The Historical Aspect
The Action
I think the planes look cool
The Pilots
Other
WWI: What got you interested in WWI?
The title speaks all! What got you interested in WWI aerostuff? Elaborations below:
The historical aspect- I was interested in the invention of the the plane, the use of balloons in war, etc.
The action- I was interested in the arial battles, strategies, plane battle statistics, etc.
I think the planes look cool- Just that!!!
The Pilots- Something I heard about a pilot (example:biggles, yes he counts!)
Other- other reasons
Last edited by Aero825; 01-31-2011 at 13:58.
One word - Biggles.
Like David Manley, it was the Biggles stories, which got me interested.
Yep, Biggles is a big part of it for me too. I game all aspects of WW1, Naval and land battles. When WoW came out it was a shoo-in really.
It was a chance visit to Verdun (my family live in Metz) that kicked it all off for me.
Another for Biggles....The history's fascinating, and I'm a hopeless geek about the aircraft, but Biggles was unquestionably the first spark....
My interest in military history began with wargames, which I've been playing since the 1960's. One of the first wargames I had was Milton Bradley's Dogfight...
Dogfight.png
For me it was the game Ace of Aces...
Ken Head - "The Cowman"
You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it. Robin Williams
By the way, who's Biggles? (please don't sue me)
Last edited by Aero825; 01-24-2011 at 16:28.
I got a model kit of a Nieuport 17...don't know any more on what occasion... When I started reading the instructions I found out that the Belgian Air service used that aircraft in WWI. From that moment on I went hunting for books and magazines on the subject. And as I was already playing wargames, Wings of War just offers me the best of both worlds.
A combination of the Aurora 1/48th WWI a/c, which were getting pretty darn nice when they quit making them, and MB's Dogfight.
For me, I have always been an aviation geek, so naturally anything to do with planes appeals.
For me it was the CPU Amiga 500 game "Wings"
And the Strategic Game "History Line 1914-1918"
And I Like the Colorfull aspeckt of the German Planes!!
Mfg
Andreas
Ditto!Originally Posted by tuladin
For me it was the (in)famous Roger Corman movie. And there especially these roaring, colorful yet fragile birds which caught my eyes (and imagination) instantly.
Years later the amiga-game wings did it for me too. It never really left me since then. Hell, i love these birds!
I'm not really sure, so I voted "I think the planes look cool." When I was a kid I had a collection of Bachmann Mini-planes, many of which were WWI. I loved those things, so every time I saw WoW in the game store I thought of those, and how much fun I had back in the early 80s playing Ace of Aces. Now, I'm hooked.
How about you, Hunter? I know you once posted "If you ask me, to heck with history! It's boring!" Has the WWI history bug bit you yet?
I played War Games for years.. and found Richthofen's War by Avalon Hill.. I loved that game.. and then I saw this.. I was hooked even before I bought the first box.. lol.. but when I did buy that first box.. I got like... 8 of the planes and one of the maps.. lol.. dropped 150 bucks that weekend .. and it hasn't stopped yet.. lol..
I've been playing wargames since I was in 3rd grade!! (about 2,000 years ago). My favorite periods, however, are the American Revolution (sorry my Brit friends!), and most anything in the 19th century...WWI was close enough to the 1800's that it wasn't that much of a stretch for me...
What I like best about WW1
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When I was a kid it was the planes, I could buy a model WW1 plane for $1.00. Then I read the "Falcons of France" when I was in 8th grade. Then the history books on WW1 airwars started. Then I started building and designing WW1 RC micro planes:
I LIKE EVERY THING ABOUT WW1 AIR COMBAT.
Last edited by Mike George; 01-24-2011 at 18:29.
I've always had an interest.
Mark, who reenact WWI and has been trying to tempt me over for a while now, sent me a vid of the guys that do the WWI dogfights over the Newville PA trenches for the big WWI reenactments. Those vids, and the recent (mostly horrible but partially brillant) Red Baron movie put it back in the front of my brain.
Zach
Had aviation crammed down my throat from even before I was born, and despite being primarily WWII and Cold War in most of my efforts "rewound" to WWI because the minis were just the right size to use as desktop decor, then one thing led to another... ironically, in WoW it's my nominal area of expertise where I'm the laggard.LOL
He tends to do that, doesn't he. 8^)
I'm trying to resist that urge, if for no other reason that I have no idea where I would put more reenacting stuff, especially a 1:1 scale airplane.
Albert Ball started it when my dad took me to see his mementoes in the museum. Then some friends started playing W.O.W. and that was it for me.
Rob.
"Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death."
Airfix and Revell kits, together with an interest in military history.
Run for your life - there are stupid people everywhere!
Probably the Red Baron PC game, with special mention of it's really impressive manual with lots of historical information. The whole "knights of the sky" mystique, I suppose. I'd already been playing wargames a good few years before then, and I'd already dabbled with 1/72 scale WW1 aircraft (using a rules set the name of which escapes me), but that really brought the period alive for me. I'd not really looked at the period for the best part of a decade, but WOW sparked my interest again when the first minis appeared at my LGS.
For me it was the planes. Something cool about the bi-plane that has always thrilled me since I was a kid. I remember seeing a bi-plane fly over our house on rare occasion when I was growing up in the mountains of central PA. We could always tell when it was coming because of the sound. It was always a thrill to watch it fly by and I think I just carried that childhood thrill with me all these years.
I can't really choose one of the answers, because it was all of them! I've been interested in aviation since I was 10, and voraciously read everything about airplanes I could get my hands on. As I got older, I would go through phases: jet phase, WWII phase, fighter phase, civil phase, etc. It was just natural that I end up in WWI sooner or later. All of this was fueled by museum visits, air field visits (where I would see local guys working on their kit planes), book purchases and library visits, wargames and computer games.
