216th_Cat

Following my esteemed section leader in Gambit's excellent 'Havoc over the Kuban' when he suddenly decided to go tobogganing... before performing a balletic nose-stand... and leaping off back into the air. It looked like he might regain control, but actually had other ideas... with a roll and wobble in order to get into a position... ...for an undignified bellyflop... ...and the beginning of the downhill run. Wheeeeee! All the way down to the grassy valley... ...leaving a very unsightly scar on the mountain environment... ...before coming to a final rest among the alpine grasses. With not a scratch . No windows broken, no bits missing, no cracks in the bodywork, all external bombs still attached and the engines still running(!). Like, I said, mountains aren't dangerous - or perhaps there is something a bit awry with the collision model?

What Disarray says. I have a button on the HOTAS for Il-2 brakes, plus toe brakes on my pedals for those aircraft that have differential braking. Ground steering using brakes on the Il-2 is all about using rudder input and your sole brake control. The tailwheel lock works fine; you need to set up a key/button for it but you will see it move - by your right elbow - if you have it working. Tailwheel Lock OFF for taxying, otherwise you will hardly turn at all; tailwheel lock ON for takeoff, or you will be wobbling all over the runway.

Taxying for me. I like to taxy back to dispersal after landing as well. The thing that I hate is spawning on the runway with engines running and my flight belts off down the runway before I have time to set up my plane properly - mixture, rpm, oil and water rads or cowl flaps, wing flaps, lights if dark etc. A 30-second delay would be totally acceptable. Cheers.

Look at WW2 era maps of the Kuban. It's easily possible to see that the towns were indeed gridded like that. Cheers.

All five emails in this house are ok. So it can't be the porn sites that are sharing stuff...

Works for me too. Brilliant.

Mission 12 was the most recent one to feature the 'busy' runway. There have been trucks driving about when I've come in to land recently. I'd forgotten about that on the release notes, my bad; it doesn't matter anyway as I always take the big bombs as well, and as for the AI only dive/low level attacking with external bombs they don't get much of a chance. As soon as the leader says that he is 'setting up an attack pattern' I'm away and in there wiping stuff out before he gets a look-in. I managed to sink the sub before he'd called it out! Confused him somewhat . I'm gambling with the flak rather than letting him show where it is but haven't been shot down since mission 2 so have a charmed life so far. Cheers.

Yay, Nocke, back with the heroes and back where the action is!

Agree with these up to a point, but making simple i.e. QMB-style missions in The Mission Editor isn't hard, just time-consuming and annoying. The GUI I can see your point but it isn't a problem for me. The chat/kill notification in MP and wireless drivel/kill notification in SP is fine where it is out of the way and I never use the tech chat, HUD compass etc preferring to read the instruments - even the bloody Spitfire compass. Grrr. Communicating with AI - this is a biggie. I would rather have nothing than what we have now. I would like to issue my OWN requests/commands rather than see it done for me, and I do not want to hear stuff from flights that are nowhere near me, and as for gunners calling out bandits... 1st, he's firing... what on earth is that supposed to be? However, none of these, for me, justify leaving the sim on the shelf. It is WAY TOO GOOD for that. All in all though, refreshing to see someone with a moan about the sim that isn't the awfulness of the AI, the imbalance of sides in MP and the supposed Red bias in modelling. Your points are valid, but not worth giving up on it for. Try again TinMan, there's tons of fun to be had in here, both in SP and MP. Cheers.

Il-2 please Tip - back to the old workhorse. The LW had their chance to shoot me down last mission and spurned it; perhaps now I will be invincible!

Hi Gambit, I'm working my way through this excellent campaign and really loving it - thanks for all of your hard work. I haven't had the CTD on any of the missions; they have all run flawlessly. A couple of things that I have noticed, the loadouts on my plane often doesn't include external 4x FAB-250 bombs, but the AI always carry them. I've got wise to it now and add them for myself, but it's a bit odd especially when the briefing states that we're not taking a heavy load. Also, when returning to Adler the ATC are always waving off the AI by saying that the runway is busy, even when it isn't. I've tried parking in several different places across the field (assuming that I'm causing this) but it makes no difference. There are a few spelling errors in the briefings - 'Taupse' for 'Tuapse' and 'site' for 'sight' but I can live with those - I blame the vodka my flight leader insists on drinking before every sortie! Edit @Missionbug. I find that quite often the leader taxys halfway down the runway before waiting for permission to take off, which is strange behaviour. He won't go until I'm in position but I approach at a roll which sets him going and gives me an extra bit of oomph to deal with the shortened runway.

He'd have been lucky to. They changed the name in 1997 - but it's still the same cat's piss as it always was. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41059610

I have all of the Meteorological Office weather reports for the UK from 1939-45. In the daily summary the wind strength is notified by Force, i.e. Beaufort Scale. In the monthly summary the strengths are in knots. Seeing as the address for the Meteorological Office is Air Ministry, Kingsway, London WC2 and that the Beaufort Scale was standardized for the Royal Navy who did everything in knots, it might be assumed that the weather predictions for the RAF would be in knots as well. Edit: the weather predictions for D-Day appear to have been issued from the Beaufort Scale, e.g. Force 5. https://medium.com/@wwnorton/the-weather-on-d-day-85ea0491a14f

What on earth would be the point of that? Might as well go to the arcade and play Space Invaders.

Definitely Imperial. Metric units were hardly even thought of in Britain until the 60s. Windspeed is still given in mph in forecasts here in the UK.