My copies arrived today. Very impressive so far!

Man! I don't even have copies of the book yet! That's great yours arrived, AROTH and MFair. Maybe mine will make it tomorrow. Sometimes takes a while for things to get down here to Upper Cuba. Regardless, thanks to all who've cracked their wallets.

Thanks for the kind words, SteveW. Glad you liked the Osprey book and I understand not everyone is an MvR fan.

Jim, a couple of more thoughts real quick. First, I hadn't equated the JFM to James F. Miller, how nice to have someone with your background on the WOFF forum. Lot's of knowledge and info floating around on this site, with everything the devs and many of the other contributors bring to the table, this is a pretty special place for discussions. Second, which would tie me to MvR, is the whole 'arms race' idea, first you're behind, then you're ahead, then you're behind again and on and on. I always wondered how Hawker and other DH-2 pilots could hold up against the Albs as the 'arms race' was now leaving the British pilots behind. Of course pilot skill would have a lot to say, but, , , So in my WOFF DH-2 campaign, now that MvR and the German pilots are surpassing me how do I stay alive. In relation to your new MvR books that period would be interesting since I just now went through it in WOFF-time. It's like trying to survive through 1917 in a Pup squadron. Anyway now I'm going back to Amazon and check in to other JFM titles, best of luck. Steve

Thanks, Steve, kind of you to say. I'm like a knife: Honed and very sharp--but only along a thin, thin edge. Most of me is blunt steel and tang. So I learn all kinds of stuff here from guys, too.

To me, the amazing thing I've learned about the DH2 pilots is their biggest enemy was their own engines! You read the combat reports and various squadron record books and it's report after report after report of engine problems and outright failures. They initially even restricted flight hours in England to better their chances of getting across the channel without an engine failure. I've created/am creating log books for the No.24 Squadron DH2s and it's interesting--and revealing--to see the mechanical challenges they faced.

Hmmm. I love the DH2. I'm going to get shot down anyway, so I should start another DH2 campaign.

When MvR reported, that he fought Hawker for circa a half hour, then that is quite a long engagement IMHO.
And this shows, that Hawker must have been a formidable pilot on the DH.2 - to keep von Richthofen busy
for so long, who was flying a much superiour airplane.
Von Richthofen did not win the turn fight in the end - he just won the battle.
When Hawker had to try to retreat back over the lines, due to low fuel,
MvR could just follow him and shoot him down.

Jim, I also come back to (mostly very short) Airco DH.2 carreers with No. 24 Sqn, RFC.
That craft and the unit fascinate me.
But I am never good enough to last, when the Albatros comes...

Just for the record, and to let the cat out of the bag, the MvR/Hawker fight was actually about eight minutes total. The half-hour claim I think comes from previous researchers misreading MvR's report of "3-5" minutes as "35." That was just the turn portion. From start to finish was closer to eight minutes than 30.

What doomed Hawker happened before the fight began: he was fixated on chasing two-seaters. Thus, he never saw Jasta 2 diving down on them. Andrews saw them and broke away but Hawker kept flying after the two-seaters, so Andrews rejoined so Hawker wouldn't be abandoned. So the entire fight Hawker was flying defensively. And, frankly, he was out of his element. Great pilot, but he wasn't doing much flying at the time. He had no victories in a DH2 and hadn't had any victories in almost 15 months. Still, he gave a hell of a show and was MvR's first battle (that we know of) against a maneuverable single-seater (he shot down three BE12s before that but those were hardly as maneuverable as a DH2). But being so outnumbered and not seeing Jasta 2's initial diving attack, it was pretty much over before it began. That it lasted as long as it did is a testament to Hawker's stick-and-rudder abilities--as well as Richthofen's.

Thanks for the correction - I had only read about that "half hour".
I am curious like a cat on the (many, I guess) points you put right in your books, Jim.
Soon I will have my own copies, then I can check it all out!

Jim, both ordered -- I'll read them while I'm up in Maine!

Well done and Regards!
d

Well my two Volumes arrived today - I must say Jim, just flicking through them both shows just how much research and detail have gone into their creation. The text, statistics, colour profiles and photos (some coloured) etc - an awesome piece of work and very well worth the cost.

Congratulations

Thanks again to everybody for the kind words! I'm sincerely glad you feel your investments have been worth it. I often work in a vacuum with little feedback and am uncertain how things will be received. And credit should be extended to Jack Herris at Aeronaut, for both agreeing to publish the books and then designing the layouts so the mass of Word docs I sent him somehow became organized enough to make sense. He had his work cut out for him.

I confess, you guys receiving your books has me antsy--I still haven't seen them yet! Hopefully my copies arrive today.

Customers first, Jim! You may receive your books last - when everyone else is pleased.
Don't bother too much - after all you must know the whole content almost by heart meanwhile.

They are probably holding yours back until they can get the author to autograph them !

Cheers,
Ted

They wouldn't want me to devalue books in that manner!

Okay, the books arrived at long last! So I took a few snaps to show people the contents.

This shows the size of the books as compared to an Osprey book.


Both volumes equal the thickness of five Osprey books.


Each victory is listed in this format. Some have more information than others, more photos than others, more profiles than others, some have quite long notes, etc., but they all follow this format. This victory was just chosen at random. (I can't smash books flat so I had to hold it open.)


Victory details comprise three chapters. There are many chapters that read "normally," such as this one regarding MvR's souvenirs. (Colorizing the wallpaper in that photo almost led me to start drinking again!)


