-Hawkeye-

Twice is nice!!

It turned out great, very tasty! And it was a lot of fun standing out there in the cold when it was long past the normal season....drinking many wines Definitely going to do it again next year!

Pretty! Good job, as always, guys; S! That story was awesome, Baron; bringing it home using the keyboard. That would have been the death of me! S!

Happy Thanksgiving, guys; hope your holiday is excellent in all respects! I'm going to try charcoal barbequing the turkey for the first time ever, and it's not going to exceed 28 deg. F here today.... This oughta be fun! S!

Update to the update?? I just started up BoX for today, and it downloaded another game client update of 123.85 MB. So if you're flying tonight, better start a little early and knock that one out too.

HEY....that's been edited Why do you think I was so careful in my original wording??!! I can't say much, I think your mind and mine think far too similarly Keep up the good work

You and me both, brother! A plane that will bring you home nearly every time. S!

@ Larry, since I have 4.5 inches of travel from TDC to limit without any extensions at all (WarBRD moves more degrees than T-50 base), I measured that I would need to use the 100 mm extension and the 75 mm extension together in order to achieve 7 inches of travel from TDC to limit. Obviously a lot shorter than yours. In the end, somehow or another we'd both have to be approximately 7 inches or more from the edge of our mounting surface to the centered stick. Difference is that mine would be quite a bit higher off of the ground and would need to use the lowered clamp mount options that are available instead of a floor mount like yours. I think I'm going to be fine with the 4.5 inches of travel I have now, at least as a starting point. I have the materials I need to mod my keyboard tray and could start any time, but I want to wait until after this coming Wednesday in case the guys want to fly Moxy's campaign that evening. I wasn't going to mess with things until after FiF Fall ends, but that's more than a month away so I might just go for it and hope I understand the software enough to get things working the way I want them to.

Just got it. Server download performance was pretty low for the 1.26 GB download.

With regard to a denied credit card, I'm pretty sure that happens to everybody; it happened to me the first time. That was all back when they had the "old" website. It's your credit card company, all right; they are not going to allow a transaction that expensive in that area of the world without your specific approval. Sounds like not very good card company, though; they should notify you immediately or real-time. Back then, how it worked for me is that my first attempt was denied; then I had gotten an email from my company with a link to either approve or deny. Once I did that, it said if your transaction was denied, to make it again and it would have no problem. Second attempt had no problem. The new website uses a different payment system than the old one, which seems more streamlined (remember, they use Euros now instead of "BYN", whatever that stands for). Regardless, when I ordered from the new website, I got a text on my phone and all I had to do was text back "allow"; then the order was approved real-time without needing a second attempt. You really should try again if you haven't already tried and failed at the new site. Probably a stupid suggestion, but do you have another card from another company? Capital One worked for me. About the disclaimer: apparently the new WarBRD base has more degrees of travel than the older T-50 had. Obviously the more extensions you use, the more travel it's going to have. It's only common sense that you would make sure that whatever you set up, the grip wouldn't hit anything in any direction at maximum deflection. Of course so many people lack common sense, and then want the company to pay for their ignorance. Virpil's mounting hardware was basically designed for the T-50 base; but it is fully adjustable height-wise, and it would be up to the user to determine how far out from the edge of his environment it would need to be. IMHO the 3-length extension kit would be perfect since you could have any combination of (only) 5 cm up to 22.5 cm. That's only a total of just under 9 inches, folks. Of course that doesn't include the length of the base+grip assy.; mine is 14 inches high by itself, and Larry's is taller than that by a bit. In any case, the WarBRD base was obviously intended to be able to be used with extensions; it has the exact same physical and electrical connections, and comes with the stiffer cams and springs that you would want if doing that. Bottom line is, the real difference is that WarBRD base doesn't need to be as tall as the discontinued T-50 base to have the same amount of travel at the grip. In other words, just use less extensions. What I can tell you for sure is that this thing is STRONG and made to withstand a lot of leverage; machined steel and ball bearings everywhere. Plastic joysticks....not so much. If they don't break outright, they sure will develop some serious play and wear pretty quickly, considering the extra mechanical force that would be applied. @ Larry: I was going to suggest using a PS2 extension cable in lieu of all of your ganged-together cables. Even found one here: PS2 Extension Cable But then I noticed that my stick connector only has 5 pins, where as a PS2 has 6. Still I'm wondering if the physical location of the 5 pins would line up....if you just pulled the extra pin out of the male side of the extension, the other 5 would be in the right place? To test, you could take the male side of any one of your Virpil extension cables and carefully see if it fits into the female side of any PS2 cable or socket. In any case, you would just coil up the extra cable inside the extensions (think telephone hand set cable). Well it might be worth looking into if you have an old PS2 device laying around, or an old cable. Don't try anything with the stick USB plugged into the computer, though. Or, if you had an extra extension, I could extend the wiring for you to any length you want; but I bet you need all of the ones you have. Oh well.

