I/JG26, Audembert, 15 July 1940

I'm back in action and the next trip is another fighter sweep to cover air operations against enemy convoys, this time off the North Foreland. Eight of us are going, and I'm leading as usual.



Also as usual, I'm flying White 1, painted up to match the one I left behind in England a few days back.



The conditions are quite cloudy today, but it's not long before we're formed up and begin to climb to the north, leaving the French coast behind.



The outbound leg is uneventful and we see neither aircraft nor shipping, friendly nor enemy. Reaching our patrol area, we begin to...well, patrol.



The monotony is soon broken when one of the boys calls in a sighting of enemy fighters, above and ahead. Hurricanes!



They've spotted us too, for they quickly peel off and come at us. I order them attacked and battle is joined as the two formations come together, more or less head on. I pick one of the Hurricanes, who is still higher up...



...but in trying to keep my nose pointing at him as he sweeps past above me, I stall and spin out. I recover quickly and resume my chase, at which point the Hurricane returns the favour and also spins down.



I'm not the only 109 who's interested in him...



...but I'm the first to get a burst into the Hurricane, just as he regains control. The Englishman rolls over onto his back and dives away.



The advantage is now mine and I'm soon after him again. By this time, the enemy shipping is in sight below...



...but I hardly notice - I'm determined to get this Tommy!

...to be continued!

I'm soon behind the Hurricane again and let him have it. He rolls right and sideslips away...



...but converts this into a turn, back towards dry land. Another attack is going to be needed. These Hurricanes seem to be able to soak up hits, though I have to admit I'm a bit out of practice and my shooting isn't of the best today.



Here we go again! I come up in his blind spot, this time...



...and break off after lacing him with my nose MGs, my wing cannon having expended their meagre 60 rounds per gun.



The Hurricane is full of holes in various places, but not enough in the right place, evidently.



But as I bank around for another crack, I notice that his prop is slowing down to a stop!



I throttle back and weave behind him. Sure enough, I see his prop has now stopped.



The Hurricane pitches up and down before settling into a glide. His speed drops off rapidly and I nearly run into him as I sweep past for a closer look.



I can hear from the radio that the air fight is still in full swing so I leave the Tommy to his fate and search the skies for friend or foe. The only aircraft nearby is an unidentified fighter which is crossing ahead from left to right, so I come in behind him...just in case.



...to be continued!

My suspicion that the fighter up ahead isn't a Hurricane is soon confirmed by visible dihedral. But it could still be a 109. Closer in, the pointed wingtips reveal that Spitfires have entered the combat. Although this one seems more interested in exiting it. Which I will try to encourage, by gunfire.



My first pass, closing from astern at a high overtaking speed, leaves the Spit slowing down and falling away to the right, but not visibly damaged. He makes no effort to come after me, though.



I watch him warily from above, but he still shows no signs of aggression. Fair enough. My own tail is clear, so it's time for another pass.



The Spit is still in a gentle right hand turn when I come in again...



...but the moment my rounds whack into him, he pulls up sharply, to the right.



I keep up my speed and don't try to follow him. Instead, I go wide and come around for another fast pass.



This time, the Spit breaks left when hit.



A third pass produced more hits and another break to the left. Each time, we're getting lower and are now over eastern Kent, near the airfield at Manston.



The Spitfire levels out as I weave to stay behind him, relieved that the flak people on the airfield don't seem to be firing at me.



He's not going down, though, so I'm going to have to have another crack at him!

...to be continued!

I throttle back and bank right. This time, I'm going to park myself on his tail and keep shooting until he goes down. My biggest fear is to avoid stalling and spinning out, if we get into a low-speed turning match. But I'll worry about that if and when I see it coming.



When my next burst hits home, instead of breaking left or right, the Spitfire goes over onto his back and dives. There's no way I'm going to try to stay with him through that manoeuvre, not at this height.



The Tommy's daring is rewarded, and he somehow manages to pull out before smashing into the ground. However, he's now leaving a faint trail of smoke and struggling slowly towards the coast.



As I close in for the coup de grace, I realise it won't be needed - his airscrew is no longer turning. I pull up and off to one side, to get a better view of what's going to happen next.



