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Flight Lt Alex Ackworth - RNAS 4 - Coudekerque - 30 July 1916 (Mission 28)

This one was a hot one !
It all started in the early afternoon when four of us under command of Cdr Whealdon were sent to bomb an enemy airfield near the coast in Nieuwmunster. Weather was nice with a few clouds around 6000 ft. All was quiet when we crossed the front line over the sea a few miles after Nieuwpoort.

Then between Ostende and our target, we found a big cloud across the way, so I decided to go around right and catch up with my flight on target. As I was doing this, I saw a flight of three Fokkers coming my way. A quick look around showed me my flight was out of the cloud but far to my left ! I had three Fokkers to play with by myself !

I immediately dropped the bombs to lighten the plane and headed straight for the cloud. I heard John behind me firing a few bursts at the enemy planes. Once I crossed the cloud, I headed west along the coast full speed in a small descent at 100 knots. I didn't stop before passing Nieuwpoort, and once over Koksijde airfield I made a 360° turn. No one behind ! It worked !

I reduced the throttle to 75% to stabilize the plane and we flew to Dunkirk. At 6000 ft over the town I put the throttle on idle and we glided all the way down to Coudekerque.

It turned out that the other guys had some fighting, two landed in Koksijde and Cdr Whealdon had again to ditch his plane which was destroyed. Both him and his observer are OK, and they filed a claim as well as Lamport. I just hope for them the RNAS won't send them a bill for the planes they ruined since a few days !

PS : The CO gave us all a day off for tomorrow 31 July !

Sub Flight Ltn. Eastwood
RNAS 5
July 30.
Arty spotting southeast of Nieuport. Flight Ltn. Marshall and myself reached target without incident. He spotted an HA below us and maneuvered for an attack. He had him dead to rights and I stayed a little above and behind. He sent the Hun to his grave and I rejoined. Continuing our mission another showed up. The one HA soon turned to 3. While Ltn. Marshall tangled with 1 I took on the other 2. After a brief fight it was 1 on 1 and I soon hit his engine and he was dead stick. I pulled in behind and finished the job. Having had enough I returned to base. Marshall filed a claim for 1 and I filed a claim for 2.

Note: This is my 1st video and it starts with the second fight. No editing. I will have to learn that later. Any hints or criticism of my tactics or flying is appreciated. No offence will be taken.

MFair: I'm probably the last one to talk about air tactics, but I didn't see any major gaps.

It did seem early on like you may have dove a little too long and let the Eindecker get above you, but you recovered pretty well. It also seemed maybe you lost sight of them here and there - something I do as well.

I did like when you idled as you closed in on the second Eindecker to prevent an overpass.

I noticed you didn't seem to look at your instruments much, if at all. If nothing else I like to keep an eye on things to make sure I'm not about to stall out or take a tour of Hunland.

Well done!

Thanks CatKnight. Lost sight of them? You bet! Especially the one that looked like he was floating under me. Then he did not come out the other side as I thought he would. The second one, I saw his prop stopping and knew his buddies were gone and we were headed west to boot so I could take my merry time about finishing the job. I had to go back and look but I looked at the instruments 8 or 9 times, but you are right. With that in mind I saw a few times in a climb that I should have looked at them a little closer. Its amazing what you can learn by going back and looking . Thanks for the hints. Good flying and good luck to you sir!

MFair, what vid capture program did u finally decide on? The vid looks good. I noticed a couple of times that the image of the struts on your Strutter would horizontally split when you scanned quickly past them. I don't know if there is anything you can do about that. It may be a performance issue but no big deal. I notice you check your six regularly but always over your left shoulder when turning left. It is always good to scan the opposite side once or twice to see that it is clear of enemy. Otherwise a very nice first time vid mate.

My data is also incorrect in the latest chart.

Could it be that it doesn't always get through the web form correctly?

The web form captures exactly what you type and I get it like that. I then send it to Olham who reformats the chart with flags etc. What exactly is your complaint?

MudWasp, yes, pls fill in the survey again, so you will be regarded as "wounded".

Hasse, same for you - I will then (hopefully) have it all right on Sunday.

If not, I'll give up, and we will just show Jim's screen capture in future.

But I can't do the pretty flags and red crosses at all

The "graphic chart" looks nice, but what is it worth when it is always wrong in places.
Maybe we show the Wednesday chart as a simple screen capture, as you send them to me,
and I do a "double careful Sunday chart" the nice way.
That should save me some time and nerves.

Thanks to Lt. Casey starting a thread on video capture a few days ago I find out I already had "shadowplay" on my puter. Told you I was a computer dumb ass. I have not played with it much as I was learning a bit about it and how to post a video last night. I have 60fps in normal fight and only saw them fall in the mid 50's during a fight, so no frame rate loss to speak of. I did not notice the struts. I will have to go back and look. So far I am well pleased with shadowplay. Thanks for the hints. I will have to look over my other shoulder more.

Close scrape today. Ordered to attack the railyard north of Loos (why? the DH2 can't carry bombs. Does HQ know this?) I strafed the train that was in, but got shot up by machine gun fire and sprung a leak in my fuel tank. I raced for the lines but wasn't over them before the engine stopped!

This is the end, old chum, I thought. I landed as safely as I could (dodging a post caused me to shred a lower wing) and expected to be taken prisoner.

The debrief said I was forced to land, but fortunately made it back to friendly territory! Must have been a close thing.

Olham, why don't you simply do one chart a week on whatever day fits your schedule best. IMHO there is no need to update the stats more than once a week and the aggravation it is causing you to do it more often than that is certainly not worth it.

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I will go along with that. Whatever day suits Olham will suit me. We would have to work out the details as we are both in the same time zone but the others are not.

+1

Olham, alter Haudegen!!!!

You, and all the others doing a great job, to keep this thing alive.

I suggest an update once a week. Personally its more like newspapers in these days, when news from the front did not arrive daily, nor the letters of your beloved reaches you every day.

Maybe you call it like "weekly news from the frontline" or "Heroes of the sky bulletin"? maybe we ask Pol how to implement it as a newspaper ingame?

Personally, the DID campaign, with all its options that we run, should be implemented in this game, it is the most killing argument to play this game, by far.

print screen

Back to Bapaume for Pay Back. Morning flight 7 a/c I rolled as #4. Spotted 5 E/a No mans Land at 3-5000 ft.
Dove to attack along with Top Cover. 2 Fokkers shot down. Mine left a trail of smoke till it crashed Our on side of the lines. I went to help the C.O. and got 14 hits from a gnd machine gun. Ran for it.

Sgn had 2 machines Damaged for 2 fokkers destroyed + damage.

Beware of the Hun and his gun!

Haha, ja, "alt" - that's how I feel with all the mkstakes I implemented.


Well, that's a nice compliment, Casey - thank you! But mind you: WOFF is not a game.

Thanks all for the ideas - yeah, okay, we will make one chart, Jim.
I guess the weekend is a time when everyone can fly most.
So if you can, Jim, send me a chart on Monday - midday or evening, as you can.

But: IMPORTANT NOTE - I cannot promise it will be without mistakes after that change.
I can only promise I will double-try my best.

A couple mistakes is not a big deal. Seems to me that you do a good job with all this data entry stuff. Lord knows I wouldn't relish that task.

I've been playing WOFF in my dreams lately.
Hope you're not on chart duty in your dream time. One chart a week will give you more time to fly WOFF