DD_Arthur

Happy birthday Funflak, m8. Hope you have a great day!

Nice pics FruitBat. I think I've seen a piccy of that old boy before. Was it on page 3 of the Angling Times? Oh yeah, shouldn't Painless be sitting in that Spitfire?

I've been wasting my life playing this for about three weeks as ArthurSmedley. So lets get this straight. When it comes back we'll be able to create our own rooms/play as a squad? Fantastic I must say WoT is a great way to use a few minutes waiting for a coop to start!

Ooops. Another one I've missed. Happy belated birthday guys. Hope you had a good time.

Happy birthday Jabo! Hope you and your new shiny multi-coreness have a great day.

Nice pics Jabo. 'That one' is now my desktop. My brother-in-law went to RIAT. He loves jets and the Raptor display was like nothing he'd ever seen before.

What a great weekend. Really good to meet all those familiar voices face to face. Thanks to Fruitbat I found the Dogz sitting beneath the shade of a VC10. Phew wot a scorcher! Had a quick look around the American hanger. Wow, I followed the 'path' up and around and the stuff they've got in there is amazing. And then there was the evening! BG gives a demo of professional scotch whisky tasting Roll on next year.

YES, YES, yes, yes, yes! Was talking to Largie during the finale at Duxford and we both agreed we want to do the Balbo one night. Take off, form up and a couple of close formation low passes would be great. Then see if we could actually land in group formation

O.K., Schools out, run the gauntlet of yummy mums. Taken my newish crap car to be fixed. Picked up courtesy car. It's a fuggin' Transit Connect van! "Er, we're a bit short of cars this week. Sorry." Decide not to tell 'em I'm gonna put 400 miles on the clock and crash out in it! Off home for curry, strength three, sh*t, shave , shower. Then early start tomorrow a.m. Should I bring chairs and picnic rug, Gimp mask for Jedi? See you all tomorrow mid-morning. Stand by Jabo, Sid for heavy breathing phone calls to find you all at Duxford. Looking forward to this no end

Nice pics Rattler Some of them actually show me shooting things down without crashing Despite this I think the formation of Ponies would make a great desktop.

Holland just beat Brazil 2-1. That was very cool.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man;

Ah, the international language of men travelling without their wives.

Hmm, it's just that occasionally the busty, half-naked young women are accompanied by muscular, half-naked young men equipped with these and we wouldn't want any sort of international incident would we? Btw, have you checked out Google street view? If you know the zip-code of your flop house you can take a virtual walk from the tube station. Pooka and BG are staying at Captain Blighs gaff, which you can see is just over the road from the Imperial War Museum; My link Weird stuff. This morning I "walked" from the house we lived in when I was a nipper to my primary school. A journey I last took nearly forty years ago.

Hey, JP. What time do you arrive at Heathrow and at what terminal? If it's between 6am and 11pm I'd take the London Underground service. The line to Heathrow is called the Piccadilly line. Take this to Green Park station and change onto the Jubilee Line. It's easy. Waterloo is one stop away. In all it will take about an hour. Have a look at this; My link N.B. Generally considered best practise to stay away from half-naked, busty young women on the 'Tube.'

Hello Bucky. Check out the Tutorials section. Snacko has posted a comrehensive guide to setting up and using the UP mod package.

Yep, just tried now Crash and get the same thing. Wasn't there a sticky up about board maintenance comimg up?

I can't decide whether they deserve to get boarded by the IDF or drafted by the IDF

I've read his fantastic Stalingrad book. Almost made me sympathetic to the krauts. Almost. If you like Anthony Beevor I think you'd like Max Hastings too, JP. Very well researched and written.

It's my desktop for this week. Now my wife really can call me a tit!!

If it is on the way out and they offer you a replacement perhaps try a little negociating and see if they'll substitute an Nvidia card instead? Gotta be worth a try. Also, I seem to remember an interview a couple of years back with a member of Oleg's team who said stick with Nvidia for SoW. I don't know my arse from my elbow when it comes to such things but your old card is still performing faultlessly in my machine m8. Advice threads about gfx cards and IL2 seem to centre around two themes; how to get even more performance from Nvidia cards or how to eliminate gfx glitches with ATI cards.

