European Rise Of Flight Night

[Jediteo]

After a series of discussions with several of the dogs regarding the establishment of a Rise of Flight night that suits the European dogs. The Wednesday night flying has been a success however flying at 3-4 in the morning can be a bit difficult for most of us. This leads me to pose this simple question, which day would be suitable for such a night.

The difficulty herein is to avoid interfering too much with normal IL2 coop nights, but also balancing it with accessibility and availability. And of course, this would be open to our North American brethren as well. The suggestions so far is either Saturday or Sunday, perhaps replacing the ubizoo coops (Not like we get any volume of those people these days anyway). Rise of Flight is free these days, and most computers can run it well. In case you are feeling a bit intrigued http://riseofflight.com/tryrof/en

Additionally, it is a lot of fun.

Anyone have any suggestions on a day?

[fruitbat]

every other sunday.

[DD_Arthur]

every other sunday.

Yes, perfect!! I think it's really important to involve the North American guys. MadTrooper, Propnut, Gustang, etc. They've been making the running with RoF and it would be great to be able to hook up with them again. Also, it would provide an opportunity for Tribunus to participate especially as he's kinda out on a limb being ahead of everyone time-wise.

I've really got into RoF this summer especially as CoD ran out of steam for me (geddit!!). It dosen't seem to be moving along into anything much playable yet whereas RoF goes from strength to strength. The latest patch has been the best yet for me. Proper dual-core support has made it really smooth and stutter free with decent fps on my fairly modest system. This has transformed the online game for me too.

I'm right up for it.

[PropNut]

I would love to be able to fly RoF with more Dogz, every other Sunday afternoon would work perfectly for me.

David

[MadTrooper]

That would really be great, however for me I have to work every other weekends so I should be able to attend every so often.

MT

[fruitbat]

That would really be great, however for me I have to work every other weekends so I should be able to attend every so often.

MT

We just make sure we time it so the every other week, is the every other weekend you have off

It would be really great to fly with you guys from across the pond

[DD_Fenrir]

+ 1 x 10⁶

[DD_Arthur]

From "Sagittarius Rising" the memoir of Cecil Lewis; 56 Squadron patrol, 7th. May, 1917:

The squadron sets out eleven strong on the evening patrol. Eleven

chocolate-coloured, lean, noisy bullets; lifting, swaying, turning,

rising into formation - two fours and a three - circling and

climbing away steadily towards the lines. They are off to deal with

Richtofen and his circus of red Albatrosses.

The May evening is heavy with threatening masses of cumulous

cloud, majestic skyscapes, solid looking as snow mountains, fraught

with caves and valleys, rifts and ravines - strange secret pathways

in the chartless continents of the sky. Below the land becomes an

ordnance map, dim green and yellow, and across it go the lines,

drawn anyhow, as a child might scrawl with a double pencil. The

grim dividing lines! From the air robbed of all significance.

Steadily the body of scouts rises higher and higher, threading it's

way between the cloud precipices. Sometime below, the streets of a

village, the corner of a wood, a few dark figures moving, glides into

view, like a slide into a lantern and then is hidden again.

But the fighting pilot's eyes are not on the ground, but roving

endlessly through the lower and higher reaches of the sky, peering

anxiously through fur-lined goggles to spot those black, slow-moving

specks against land or cloud which mean full throttle, tense muscles,

held breadth and the headlong plunge with screaming wires - a Hun

in the sights and the tracers flashing.

A red light curls up from the leader's cockpit and falls away.

Action! He alters direction slightly and the patrol, shifting rudder

and throttle, keep close like a pack of hounds on the scent. He has

seen, and they see soon, six scouts 3000 feet below. Black crosses!

It seems interminable till the eleven come within diving distance.

The pilots nurse their engines, hard-minded and set, test their guns

and watch their indicators. At last the leader sways sideways, as a

signal for attack - and suddenly drops.

