-Hawkeye-

Some photos of the procedure. See anything wrong below? Wires couldn't be soldered, being made of a non-copper or non-aluminum material (I'm guessing steel). Had to remove the tiny pins from the connector, and then pry open the original crimps: The pins re-crimped onto the stripped wires. Because of no color coding, and no ability to find a schematic or wire diagram online, I had to guess which pin went where. Since one wire was a tiny bit longer than the other, I deduced that it was originally attached to the pin which was the farthest away (the middle pin); this I marked with "M". In any case, since these are basically the 3 wires of a potentiometer, the worst that would happen is that it would work in reverse, or not have a full range, or be stuck at a position somewhere in the middle of it's range. Regardless, it would not have damaged anything, and the goal here was just to see if it would come back to life. The pins could easily be reversed later, if necessary. The wires with pins attached, re-inserted into the small plastic connector. The connector has tiny plastic tabs which engage tiny barbs on the pins. To remove them, you have to carefully lift the plastic tabs and push the pin out with some thin object. To re-insert them, you just push them back in the connector, making sure the little barbs on the pins are facing the tabs on the connector. Once fully inserted, they're locked into place. The repaired connector, re-connected to the circuit board jack. The wires broke originally because they had a little too much slack in them, and they caught on a moving part in the pedals. I tied them down so that wouldn't happen again. The potentiometer that is circled in red is the main pot for directional control. You can't see it well, but there are dots on the gears which must be lined up when you re-assemble it, much like a gear-driven camshaft on an automobile engine. I tested it, and didn't find a thing wrong with it. Mechanically, I didn't find anything wrong with any of the mechanical operation of the pedals, except for a lot of built-up gunk from old grease and dirt. I cleaned the whole thing and re-lubricated it with plastic-safe grease (faucet grease). All for naught. Time spent: about 4 hours. Well worth it to try to get Hotlead back in business!

Still, these things cost him over $200 at the time he bought them!

Got Hotlead's pedals today. Opened them up right away and saw two broken wires on a three wire connector plug....nothing else wrong that I could see. After checking what the wires were for, I could see they were for the right-hand toe brake. I called Hotlead to see what the problem had been, and he said that although he had had an inoperable toe brake in the past, the problem now was that the pedals seemed totally dead...no LED light, no recognition by Windows. I fixed the wires anyway, hoping for the best. Although I was able to fix them, it didn't fix the problem, and I'm afraid the circuit board is dead. I looked for the part number on line; Saitek doesn't sell parts. They want you buy a new set of pedals or whatever hardware. A shame, because the pedals hardware is pretty good, the circuit board very minor, and I could replace it easily, for what I would guess would be a lot less than the cost of a whole new set of these pedals (Saitek Pro Flight Combat pedals). They're actually quite well made from what I can see, and the physical layout is much better than the CH Pro Pedals I used to have (they're further apart and the pedals are well made). However, my CH Pro Pedals never failed. Wish I still had them now, I gave them to a "friend" over a year ago, that's a decision I regret, and I wish I had them now to give to Hotlead instead. The best chance of repair now would be from somebody that had the same type of pedals that had some other problem, that I could cannibalize the circuit board from. Does anybody else have a set of Saitek Pro Flight Combat Pedals that is broke in some other way? I could make 2 broke sets into one good set, pretty sure. Sorry, buddy!

Blue team, this is a major point which helps make things more even, such as they are. Please remember that when Red team flies Central, we will bend over backwards to make sure nobody uses the twin turret guns on the Roland. Mistakes happen; thanks!

I think I can answer that, Etzel. Admins discussed that issue, and decided to leave the rules as they're currently posted; that is, only BOMBER-designated 2-seaters may attack objectives that are shown with ICONs on the game map. The reason is to force conservation of plane assets, which could make things more difficult. Also, some secondary objective mission descriptions MAY specify only bomber-designated aircraft for certain secondary objectives. Obey the current written descriptions until such time as they're changed, if at all. S!

Better try to resurrect the old pedals. 5 weeks is too long....especially considering we're short handed in FiF. Take a close look at, and/or take apart the old ones; look at some basic things....what have you got to lose? Has the cord been yanked, run over, or damaged in some not-so-obvious way? It can be replaced if needed. Check the mechanism inside; is something not actuating correctly due to breakage? Maybe something can be glued or repaired. If the electronic circuit board inside is bad, and you don't have an old pair of pedals you can cannibalize from, there's nothing you can do. Might as well have a look. If nothing else, these videos and others at least give you a good idea as to how to disassemble. If you want to overnight them to me, I'm pretty good at fixing things. I'll pay for the cost. If they can't be fixed, no money's wasted on a return trip. I really want to get you back in action

I have the MFG's. Buy them!

