Ramblings Over the Front

Paul F. Baer in front of his SPAD S.VII

As members of the forum may know, I have some great interest in the Escadraille Americaine/Lafayette Escadrille/103rd Aero. I have a few planes to represent the various stages of this squadron, ranging from two Nieuport N.11 repaints, to the Thaw/Lufbery Nieuport N.17, to four SPAD S.VIIs for the 103rd Aero. Also, one of the interesting American pilots of the war, and one who was the American Ace of Aces ...

Originally Posted by predhead

Looking through various aircraft ratings and seeing that perhaps the Ponnier's climb rate (according to the good work the unofficial stats committee does for the rest of us) is on the low side. Comparing rates of climb using the Wings of Linen site, and averaging when applicable if the is a variation of climb time. The numbers in parenthesis are the game climb rates):

Nieuport N.11 - 3000 meters in 17.33 minutes - 568 feet per minute (4)
Nieuport N.16 - 3000 meters in 10.17

...

The Wright Flight gathered together yesterday for our monthly Wings of War/Glory session at the Dragon's Guildhall near Dayton, Ohio. I believe there were eight of us nefarious types present to see a couple of Handley-Page beasts grace the table, escorted by a single Brisfit, facing off against a mix of German late war aircraft (three Fokker D.VIIs, one Fokker D.VIII, and one SSW D.III). The bombers had targets to bomb on three places marked out on a city mat (we used three mats altogether). ...

Campaign Thoughts I - The Wright Flight have been talking for some time about doing a campaign, allowing players to develop a pilot persona that would carry over from gaming session to gaming session. One of the members suggested using the American 94th Aero and picking a German Jasta as their counterparts. If we do a campaign based on the 94th Aero, some factors to be considered before even delving into how would we track kills, earn Ace skills, set up scenarios ...

There are a SLEW of pictures found in this album: http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/album.php?albumid=3126

I believe I have recovered sufficiently enough to put together a bit of a summary of my experiences of the recent Dawn Patrol, held at the National Museum of the United States Air Force. Overall, it was a great weekend. The weather cooperated with cool morning temps ...