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[pippin]

Cheers dave,
      I will fish out my old Biggles books as you say they are a bit dated and were writen for a younger reader back in the day. But these WW1 fighter books were writen around the1930s (not too long after the war) and W. E. Johns was a first world war pilot, so I would think that most of what he wrote was based around fact.

Cracking set of images there agracier!

                        Ian

                    Ian

[vpmedia]

Just to show how complicated and bulky all this early material was, here are a few photos from period magazines showing telegraph relays, field phones and a command center to coordinate against Zeppelin attacks.

Marconi, 1896





Connecticut T&E
U.S. Army BC-15A
1918
First transmitter (spark gap) designed for aircraft. Used in WWI.



Westinghouse GN4 Avionics Alternator & Transmitter
Signal Corps type SCR73
~1918

Many observation aircraft carried this type of equipment late in the war.
Germans were a bit ahead in this too iirc.

[pippin]

I found this article on the net which explains the use of morse code to direct the guns.

http://www.firstworldwar.com/airwar/observation.htm

                         Ian

[David Prosser]

Probably quite a bit of autobiography thinly disguised as fiction. The first one I read was Biggles in the Baltic. Dad brought it home. That's what started me on the road to being a war geek. Oh, and a history geek.  I had about 35-40 of the 80. Like a moron, I gave them away to a neighbour's kid in the early 80s.

cheers

David

                   

[pippin]

They appear on Ebay quite a lot. Not exactly adult reading but for any WW1 aviators a great read.

Pioneer air fighter
The camels are coming
Biggles and the rescue flight
Biggles of 266

   These come to mind as dealing with WW1 I am sure there are more.

                                             Ian

[Badmuthafunker]

Hi, Ian, it was a long time ago. Circa 1970. Probably Biggles Pioneer Air fighter. That's the one where he's flying FE2ds. It might be hard to find now. Not very PC   . Some are currently in print though. From memory. Biggles of 266.

Definitely Biggles Pioneer Air Fighter, David. I've still got it, published by Dean & Son. He's flying a Camel though; not FE2s.

Here's the footnote from "The Zone Call"

1 A Zone Call was aspecial call from an aircraft to the artillary and was only used in very exeptional circumstances. When the zone call was tapped out by the wireless operator it was followed by the pin-point of the target. Military maps were divided into squares and smaller squares, each square numbered and lettered.  By this means it was possible to name any spot on the map instantly. When a zone call was sent out, every weapon of every calibre within range, directed rapid fire on the spot, and this may have meant that hundreds of guns opened up at once on the same spot. The result can be better imagined than described. Obviously such a treatment was terribly expensive, costing possibly £10,000 a minute while it lasted, and only exeptional circumstances, such as a long line of transport, or a large body of troops, warranted the call. There was a story in France of a new officer who, in desperation, sent out a zone call on a single archie battery that was worrying him. He was court-martialled and sent home.

[David Prosser]

Ah, that's exactly the quote I was thinking of. Ten big ones would have bought you a large detached house in London, and a Roller too in those days. With enough left over for a 'romantic' week in Paris.
Didn't he start out flying FE2ds though? Don't even think of selling it, or giving it away. Sooner sell your grandmother, or the family silver 

cheers

David

[pippin]

Yes I fished my copy from out of the loft!
 Indeed there it is.

                          Ian

[pippin]

A brief look at Johns RFC (RAF) WW1 career.

T.E Johns (Biggles author)

Enlisted in the Territorial Army as a private in the King's Own Royal Regiment in 1913.
Fought at Gallipoli.
1916 Johns transferred to the Machine Gun Corps. In Greece.
hospitalised with malaria.
He was commissioned into the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) in September 1917
Served as a flying instructor until August 1918
Performed six weeks of active duty as a bomber pilot with No. 55 Squadron RAF
On 16 September 1918, he was piloting A De Havilland DH4 Bomber and was shot down and taken POW where he remained for the rest of the war.



                                         Ian

[Badmuthafunker]

Didn't he start out flying FE2ds though? Don't even think of selling it, or giving it away. Sooner sell your grandmother, or the family silver 

cheers

David

Probably, mate. But not in this particular book.

As for my granny: at my age (49) both are long gone, and the only silver I've ever owned was the paper out of a ten Number 6 packet! (for our younger members, a brand of cigarettes, popular with british schoolboys in the 1970s). 

I've also still got copies of

Biggles of 266
Biggles of the Camel Squadron
Biggles and the Black Peril
Biggles and the Rescue Flight
No Rest For Biggles

Hope this is of interest: http://www.biggles.info/

[pippin]

   Just done a quick search seems Biggles learned to fly in a Farman Shorthorn (Rumpity).
 Not sure what that puppy looks like though.

                         Ian

[vonofterdingen]

Has anyone had trouble with the Nieuport 11 in campaign mode? I had email from someone trying to fly my Dawn Patrol campaign who told me that the Nieuport was bouncing on the runway. I could not reproduce this on 1.5 but I see it now on my own install on v2. Has anyone else seen this behavior?