Physical installation Step 1 complete. Cut down, reworked base plate shown installed. It's going to work nicely

Ha ha too funny

Oooww! Nice trailer! One shot with a muzzle-loader. What a different world, what a different battle! Maybe two, then bayonets and butts! Not to glorify, but to remind. Brave men, brethren to us all! A conflict that gives meaning to the word "conflict". S!

Ha! I think your squad got far and away the best end of the deal, that evening (and it was late evening, folks). However, we did later account for ourselves in at least a creditable manner (managing to cause serious damage to the enemy, and escape alive, also damaged). We'll call that one a draw I look forward to Baer's video; I've already seen Hotlead's live stream. Apologies to all for the heavy breathing!!! Shows the stress of trying to recover from a spin (unsuccessful) and also the stress of getting clear of flak in a heavily damaged aircraft (successful). Salute to the US 103rd for their usual extreme discipline. I can honestly say that I have never seen a more awesome display of squadron solidarity than when Hotlead and I turned about and headed east after sighting 2 high SPADs, and then soon after 5 (yes, 5) SPADs lined up 3 on our left flank, and 2 on our right, in line astern each group, as Hotlead and I tried to visualize what would soon happen, and react to that. I'm happy to have made it out alive, and to have given the enemy something to think about. S! Honored foes!

Thanks, very cool. I like the US concept of cartoonish. I had to laugh at the 511th, being a vulture so appropriate. I have to say I like the German concept of being not only cartoonish, but sort of art-deco ('20's era)? Case in point, Klaiber's insignia (I love it). Regardless, I think the Germans always had a better idea of what would be discernible in the air, and I like their sense of humor over detail. Thanks!

