[FS~Lewis]

Met Gilly and a few of the chaps at Duxford this year....Was a great meet and we had a good time at the campsite...We were next to their tents but didn't talk til the Saturday evening..Dang!Sure wished we had spoke sooner...but never mind I'm sure we will make up for it next year.......Also Big Hello to the Norwegian fellas and big ~S~ for travelling that far to experience some of our humble Brit hospitality....

IL2 1946 PC online....

There's always room for more folks to join the small (compared to other PC games communities) group of IL2 Pc gamers we have. Most folks tend to join via Hyperlobby and I think thats still the best way to join.

Just like you chaps we are a small community following our love of WWII aircraft...(lets face it Flying one in an online flight sim is about the closest that most of us are going to get to flying the real thing)...I guess the only difference between the WOP chaps and us is we use a different tool (PC) to get access to the same thrill thats all......So If any of you do want to fly with us, against us or just have fun flying then you are always welcome over at www.skiesoffire.org and our servers.....We run 2 servers, one closed cockpit with missions based on historical battles for the die hard historians and a fun open cockpit (wonderwoman view) where you can just fly around and dogfight in pretty much any aircraft you choose...You'll find both servers in Hyperlobby and we are usually popular so near the top (and have been for 3 years)

One thing you will need if you are interested apart from obviously the game is a flight stick..... I have found in my experience talking with the vets in our community that the most popular stick is the 'Microsoft Sidewinder 2' (NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH MS SIDEWINDER 1 which is usually just called the sidewinder)....You can pick these up cheap on ebay (around £10/$15 inc. postage if you look long enough) and are a good workhorse stick for new players and the experienced vets...They also last yonks (I have a squad mate who has had the same stick for 9 years)and for the used price you can't go far wrong to just to try it can you....

The website forums we have loads of stuff for new or experienced pilots to troll and we are very 'New Pilot' friendly...We realise that in order for our small community to thrive we must encourage the new and its fun to see them getting better and then kicking our experienced butts in a couple weeks too.....and that is exactly what happens...By the way any of you that do try IL2 1946 will not be 'new pilots' will you if you already have been flying WOP..I mean you already have a big head start...

And don't forget if you are worried about graphics issues then just checkout IL2 1946 on youtube..loads of stuff there..

Just a couple of issues that you may find interesting that you may/may not have on WOP is that we can 'Ntrk' on IL2....This means that we can record the whole environment (over periods of hours if we wish) to watch later from any other aircrafts point of view.....I know its only a small thing but I found this amazing when I first realised it and spent hours analyzing the way I and other pilots were flying in order to get better.....Usually at the dinner table on my laptop...to the annoyance of the missus.....hehe

We also have stats pages over at skies of fire...Here we can see who we have shot down over the month (the stats are reset every month) , who has shot us, our kill death ratio (k/d) and our gunstats (accuracy percentage)....Thought I'd mention it I don't know if you have those on WOP and they enhance the game for us when we use then.....Always interesting to try and beat your last months stats...

Anyways folks there it is....Have fun always and maybe we will see you in our servers some time...

~S~

...lew...

PS....Gill..email me if I havent given you the link to our pics of the Duxford weekend..theres a couple of you guys on them....