I’ve just had a chat on the whatsapp group to try and get back to speed. My CPL studies are going forward slowly but hopefully steadily. The COVID19 outbreak puts quite a bump in the schedule. I hope all of you are safe and wish you the best in these challenging times.
Isolated as we all mostly are to our homes, it means I may have a little bit more time to distract me from studying modern airliner systems, to the more lovely warbird taildraggers of stick and rudder, both in real film production and in the virtual world. It gave me time to release some long wanted films from the 2019 airshow season. Still more to come and all these vintage aeroplanes makes my virtual cockpit addiction flare up.
I have now bought Bodenplatte and Kuban for Il-2 and already have all the WWII aircraft in DCS. I should be able to join anything WWII you are involved in. I look forward to it.
For now I understand there is still gatherings at Mondays and also on Sundays. Not sure if Thursday is still active?
Basically both DCS and Il-2 series are played but no specific event days or campaigns going on is what I have gathered. For Mondays IL-2 series are often flown and on Sundays there is DCS.
I know SoW is gathering wind for a return to Cliffs. I would love to fly the old Hurricane once again with the EAF. I hope to dedicate time to that, when it happens.
In the meantime, I will get TS and the sims sorted for any flying that may happen this coming Sunday or Monday.
And if you are by chance online tonight or tomorrow Saturday, then I’ll take that chance to recover more quickly from rust!
I have been lurking for the past two years and finally got quarantined so I cannot film or fly, I am forced to fly virtual cockpits. And it is a great feeling to have the addiction flare up again. Just had formation and landing practice with Red in DCS Spitfire yesterday and it was messy, but so much fun!
I look forward to flying in IL-2 again as well. On Mondays 51 are most active?
Hello Storm, it’s been a looong time! I’m glad to put in a bit of time again in the virtual stick and rudder cockpits, tricycle gears are not the same.
Thank you very much. It is still unreal to me how much trust and access I have received over the few years I have followed the Norwegian Spitfire Foundation.
We are working intently on gathering funds to restore one of the last Spitfires with Norwegian war history, PL258 FN-K, a LF Mk IXe Spitfire, last flown by Ensign, Carl Jacob Stousland of 331 Squadron. Ditched after shooting down a FW-190 on new years eve, 29th December 1944 over Tubbergen, Netherlands. It was a high speed low altitude chase with weaves and barrel rolls with very little room to manoeuvre. As Stousland climbed away after shooting down the FW-190, his wingman was about to dive in incase Stousland was unable to finish the enemy fighter. They were both in each other’s blind spots and there was a mid air collision. His wingman managed to limp home with oil streaking out like a siv. Stousland’s engine seized immediately and he had to ditch. Stousland has the longest time behind enemy lines on the run without capture of any allied airmen, taken into hiding by many locals to finally reach allied lines on 19th March 1945.
When he reached friendly lines he was malnourished and weighted less than 50 kilos. When he arrived back at the Wing following the frontline and his old mates who were still alive spotted him and didn’t flinch to say “You’ve been on holiday!”
I am so thankful for being a close part in their work.
Thursdays are still a thing but, as we said on WhatsApp, it’s still mostly DCS. We can mix things up a bit though if the right people are on. There has been definite interest in IL2 BoX now that there is a Western Front presence there; but the servers can be a little inconsistent in their plane-sets. This can exclude some players at times.
I had a one hour escort flight of B-17s on SoW just now. Landed back at Tangmere as the mission ended, uneventful but at least it was nice to practice high altitude cruise and trimming between angels 29 and 32. Needless to say with so few hours in, it was not nice looking, lot of phugoid.
Yes on mondays we are most active, even with Italian Wing guys, more or less 15 players in some nice missions on their server and Tactical Air War too.
Great! Will it be IL-2 tonight? Any aircraft I should prepare? Preparation, preparation and preparation is what I like. And it will be the first time I fly almost any aircraft except the Yak-1 and IL-2. I presume Bodenplatte aircraft. I would focus on the Allied and Spitfire IX and P-51D, but I do now have all aircraft in the sim, except for the Po-2 and Ju-52.
I’ll be on DCS, last chance to fly the F-14 for free (for now at least). Lovely module btw, but I don’t have time to learn it properly, so I’ll give it a pass for now at least.
