-Hawkeye-

Excellent cooperation and determination, Blues! Well done, all around.

Time flies, thanks for the recognition! Congrats to all recipients!

Why not just go with TM Warthog? I really think there's a majority here who use it, and if you checked, I predict most of them are very pleased with it. Hell, the guys that beta-test the FC planes use it....what does that tell you? If it wasn't for the "sticktion" issue with the base, I would have bought one myself. However, they may have solved that issue a long time ago, for all I know. One thing's for sure, I've seen videos on how to fix it, and yeah, there's some disassembly, some cleaning, some sanding, some lubrication....right up my alley. If I had one, I know I could make it work and keep it working like it was intended to. I also know you're at least as capable as I am Vonrd; very likely more so. With regard to Virpil, I'm in for a penny, and in for a pound now. Also, I don't mind waiting, and have been able to overcome these financial inconveniences. None of this is an emergency. But it is pretty expensive. A lot of people consider TM Warthogs expensive (especially in the EU). The difference between what I have and that is a lot less there, I would guess. But for me it's more, and is maybe not worth it except to those who are willing to overlook the extra money. I will say that every single time I've ordered something from Virpil, the process has been different. This time is no exception; maybe that's just my bad luck. Perhaps it's because the company is evolving or growing. One thing I like about them is at least they give you a chance to order something; unlike VKB. That company doesn't seem to care if you're ever able to get one of their products. I will say that Virpil has never failed to give to me what I ordered, in what can only be considered a reasonable time period, considering the distance, and the demand for their products. Also, they've never failed to answer in a timely manner, any support ticket that I've submitted, when I've been unsure of what was going on. Beyond that, I've never heard any other customer of theirs say anything other than that they give very good customer support. S!

D.VIIf....she turns mighty good at ground level, folks....mighty good Even with altitude throttle fully off. That wing is now doing what it's supposed to do. It's not quite a Camel, but if you're in a Camel and you screw up or get a little lazy or overconfident, you're going to be in for a surprise. Inside of the cockpit is now exactly the same as the standard D.VII, not somehow different, like in RoF. I was able to copy my snapviews file for the FC standard D.VII, and just rename the file for the D.VIIf....voila, I didn't have to make another entire set. It worked perfectly. If you looked closely you might notice some differences in the engine you see in front of you, and of course the altitude throttle control in the cockpit. Didn't have any problem with the prop hitting the ground, either. Didn't have to drag the tail on takeoff just to avoid that, like in RoF. I should have checked the specs, maybe they said something about altitude throttle settings. I had it full on at 2,000 m indicated and suffered no problem. Seems very fast in a dive but that's a relative thing. Easily surpasses the max anemometer reading (260 Kph) without structural damage. It will be hard to know beyond that when you're in the danger zone, using full-real gauges only. Like the standard D.VII, lands beautifully too. Settles onto 3 points nicely, and that's a feature not often found in RoF; realistic feeling flight physics.