I like the WWI aspect of Wings of War because I like the planes, but also the era, the pilots, and the fact that the "zoom and boom" tactics of WWII hadn't appeared yet.
When I was a kid back in the 1969s I bought the game Dogfight by Milton Bradley.. I still have the same game...Also reading about WWI air warfare.
Blue Max/Canvas Eagles was the hook that caught me (still my favorite WWI game).
I blame the teachers! What DO you have in the school library?
Squadron Leader James Bigglesworth - Biggles to his freinds - was a fictitious character created by real WWI aviator Capt W. E. Johns. He served in the Great War, then with Algy Lacey (his cousin) and later a protege, one "Ginger" Hebblethwaite spent the interwar years fighting bush wars in easetern Europe, running a charter business and touring the world with occaisional trips into danger for Colonel Raymond of Intelligence and saw action in Spain.
During the Second World War he commanded 666 sqn and served in all theatres of war again working with Raymond (Now an Air Commodore) from time to time.
Once hostilities were over Biggles became the first commander of the Air Police and continued to defend the realm against spies from eastern europe, organised crime and assisting where there was an aviation angle to disappeared valuables etc. - Johns was a devil for rehashing his stories, releasing them twice under different titles and pinching other stories and putting aeroplanes in them (eg the Prisoner of Zenda).
DO NOT WATCH THE 1986 FILM! It is truly awful.
Reprints of some of the books are available still and at least over here in Blighty, older editions are common in 2nd hand bookshops. - Well worth the search.
Every boy of my generation and older knows Biggles. Fewer know of his female "version" Joan Worrallson (AKA Worralls) and "Gimlet" King of the Commandos - an intrepid Royal Marine. Or of the Mars books.
http://www.biggles.info/
GO Hunter! Read some! (I prefer the WWI stories myself).
I always liked the blue max film with George Peppard but since I was introduced to Wings of War about a week ago by my friend Algynon I am flying high.
O.K. it was Snoopy and the Red Baron and a cartoon with this German guy and his flying dog who laughed funny like a snicker. Then came the history and books.
Tom
That was "Stop that pigeon" The Baddie was **** Dastardly, and the dog's name was Muttley. We all loved the dog.
Rob.
"Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death."
Biggles of the Camel Squadron, Victor comic, Airfix WW1Aircraft kits. Big gap till I found WoW.
Biggles also had as an associate Bertie, cant remember last name
Last edited by Boney10; 01-26-2011 at 05:23.
I voted "I think the planes look cool" because, well, it's a long story. I used to watch this show called "Dogfights" on the history channel. I loved it more than any other aviation show. Then there was a special WWI episode, and I liked it, and basically kept my eye out for WWI models from then on. A few forms of time length later, my dad took me to a gaming shop and I saw a WOW Sopwith Camel on the shelf. I begged my father to get it for me, and eventually he gave in. I had just wanted thev model, but my dad did some research on the game, bought Famous Aces, then Watch your back, then Burning Drachens, then a whole mess of other WOW stuff.
By the way, I still say to heck with history. I hate bugs.
Bugs?By the way, I still say to heck with history. I hate bugs.
I'm too dense to understand your reply.
But trust me, as a long time history buff, reality is far more captivating than anything a screen writer could come up with.
Lord Bertie Lissie.
(Straight rip off from PG Wodehouse - just left Jeeves out of it, what?)
Thats the chappie, totally agree about the film of Biggles was crass, or should that be Cra*
My Grandad was with the Cdn 3rd Engineers, and served under Yrpes. My dad has the whole fruit salad he wore as well as 2 strange things, one is the propeller tip of an aircraft he saw shot down, he and his mates went out to collect the prop tip as a souviner, he even scribbled the date the a/c was shot down on it in pencil. I've been through the company diaries but I haven't found reference to it. Another piece was a chunk of bronze, dad eventually told me that its part of a church bell that his father and friends blew up, just to get the souviner too. The last bit I never saw. Apparently he collected a rosary off a dead German soldier, when my mom found out, she made him take it to a church.
It ends up that my Grandad was a bit of a nutter.
Understand Brad?
I've been fascinated with airplanes for as long as I can remember. The idea of being able to move in three dimensions has always been intriguing to me. Combine that with my love for history and the cool looking WWI planes, and WoW was an easy purchase.
I was so enamored with airplanes that I went to college to get a degree in aeronautical engineering. Ironically, after getting three degrees in aerospace engineering, I work in the missile and launch vehicle arena. So, I get my kicks with airplanes through games.
Ah! Now I get it. Thanks for your patience
One word - The Historical Aspect
The majority of my posts attest to it
Attilio
old Aurora kits 1/48 of late 50s and 60s
That's it Muttley, loved that dog. You brought a smile to my face. Thanks
Tom
My interest was first "sparked" when I saw the old B & W Film "Dawn Patrol" with Errol Flynn & David Niven back when I was a young teen.
Then followed Biggles Books by the score, Airfix & Revell Kits, Profile Publications, Biographies etc etc.
Now its the Osprey Aces series, Peter Killduff books, Biographies, Squadron Histories, WW1 DVD Docos, Corgi 1/48th Models & of course Wings Of War!
Anyone interested in the History, Aircraft, Camo & Markings plus the Pilots, I really recommend you look up & Join the "WW1 Aerodrome Forum". You can also find it by Googleing "WW1 Aces". Great site with many respected Historians & Authors!
G'day There! Is that Bluedevil from the WW1 Aerodrome Aces Forum????
I just replied to your post about Flt Sub Ltn. Warnerford if it is.
See you over there !
Are you referring to the forum at www.theaerodrome.com? Or is it some other site? (If so, please link.)
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