Folks,

P2:

That sounds like a fantastic way to spend a weekend, mate. Are you quite sure that wasn't in fact the old boy's Spitfire? He manages to misplace just about everything else. Most of us well remember the time he mustered out for parade sans pants and the many times he could not find his liquor. Of course with C51 around, that was not always due entirely to forgetfulness....

WOW! Wouldn't it be grand to have that thing in your back garden? You could trim it all out with the latest computer gear and really have an amazing BoB2 experience...or at least until the wife's complaining about the unsightliness of a Spitfire squatting in her petunias got a bit too tedious.

We have an annual un-Civil War reenactment but a stones throw from where I type. We usually walk over to Stonewall Plantation house to attend the event, and even when we do not we can easily hear the roar of the musket and cannon fire as it echoes down the river.

Sherman's troops passed through here, and as the war was almost over by then, they had orders to spare our houses but took everything that might be used by the Confederates and burnt the cotton mill to the ground. There was no battle as no one was left here to defend the town but women and children.

The mill was re-built after the war on the same location by the river. It is closer to our property than is Stonewall. The mill is closed now. Only a stone water tower remains from the original buildings. Were it not for the many trees you could just see it from our little grove of trees.

It is said that the Yankee soldiers returning South East toward Goldsboro for the coming and decisive Bentonville battle watered their horses at our old spring. I do not know if that is so. It could be for it must have been parching work burning the mill. I have found un-Civil War era items there. One relic is an old bottle made in New York that, according to what I can find out, was usually filled with the pain killer laudanum. Perhaps one of those brave Yankees held his fire brand too long and burned his widdle fingers? Soon after the Battle of Bentonville Johnston surrendered his troops near Raleigh and the war finally was ended. Most people seem to think the war ended instantly after Lee met Grant at Appomattox.

Dux:
You recently posted that you had flown the JU 87. So, monkey see, monkey do, after all these years, I finally tried my hand at flying the famous JU 87. It was not a pretty sight. It may take them days to get what is left of me and my gunner off that ruddy RADAR tower.

Back in my Spitfire, where I belong, I was able to bring down one 109 and cause another to leave a long smoking trail winding into the distance toward France. The Hurricanes pounced on the bombers and had a field day.

I found today that I prefer to fly without reflections enabled. I was watching the BoB movie once again the other night and I noticed how much bluer the sky seemed and on that night it had dawned upon me that I was seeing everything through those dark reflections. It is much clearer now and not a bit less realistic. Perhaps the BDG has improved on this since? Perhaps the last BDG BoB 1 patch will deal with it when I install that? I'll figure a way to download that eventually.

No, it won't be the beautiful skies of WOV that you lucky chaps can enjoy but it is, until I can do better, good enough for the likes of moi.