Machines fall scattering, the earth races up, the enemy patrol,

startled, wheels and breaks. Each his man! The chocolate thunder-

bolts take sights, steady their screaming planes and fire. A burst,

fifty rounds; it is over. They have overshot; the enemy, hit or missed,

is lost for the moment. The pilot steadies his stampeding mount, pulls

her with a firm hand, twisting his head left and right, trying to

follow his man, to sight another, to back up a friend in danger, to

note another in flames.

But the squadron had not seen, far off, approaching from the east,

the rescue flight of Red Albatrosses, patrolling above the formation

on which they had dived, to guard their tails and second them in the

battle. These, seeing the maze of wheeling machines, plunge down to

join them. The British scouts, engaging and disengaging, like flies

circling in a summer room, soon find the newcomers upon them.

Then, as if attracted by some mysterious power, as vultures will

draw to a corpse in the desert, other flights of machines swoop down

from the peaks of the cloud mountains. More enemy scouts and, by

good fortune, a flight of naval triplanes.

But nevertheless the enemy, more than double in number, greater

in power and fighting with skill and courage, gradually overpower

the British, whose machines scatter, driven down beneath the scarlet

German fighters.

It would be impossible to describe the action of such a battle. A

pilot, in the second between his own engagements, might see a Hun

diving vertically, an SE5 on his tail, on the tail of the SE another

Hun and above him another British scout. These four, plunging headlong

at 200 mph, guns cracking, tracers streaming, suddenly break up.

The lowest Hun plunges flaming to his death, if death has not taken

him already. His victor seems to stagger, suddenly pulls out in a

great leap, as a trout leaps on the end of a line, and then turning

over on his belly, swoops, spins in a dizzy falling spiral, with the

earth to end it. The third German zooms, veering and the last of the

meteoric quartet follows, bursting...But such a glimpse, lasting

perhaps ten seconds, is broken by the sharp rattle of another attack.

Two machines approach head-on at full throttle, firing at each other,

tracers whistling through each other's planes, each slipping sideways

on his rudder to trick the other's gunfire. Who will hold longest?

Two hundred yards, 100 yards, 50, and then, neither hit, with one

accord they fling their machines sideways, bank and circle, each

striving to bring his gun on to the other's tail, each glaring through

goggle eyes, calculating, straining, wheeling, grim; bent only on

death or dying.

But from above this strange tormented circling is seen by another

Hun. He drops. His gun speaks. The British machine, distracted by

the sudden unseen enemy, pulls up, takes a burst through engine,

tank and body and falls, bottom uppermost, down through the

clouds and the deep unending desolation of the twilight sky.

The game of noughts and crosses, starting at 15,000 feet above

the clouds, drops in altitude, engagement by engagement. Friends

and foe are scattered. A last SE, pressed by two Huns plunges and

wheels, gun jammed, like a snipe over marshes, darts lower, finds

refuge in ground mist and disappears.

Now lowering clouds darken the evening. Below flashes of gunfire

stab the veil of the gathering dusk. The fight is over! The battlefield

shows no sign. In the pellucid sky, serene cloud mountains mass and

move unceasingly. Here, where guns ratle and death plucked the

spirits of the valiant, this thing is now as if it had never been! The

sky is busy with night, passive, superb, unheeding.

[Tribunus]

Any day that I can fly with you gentlemen ......... (well, some of you are).......... without having to get up at 4 AM will be fine by me.

I'm fully aware that being GMT +2, makes me the odd man out as far as time zones. Plus being in a Muslim country, my weekend is Friday and Saturday.

So I'll happily conform to whatever the group decides on.

[MadTrooper]

That would really be great, however for me I have to work every other weekends so I should be able to attend every so often.

MT

We just make sure we time it so the every other week, is the every other weekend you have off

It would be really great to fly with you guys from across the pond

Hey Fruitbat, thanks my friend but troulbe is that I dont know when I will be available to fly with you guys. It will also be that some times I will have to work 2 weekends in a row Anyways, I'l try to make it for sure.

Thanks.