-Hawkeye-

It all depends on how low your mount is compared to your optimum or desired hand height. If it is already at the perfect height, well then you don't need or want any angle change. If it is too high however....you want that down angle. Cool really, makes it seem like a long stick! There's really not that much difference between all three angles. If it's too high, get the 10. If it's almost...but not quite perfect, get the 6. You get the idea

It is 3.15 3 inches, plus 15% of another inch. This is more like 3-3/20 inch. 3-5/32 is 3.156. Very little difference really

Heute du, morgen ich Now that could work! I might just use that!

"Schließe dich deinen Brüdern in Walhall an, die ich geschickt habe" Too long, unfortunately. But it is my sentiment

Thank-you. If I entered the first two words individually, those first two words were correct. My mistake was using German to English instead of Dutch to English, so it did not see that last word correctly, although I pretty much guessed it. You should put that on all your bottom wings

"Bis in Walhall" Not getting a good translation on that....can you give an accurate one?

Got the "F" now, too. Thanks!

Got 'em Heinrich. Your links have the Dr.1 in there twice, and no D.VIIF. Thought maybe that was a mistake. S!

I just noticed that the following skin included in that skin pack: ! JG1 FokkerDr1 JG1 Luftritter.dds is an old version. If possible, please replace it with the version here: latest version Luftritter Dr.1 skin otherwise, everybody downloading the skin pack and overwriting files may overwrite the newer version, as I did. The other, "_B" Dr1 skin of mine is fine. Thanks!

Thanks for doing this, Vonrd; it will really add a lot to those who fly in BS. From my own experience, I already had most if not all of the J5, J2 and US 103rd skins, but it added all others in the pack. For things with the same file name, I told it to skip them. So I just got the new stuff. I didn't look at everything, but I did see a lot of J99, and that's nice to have; and it's nice to know if you have the very latest US 103 skins, which have gone through a lot of revisions. Also thanks for accepting late submissions. Probably the great majority of folks won't update after the start date, but it's nice to know that they could. For me, I think I'd like to end up with something that equates to what we had in RoF with regard to personal skins; and I think this helps a lot. S!

Why all the laughing, though? I'm SERIOUS! That would be a cool emblem for the side of a plane! (don't you think??)

JG1 has been assigned to the Blue team (Central). I don't know why some JG1 pilots are listed as Mercs. The list shows 31 pilot slots per side. I don't know if that's a limitation, or what. I'd like to be able to fly with those pilots who've been listed as Mercs. It's not clear whether the sides shown are just for today, or for the entire event. So far, a strange and unsure beginning. Also, we are supposed to look at the O.P. in the FC BS thread, one hour before start time. I guess some pertinent information will be disseminated at that time. Black September thread

Well, I don't think you take anybody's spot when you sign up. Nobody is signing up to be there every time, or even most of the time; they come when they can, hopefully as much as possible. Regardless, we'll miss having you if you have other commitments or priorities. It is not a very clear process this year, and as far as I can figure, you're entered just by answering the poll question as to whether you plan to fly in BS this year; and you make that possible by registering for the server stats. If there is more to it than that, I am still in the dark. I stand to be corrected if anybody has more correct information.

Those concerned, I've recently had a chance to rebuild a TM Warthog HOTAS. Leaving all other problems aside, this particular issue you may encounter in the future, if you haven't already. With regard to the single push buttons, they are prone to intermittent operation if not complete failure. This is due to the tactile microswitch inside the button assembly wearing out due to excessive pressure or number of uses. Here is a picture of a worn out tactile switch: This is the tactile switch inside all of the single push buttons on the TMW HOTAS. It's a metal diaphragm which "pops" back after it's depressed, if it's operating normally. However, frequent hard pressure or just plain over use causes the diaphragm to become permanently dented, and depressed. At this point, you will no long feel a "click" when you depress the button; at this point, there is a minimum of space between the contact surfaces, and you may need to force it to "make" by pushing the switch hard....and in those cases the actual closure is most likely intermittant at best. In the worst cases, the switch will become closed at all times, and you'll suffer real problems. In researching this problem online, I've found this to be a fairly common issue with single push buttons on the TMW. At this time, a replacement button assembly from Thrusmaster costs over $35.00 for one button assembly. This particular grip had two bad buttons in it. However, by disassembling the actual button, one can access the tactile switch underneath. However, I have not found an exact replacement for the 9 mm tactile switch inside. I have found others that can be made to work through some serious skill and workmanship. I settled on a 4.5 mm replacement that seemed of high quality, and only costs $0.94 per unit. Here is what the disassembled switch assembly looks like; the old tactile switch is shown on the left, and the new one is right next to it. The above picture does not show the base unit that all this snaps into, and that the wires go through. That base for the switch is shown below. At this point it's necessary to say that this assembly is NOT made to be disassembled or repaired. It takes some serious work to get it apart without destroying it. Suffice it to say that you could easily destroy the switch to get it to this point. As for me, I think I've figured out the best possible way of disassembling it. In any case, this next photo shows the new micro switch soldered to the wires, and which now must be glued into the base part because it's not as big as the original part: The soldering alone is going to be beyond the skill level of almost everybody; the leads are tiny, and so are the lands. These switches are made to be soldered down to circuit traces and it takes good skill to solder proper wire connections to them. In the end, I'm happy to say that the repaired buttons not only work, they may work longer than the originals. My ultimate point is this: If you're a TMW user, be careful not to apply too much pressure to your single push buttons, especially those which you use a lot. Once you feel it "click", don't push harder, or you'll eventually end up with the above situation. Take care! If you do end up with the above situation, send it to me I'll fix it for ya

Did any of this help, AG?

