Good show Rick! Keep up the good work. I had to laugh at myself watching your video as I found myself turning my head the way I would look using MY TrackIR! "The Eagle and the Butterfly" is calling you mate.

June 15, 1917
We are tasked with providing air cover for one of our aerodromes well behind the lines that has been receiving some unwelcome attention from the RFC of late. Nine machines take off, four in my flight and five in schwarm eins. We arrive over the aerodrome and circle. After about ten minutes we spot a flight of four aircraft heading towards us. They turn out to be S.E.5s. My flight scatters to the winds and runs and schwarm eins is nowhere to be seen. The S.E.5s follow. I dive away from the main group and one S.E.5 turns to follow. I run until I am sure he won't get help from his friends, and by this time he has gained on me considerably. I turn on him and we begin an epic dual in which neither of us can gain advantage. We try turns, loops, split-esses and dives to no avail. Finally my opponent decides he's had enough and attempts to use his superior speed to disengage. I roll in behind him, knowing I have one chance. I fire and hit him, which apparently scared him or just made him mad and around he comes again. This time is different though, no doubt due to the damage I inflicted upon him. I soon have the upper hand and fire a long burst into him. He drops out of control and spirals into a field. I return home as schwarm eins is landing and learn that my whole flight was shot down, fortunately with only one fatality. Heinrich got one of the S.E.5s and I put in my claim for another. Next morning I am informed that the crash site of my opponent has been located and my claim has been confirmed, making me an ace. The pilot was another ace, this time it was R.T.C. Hoidge of 56 Squadron.

As an aside, I was thinking that in future challenges it might be fun to award more points for victories over known aces if their name appears in the remarks in your log book. Just a thought.

Drinks on gecko tonight for the ones still living! Congrates on becoming an ace.

Thanks man! I actually had to recenter my FaceTrack a couple of times, I think the video frame rate sort of glosses over the jerkyness of it, it works pretty well most of the time. That reaction to duck is pretty strong though, huh?

Well, Karl "Schnurrbart" Muller bought the farm 08 June while defending an airfield south of Waregrem. In the process he managed to flame a Morane before being hit hard by a pair of Pups. Karl managed to get his machine down onto a farmers field (47% health) but could not avoid the adamantine farmers fence lol. So seven days survival, 6.5 hours of flying, 3 kills, 1 cup, 1 Iron Cross 2nd Class, one fence post implant, one tube of mustache wax, and a season ticket to watch Schalke 04. Not bad for me. To those who went before, I salute you, and to those still in the fight please kick some backside.

Kind regards,
Dave

In the name of Karl Muller I shall rain down ruin on my enemies, shouting my battlecry: " Die Zauberflote!"

It's June 19, 1917

Martin Uberflieger spent 3 days in captivity and died of his wounds. June 16 Schwarm Zwei went on a balloon busting mission and everything was very peaceful until this moment



Bristol fighter is probably the only type of enemy plane Martin would call his sworn enemy. This thing turns and climbs like a devil, runs like a lightning and, as if this is not enough for deadly experience, is equipped with a rear gunner. Rats! Martin remembered two encounters with these planes one of which ended on the road with no fuel and the other one would have ended very sadly but for the little help of his Albie friends.

This time it was very different. As soon as the birds clashed at 2500 m the whole flight of Albies dived down and disappeared but Martin decided to hold precious altitude and that decision brought him to fight with not one Bristol but two!



This was really scary (and I mean real-life scary).
Martin dived and turned and barrel-rolled again and again. Plenty of Over G's. Occasional deflection shooting. Running away was no option. These dogs of war would jump on his tail very quickly and chew it away because of their speed advantage.

Suddenly, something happened and one of the adversaries disappeared. This is when Martin got the chance to nail the remaining one almost to the deck and put several good shots in it. It was triumphant! Martin got very excited! And...

"He who gets excited in fighting is sure to make mistakes." MFR

Instead of keeping altitude advantage and staying outside of rear gunner's range of fire Martin decided to finish him off. And he dived recklessly only to meet 3-4 observer's bullets with his face. Which was enough to render his ever loyal Albatross DIII uncontrollable.