There's a lot of trees about, and a ditching rather than a forced landing looks likely. But instead, the Spitfire slips to the right and explodes on impact, just short of the shoreline, narrowly missing a flock of lucky if no doubt startled sheep.



I'm now low on ammo and low to the ground, so set my course southwards, for home. I call the staffel to reform, and because I have the tactical display turned on, see the alarming message that there's no-one else left!



So it's with a heavy heart that I see the White Cliffs of Dover slide past on my right.



However, things are really not so bad. One aircraft has been shot down, and three have ditched (not I hope because I reduced our fuel load to 75% before departure!). One pilot is reported missing and another killed, so two of those who ended up in the drink must have been picked up by the Luftwaffe's superior air-sea rescue services. Two pilots are claiming victories, to which I gladly add two claims of my own.



So we held our own at least, but our losses of men and machines are still more than bad enough to hobble severely our unit's fighting strength. And the air campaign has only just begun!

Well done.

I/JG26, Audembert, mid-day, 15 July 1940

Despite being now seriously under-strength, there's no rest in sight. Instead we're given another mission, when we should be having something to eat. Some Heinkels of I Gruppe, Kampfgeschwader 1 are mounting a strike on shipping off Hastings and we're it's escort. Precisely four of us.



For this trip I've decided to use a different machine. It's got JG26 markings, but the vertical bar after the fuselage cross shows it's from III Gruppe not our own I Gruppe and the white number indicates it's from the gruppe's first staffel, ie 7/JG 26. Actually it's the mount of Leutnant Josef Burschgens and has a variant of the yellow rapid identification markings which Messerschmitt 109s started using from about early August 1940.



This was how the real aircraft ended up after a forced landing at Caffiers; it's possibly an E-3 as it has the early cockpit canopy.



We're still climbing away from Audembert when we get out first sight of our charges - eight Heinkels.



We continue up after them, by now in formation ourselves.



They still seem to be climbing too, despite already having come quite a long way from their inland base. Perhaps they are anxious not to miss their escort, scant though it is.



There follows a rather frustrating dance with the Heinkels. At one point it seems they are settled onto a course out from the coast, and I take position above and behind them...



...but next thing they are turning inland again. Then they turn onto a course to the south, down the coast.



I change course and rush after them.



At last, the Heinkels make a rather dramatic right turn and sweep out to sea. Finally!



I catch them up again and we begin weaving above and behind them.



After that palaver, I'm beginning to wonder if I was wise to reduce our fuel load to eighty percent. We'll soon find out!

...to be continued!

The bombers are definitely now settled onto their course towards the target area. I continue to weave above and behind them.



In doing so, I bob up and down a bit, which makes it hard for the boys to maintain formation on me. I leave them to make their best of it - I'm more interested in the Heinkels, and the sky around them.



Having allowed myself to drift fairly wide out to one side, I'm rather far away when I notice the ships, through a gap in the cloud. The bombers appear to be nearly on top of them.



The Heinkels split up into pairs, probably a better way to attack shipping than pattern bombing in formation.



It makes covering them rather more difficult, though, as there are now pairs of Heinkels all over the place, doing different things.



I decide to stick with a pair which appears to be making a bomb run.



Up ahead, another two pairs of Heinkels seem to be coming off the target.



At that point, I turn on the Tactical Display, intending to target one of the bombers for a screenshot. This reveals that the RAF has arrived! I don't recall seeing or hearing any warning - they are higher up and seem to have caught the four of us napping!



There's about half-a dozen of them, Hurricanes. Their leader is already diving us. Recovering quickly from the unpleasant surprise, I order the boys to get stuck in.



At least we're well-placed to deflect attention from the bombers, but this is going to be awkward, for us!

...to be continued!

Our formation breaks up in response to my orders to attack the Hurricanes. My attention is taken up by a pair of them still threatening both us and the bombers from several hundred feet up.



I try to keep in their blind spots, while ready to ward them off if they go for the Heinkels.



Trying to curve up after the pair in a full power right-hander, my nose is suddenly thrown violently around to the left, in what feels like severe adverse yaw. Maybe I lost track of my angle of attack; maybe I didn't use enough rudder; maybe the Emil is just a pig, compared to the RAF fighters. I recover and look around, just as a single Hurricane crosses ahead in a left turn. Of course, I go after him.