@ Angry GoaGoat, actually the true solution to that problem (as you can read in that thread) was that the TS "gamepad and joystick hotkey support" plug-in was no longer installed in my TS installation. All that needed to be done was to install it and voila! PTT button assignment worked. Check it out!

"Who Dares, Wins" (Sig line) I will never forget the first online squadron I was ever in (US 94th, RB3D), and our commander, Colonel Clay. Being a newbie, I asked him how he shot down so many planes, even in adverse situations. He said "No guts, no glory". That attitude has served me well ever since then. S!

See, that all works just as well and is a perfect example of how things can be varied but still standardized and be just as usable as some other convention.

I hope my prior post will not be seen as nit-picking. My reason for watching that stuff is primarily to prevent all the work done by skinners becoming a complete waste of time. There are 3 major levels of synchronization we could have when it comes to skin files. First, a person could have whatever files and file names for skins that they want only on their own computer, and interchange them whenever and as often as they wanted. Obviously in that case only that person will see those skins and everybody else will only see default skins all of the time. Second, we could have only people within JG1 have all of the same skin files with common file names. In that case, theoretically everybody in our squadron would see the "proper" or most correct skin. However, we now begin to experience the consequences of every single participating squadron member not downloading and installing the absolute latest skin files from our consolidated skins link. Third, we could have correct synchronization between all players of Great Battles. This is the level of synchronization that RoF achieved by creating permanent downloads based on categories and time. This had the advantage of limiting download file sizes and of standardizing files such that everybody who installed the files would have the same thing. Although it can have the same consequence of people not seeing skins from lack of installing them, because it was an all-or-nothing approach, the idea of version changes did not invalidate file names because the submission of files was a one-time-only thing, unless somebody snuck in a same-named file in a later download, but even then the intended result could fail because nobody could guarantee the order of installation of downloads. So I guess the first thing to decide is what our ultimate goal is. And as you can see, the higher level of synchronization you want, the more important it is to keep names the same, and files unchanging. Since multiple people are skinning, this is the reason that having a universal naming convention and sticking by it is so important. The idea that names must make our "own" skins first in the list is nice to have and makes things easier to find in long lists. In RoF, personal skins were at the bottom of the list, which is not as easy as being at the top, but is still easier than being somewhere in the middle. However, IMHO somebody will always figure out a way to make his skins appear before yours; Klai's example above is just one tactic they'll use. Therefore, I would say not care that "our" skins aren't at the absolute top of the list; instead, it's far more important to make sure that they appear together as a single group. Whatever the naming convention turns out to be, I think once it's decided, it should be stuck to without exception, and without ever changing it again. Therefore it's important to use a format that's universal and is going to work for every case. Then that format should be posted as a sticky or other permanent notification, at the top of the skinning section, or in some other very prominent section of the forum. I think we had a good standard going. However it's hard to see every eventuality, and one thing that was left out of that standard was the case of one pilot having multiple skins, which is a case I broached. Since it's easy to look at things from your own case only, I think I made a mistake in requesting the name I did for my "extra" file. In order to make things universal for all cases, the suffix "_(letter)" was actually a better one, since a person could have up to 26 separate files under that convention. But even then, there is still more clarification necessary. For instance, should the convention be that all single files have a "_A" after them, being the first of a possible series? Then any additional skin files for any single pilot would have "_B", "_C", etc. That's quite logical, but would require a lot of work in changing just about every file already in existence. If that was not done, would the original files simply have nothing? What then for the second file in a series...."_A", or "_B"? Which is more logical? The point is, all that has to be defined in the sticky, with specific examples given for every possible case. Once you're at a point where no situation can't be addressed, things can stay permanent and have a much better chance for others to actually have a file that they've downloaded be seen instead of just a default file. This will also prevent other skinners from creating skins with file names that cause them to be completely separate than our main group of files in our skins installations. So apologies for what may seem like nit-picking; the goal is to prevent wasted work and that could be defined as people having downloaded skins that fail to appear to them, or also having multiple skin files which are the same file, but with multiple names, which can quickly add up to a lot of wasted space considering the size of these 4K files on somebody's drive. S!

Some inconsistencies in the latest 2 downloads, as posted in our consolidated downloads links: Naming convention. The new Alb D5 and Halb CL2 and Halb CL2au files have a "1" prefix instead of the previous or usual "A" prefix. The other new plane skin files do have the "A" prefix. In the Halb CL2 and Halb CL2au files, Maus' pilot name is spelled wrong. There's an extra "c" in there. In all the other files, it's spelled correctly. Not sure if that matters to anybody. In the new Fokker Dr.1 files, my second skin (J10 skin) is named with the "_B" suffix instead of the "_J10" suffix. That can stay that way if you guys want it that way, but others should know what the official name is going to be, so those who already have the "_J10" named file should delete that duplicate version. To complicate matters, I think Larner may have submitted some or all of those files to that guy who keeps a mega download file or files for all FC or maybe even all Great Battles skins, on the IL2 forum.

A beautiful design element, to be sure!

Nice looking floor.... somebody is a handyman.

I'll take you up on that. I'd like to talk on TS at your convenience first, though.

I wish, but not gonna happen this Saturday. I'm going to keep a close eye on this thread.