It only took 3 seconds max to reach the ground and kiss it in a fierce explosion. The kiss of death. Martin probably felt nothing. It all happened too quickly.



And this is how my story ends.

Drat! I really liked that pilot picture, too, with the white dinner jacket look! I am going to recommend that we go less accurate on rear gunners for future challenges... Still, 10 kills is nothing to sneeze at!

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WOW! I leave for a day only to come back and find that we've lost three more flight mates. MFair, Leaf85, and Rover_27, your pilots fought bravely and will all be remembered as the Kaiser's heros. Otto, Karl, and Martin shall be avenged by those still above the sod.



I agree completely Glubber, really gets one invested in the whole thing when we're all flying in the same outfit at the same time.



Yes, when I am not leading the flight, (which has been never so far in this challenge), hitting the waypoints is no issue. I will have to try your tip in the future as it would be nice not to have to be tied to what are sometimes rather random waypoints. I assume I will have to tick the HUD display for 'Normal' rather than 'Hard Core' in order to see the waypoint messages at the top of the screen. Thanks for the tip, Scout.


Flugmaat Heusinger's mission yesterday morning was absolutely uneventful and he returned to the flugplatz an hour later with an appreciation of just how lovely the view is from 3000m when no one is trying to kill you.

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18 June 1917: Karl Heusinger was assigned an early morning patrol of the front lines down to St. Julien but after forming up over the flugplatz his engine conked and he had to dead stick back to the field. 24 minutes start to finish. His mechanic said it would take the remainder of the day to return the engine to working order. It was a beautiful day so Karl decided to take advantage of the weather and his free time and walk over to d'Aertrycke Castle as he'd heard it was a fine sight to see.

It was.





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Wow, the weekend is turning out to be brutal on our pilots. That was a great run Rover.

Lou, your picture looks like the "Hôtel d'Aertrycke" in Torhout. (the comments on Trip Advisor are not very good! )
When I look on a modern map, I think our airfield is in Aartrijke (the flamisch name of the village) ? The hotel is right in between Torhout and Aartrijke.

Ooooh man, you guys better take the rest of the week off, lest no one be alive on Monday. Mission 10 proved too much for Mohr Fahnn, who will join his brother and father in the Great Beyond! I'll leave you to witness the final moments:

Here's the report:

At least that dingleberry Ripke died too...

What really burns is that I had forced a Camel down earlier in the mission, which would have been kill 5, but apparently, once he was down, the machine guns near our observation balloon continued to shoot at him and killed him, thus stealing my credit!

Some people!
Here's my final tally:


Good Luck to those still alive!

Sorry for Mohr Fahn, not very nice to be killed by one of your Kameraden ! I always fear collisions and I already was affraid for you on the first attack on that Camel ! Looks like it will be hard to live until May 18th...

Jesus, that was nasty! It's bad enough watching your six for bandits without having to deal with wandering kette mates! I know it happens but it is still hard to swallow!

Ouch! That hurt Rick. Looked all too familiar to me. The thrill of victory and the agony of colllision!

Tough one, Rick. I usually start beginning of the war, so I'm definitely learning that with bigger flights I'll have to be conservative about who I go after, lest I get downed by one of my own men. At least you were in the thick of it. My deadly collision occurred when the AI just turned right into me pre-engagement. I guess maybe it saw something, but Hans Gluber never did, poor chap.

Tough break Rick. It's hard enough colliding with the enemy (like I did) but when it's one of your own that's a tough pill to swallow. So who's left?

Rick;

I forgot to mention that in my last flight, the two kette mates directly in front of me collided into each other and fell below me just before we engaged 5 SPADS.
That was the mission I got three SPADS in but the loss of the two kette mates took the joy out of it, so I know how you feel.

Hey, Shiloh, I always update the starting thread with who is still alive. It is at the bottom of the first post on the first page.

To everyone else: thanks for the support, but a host isn't supposed to win his own challenge, I'm just supposed to make sure you all have a good time! Keep on flying!