Great work.....ingenious!

I totally agree. The way that's drawn is totally amazing. Your skill as an artist is wonderful!

Anticipating the next one!

Yet another place to change settings! While watching your livestream and seeing Kanonen's chat to you, the way he worded his advice made me remember that there are Power setting options in their own group, in the Control Panel. I checked there under Advanced settings and found this, which also pertains to USB: Maybe this is the correct place! Keep trying!

Another area that might be just as important! I got to thinking about the whole controller ID thing after talking with Dudley and others about that. I knew that CH Products have their own heading in the Device manager, and I was poking around there to see if there was a setting in there concerning IDs. Guess what....some of the CH devices have the same power setting as the USB devices! So it might be just as important to turn those off, also: Who knows, maybe it will help Hotlead. Can't see any harm in turning the setting off there, too! S!

I know exactly what you're talking about. The truth is, in the situation with the S.E.5a, I knew where I had to hit him, but my plane just wouldn't pull up any harder. I knew my shots were missing, and were going to continue to miss, until I could get my pipper where it needed to be; but because I knew I was about to be on target, I just said "screw it" and kept the trigger held down, so when I did draw on target, I'd hit him as many times as possible and blow him apart (then hopefully go on to the Tripe). And in fact, I thought I did hit him pretty hard a couple of times during that whole process, and was surprised he didn't come apart....then Hell's Angel entered the fight right at a critical moment (as he's known to do) and screwed up my whole plan. My other excuse is, although I love the Pfalz D.IIIa, it does have an extremely narrow shot picture, which limits how much you can see to judge your lead....actually I use that skin because it has the two dots on the upper wing that I use almost as a gun sight, so I can instantly start firing when he appears below the wing, or even before. Truth is, I wasn't really on my game that night, and could have done better, which I think you zeroed in on with your accurate comments. I could have done better! But just about anytime I fly, I end up saying that. In that case, I should have had less to drink before the flight....but I was going to fly regardless, because it was my last chance to fly with you in RoF. Thanks for your insightful comments, they're spot-on as always! And I'm glad to have at least had that chance, and all the fun we had, regardless of how I screwed up. I value times like that because if I can have fun like that and end up laughing and having good memories about the whole thing, in the end I feel fine about it and would do it all over again. S! and Thanks!

Any advice as to which version? I see there is a newer beta.....what's different or improved about it, if anything? EDIT: Dudley, I'd like the program.

Thanks Geezer, I'm sure it will make for some very interesting reading, as time allows! S!

That aspect is true. In the early days BH had skin versions for every pilot and instead of waiting for the organization to publish them, a group of squads used to run events in "mods on" where no mods were actually used EXCEPT skins, which were downloaded by the participants. So the real difference is that the skins can be added individually to work in MODS OFF mode. I was thinking there had to be SOME difference, now I see what it is. Thanks!

Last RoF flights with JG1_Barton, plus our regular crew. A demonstration of how NOT to climb through clouds. Some pretty intense furballs being attacked by multiple enemies (I don't think they liked that red tail). See me get credited with some kills that I didn't deserve. A great setup for the King of the One-Pass Kills. Top it all off with an unfortunate and completely unnecessary death due to collision with a squad mate at the very end of the night. It all sounds pretty bad, but actually it was extremely fun and memorable, and if nothing else, the best I could muster to say good-bye to a great friend. S!

Not true.....you could have distributed that skin that you made for RoF, to your own squadron, or to the community in general, simply by using dropbox or any file sharing program. People had only to put your .dds files into their game, and they would see that skin, regardless of what official skin packs they had installed. The "official skin packs" are only self-extracting zip files that install a group of .dds files that have been officially accepted into that skin pack, which is accepted by the community as a means for everybody having a set of officially recognized skins. This doesn't mean you can't add to those (or neglect to load any of the official packs). It all determines whether you'll see a default skin, or one loaded by somebody else, that you may or may not have loaded into your game. The idea that they "were no longer supporting it" only meant that whoever was in charge of accepting and grouping the files together that were submitted for inclusion into the "community wide" skin packs, stopped doing that, such that there were never going to be any more large, officially sanctioned skin packs made available for download, via the official support web site for that purpose. The capability for adding a skin was never taken away (as well as the capability for deleting them). This situation seems to be what Vonrd is describing, which exists in these newer sims. I don't see any difference, other than that there seems to be no organized effort to compile skins that are deemed acceptable, and distribute them via large "packs" that are made available via the official support web site. Am I wrong in this perception?