Down below, the Heinkels seem to be making short work of the file of cargo ships. At least something's going right!



Next moment, rounds smack into my Messerschmitt from behind. My wingman has long since lost me. Now, I have only a Hurricane for company! I roll inverted...



...prior to pulling back on the stick, in the approved fashion.



I complete the split-S after only a short descent. The Hurricane - I think it's the same one - is curving in towards me from above.



This time, I know better than to try to pull my nose up and around too hard. Instead, I roll away from him and go down at full throttle. It's all a bit ignominious and I haven't fired a round. But I've been hit hard and conclude it would be better to try for France while my engine is still running, rather than face battle again in this condition, over the cold waters of the Channel.



I turn east but haven't got very far when oil starts spattering my windscreen. By this time, both oil and water temperature guages are up against the stops at the hot end.



So I'm not surprised when my engine's power fades and soon after, the prop grinds to a halt.



I don't fancy a ditching and decide to bail out, before I get too low.



My luck holds and I'm picked up and back at base within 3 days. We lost a pilot missing, though, as well as two aircraft. I'm not the only one who didn't get off a single round, either.



Bit of a disaster for the jagdflieger! How the bombers fared, I don't know. At least the convoy paid a high price. And perhaps now, command will give us a bit of a break.

Another good read.

Thanks Carrick!

The next mission having since been flown, its story can now also be told. Did it turn out any better for hard-pressed jagdflieger? Well, let's see...


I/JG26, Audembert, 23 July 1940

Someone up there has taken pity on us. No, not our own command, the very top. We get several days of bad weather, all flying cancelled. The result is that we're soon back up to strength in men and machines, including pilots missing or hospitalised who have re-joined the ranks.

The bad news is that our own command is still pussy-footing around with shipping attacks, instead of going directly for our principal enemy, RAF Fighter Command. At least the morning's operation is a fighter sweep, a freijagd to clear the air for raids on Thames Estuary shipping. Not another one of those horrible escort jobs.



The briefing says eight of us are going, but in fact twelve 109s are soon on their way. It was nearly eleven, since I had a closer brush than usual with those darn trees around our ill-sited airfield. At least it's close to the coast.



It's not long before France has slipped astern and the England is in sight, despite the cloudy conditions.



I increase the rate of climb as we draw level with the south coast. After last time, I'm determined not to be caught from above.



We level off temporarily at 5,000 meters.



Our outward leg takes us past the Kent coastline, towards the North Foreland. Manston fighter airfield is clearly visible below. But no other aircraft, from either side. Not yet.



That changes quickly! Up ahead, a gaggle of specks appears, well spread out. Friend or foe is hard to say, but they must surely be fighters, rather than bombers.



I open the throttle and turn into them, climbing gently. At that moment, one of the boys calls them in - it's the RAF!



I order the attack and turn right, after one of the Tommies who seems to be trying to outflank us on that side. The rest of the boys fly on, as if momentarily unsure how to deal with the scattered foe-men.



This doesn't last long and my number 3, Camphausen, is soon reporting getting hits. At this point I'm going for a fighter who's being chased, but who goes down before I can make out who's who. Possibly it's Camphausen's victim.



I turn my attention back to my original target, who I can now clearly see is a Spitfire - the enemy's best! This is going to be interesting, considering I had enough trouble with those Hurricanes, last time!



...to be continued!

Keen not to waste my scant supply of cannon ammo, I get closer and try a deflection shot - just a short burst, more to find the range than anything. With the possible exception of the Spitfire pilot, nobody is more surprised than I, when my target levels out and a parachute suddenly pops open. I narrowly avoid running into it.



Not quite believing my luck, I watch the Spitfire warily. But he's definitely going down, albeit his wings are still level.



Looking around, my tail is clear but I can see two air fights going on, each between a pair of aircraft. One or both could be a friend in need of help, although nobody's calling for assistance just at the minute.



I head for the nearest pair to find it's a Spitfire pursued by a 109. Instinctively I cut across the Tommy's turn.



Tracers flash past as my comrade opens fire...