Well, I got the new grip on pre-order. It was lot more complicated than I thought. I was glad to see the "pre-order" button active on the site; but when I got to checkout, I was in for a surprise. The only option for payment was direct bank transfer. Really? So I looked around the website for the payment options section, and it said there that if you have a pre-order, the only option for payment is going to be direct bank transfer. Then they give you all the following information, and you have 72 hours to make the successful transfer, or your order is cancelled. Payment Method Bank Transfer Payment Transfer Instructions: SWIFT (BIC): CBSBLT26 (CBSBLT26XXX) IBAN: LT497181200027467803 Account Name: UAB VIRPIL Bank Name: Šiaulių bankas AB Bank Address: Tilžės g.149, Šiauliai, Lithuania, LT-76348 Currency: EUR Please enter your order number as the payment reference. All fees relating to the transfer must be paid to ensure the order balance is paid in full. If you are unsure, please enquire with your bank for guidance. Note: If you have a pre-order item in your basket, Bank Transfer Payment is the only available payment option. Please review the pre-order terms here: https://virpil-controls.eu/payment-info So I'm looking at all that and wondering if my bank is even capable of doing an international transfer. Then I see somewhere on the site that they say they use "Braintree" in cooperation with Paypal. Braintree I have no idea, but Paypal I know. So I went into my Paypal account and started looking at all of the different options for sending money to. One of them was interbank transfer, and once I selected that, it had about 3 different choices, and one of them, believe it or not was transfer to a bank in another country. So I chose that. Well, all of a sudden it's taking me to a new company called "Xoom". It's affiliated with Paypal. The thing is it already had all of my bank account info; it must have gotten it from Paypal. So the first thing it asks me is what country I want to transfer to, and Lithuania is in the pull-down list. Then it asks me the bank I want to transfer to in that country, and up till then I was worried, because looking at the info Virpil gives, I know I can't even type a lot of those characters. But it was another pull-down list, and it only had about 4 banks listed, and sure enough, the bank from the Virpil info was in there; so I chose it. Then it asked for the IBAN number (20 characters). I entered that from the info above, and it gave me the green check mark, like it was good. Next it wanted to know who I was sending the money to. The fields were set up for a first and last name, and address, like it was a person. I wasn't sure what to do. So in the first name field, I put "Virpil Controls EU". I don't know if that's the best thing. I was afraid that the money might go into their account, but they wouldn't be sure who sent it. After all, there must be a lot of these transfers happening now. If I had to do it all over again, I'd put "UAB Virpil (Virpil Controls, EU)", since I think UAB Virpil is what their account seems to be listed under at that bank. The next source of worry is that the order info says you have to show your Order Number as the "payment reference". Well, there is no field for purchase number or anything like that, not even a note or additional info line. So, I crossed my fingers and wrote "Order Number: #VPCEU-xxxxxxxxxx" in the "Last Name" field. Then I had to choose the currency, and they say they want it in Euros, so I entered the amount shown on the order, and it automatically converted it to US dollars and cents. After that I got to review the entire transaction, and hoping for the best, I hit send. It gave me a transaction number, and also a way to track the progress. That was a nice surprise. I figured, if it doesn't go through, I'm no worse off. My worst fear was that it WOULD go through, but the company would say that they didn't associate it with my order. Still, I had a lot of transaction receipts and summaries that I had copies of, so that I was reasonably sure I could prove that I sent the money for that order. About an hour later, I checked the status of the transaction. It had already progressed about 3 steps....and it was Sunday! That was encouraging news. Round about 9:00 this morning, I checked my online banking for a withdrawal. I wasn't really expecting anything. It showed one made for the correct amount related to a "Xoom" debit. Amazing! Then I checked my email, and guess what? I had a Virpil invoice that said "Payment received 2019.03.18", with my order number on it. Whew! That went pretty well. So now I have "Estimated Dispatch Within 90 Days of Payment", although I seriously doubt it will be that long. One thing I can also add, I chose the faster shipping through TNT Express Courier, not because of the speed, but because of the tracking ability....and it's expensive! 63.95 Euros ($72.45)! As if the grip wasn't expensive enough! Well, I could have chosen Lithuania Post, and it would have been around 23.00 Euros. Takes longer too, but probably not that much longer. It's something to think about. I hope if any of you guys are going to pre-order something, that there will be a more convenient way to do it by then. Anyway in many weeks, I'll have my original grip version for sale (original box, etc.) But if nobody wants it, I'll just keep it for a spare. Oh yeah. It cost me $4.95 fee from Xoom to do that direct bank account transfer. There was an option to use your credit card, and I think it was $7.95. S!

Well, I failed to get an order in today for the new grip. The "restock" that was scheduled for today at 18:00 GMT (2:00 pm EDT) suddenly didn't include the Mongoose T50 CM2 grip. The site went down at 30 minutes prior to the scheduled restock with a message saying that they were restocking, and that when the site came back up in a few minutes, the restock would be complete. The site came back up about 2 minutes prior to the hour....but still showing no availability for the grip. After about 15 minutes of refreshing with no changes, I went to the forum news section. Now it said that the grip I want wouldn't be restocked. The only way now is to preorder it on the 17th. The 17th.....when? It doesn't say (no way to reply to the news posts, either). My experience is that once pre-orders open, so many people pre-order that they only take so many, and very soon the site will just say "pre-orders closed" or something to that effect, until many weeks or months later, when they take another batch of pre-orders. I hate the way you have to play this stupid game to try to get these products. Come 0000 GMT on the 17th (8:00 pm on the 16th, my time) I'll have to start checking the site for pre-order availability. I'm not going to stay up all night trying to order something. I'm willing to put some effort into it but it's BS how this stuff works.