@ Pfeil....for anybody dealing with Virpil right now, it should go a helluva lot smoother than it did for me. I'm just glad I was able to get one at all. At one time I was going to get the TMW setup, but I kept reading reviews talking about gimbal friction problems (I like a light-action stick) and Loopy even told me he had wiring malfunctions with his that required replacement parts. Then I saw video that showed the inside of both, and how the TMW was metal on the outside, but plastic on the inside. Plastic has worked great for me for a tremendous amount of time with my CH gear, but that gear didn't cost hundreds of dollars, so I would expect that. The TMW stuff is about as expensive as these other units, but IMHO you get more for what you're paying, with the Virpil. @ Larry: Glad your experience was better. The shipping is called TNT Express, but it does switch to FedEx or whatever once it gets into the USA, I guess. I don't really care to be honest, as long as it gets here eventually. I think even UPS sub-contacts USPS now for some of their deliveries (Sunday?). It's confusing but at least it works well. Did you say that you have TWO extension kits? (meaning, 3 lengths in each kit, total of 6?) Or perhaps you meant two different a-la-carte lengths that you bought individually? In any case, I can see that would be the pinnacle of realism. But I have also found that TOO much stability and accuracy, in these combat sims, while great for flying, makes it harder to be an effective shot, because it's harder to react as quickly and adjust your aim in time on quick passes. In any case, I thought I would buy one of the 3-extension kits, so I could use any combination of them to get things just the way I like them. Of course I'd need the lowered mount, and would probably go with a center-mounted Monstertech, as Pfeil suggested. However I'm going to try what I have, and I think I may find that it's so similar to what I use now that I'll do well with it as-is. To be honest, I didn't even know that the T-50 base even had changeable cams (or springs). I figured you just turned the screws until the tension was to your liking. I can see that you'd like the higher tension; that's absolutely needed when you lengthen the stick and have so much more leverage than you had before. It's great to have a stick that you can tune for whatever length or preference you have. People should realize that from my own personal experience, there are only TWO cam sets for the WarBRD base: the hard (long sticks) and the soft (desktop length sticks). They may have meant to have 3 or 4, but from what I got, there are only two, regardless of what they call them or mark them as. I will write a review on their site eventually. Maybe they will send me the cams that were supposed to have been intermediate or ones that are even stronger....who knows. But what I can tell you all now is that what they call the "Cosmo-sim" cams are the lightest, and the most like a CH; and they have ONE bump on them. They were included with my stick, but may not be included in the future....who knows? Springs are also part of the equation, and I am happy with what they sent (two sets), but one could go to the hardware store and get even stiffer or lighter ones, I assume; if not found there, online then. One other thing to consider in the sensitivity realm, IMHO, is the amount your hand actually has to move in order to reach full deflection. On my CH stick, if you measure the top of the stick, it moves about 4.0 to 4.5 inches from center to full deflection. However, that doesn't take into account how far your hand is below the actual top of the stick; i.e. how for your HAND has to move. Well, that's really hard to measure accurately. Imagine if you added in an adjustable hand rest, how that complicates things. Virpil gives it's measurement in degrees. That's fine, but that doesn't take into account how tall the stick is. In fact, it may actually be an advantage to have it move fewer degrees, if you have a longer stick; imagine if you couldn't move your stick to full deflection because of physical limitations of space. In any case, I found that my Virpil actually moves FEWER degrees of movement than my CH does (making you think: is it as accurate?) by quite a bit (20-something degrees for the Virpil, near 40 for the CH!) But, it is LONGER, so guess what? It moves about the same number of inches at the top in order to get to full deflection, as my CH does. Does that make you think there's a sweet spot in there somewhere? Now add into the equation the variable that you can add all of those extensions to the Virpil, but accordingly, would need that much more physical space to be able to move it to. I considered 3 extensions the limit for Virpil, but I never considered using even more (if that is actually what you'e done). But as you say, your's is mounted on the floor, so I'll take the word of an experienced warbird pilot that that's what is most realistic. However, I'll default to what allows me to kill the most enemies Is this stuff not cool? Thanks for all of the feedback, guys! S!

