Techromancer: So I'm flying as a German pilot earlier (Feldwebel Rudi Hentzau in his Albatros D.II) on an offensive patrol. Very near our target, Oberleutnant Stroud (the only other pilot in the flight) dives to attack some Nieuport 17s. I down one, but Herr Oberleutnant is still busy with his so, not wishing to spoil his fun, I amuse myself by strafing an Allied aerodrome that happens to be right there. After a few passes, I check and the fight is still going on. Resisting the temptation to join in (it's bad luck to steal a superior officer's kill!), I circle back around to the airfield.

There, just starting to taxi along the runway are four lovely B.E.2s trying to take off. Even better, my turn is bringing me up behind them at low level. It's Christmas for Rudi :)

Barely airborne, still over the field, the leftmost plane takes a burst and falls sharply away. There is an explosion below, followed by the sound of the ambulance, as I line up the next plane. A few bursts and down he goes. The third follows him quickly. Number four is attempting to make it away over the hangers, but he doesn't get very far. Four kills in perhaps thirty seconds!

Alas, the Oberleutnant was still dueling his Nieuport when four more arrived and he crashed after a collision. Rudi managed to take down at least one before being badly wounded and fleeing (I figured it's a bad sign when the screen is tinted red). He made it back to base, but crashed while trying to land and was invalided out. Still, it was worth it for that moment at the airfield.

I love this game!

Techromancer: /snip

Selderij: I was a French pilot and I was doing a patrol over the front line. I encountered some Eindeckers and did away with the others, but one more remained. I finally got behind him and fired a burst at the plane: the plane caught on fire in a magnificent manner and spiralled... up? The plane did a constant turn without losing speed, climbing higher and higher in the process, all the while burning. At first I wasn't sure if the pilot was dead, but after a while I reckoned he must have died. I stayed around for a few minutes just gazing at the burning monoplane ascending to the heavens.

It was somewhat reminiscent of one scene in Porco Rosso (1992) where the protagonist loses his friends in an air battle, blacks out and sees his friends flying in their planes to join a massive cloud of planes high in the sky, all apparently ones that had been shot down before.

Wailwulf: I have had planes where the enemy pilot has jumped due to fire, but the pane kept flying for a long time, even gaining air. That s one thing RB3D can not model well, the loss of aerodynamics as the canvas burns away.

lordhoff: As I recall, prior to some fixes, damaged planes used to climb better and high altitude problems were never fixed with the resort to limiting altitude artificially (ie, planes that could historically fly and fight higher were limited) probably due to the same reason I'd guess.

Sure would be nice for someone to develop a Red Baron IV up to modern standards.