You just can't beat those early morning rising sun shots.

Lederhosen, how do you like the Fee?

I love emm. You cant give the order to attack (for some reason) but if your leading the boys will go in with ya. Just gota be aware of the Aviatik CI's rear gunner though. And Fokker fodder....is the other way round.

Basil von Borste is back up again.

Adalwolf Becker
Jan. 19 and 20, 1916

I had my 1st mission in an EIII on the 19th. I lead a 3 plane flight to protect our observation balloon. Nearing the patrol area, we spotted 2 FE's. We had height and position advantage so I dove in like an idiot and got a burst of fire sent my was. I quickly realized my error and dove away. Once back on trail, my flight had one smoking and the other turning away. Coming up behind the smoking machine looking for a kill my engine sputtered! Fuel lines hit! I made a dead stick landing on our side of the lines. Our flight claimed 1 machine with mine damaged.

On the 20th we escorted 3 Aviatik's to bomb an airbase. All went well and no contact.

This war is heating up for Adalwolf!

MFair, it's heating up for everybody. I think the days of the low hanging fruit are over.

That is a great way to describe it Banjoman. The cadre of "A" pilots will soon give way me thinks.

I hope Arthur survives, I have great plans for him. I expect Ahren won't make it because I find the German planes harder to fly and fight.

Sergeant Arthur Much. RFC5. Abeele. 21st January 1916

Up early, what ho! Topping breakfast then off on a reccy patrol near Ypres. Bally well lost in the dark and lost our flight but pushed on regardless. Jolly fine skies. Dashed pretty! Had to buck up my ideas and take a good look around to see what Bosch was up to. Saw thousands of troops marching through Polygon Wood. toward the lines, and and a good number of supply trucks, too. Must be readying for a big push!

No sooner had I spotted our chaps arriving late to the party than I hear that infernal mosquito sound. Unmistakable, one of those infernal monoplanes of theirs. Spiller starts popping off his gun and I throw the old bird into a steep dive. Blasted Bosch puts a fair number of holes in our tail plane, but we get away with it. Landed on railway track well on our side of the lines. Waved goodbye to the Bosch blighter and flagged a lift home. Jolly adventures, what!?

...at least, I assume those brown lines are ranks of soldiers...? Bit hard to tell at 6000ft

H

That's what it looks like to me. Nice report.

Harry and lederhosen, you boys be careful!

Adawolf Becker was flight leader with Berthold and von Althaus on a balloon busting mission near Cappy. Beautiful day. Crossing the lines we could see from the shelling our boys were taking why they wanted this balloon down. I dove in and had the balloon smoking. My flight finished it off.



Climbing up we reformed and headed home. Von Althaus was lagging behind a bit. Before crossing back over the lines I spotted 2 FE's headed southwest below us. I dove for the attack and Berthold followed. Not making the mistake I made the other day I positioned my machine away from the observer.



With a few well placed bursts, he exploded in flames!



Berthold and I landed back at the airfield and learned von Althaus had been wounded by machine gun fire during the balloon attack. I filed my claim.

Yep, dead astern is a safe place to be on a Fee.

Grmpf!
...another one for the Dustbin. Especially sad, because the Just-for-Fun-Character "Friedrich Freiflug", whom I started playing by the DiD Centenary Rules also, to fill out the Bad Weather Waiting Time of my current Pilot "Berthold Bruchlandung", has already got the Blue Max
...and Berthold's Carreer just began to get interesting: He has already had some Flying Time in the Fokker E1, but his first Kill actually was made after that by a female Spy at the Guns of his Avi C on a Secret Agent Mission (Blechley's Mission Mod is just Super-cool ). She shot a French Ace, piloting a Nupe 10 in a fierce Dogfight.
The End, some Missions later, was not very sectacular, but very permanent LOL
I was in the Avi C again, roundabout 15 Meters behind another Nupe 10, whom my Gunner had already shot a lot of Holes into. We were on our Side at Treetop-Height, in a tight Curve at very low Speed, climbing, the Wind was very bumpy...
Well, we were too low, too slow, the Curve was too tight and the Wind was too bumpy. It is hard to make an Avi stall, but it is possible, apparently ;-)

BTW, can we change the first Post to display the new Points-System?
That was 1pt for each real Mission, 1pt per completed flying Hour, right?

I can't change the first page since it was started by Catknight. He doesn't appear to be participating anymore so I guess I could try and reach out to him and see if he will change it for us.

Journal Entry: January 23, 1916
St. Pol-sur-Mer

Today was an interesting day, we had our first official Balloon busting sortie. I've often wondered why we haven't been assigned more of these since the gasbags play such an integral part in the ground operations of the enemy. No matter, Roderic and I have done this before so we were accustomed to what was involved. After a quick spot of hot tea and toast, we made our way out to our buses. What greeted us there was quite a shock, the riggers were affixing these newfangled rocket contraptions to our outer struts. Needless to say, this vexed us greatly and we voiced our concerns to the Old man. He told us this was the new French weapon for destroying balloons developed by a French officer by the name of Le Prieur. We expressed our doubts about the efficacy of such a weapon; He blustered on about our need to be accepting of change and what not. Nothing to be done about it really, so off we flew. We arrived at our the targeted gasbag without incident and began our attack. As we both surmised, the rockets did nothing but make a lot of smoke and noise. We both managed to destroy the balloon but only after filling it with many of our bullets. Instead of these ridiculous rockets, we need some kind of incendiary bullet that would burn after being fired.

Cool Pics, Banjo
Interesting Fact on the Rockets, I did'nt know that. I always wondered, what the French meant with "Prieur"...