Haha good for you! Now the waiting begins. Sounds like you and I had the same problem: Some time in or after September, Virpil moved their entire organization, and seemingly changed their way of doing business (without letting anybody know, as far as I know). When I ordered my first units (base and grip) they were still using the pre-order system and would fulfill orders in batches, one area of the world at a time. They were also based in Belarus, and used EMS Express to ship orders; and still operated using their original website. The currency was whatever Belarus uses ("BYN"). When I pre-ordered my base/grip, in early August, a few days later they announced they were going to fulfill a batch order for the non-EU that included orders through late July; so I missed out on that batch. A week or so after that, they announced they were going to move their entire operation. Part of that was that they would fulfill all orders that still were pending at that time, and then stop taking orders for a short time. They didn't mention changing their website, or any consequences that would result from that. About 3 weeks after that, I tried to log into my account on their site and check the status of my order. The website looked different, and the login page kept telling me I had the wrong user ID and password. So they had a lot of my money and I had no idea what happened to it. Needless to say I started to get very nervous. I logged on as a guest and submitted a help ticket which included a .pdf or .jpg, whichever it would allow, of my paid order form. About two days later, I received an email response telling me not to worry, because my order would be shipped within the next couple of days. More than a week later, still no notice of shipment. I submitted another help request with the same info. The response said that unfortunately, when they moved to the new website, all accounts had been deleted, and that I would need to create a new one on the new site. They also said that my order was filled and that it would ship within a day or two. I created a new account on the new site. Checking my orders record, Nothing was listed at all. Apparently all records from the old site were gone too. A few days later, I received an email that my order had shipped, and an EMS tracking number. I immediately checked it, and it said that my package had been received at some strange city post office, and processed there. Some time after that, it went through some international shipping hub. That was the last status I ever got from the tracking site. Thus began a long period of waiting and not knowing what was going on. In the meantime, I decided that I wanted to get the T-50 thottle also. Knowing how long the whole process takes, I figured I'd better do it now. I logged into my new account on the new site, and tried to order one; but they were out of stock. That's when I learned you couldn't pre-order anymore, and that all I could do was apply for an email notification when they became available; so I did. About a week later, I received an email saying that some throttles were in stock. I saw this first thing in the morning, and immediately went to their site to order one. The site was very slow and unresponsive; my first attempt failed. I logged in again, and again went through the order procedure. This time I waited a long time on each page, until everything on the page would update. Eventually the order did go through. After that, I checked my order records, and the order did appear there! Within a couple of days, the order shipped; this time from Lithuania, and the currency used was euros. The shipping company now used was TNT Economy Express and tracking information was given for them. A couple of days later, I decided to order the "Cosmo-sim" cams for my stick, being afraid that the included cams would be too stiff. I was able to do that no problem, and the order did appear in my records. Eventually my base/grip did show up. That's when I learned that it came with 3 sets of cams, but that the 2 stiffer sets were identical, even though they were identified as being different. About a week after that, I received my throttle. Inside the box was a small ziplock bag containing the Cosmo-sim cams. They had charged me over $60.00 to ship that, and then just stuck it in the same box as a previous order. Not cool. Then I found out it was the exact same cam set as the lightest set that had come with my stick. Nearly $90.00 down the drain. Needless to say not the best procurement experience. At least I got everything I ordered eventually.

Cool! Well done, gents!!

On a related subject, I'm pretty sure that the grips and bases on the Thrustmaster Warthog and the Virpil line are interchangeable. So if you're a TMW user that likes your grip but has gotten tired of the problems with the TMW gimbal or base assembly, you could buy just the Virpil WarBRD base and mount your TMW grip onto it. Honestly, the ergonomics of the TMW grip may be better, depending on what you're used to. For example, I have the CH now, which is basically exactly the same as the TMW grip without a few of the extras (two-stage trigger, etc). I REALLY like the thumb 4-way hat and using the fore-and-aft motion of that to control FOV zoom level; it's very natural feeling and doesn't cause me to need to move my hand at all on the stick to use it. My new Virpil grip has a ton of hat switches, and the ones at the top of the grip (basically, all of them) are far more reachable than the uppermost ones on my CH (and presumably, the TMW) stick; especially with the adjustable hand rest feature. However, there is no 4-way hat by the thumb at all; only a single push button, and even that seems not far enough forward and too far below (like you'd have to slide your thumb down to actuate it). My new grip does have a two-way hat above the index finger, which seems tailor-made for FOV zoom (why else would you have a hat that only moves fore-and-aft?). Although I think I will try this, right now it just doesn't seem as natural feeling as the thumb hat was/is. The WarBRD base is awesome feeling for me. It comes with 3 sets of cams. The cams are supposed to be light, medium and heavy with regard to spring progression feel and centering force. Each set has either one (light), two (medium), or 3 (heavy) bumps on the back side of the cams, so they can be identified. They are highly accurately machined steel and each one rides on it's own ball bearing. It also comes with 2 sets of springs: a gold set and a black set. Physically, other than the color, these springs look EXACTLY the same; same wire diameter, same coil diameter, and same length. The steel or alloy that they're made of must be different, because the gold set does feel a little less tension than the black set. In any case, I immediately installed the lightest cams (one bump) and the lightest spring set (gold set). In addition to that, since the stick itself is just plain longer than the CH or TMW, is has more leverage when moving it, and that also adds to the ease of movement. Bottom line, I love the way it feels.....smooth and a lot of travel. The electrical connector between the base and grip looks exactly like the old PS2 mouse/keyboard connector, if that's any help. On the Virpil T-50 grip, that connector half can rotate so that the grip can be angled to your preference before you tighten down the knurled nut that holds it together. You have to be very careful that the connectors are aligned when assembling the two halves. The connector half in the base does not move or rotate. Therefore, if your connector half in your TMW grip doesn't rotate, you won't be able to have that rotational adjustment feature (wouldn't matter much to me). So: it's an option to consider for those this applies to. If any of you has any further questions, just ask. S!

