A trip to London earlier this month enabled me to make a long-wished-for trip to the RAF Museum at Hendon. Aeroplane heaven! In particular, a wander around the World War 1 hangar persuaded me to spend at least some simming time away from U-boats and back in the skies. For a choice of sim, I decided to try out the new iteration of Wings over Flanders Fields - subtitled 'Between Heaven and Hell II'.

Of the many aircraft I photographed at Hendon, one that struck me in particular was the replica of the Royal Aircraft Factory's RE8. The rather ugly and somewhat unloved Harry Tate I was familiar from the 1960s and the 1/72 Airfix kit, with its heavy, thick upper wing having to be placed carefully on the multitude of stick-like struts which needed positioned individually, ease of assembly evidently not having been a design criterion on this model.

Here's a couple of my pics of the replica.





Anyway two-seater WW1 careers always seem to have short and bloody endings for me but that didn't deter me from starting an immediate RFC career flying Harry Tates with 6 Squadron, RFC (not '6 RFC' - pul-eeze!). I am using the original download for my first mission, having forgotton to patch it first, which might have fixed a couple of the issues I had.

My first issue was that - notwithstanding the many other visible improvements - WoFF is still sending whole flights on artillery observation (art obs) missions - which ought to have been flown by SINGLE aircraft! Yes I know that SOMETIMES, recce and art obs flights were escorted by other aircraft of the same squadron - but this was rare and mostly confined to the early days before the 'working' machines (2-seaters) were joined by specialised fighters ('scouts' in RFC parlance). In reality, art obs and recce aircraft generally relied on the looser protection of the system of fighter/scout patrols that the RFC put into the air over the Lines and beyond, and did not have close escort.

Not only am I leaning a flight of six on what should be a solo sortie, but the squadron's second flight is coming along on general support - twelve aircraft in all!



The BaH II RE 8 looks good - although it's missing its flying wires (the rigging wires which run from the lower fuselage to the tops of the interplane struts underneath the upper wing), having only the landing wires which took the weight when on the ground not in the air.



Visible improvements were the spring terrain landscape, the animated crew members (no sitting down staring forward by observers, RoF-style!)...



...the vibration of cockpit fittings...



...and the optional 'goggles effect' whereby you can see marks on the glass and the edges of the goggles in places, notably around the nose area.



Here I am approaching the Lines. The terrain textures look better than ever.



And here we are, over No Man's Land.



As we were orbiting our assigned patch, some Huns in V-strutters arrived and took exception to our activities. At this point I admit I was glad of the other RE8s behind me, which bore the brunt of their attacks.



The enemy got three of us, but didn't have it all their own way - two Albatri went down, damaged at least, and the attacks petered out as quickly as they had started.



I completed the mission with a single remaining companion, pretending the shelling visible nearby was the result of our work.



Another RE8 joined us just before I set course for home.



Mission accomplished and I lived to fight another day, but not for long if this rate of attrition - three lost from a flight of six, although one of them seems to have shot down two Huns - keeps up!