It has actually caused almost no loss of performance. The only time I notice a drop is when I tell it to start recording, then there's a hitch for about a second or less. The quality may not be top of the line, but it was free and doesn't drag my performance down so I've been happy.

I think it only works with the newest Nvidia cards, however.

Notes of Flugmaat Hermann Schuster - Aertrycke Flugplatz - June 3, 1917

This afternoon the weather really cleared up, no cloud is to be seen in the bright spring sky. I sit in the cockpit of my Albatros, with my leader Flugmeister Josua Paschke on my left, and my usual Rottenflieger Flugmaat Kaspar Winkler on my right. We are warming up the engines, together with the four pilots of Kette eins who will be our top cover. The mission for today is a patrol over enemy units at frontline sector FF3188, west of Menin. From there we will fly south over Roubaix and back to Aertrycke. After take off and forming up, we fly towards another Flugplatz west of Zedelgem, where we need to climb to 2800m. While we circle around 2000m, I notice a flight of 4 FE2bs coming straight on us, some 200m lower. They return from their mission heading west, and fly close by. My leader doesn't move and keeps climbing, and Kette eins behind us does the same. May be I was the only one seeing them, which I find hard to believe ! Anyway I'm not going to chase 4 FE2bs on my own...
We fly south west towards our first waypoint. Once we get there, instead of turning south to our patrol destination on the front lines, our leader keeps going straight to the front. I quickly spot flak bursts in front of us, still far away. They seem to come from the Drachen defense east of Diksmuide. This could well be the FE2bs again! As we close in I can confirm they are the FE2bs, already under attack of a few Albatros who were probably patrolling the front. As we come even closer and prepare to attack, we see the two last ones going down trailing a thick black smoke, and soon identify four Albatros from Jasta 20 who did the job.
Josua Paschke brings us back on our mission path. We fly high (4000m) over the british infantry units east of Ypres, then south to Roubaix without seeing any other contact. It's good for staying alive, but I will not become an ace without shooting !

* Technical notes:
As we came back overflying again the british units, I suffered a "hang up" of CFS3 (first time it happens) and had to kill the program with the task manager. This sent me back to the WOFF result screen saying " You landed behind enemy lines, but you managed to escape".. Phew, that could have been worse ! The game pushed me forward two days, so I will fly my mission n°4 on June 6th.