Pro: Your skins are no longer held hostage until given the blessing by the devs and hard coded into the game. Your skins are no more "held hostage" than they are now. You could always send the .dds files to anybody you wished (which is apparently what you have to do now). It's just that universally, they're not going to be seen by all players (and that wasn't guaranteed either, just a lot more likely). BTW, they were never "hard coded"; it was always just a bunch of sanctioned skin files that you could add to or subtract from, yourself. Con: Erm... kinda the same... any Bozo can do any kind of skin... perhaps even "invisible" skins along with Pink Hello Kitty skins. That was always the case too....but it didn't do any kind of good unless everybody had the files (as in the official skin packs, in which there was little to no likelihood that such skins would be accepted) Pro: You don't see any of the above unless you insert the .dds file into your game / skin folder. True dat....same with the skin packs Con: As a squad, all members will have to load the JG1 skins... Can you say "Cat Herding"? Seems like the only choice we have? Would apply to unpublished skins in any case... Con: Even with all JG1 members having loaded our fabulous skins, we will see them but everyone else (unless they have taken the time to load them... can \ Thus the need for the community recognized skin packs.... With what you're describing it seems the same as RoF to me, except for the fact there's no organized effort to distribute skins, which would appear to me like a giant step backwards! If the skins had somehow worked differently (like in IL2) I would understand that; but they don't seem to be any different, so why the lack of organization or interest by the devs, in something that is a huge part of the sims they're currently supporting? What's up with that?? BTW, self-extracting compressed files easy to make, generally an integral part of any file compression program....

I see....the file names were different, so I didn't know they were associated with each other. .dds files are the same file type as in RoF, right? For BoX, CloD (and in the future, FC?) they don't release skin packs periodically? How do they handle that?

I recorded some video starting later. I'll try to upload it soon and post it. I really had a lot of fun flying with Hotlead, Barton, Raz, Vic, and Maus, and others. In the end, I didn't do too well (4 kills, but 3 deaths), but honestly, In a couple of fights I was alone (at least for a while) against 3 or so enemies; then the last death was an unfortunate accident. I was very confident flying with you all....which you inspire. Again, a LOT of fun! S!

Nice shootin', Tex! So glad to see you start posting videos! Keep up the good work!

Open it in Paint, and reduce the size. Supposed to be less than 20 MB, but I think sometimes it's better to keep it around 10 or so. Save the file as a .jpg in Paint also. Technically you don't have to, but .bmp's are a lot bigger than a .jpg, for the same size picture. Just save it that way to your desktop temporarily or where ever, post it via ImgSafe, then trash it....keep your original for working with. That error message generally means it's too big. But I think at times, the servers are really busy and things get slowed down. I notice this over the holidays, but after reducing size I had no problem. Also, try uploading and posting one picture at a time only. You can keep your message open on a separate tab, and keep adding the pics from another tab, one at a time. Seems to avoid problems. S!

Can't post .dds files, why don't you take a screen shot in game and post that? S!

I heard the Windows device disconnect sound when you lost your game controllers, Hotlead. I think Vickner's suggestion of going into the device manager and turning off the suspend mode for the USB controllers sounded pretty worthwhile to try. I also had a lot of ports that would do what yours are doing, right after I built my new computer. I ended up moving devices around onto different ports until they kept working flawlessly all the time. With all the USB ports my motherboard has, only about 4 or 5 of them are reliable, which isn't enough for all my stuff. So I actually had to add a USB add-on card internally that provided another two USB 3.0 ports. My quadrant and pedals are now plugged into that, and work flawlessly. I'm also going to try Vickner's suggestion...who knows, maybe those ports will work reliably. However I doubt that I'll start switching things around again, now that they're working excellently in their current configuration. Best case, I could get rid of my USB add-on card, and have a spot for a sound card again, which I had to give up to do what I have now. But it's a PITA switching things around and testing, and I don't want to find out it doesn't work right in the middle of an online flight. Let me (or us) know how it works out for you. That's a real problem! EDIT: Here is what the setting looks like in the Device Manager. Under the "Universal Serial Bus controllers", right-click each sub-heading that you have, and go to "Properties". If the device has a tab called "Power Management", uncheck the box shown in the screen shot below; then hit "OK". Everything that has the word "Hub" in it, and some others, will have this tab and setting. Do each one in turn until you've done all of them. Hopefully this will help!