Also, the compression was very low on those WWI engines due to low-octane fuel. Few people realize that low octane fuel is actually more volatile than high octane fuel. It just burns less smoothly....more abruptly....hence the greater tendency toward pre-ignition or detonation. In any case, the engine would be easier to turn over than a modern one. What you said about hearing and feeling things in R/L is one reason I hate the crowd who always seem to complain that "you shouldn't be able to hear this or that". I don't care whether the relative sound level is correct. That is not the only purpose of sound in a flight sim. There is so much sensory input that you lack in a flight sim, including everything G-forces (yes, especially those you would feel far in advance of blacking out), and all kinds of vibrations, both engine and airframe, that we NEED some sort of indication to take the place of that; and that is one of the most important things that sound does for us. To have NO idea at all what's happening, or about to happen, is NOT realistic. So, regardless of whether you'd actually hear bullets hitting your plane, or certain engine noises, or whatnot, we NEED to hear those things in sims, in order to make up for the lack of other indications. One funny one that comes to mind was in RB3D, if you pulled too many g's for the airframe, by way of warning, you'd hear this "creak" from the structure. It was a way of telling what the limits were, which you would surely have been aware of via other sensory inputs, in R/L. Anyway that's just an example, but one of the ones that bugs me the most is when you receive airframe damage through bullets or flak in RoF, and you have absolutely no idea until after it's too late. It works better in SP, but in MMP it's terrible. There's got to be a way to improve that.

Very nice! By way of comparisons between the same planes RoF vs. FC, it might be better to look at actual speeds reached in dives than the number of seconds it takes for them to break up. One that took less time to break up might just be an indication that it reached a higher speed more quickly. The actual breakup speed might be the same, but if in one sim it reaches the higher speed more quickly, that would actually be a performance advantage. As far as engine damageability, it's good to know if the plane can be dived by simply throttling back. One of the irritating features of RoF is that there are certain planes in which the engine will be destroyed, even if you turn the engine off completely. This doesn't seem very likely IMHO. One other thing that I don't know is part of the new game, is being able to restart a stopped engine in the air. I've read many, many times of pilots who restarted them just by switching to the gravity tank, and then diving to windmill the prop enough to start it back up. In RoF, it seems like if the engines stops, even if it's only due to something benign like leaving your engine blip on too long, it won't start again no matter what; and the speed you have to dive at to make the propeller revolve even slightly is pretty excessive. It's like you have to dive straight down to even get it to turn at all, and that's not in agreement with things that I've read.

Very well deserved, people. S!

That folding trigger they have is the best bomb drop button ever. I love that.

Looks like no chance for me to fly this year. That will make the only year in BA history that I haven't participated. Kinda sad, really.

So, what is to happen to the WarBRD base? I thought it WAS the successor for the T-50 base.... Regardless, that is what I have and I'm very happy with it. It has more degrees of movement than the T-50 did.... So if want you want is a LONG stick, you'd be better off with less degrees of movement. I'm very happy with my original T-50 grip, mostly because I figured out a great way to use the POV hat to do FOV zoom. That function is paramount to me. However, I will admit that what I really wanted is a grip that was like my old one, that had a 4-way hat under the thumb, that I could use as FOV zoom. There is no real substitute for that kind of ergonomic convenience. So I have a sticky note to (try to) order the new grip at 2:00 pm EDT on March 15. Yeah, it's a lot of money; and it's also a lot to bank on that it's actually in a position that works and feels natural. You can't tell that kind of thing from looking at a picture. But honestly, it's what I originally wanted. Too bad they didn't have it back then. If I am lucky enough to be able to order one, I'll have an original T-50 grip available for anybody who might want one (Vonrd?). It may not work out, who knows. But I am going to try. Thanks for the links, Heinrich!