This section breaks down each month of MvR's career as fighter pilot, whether he scored any victories in that month or not. It looks like a lot, and is, but once you go through the explanation and see how information is arranged in the first month, the mass of info isn't quite so intimidating.


There's much more to these books. These shots are just quick and random glimpses.

Very very nice sir.
Waiting for my monthly "mad money" to arrive and my order will be on the way.

Jim, I really wish you and AERONAUT BOOKS the best of sales for both volumes!
The works really deserved it.


Mmuahahahahaaa!!!
To ceate art is often a painful process - it looks great to me!

Yes, I found it great too!

Seems an interesting book, I am not a big 'fan' of the Baron (always prefered Boelcke) and I only have Kilduff's book (its cover makes my library looks pretty cool ) but I might considering these ones.

A slightly OT question: I see the red Albatros called "Le Petit Rouge", but AFAIK, v.Richthofen fought in sectors where his main (if not the only) opponent were the British (I think he could have faced french units at the beginning and at the end of his fighter career, in the Somme area), so where does this name came from?

actionjoe, you may come to second thoughts about Manfred when reading.
I felt always rather distant towards the person Manfred von Richthofen,
but after reading excerpts from JFM's book (yeah, I was lucky there!),
I changed my mind about him quite a lot. The book gave me a closer,
much more detailed picture of him, and I saw that the man had real humour
(which is IMHO, when you can also laugh about yourself).
Never a bad sign on a soldier.

Yes, I was lucky that Olham let me pester him for a billion German-to-English translations!

actionjoe, I understand not being a fan. I'm that way about Voss. He's always compared to MvR and many bandy claims he would have "surpassed his score" if he weren't killed. Woulda/shoulda/coulda. MvR would have surpassed 80 victories if he weren't killed, too. (The closest Voss ever came to matching MvR's score was 8 behind him. Through much of the summer of 1917 he was over 20 victories behind--hardly the "competition" people claim.) Everybody can, without historical provenance, "would have" anything to match a preconceived belief. But all that isn't why I'm not a Voss fan. It's just take away his final dogfight and what do you have? A curmudgeonly loner. That doesn't interest me much; his Albatros looked cool, though. I know a lot of Brits who like Voss because of his extraordinary showing during his last flight--and that at the end he lost.

Anyway, I digress. MvR learned of that Le petit Rouge nickname 24 January 1917, after victory #18. Indeed, it was a British crew who informed the Germans of that name. Popular belief, based on Richthofen's account in his autobiography, is the crew informed MvR himself. As we know the story goes that after MvR's Albatros D.III had structural failure in one of its lower wings (of course, claimed to be engine failure in the autobiography) he had to land near the downed FE2b, and during the process he overturned. Afterwards, he met the Fee crew and they told him his Alb was known as Le petit Rouge. Why in French? I don't know. They were fighting in France, French were around, of course, and sometimes French was a common language that Brits and Germans knew, if they didn't know German or English. Those "reasons" are speculation.

BUT! Did events unfold as MvR's biography claims? Based on combat reports and crew interviews, I think not. Why not is covered in the book.

Ok, thanks. "Le Petit Rouge" also suits pretty well to one of the famous Navarre's Nieuport (who was probably well known by British and French soldiers), maybe Manfred got his plane called this way by ricochet? Also pure speculation of course, but I like the idea

BETHESDA, Md. — A spokesman for Lockheed Martin today denied that there is any reason to be alarmed about possible shortcomings of the military’s newest and most expensive fighter plane after reports surfaced this weekend that an F-35, piloted by a crack Air Force fighter pilot, lost a mock dogfight with a Fokker Dr.I Triplane similar to the aircraft once piloted by World War I German Ace Manfred von Richtofen, the “Red Baron,” piloted by a World War I reenactor.

“The F-35 isn’t really meant for that kind of fighting,” said Lance McCory, a Lockheed spokesman. “We intend it to be a first-rate mulitrole attack aircraft, and to excel at long-range fighting, what we call BVR, or ‘Beyond Visual Range’ air combat. Not to worry about some Hun who’s been dead a hundred years. Frankly, the two aircraft involved in this battle represent two different philosophies of air combat.”

The Fokker Dr.I Triplane, made of wood and doped linen, entered service with the German Army Air service in 1917. It was famous for its considerable maneuverability and its high rate of climb. The pilot sat in an open cockpit, exposed to the weather, and had primitive controls by today’s standards.

McCory went on to add, “The Dr.I triplane might out climb, out turn, and out dive the F-35, but where is its radar, huh? Where are its sensors? Where is the laser terrain guidance? Huh? Sure, up close, in a knife fight, the Dr.I has machine guns, and an F-35 pilot just has his sidearm. And [the Dr.I’s] cloth wings are nearly invisible to radar. But we have ‘the world’s most advanced fighter jet.'”

Capt. A.J. Schrag, an Air Combat Command spokesman, said “There’s no way to adapt the [Dr.I] airframe to carry the required missiles and radar. It might be good in a dogfight, but not standing off for close air support, and it’s completely hopeless when it comes to engaging targets in a BVR-type air battle.”

Meanwhile, according to a source close to the recent dogfight, the F-35 “turns like a garbage truck. It might be faster than the triplane, but that doesn’t matter in a stall fight.”

Lockheed officials have separately downplayed reports that the same F-35, flown by the same pilot, previously lost mock dogfights with the Goodyear Blimp and a beagle on a flying doghouse.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III declined comment through a spokesman, saying only, “Curse you, Red Baron!”

(originally posted by UK_Widowmaker)