Okay, this has been the oddest evening of flying for me since this started...
First, I fly Ambrose, as usual. He does his lets-kill-kill-kill thing that he's doing these days and goes after two AV B1s. Get the first one. Shoots up the second, who turns and runs for home. I try to engage again, but he's getting closer to Houplin (which we'd just bombed) and starting to land. I figure I'll make one more pass and if I don't get him, I'll head back to the barn.
We're low - like 1500 ft low - Archie is bad. We have a nearby blast - observer at 96% health, Ambrose at 97% percent. I don't realize, at the time, that it also tore a gaping hole in my fuel tank and I'm leaking fuel like a sieve. I continue my maneuvering until I get the low fuel warning. I look. 11%. Turn toward home (front line is maybe 6-7 miles W.) Don't get far before the fuel is gone.
I'm at 1500 feet, I have no fuel, and I know I won't make it over the lines to land, so I put down in a field maybe a mile and half from Houplin, resigned to a few days in POW cage. Instead, I get the results page, Ambrose and observer are "shaken up", no mention of landing behind the line. Click Done and it's the next day and we're ready to fly.
Having been forced down behind the lines in other campaigns, I've never
not been captured. Maybe it's distance to the lines based?
So then it's on to Alvin, where he gets a "special assignment", the first bombing mission I've seen in 1 RNAS since I started the campaign 6+ weeks ago. Fine. I know how to bomb thanks to Ambrose. Weather's lousy, but we make it to Ghistelles, drop the bombs, and head back across our lines. As I'm crossing the lines, I see this:
A mile+ long convey of trucks, on a road that runs across NML. I didn't go down for a closer look, and honestly am not sure if they were German or British, but the convoy was half on one side of the lines, half on the other. And we were more than a mile out of Shakeytown.
Okay, then on to the afternoon flight, when Alvin's wingman did the famous "burst into flames" trick while we were still gaining altitude over the Channel. Heard a noise, went to external view (Smiler, Alvin's observer, has a REALLY big butt) and the other Morane was already totally involved, as we used to say in the fire service, and heading down. Haven't seen this in three weeks or so, but have been flying on autopilot with my external view watching my wingmen, waiting for this so I could see it happen.
Of course, this time I wasn't watching him. I was still thinking about the convoy (and humming the song). My main reason for wanting to see it happen is to determine if there's time to kill the engine before it and the rest of the plane catches fire. Or a warning sign. Smoke or something before the whole thing is burning.
Definitely three unusual flights, one after the other. Which you can read about from Ambrose and Alvin's perspectives on Monday when Alice gets the letters.