Yeah, and when you do that for every plane, then they'll field an update and you'll have to test them all again.

There are resolutions in several states to abolish DST. I am so on-board with that!

Nice video. He reminds me of Etzel I don't know so much about the engine "regenerating" or "recharging", but is it not perhaps that the time that it's running at high temps has a lot to do with it's durability? The time it gives you would be based on the current (high) temp....if you let it cool back down, you get more total time than you would have, had you not let it cool down and just used the time continuously? Just a theory from a know-nothing. One guess is that the word "recharging" could just be a poor use of English by people who may not fully understand the nuance of that term to us. While in the majority of planes by far, the times allowed might be based on a durability factor that is somewhat or even greatly affected by temperature peaks and variations. In those cases it would be a complex calculation performed by the game and there really couldn't be any set answers for times that a pilot could accurately keep track of in flight. I'm sure there would be some kind of curve or set of curves the game may use, which would include time, temperature, and damage factors. In a few cases (planes like the P-47), part of the time limitation could be based on the exhaustion of on-board consumable materials (i.e. water/methanol, nitrous oxide, etc.). In that way they'd have additional factors taken account of in their durability. In the end, if you were super-dedicated you could do the kind of experiments that he did in the video. But in the end, there could be endless variations, and what you might learn is just a general guideline, like he did (and Raz did)....like not to be afraid to use 100% power now and then, and a general idea of how much you could abuse it and get away with it. I am still in the stage of being over-cautious in normal use, but when in combat I don't think about it too much.

All: Beginning today, the US has transitioned to Daylight Savings Time (DST). Please remember that FiF sessions have always, and will always, begin at 2:00 pm Eastern/US time, regardless of whether it's Standard or DST. Previously this year, all sessions, having started at 2:00 pm EST (1400), began at 7:00 pm (1900) GMT/UTC. The next session, taking place on March 16, begins at 2:00 pm EDT (Eastern Daylight Time). This coincides with 6:00 pm (1800) GMT/UTC. Please take care to consider your relationship to GMT/UTC in your local time zone, so you don't show up too early, or miss the first hour of the March 16 session. Later, when countries in the rest of the world transition to DST, if you are outside the US, it will again affect your start time, back to being what it normally was for you. However, your start time may be different until then. Remember that US/Eastern time will continue to be GMT/UTC - 4 until US time returns to Standard time next fall, when it returns to GMT/UTC - 5. S! Luftritter

"Near"? I'll always fly both.

Thanks for your dedication and service. S!

@ Vonrd, that sounds like a really good explanation. We don't have any real feel for the engine in sims, and no real consequences if it fails.... so we tend to run around on full throttle all of the time. In plenty of books I read, a pilot will write something like "I ran home with the engine "all out", "flat out", or "full on", as if that was unusual! Sometimes it even sounds like they were in a dogfight with it at less than full power! Also, they seem to allude to climbing at less than full throttle. I've also read clues that relate to the number of flight hours the engines would last, and it was not a lot. That was really important to those bomber pilots who had to go FAR behind the lines and back in single engine planes like the DH4. Not only did they need their engines to last, they needed their fuel to last, too. I don't know about you, but I'm only now beginning to consider those aspects, and actually fly differently....at least, at times.

@ Baron, they fixed the fuel selection increments with the last little update! You can now select fuel loads in 2% increments. I guess somebody saw your message! They get high marks for the quick fix.

Just got another smaller update. Get your game started early, or you're going to be delayed more than expected when you try to fly next.