...and a second Spitfire pilot takes to the silk. This is going much better than last time!



The radio chatter seems to have dried up, as has the supply of Spitfires. There's a stream of fighters out to my right...



...but they're all 109s, and they're soon slipping back into formation behind me.



A check of my instruments show's all's well and I've still got plenty of fuel...



...so I resume the patrol, having plenty of ammo left, too. At one point, our route takes us over the enemy shipping, although there's no sign of the raid that we were supposed to cover.



Patrol complete and honour satisfied, I lead the boys back to base. Our assigned route cuts across Kent and as we pass Manston, I notice the speck of an aircraft at the end of a runway.



Soon after there's more specks, aircraft on final approach by the look of it. I'm tempted to go down there and shoot them up. But it's a long way down and the aircraft will all be on the ground by the time I get there. Aerodrome strafing is not something in the mood for, today; I'm inclined to rest on my laurels rather than have them shot off by flak.



Sure enough, the aircraft were Spitfires, landing.



So home I go...



...and am glad to see the French coast ahead. At such times, even Audembert's ghastly tree-ringed airfield is a welcome sight. Back at base I find we had no losses, but are claiming two Tommies including my own. Not a bad morning's work.

I nearly forgot to mention - while I was away, two victories were confirmed, and I was awarded an EK1 - icing on the cake, really!

I/JG26, Audembert, 24 July 1940

I'm back in action and our unit is back up to strength. The next mission is another fighter sweep to cover anti-shipping operations in the Thames Estuary.



There's actually twelve of us on the mission, which is a big effort for a staffel, being smaller than an RAF squadron. Eight aircraft might be more reasonable; or better still, two staffeln of eight, since the Germans generally flew as a gruppe not a staffel, and sixteen to twenty fighters would be a reasonable showing for anything short of a gruppe 'maximum effort'. Anyhow, as usual, the mission starts with trying not to run into the trees on takeoff. Which I manage. At some point I seem to have reverted to the skin for Marseille's 109, White 14 of Lehrgeschwader 2.



Which is generally neatly done - though the Me's 3d model could use a more conical, less rounded spinner profile, the tailplane struts less splayed out, the pilot's head armour moved forward a bit and slanted forward, the fin's leading edge straightened out a tad, and a few other minor refinements.



It's not long before we're in formation at 5,000 meters just off the Kent Coast...



...then overflying the North Foreland. This time, there's no sign of activity at Manston. Perhaps its Spitfires are already in the air and preparing to greet us!



For now though, all seems quiet, both eastwards, out to sea...



...and to the west, towards London. We're above the clouds, but conditions are quite hazy, overland.



Suddenly, the peace is interrupted by a call of enemy aircraft up ahead. I mis-hear the direction as twelve o'clock when it's really two, and by the time I spot them, the Tommies are in danger of outflanking us, although still several kilometres away.



In my surprise, I turn into them more tightly than I really needed to...



...and in so doing, draw ahead of the others, although I'm not immediately conscious of my exposed position.



The enemy aircraft seem not to have spotted us, for they keep their course. I give the order for an attack.



For a few seconds, it looks like we'll catch the enemy by surprise. Then their formation begins to spread out, and they start to turn into us.



Here we go again!

...to be continued!

The incoming Spitfires seem to be more interested in the others than in me. The leading two are going to my left so I roll in towards them...



...but reverse direction and roll right, then left again, when I realise this is liable to put me in front of the rest - there seem to be about six Spitfires, in all. My snake-like manoeuvre turns out quite well.



The boys have shaken out of formation to meet the oncoming Tommies. As usual, my wingman has proved quite useless. This might be all right for the enemy with their impractical vic formatioms, but we in the Luftwaffe really out to be able to do better.



Right, so I'm on my own. Happily my change of plan has put me in a nice position to drop in behind the rearmost Spitfires. Like their leaders they are intent on clobbering my comrades - including my absent wingman.



I slide in behind my chosen victim. But before I can get off a round, a stream of tracer smoke trails whips past to my lower right. The last Tommy wasn't the last one, after all.



Loath to waste a precious opportunity, I unwisely decide to risk a quick burst at the Spitfire in front, before breaking away. I get some hits, but the fellow behind me corrects his aim and gets some hits on me, too.