Those are VERY nice....and I do prefer the Monster mounts over the Virpil ones. If I had a table that was wide enough, it would be possible for me to use those (in theory). However, a couple of problems prevent that. Number 1, they don't seem to have an adapter for the Virpil WarBRD joystick base; they have one for the Virpil T-50 joystick base, but looking at that, it doesn't appear that it would work for my base. It is possible that an adapter for the TMW would work for me, though; we'd have to figure that out. Number two, if you look at the pictures of the mount installations on the Monster website, you can see that the person is sitting BETWEEN the throttle and joystick mounts, with those units outboard of his chair arms and hands. First off, I don't prefer to have my hands that far apart and the units not in front of my natural hand positions. Second, the keyboard tray that I'm using, and the table it attaches to, are not that wide in the first place; so the mounts would be hitting my thighs and interfering with my pedal movements. Also, just like the Virpil table mounts, they all push everything back from the edge of the table toward you and away from the screen. I'd have to reposition my rigidly mounted pedals, move the screen toward me, and/or push the keyboard tray inward (and lock it in place somehow) in order to compensate for everything being so much further back. Those are all things that could be done, if I had no other choice; but I do, and I think in the end I'll like what I've planned better than those choices. Thanks for the link, I'm going to bookmark it regardless, for the future! S!

All of my detective work was for naught? It all seemed so clear. Sometimes the more obvious the solution seems, the less likely it actually seems to help. Thus the reason I would never tell anybody that I knew what the problem was, back when I was a technician, no matter how "sure" I was about the solution. Proven wrong too many times.

Much was said about the number of reloads the single Lewis needed on the S-22. The original number of rounds in a Lewis gun was 47 rounds. Later, the double drum (97 rounds) was developed. I believe all planes in RoF must have the 97-round drums, other than the S-22, which is an early war plane. Also, you were chatting with a twitch follower about the ease the game allows for "lifting a double Lewis and changing firing positions". If you'll recall, all of the double Lewis' are on a ring mount, and don't have to be moved to different firing positions. At the same time, their field of fire is somewhat more limited than the single Lewis (which needs to change firing positions to cover 360 degrees). Obviously, most gunners would agree that the more limited field of fire is far less of a disadvantage than having to re-position the gun every 90 degrees. In most cases, the historical accuracy of RoF is pretty good. Thanks for posting the videos, they provide hours of serious and many times humorous entertainment. I find myself laughing out loud! Thank you!