@ Kliegmann, before you change the position of the Numpad 5 (home) view, you might want to simply pull your FOV all the way back from where it is by default....then save it that way. You can always zoom in if you need to. The radiator cap is working very well for me, which is more than I can say for the Pfalz D.IIIa. I went to the night collimator on that plane and it made a world of difference. But the D.VII is working great for me as-is. @ all, I think possibly what we have here is a difference of hardware, coupled with a more realistic flight engine. Like Kliegmann said, I did also notice some over-sensitivity with the pitch at first, but I was able to adjust to it just as quickly; and I believe having an accurate stick really helps with that a LOT. It has such fine control in the middle ranges that it makes compensating easy; and I have to say having really good rudder pedals also helps a lot. I really like the engine. It isn't a world beater, but it isn't so damned fragile either like it is in RoF. I don't know where they got the idea that German engines were so darned touchy, but this engine isn't like that. I haven't blown my engine yet....I've dived straight down after those Dolphins with the throttle fully back at idle and not had a problem, even though the Tachometer is at max, and probably more. I don't get any message like "engine 1 damaged" either. I think part of the perception that the plane "bobs" at first, is that the whole flight engine just feels more realistic to me, so when you get your plane moving hard in a direction, like when you're pulling up for a shot, it doesn't just instantly change direction, like it does in RoF. So until you get used to that, you get this "overshoot". You're pulling up hard, and then you're pushing down hard. You can overcompensate and you have to anticipate the enemy's maneuvers to some extent. There's a lot I like in general. I like the way that the rudder doesn't start off being super effective; the effectiveness slowly builds with airspeed. I like how the airspeed doesn't increase so fast either on takeoff. And like Kliegmann seemed to say, I like how the plane doesn't just instantly slow down when you throttle back either. It releases the energy more gradually, and that actually works to your advantage in a fight. I like how the gauges read what they're supposed to. I like the speed the D.VII attains....maybe not spad-like, but I can see those spads are going to have a lot tougher time diving away, and they won't get away scot-free every time either, like they do in RoF. The D.VII's lack of wires does make it less draggy....so even though it doesn't have the absolute horsepower, you can feel the speed it can attain when it has something to help it's engine (gravity). I like the way the engine temperature went up at continuous full power near the ground. It will reward those who throttle back when they don't need to be a full throttle; but that issue disappears at higher altitudes, like it should. Couple of questions for Baron and Peil, though. Why did they change the fuel level selector in the pre-flight setup so that it can only use set increments (24, 33, etc.)? I liked it before when it was infinitely variable. Also, it would be nice if you could just highlight the field and enter a number into it directly, like you can for RoF. Next, who chooses the standard skins, and can this change? 3 of the D.VII skins are pretty much the same thing....only a slight color variation on the camouflage; and 2 others are practically the same thing too....the red/blue of J15 with some variation of the personal emblem. Would like to see some variety and you would think which skins they use would be pretty easy to change. EDIT: Oh yeah, one other thing. The "tips" that appear, I like, at least for now, because they remind you of things you might have forgotten, like the best climb speed. But still, sometimes what it says is in the wrong units. If you're in a plane like the Dolphin, it doesn't help much to say "climb at 131 Kph" when the airspeed indicator in that plane reads in Mph. See what I'm saying? And this: why can't the default or starting position of any and all of the radiators be 100% open, instead of 100% closed? I can see where closed would make sense if you had to warm up your engine; but NOBODY warms up their engine....and who'd want to waste time doing that? I'd say it's almost completely universal that servers have "warmed up engines" enabled. Radiators should start open; you can close them if need be! PS, I know you're not the developers but I figure you guys have a lot better avenue for feedback, than I do. @ GC: I can see where you're coming from, but.... if the Alb series in FC ends up being superior to the standard Fokker D.VII like it is in RoF, I'll be very disappointed. That never should have happened. If the Alb had been as wonderful in real life as it is in RoF, they never would have made the D.VII. When the D.VII competed in the fighter competition, everybody there was impressed at how much Fokker had been able to "wring out of" the same old engine. It was a big improvement in every respect, and that should include maneuverability....the wing airfoil is just plain better, and even though it did hold the top speed back....the innovation of getting rid of the wires more than made up for it. So, even though the Alb has it's place in the mid-war era, it should never have never been better like it was in RoF. If they actually produce 2-seaters from some era of the war other than the very end, they won't seem so ridiculously better than the early war scouts and things will work better together. That's my hope, anyway. S!

Reminder to all also, due to a server logging bug you may see Sopwith 1-1/2 Strutters reported as carrying 2 guns; however they are not and did not. So nobody should look at that and thing it's OK to have extra guns anywhere on their 2-seater. S!

Great to see so many excellent pilots recognized and rewarded. Congrats, everybody!

I had seen at least one of those in an English version....maybe both? I need to find those if I can.