I jerk back on the stick and up I go, out of the line of fire, the leading edge slats popping open with a bump.



I wing over and dive away, leaving a faint trail of something important. On the way down I throw in a change of direction. Fortunately, the Spitfire behind goes the other way.



The Tommy then runs for land and spotting him again, I run after him.



But even at full power, I don't seem able to gain any ground. I'm still trailing what's likely to be glycol or fuel and realise that I need to be thinking of getting home, not revenge.



By now, the others have begun to rejoin. It looks like the air fight is dying out as quickly as it started.



My poor Messerschmitt is not in a good state...



...and by the time I've oriented myself and turned for home, it's too late. My prop slows down, then stops. At this point, I'm over the widest, easternmost reaches of the Thames Estuary, so it looks like I'm going to get wet. If nothing worse.



Rather than risk a ditching I glide on for a while then abandon my aircraft while I've still got plenty of height.



Once again my luck holds, for I'm informed I've been rescued from a captivity or a watery grave. One of the others is claiming a victory but not for the first time, the weird thing is that no less than seven other 109s on top of my own are recorded as destroyed, pilots killed or missing. For a combat against half our number that looked to be over when I took my leave from it, this is well over the top. Even if fresh enemies joined the battle and there was another air fight - unlikely, in view of the lack of rounds reported fired - the losses seem wildly excessive. Something not quite right, here, I wonder?



The time advance report confirms our single success but also our losses. It looks like we'll be left out of battle again for a while!

Thanks for your honest report. I wonder if what has happened is that while the AI in combination with the flight models may have been finely tuned when the game was released, the change that happened somewhere along the way which made the Spit (and Hurri, I think?) less stall-prone while keeping the 109 as it was, may have resulted in an upset of the AI - FM relationship, in that the AI RAF fighters are now having a field day with the AI 109s in turnfights, while the AI may not be capable to fly proper Boom&Zoom air combat in the vertical against superior turning fighters. Which, if that is what is happening, wouldn't surprise me, because it wouldn't be the first time in a flightsim that combat results in a one-sided massacre when AI turnfighters meet AI "B&Zers". Only few flightsims so far have managed to make AI fly somewhat decent B&Z, or employ team tactics. Add to this that the 20mm here may be a bit undermodelled, from the reports I'm reading, and the 109 AI will have an even harder time. Not sure on that last point though, but it appears the planes are overall rather sturdy.

I own WOFF and I'm mostly happy with it, especially with the AI in air combat, but WWII air combat was a bit different from WWI, in that differences between machines were more pronounced and energy fighting (B&Z) became more important.

I've been thinking for a while about buying the game, but it is the lack of in-depth reviews, which would go into those details, that made it impossible for me to get a good picture of the game yet. And I mean actual reviews.
While we are at it, I wonder if the developer has actually read the review at flightsim.com that he is linking to from his website. Because I have, and here is what it says on the campaign:

"The campaign in Wings Over The Reich is also both challenging and rewarding. Depending on how battles go, whether you succeed, divert, bail out or are killed altogether will determine the outcome of the war. You could be four years into a campaign and killed outright ending your game there, or push through enemy lines and make it to Germany with ease. Depending on how you and the AI play, your aim is to gain as much air superiority as possible, while supporting ground troops in their push against enemy lines and capturing airfields for allied use."

And:

"The campaign is also intuitive and gives you a lot of opportunity for decision making. How does protecting the ground troops affect air superiority? Will leaving the ship convoy to join in another mission further afield affect their survival rate on arrival? These are all decisions you need to make which could potentially change the outcome of the war."

Is that a joke? This is not at all a description of the campaign in WOTR. At best, it is a description of the campaign in CFS3 (not even that, really. Sounds more like what Microsoft would have had you believe). Which means the reviewer hasn't even played the campaign in WOTR and just assumed it was the same as in CFS3. How am I supposed to take such a review seriously, let alone trust it?

Thanks Heartc.

My own theory for seeing this 'apparent massacre effect' twice now is that the mission outcome for the AI flight-mates is resolved on the basis of their location when the mission ends, rather than on their situation at that point.