I just received my WarBRD joystick base, with Mongoose T-50 grip; and also my T-50 Throttle. Yeah, it took quite a while, but in general, the Virpil company seems able to deliver products that you might want better than the VKB company. If anything that you want is "out of stock", just like with VKB, you must apply to receive e-mail notification as soon as stock becomes available. The difference between VKB and Virpil, in my own experience, is that with VKB, bottom line, is that you'll never be able to actually get one. That means, if you get a notification from VKB that their product is available, by the time that you are able to get online and order one, it will already be too late because of the very small quantities they seem to deal in (a dozen or so per batch?). Although Virpil did change very recently from the pre-order system to email notifications, just like VKB, the difference seems to be that you can actually acquire what you're waiting for, if you act in a timely fashion; at least that was my experience. Regardless of all that, I was surprised that a few pilots in JG1 (Razwald, Hook, Loopy) were at least somewhat interested in at least some of the Virpil products, so I'll post some preliminary information here. I also know Vonrd had mentioned this to me in the past. I will say that I am delaying actually installing and using the equipment because I don't want to attempt all of that in the middle of an FiF campaign. However, that doesn't prevent me from setting up mechanical preferences, and planning how I will physically install the new units in a way that will most closely resemble what I have now (CH Products). First off, basic dimensions. Of course I can now give you any dimensions you ask for, the ones that concern me most are the ones that relate to what I have right now. For example: how high will my hand be on the new stick, compared to the old stick, and what physical position will I be able to install it in (i.e. the center or fulcrum of the stick's movement, compared to my original. For starters, the Virpil stick is obviously much higher than my original stick, plus it has a much wider "footprint". To begin with, the "footprint" is so wide because it's made for people to use as a non-attached base with only rubber feet (included) that would keep it from tipping during use. The base plate included with the "WarBRD" base does have holes in it that you could use to screw-mount the stick to your stable surface, but those holes are unnecessarily far apart since they are exactly where the rubber pads for a non-mounted installation would be. Therefore, if you want a screw-mounted desktop installation, the included base takes up far too much room, considering other hardware (mouse, keyboard, throttle) that you might want near it. Because of that, I have determined that for my own installation, I will cut down the base plate greatly and make new screw hole locations that are much further inboard. In my opinion, the best frame of reference for how one stick feels with respect to another, is the hand rest height and position. If you can duplicate that, you can have a very similar starting point to use and compare to. By cutting down the too-wide base plate, I can position my new stick with the fulcrum of movement in exactly the same place as my old one, without having any extra base-plate sticking out beyond the edge of my mounting surface, or intruding in the areas that my mouse pad, throttle and keyboard might be. The following is a comparison between my old stick and new one, with regard to the height of the hand rest. Original CH rest: 4-1/4 inches above the mounting surface Virpil rest, adjusted to my preference: 7-7/8 inches above the mounting surface: In order for me to equalize this distance, I will need to lower the new stick accordingly. To do so, I will first trim down the base plate from it's original size in the following manner (those areas outside of the ruled areas will be removed, and screw holes drilled): Then, I will cut a hole in my keyboard tray that will match the shape of the WarBRD base as exactly as possible. Then, the stick will actually be mounted to the BOTTOM of the keyboard tray, thus lowering it. In fact, blocks of wood can be added between the bottom of the keyboard tray and the altered base, thus lowering it further. By doing this I hope to come as close as I can to achieving the original height of the stick rest, in the exact same position as the old one was. T-50 Throttle: The dimensions of the new throttle are: 9-5/8 inches deep, by 6-3/4 inches wide. The height of the highest part of the throttle handle is: 7-1/2 inches high. The height of my original throttle quadrant was: 6-1/2 inches high. By similarly mounting the new throttle base to the underside of the keyboard tray mounting surface, I will achieve a similar height and position, to the extent possible, as the old throttle quadrant had. At this point, you may be asking yourself, why the heck doesn't he just use the Virpil edge-mount clamp fixtures that are specifically made for this hardware. Well, that hardware pushes the stick, and especially the throttle, well outward from the edge of the mounting surface. For me, that would mean that I would be much farther back from my screen (and therefore my TIR); also, since the mounting hardware extends well below the mounting surface (and is then adjusted up as needed), it basically has to have the stick mounted BETWEEN your legs in a center position. The throttle, being mounted on an exact same clamp with different adapter, extends much farther out than even the stick does; therefore, it basically has to be beside you instead of in front of you. I don't like any of those compromises. If in the future I wanted to buy and use joystick extensions, I would be forced to use the lowered, center-mount hardware. However, for now I think I'll be a lot happier with a side-by-side installation on top of the edge of my keyboard tray, just like my old hardware was. More to come when actual physical installation begins. S!

Wait, I got it now. You hit T when you already had control, and so released it; but it's unclear from the video whether or not you meant to do that... maybe you were just demonstrating that function was working. But then you hit shift-T when you didn't have control. Well the game can't do that unless you have control. But it did recognize the "T" part of that sequence, so it again gave you control of the turret... again without being nestled, because that's how it starts. If you had at that point hit shift-T, it would have nestled to gun sight.