My mate Rick has been flying since he was about five years old. His father taught him. This is his dream come true, his own plane. It's a Europa, which is a kit. It started life nearly twenty years ago when the previous owner bought the kit and had a wing and the tail assembly professionally built. Then either the money or the enthusiasm ran out. Luckily he had it stored properly for the next fifteen or so years until Rick, who's a self-employed builder, came along to build an extension to the guys house and they got talking aeroplanes. A deal was done, the bits were hauled back to my mates garage and he set about with gusto. Five years and lots of wonga and hammered credit cards later this is the result. I know it looks a little odd but it's one hot little ship. Cruise is 145kts thanks to the retractable, single track undercart, nice slippery shape and constant speed prop. It's brand new Rotax engine is economical and runs on unleaded from garage forecourt pumps. Think Lotus rather than Ferrari and you get the idea. After getting it off the trailer it takes about ten minutes to rig and you're good to go. When it's on the trailer it lives in his garage at home. He's had it certified and tested and signed off and has been flying it for nearly a month now and has put twenty-six hours on it including a trip to Le Tourquet last week. On Tuesday evening we went for a spin, taking off from Dunkeswell, an old wartime bomber base about ten miles north of where I live. Since him and his missus are restoring an old farmhouse in Northern Portugal the idea is to be able to fly down there so he's really gone to town on the cockpit and avionics. There's about six grands worth of glass instruments, gps, constant speed control unit and radio in here. It'l be worth it though as with this sought of cruise speed you can really go places. There's always something interesting to see at Dunkeswell. I don't know what this is, some sort of Lockheed perhaps? I've seen and heard it flying overhead occasionally and it makes a great noise. Dunkeswell itself is an interesting old place. It's one of three airfields built within a span of five miles up here in the Blackdown hills on the Devon/Somerset border. Dunkeswell was the first to be built and construction was started in mid-1941. It was originally intended to be an RAF fighter airfield but on completion in the spring of 1943 was handed over to an anti submarine wing of the USAAF, flying B-24's. As you can see, the two main runways are still in use though now shortened which precludes the use of larger aircraft. This happened in the mid-eighties when some twit also demolished the unique and historically important control tower before it could be made a listed building. The last big thang' into Dunkeswell was b-17 Sally B in about 1985, I think. However, this also means it's a non-starter for commercial aviation which is thriving down the road at the once RNAS field outside Exeter. Dunkeswell is the main GA field in this part of the world and is doing quite well out of it. Plenty of old hard-standings to be seen from the air and you get the idea of the general layout. The Americans stationed here called the place 'Mudville Heights' and it's a pretty accurate description if you had to live here through an average British winter. Sometime in 1944 the USAAF moved out and the USN moved their version of the B-24 in to carry on the anti-submarine patrols. I'm not sure about the numbers but this group were successful, sinking a number of U-boats that year including the first snorkel boat sunk by an aircraft and in the spring of 45' making the first successful attack on a U-boat with a homing torpedo. This was the home base of Lt. Joseph Kennedy Jnr., the eldest of the Kennedy brothers before he was killed in action in 1944. About two miles away and sharing the same landing pattern is what remains of RAF Upottery; Today its known as 'Smeatharpe Stadium' the home of Banger racing with a little dirt track and carting thrown in. Construction began here in the summer of '43 and by then the airfield contractors had really got their act together and the site was handed over to the 439th. troop carrier group of the USAAF and their C-47's the following spring. Gliders were also stationed at Upottery and it was from here that the 101st. Airborne division took off for Ste Mere Eglise behind Utah beach and a well-earned place in history. The third airfield in the area, RAF Church Stanton, is another couple of miles north of here and on its closure became home to Culm Head listening station, an outpost of the very hush, hush GCHQ, linked to the NSA in the states. Thats been closed since the early nineties and you can only just make out what would have been the main runway from the air now. None of the concrete runways and hardstandings have ever been lifted. Nature has just been allowed to take it's fairly swift course. Very well fertilised by an abundance of Cow shit too. This is dairy country. We flew, actually I flew us to Portland on the Dorset coast and what a great little plane this is. Although it's not aerobatic it is very responsive and you fly her with a stick, not a wheel or 'spectacles' At the moment she flies a little bit left wing low and with no aileron trim you just need to keep the lightest pressure on the stick to keep her level but Ricks on the case. On the way back Rick took her over and being such a beautiful, calm evening with the sea like glass we took the scenic route home along the Jurassic Coast.' This is the mole at Lyme Regis from about 100' and 130kts. This is the first 'little' plane I've ever flown in where you say "Did you see that?" rather than a more leisurely "Look at that" @Cessna. This is Golden Cap and at a little over 600ft. are the highest cliffs in southern England. I must apologise for these pictures. I'm not the greatest of photographers, my camera is now seven years out of date and the Europa is no camera ship. Beer Head cliffs. Nearly thirty years ago we had to abseil down these bastards as part of our Commando course. We were bloody mad This is Sidmouth, the town outside of which I live and we climb here for the turn inland, a couple of low passes over my house for the benefit of my youngest son and we're almost back to Dunkeswell. Nice little plane. Me want.

Well done Sid for achieving the highest score in a coop I've ever seen; Twenty-two hundred points!! This was achieved without having to sink any ships, hit any ground targets or drop nuclear weapons. Ammunition was NOT unlimited, there was fighter opposition and there were no planes in the air with more than two three engines.(JU-52's - still, nice work!) Nice one Sidley I have the trak and if anyone would like to see the maestro at work in his P-47, please, please tell me how to post it in the vault!

I thought the Imperial War Museum was in London? The Imperial War Museum is based in London BG and the Duxford collection is part of it. Just this bit is at er, Duxford. A private tour on Friday without the crowds? You lucky bastiges! Nice one JP Unfortunately I won't be turning up 'till Saturday morning