In other words, they ended up on the wrong (enemy) side of the mid-Channel front line at that time and are considered as not having made it home. With the player character's 'captured and escaped' saving throw not available to them.

Instead, a situation-based resolution would at its simplest/most simplistic be something like 'Set status='OK' IF mission status='ended' AND (aircraft status is not equal to 'destroyed' AND pilot status is not equal to 'killed').

Just a guess. May be quite wrong.

I have AI gunnery in WoTR set to least effective because I have the impression that even with the AI (realistically!) not fighting to the death (tho that is another option you can choose) the loss rates can be on the high side. With that setting, having significant experience only of the RAF campaign, things seem better, although bombers still seem a bit prone to being hacked down. With the Luftwaffe, early days yet, but my impression is that the RAF campaign is the more mature of the two. Which may be also true of BoB2; which is apparently noted for the bloodiness of the combat when fought in 3d, compared to the 2d campaign interface.

I read the Flightsim.com review and TBH while it was favourable, I found it very superficial, with other facile statements like going into action with lots of Brownings and so on, and very thin on what really matters - gameplay, as it says on the OBD website. I would not put too much weight on such reviews. Nor of course can we blame the product for them. As you say that statement about player choices influencing the campaign outcome seems like hogwash, more appropriate to old CFS3. In WotR it's all about surviving the campaign while doing your best, for yourself and your squadron mates - much as in real life, where the success of failure of one squadron isn't going to affect the battle's outcome.

Since the 1.19 update I'm finding the RAF campaign in WotR enjoyable and while still relatively modest in scale, convincing. BoB2 does the scale and the historical detail, but has its own quirks, and while it has a single pilot campaign, it lacks the 'classic' features of WotR's like a squadron roster, medals, a dossier-style logbook and the like.

My mission reports of any sim are intended to give an unvarnished and unembellished account - warts and all - of what the gameplay looks and feels like to a player who wants to get 'into' the subject and the sim. I was dubious of WotR prior to 1.19 but that release made really great strides forward and was a real game-changer. I hope the AARs help you make up your mind, although light on comments on FMs, DMs and other subjects on which opinions seem easier to come by than reliable observations. I have to agree with OBD on that one - gameplay matters. And this is from someone for whom historical detail from the position and style of a roundel or the shape of a wing-root fillet, to the spacing of formations and so on, is also important. As it must be to OBD - during 1.19 beta testing I fairly bombarded them with all sorts of observations and was frankly impressed if not amazed by the extent to which it was not only accepted in good spirit, but taken on board.

74 Squadron, Hornchurch, 11 July 1940

I'm a bit tired of my repeated early baths with I/JG26 so I'm back defending King and Country with the RAF - flying Spits with the same squadron as South African Adolph 'Sailor' Malan, one of the fighter leaders who emerged early in the war.

I b*ggered up the first mission on 10 July, fiddling with the menu trying to get an alternative to the unrealistic factory patrol first offered. The result was that I was fast-forwarded to the next day and got a scramble, to intercept enemy detected coming in towards the Thames Estuary. That's more like it!

We're putting up the full normal complement of twelve aircraft. Our kites all bear the correct squadron code (correctly, ID letters, as they were not a code) of ZP, and I'm leading, in ZP-S. In the background you can see the nicely-rendered silver barrage balloons protecting targets along the inner reaches of the Estuary, to our south.



I'm soon rumbling over the grass airfield, cockpit canopy locked back. I believe it was standard RAF practice at this time for pilots to be on oxygen at all times at night, and for takeoffs and landings as well as at height, in daytime.



I turn left as we reach the Estuary, leaving Hornchurch behind and with the other boys coming in behind me.



London's barely visible in the summer haze to our right.



I level off and throttle back to let the squadron catch up. I'm now flying north of east, with the Thames Estuary opening out to my right front. There's a fair bit of cloud about but we'll soon be above it.



Revs back up I begin to climb again, at not quite full throttle to give the others a margin to complete forming up.



Tilbury docks is just visible behind my tail as we continue to climb.



I flatten out again as we come out above the clouds.



Up ahead somewhere, hopefully, is the enemy!

...to be continued!

Time to check with the Controller. Who confirms that the Huns are still to the north-east, at about sixteen thousand.



