homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Wings: Over Flanders Fields Wingman?

What does Wingman setting in Campaign and AI Options do?

Thanks.

Gives you a wingman

Hi Dirk

The Wingman setting creates a pilot who is always with you in your missions, unless he get himself killed, which is fairly often, or is on leave, in hospital, etc.

So it you have a mission that is usually 3 men, Observation Balloon attack or defense and a few others, it will have 4, because it adds your wingman to the Kette.

He stays with you in a fight if he can. He isn't exactly glued to you and you get separated much of the time, but he tries to find you.

He is useful sometimes when you're in a tight spot, he shows up and tries to get the bad guys off your tail. But not always.

He is also good for a witness if he survives a fight because he's usually somewhere near. You'll notice that he will be the first to rejoin you after a fight, if he hasn't had to go for home and gotten himself killed.

They're usually less experienced or less skilled pilots.

It's not that esential that you have one, but it's handy on occasion to have a wingman. I thinjk personally that he should stick to you a little closer than he does. But what do I know?

Jerbear

If I get lost will he fly me to the target or my airfield? Consider this as my wish list for subsequent iterations ))

But even now, it's a pretty useful option.

Thank you jerbear!

I've really never paid attention to that. He would probably just follow you around, even if you Split from the flight. He might head for 'AN' airfield, not necessarily your own, but probably he will just stick to you unless he's been separated and can't find you. None of that is hard and fast, he makes decisions like any other A1 and if he's low on fuel or been hit in a fight he would most likely go to some field and land. They have a bit of a mind of their own.
J

I don't think that type of wingman generally existed until WWII. You had Luke and Wehner but that only lasted for a month or so and even they split up when fighting. You also had new pilots that would follow leaders like Mannock, but I don't think they were able (or supposed to) stay with the leader if a furball started.

Yeah, probably the wingman was an ideal rather than a reality. But I think in German service they tried. Berthold usually had someone who watched his back and Rudolf Stark wrote about Schmidt (Caspar Schnmidt). "It feels good to know that someone is flying just behind you, watching like a tracker dog, not moving from the spot and always sticking to the same place, no matter how strong the flak becomes or how many turns there are in the aerial combats. I just have to turn my head a little bit to the left and then I see his face, always friendly and funny."

I'm sure that the above is a little bit romanticised. I can't imagine they were able to stick together for long in a fur ball and Schmidt wouldn't have been of much use just hanging on Stark's tail. But it was probably like that in the initial stages of the fight, before the formation broke up.

Berthold's wingmen, which included Oliver von Beauilieu-Marconnay (Bauli), seems to have usually been above him, if possible. But probably, as you say, in a real fur ball there's no way to keep track that well.



Discussion open for anyone who wants to add their two-cents.

They probably didn't even know who was who once the fighting started, you've seen how I am...

I haven't used the wingman in the game, but I might give him a go now, I'm intrigued...

If a wingman survives long enough, they do learn and get better and make a few kills. I've experimented with keeping them alive but usually they bite the grass fairly soon even with that. A few have lasted a long time but they're rare. But then my survival rate is not that good either, unless I cheat, of course, which it do.

Wingman used to be enabled by default, so some of you old WOFFers should remember .