By this time, I reckon we're approaching half-way there.



I'm climbing gently at less than full throttle and the boys are keeping formation nicely...



...on both sides...



...apart from Green 1. Come on, Ashers, keep up!



A check of my instruments shows all is well. Temps fine, plenty of juice in the top tank, bottom tank still full. Despite the nose up trim (showing on the gauge next to the altimeter) I've let the nose dip, though, as the VSI shows, but that's easily corrected.



Time for another check, this time with the Controller. This proves well-timed, for the Huns are now well off to our right, to the south-east.



Round we go! We daren't let them sneak in past us!



As it happens, that will be the least of our worries.

...to be continued!

Time to check on the Bandits again. The Controller confirms we're on the right course, and now only ten miles out. Won't be much longer, now.



There they are! An small gaggle of about a dozen, drifting slowly to our right. Drat! They're slightly higher. Fighters or bombers? Hard to tell, yet.



I turn into them and pull up slightly; the Huns disappear briefly under my nose. One of the others has spotted them and calls them in on the R/T.



The Huns turn towards us and start to spread out. That can only mean one thing - fighters! Single engined, they are, so it's 109s. I order the attack, in case anyone hasn't worked it out yet.



The two formations come together pretty well head on. Tracers whizzing past to my right hit one of the Messerschmitts, who pulls up sharply. Somebody on my left fires at another Hun, who breaks to that side.



The fight is on!

...to be continued!

I get off the shortest of bursts then reef around into a tight right-hander. I'm expecting to be able to roll out onto somebody's tail but the sky seems suddenly rather clearer than I was expecting.



I continue my turn until I'm facing back the way I started. Aircraft are whirling about, but the fight seems to be expanding rapidly in all directions. Although I don't notise at the time, only eight of their twelve or so 109s seem to have attacked us, leaving the rest still in close formation. Or perhaps it's a different outfit. Impossible to say, at ths range - without turning on labels anyway. And if there's one thing I hate, it's turning a perfrectly good combat flight simulator into a flying labels simulator. Ditto, for any other kind of sim. Give me a bot of realistic combat chaos, any time. Fog of war, and all that.



The airwaves fill up with the usual cries. One of them is for help, but I can't see anyone being attacked. What I can see is a lone 109 turning across my nose from the right so I roll in after him.



Some fancy deflection shooting gets me some hits and the 109 wobbles unseadily, before slipping away to the left.



I roll left then right, onto his tail, but suddenly find myself fighting for control of my kite. Bt the time I've recovered, so has the Hun, who is now in a high-speed climbing left-hander.



I catch him up and hit him again. He goes down again, seemingly barely under control.



At that moment, another 109 crosses ahead of me, upside down. Above him, another Hun is being chased by what looks like a Hurricane.



I slip in behind the inverted Messerschmitt who rolls right way up and turns left. That'll do nicely, I reckon, and am soon snapping at his heels.



But somebody else is snapping at mine! Tracers suddenly whip over my right shoulder.



Not for the frist time, I've been caught with my pants down!



...to be continued!

For a rather scary second or two, I'm the meat in a Messerschmitt sandwich.



Don't ask me how I got out of that one - it's all a bit of a blur. But I did, albeit with a Spitfire that's been shot full of holes.



My good luck continues - threefold, in fact. Firstly, the 109 has given up or lost me. Secondly, I'm not too far from land. Thirdly, there's an airfield there, almost directly ahead - you can see it ahead of my radio mast, just above that wisp of clouds. Maybe this isn't going to be such a bad day, after all.



Oil begins to slash onto my windscreen and I look down at my gauges. But oil and coolant temperatures seem to be holding out.



I ease back on the revs and bank slightly left to line myself up for the airfield. Wasn't there a runway running nearly directly away from me, ideal for a straight in approach? I think so, but for a while the clouds get in the way.



Clear of the clouds, the view ahead doesn't improve much, due to those oil splashes.



But as I get closer, I can see that I was right about that convenient runway. I 'prepare the cabin for landing', ie slide back the canopy. As the indicated airspeed comes down below the permitted numbers, I drop the undercart, then the flaps.



So far, so not too bad!

...to be continued!