Blasphemy!

C Grube;
Lucky you! Is the triplane as hard to fly as I've heard? Do you have a rotary engine?

Rittm;
Because his parents are friends of my parents, the whole thing is now my fault. I over- reacted! I was the one who was brused and bleeding with my clothes torn, but I over-reacted!..My mother even said I should tell him I'am sorry for vomiting in his face and messing up the inside of his car! That will be the day!
Jeni

Jeni,
We have talked before on this subject, but Ill be happy to share with you again.
I waited 25 years to build this. Just for the conditions of time and money to be right....they arn't but what the hell!
I started the tripe 3 years ago from plans prepared by a guy named Ron Sands. Its sitting on its gear with tail feathers completed and working guns (2). Wings are being constructed as we speak and Im working on the controls now. No I have never flown a triplane. You wont either unless you buy or build your own! And no one would be crazy enough to loan their tripe to anyone! Waite..I take that back. I know one guy who did, and it came back in pieces.....and I mean pieces!
Anyway, no, I have no plans to sit behind a cranky old LeRhone rotary engine. Those darn things are dirty, loud and smelly. Not to mention not too reliable. I'm pushing 40 now and kinda like to live a few more years.

Thanks for asking!
C.Grube

[Rittm]

Jeni,
What didn't he understand about the word no?

C. Grube,
Can I come over to your house and play?

Rittm

[PeterL]

Dear C,please don't take umbridge, I can assure you I haven't. The same goes to you Jim A. I couldn't agree more with your basic suggestion that we should seek the truth, I thought I'd made that point. But I just think it could be done with rather less venom sometimes. Again at risk of repeating myself, I beleive we are in danger of destring the very thing that awakened our interest in the first place.

Peter L

[PeterL]

I would add that you have a real Triplane and I make models of them. Both of us a persuing our common interest to the limits of our ability. Why?
We all know there is no Sant Claus (sorry if this is a revelation Jeni) but we still keep the myth alive for the next generation of kids.
And if you thought to maintain control of a thread one you'd set it rolling, you haven't been paying attention.

I rest my case

Peter L

[stephen]

A societal commentary (and an accurate one), not a personal accusation. Hopefully, that's an unecessary clarification that doesn't override the greater point already made.

[Reinout]

Dear Jeni,

I hope you will be OK soon. I think it is disgusting what he tried to do, but it is even more disgusting when people suddenly point the finger at you and say that you're overreacting! If this would happen to a friend of mine and the law couldn't do anything about it, well, we'd gather up a posse ourselves and give the dude the scare of his life. We wouldn't do him bodily harm (not much anyway!), but we would sure make him think we were about to...!
I know that is the reaction I would have if such a thing happened to a friend of mine. I know it is not much of a consolation.
I hope this punk didn't spoil your opinion about men. Good luck and get well.

Rittmeister and Peter L: thank you for the compliments, but eeeehm, I am strictly into girls!

Jim Ace: well Jim, in a long reply (I like long replies) you shared some thoughts with us that could have saved us a lot of trouble if you had done that in the first place.

MvR is now indeed bigger in life than he was in death, but that is mainly due to controversy and the faulty things written about him after WWI. I don't know if I make my heroes bigger in death than they were in life, but I do try to reach into their innermost selves. I find planes interesting, but their aircrews enormously fascinating. I try to learn as much as possible about those persons and I have always tried to keep an open mind. Just three months ago I was one who was extremely skeptical about MvR and we had some hefty discussions on him. But I was convinced of his character and ability on this Forum and since then I consider him a hero - I had never done that before! I changed my mind so radically because I learned that I simply was too ignorant of a lot of facts concerning MvR's life. I am learning. That also includes dealing with positive/negative facts. As a someday-historian I need proof for certain statements. That is one of the reasons for my original disagreement with you, Jim. You failed to supply any evidence to the statements you made. Furthermore the manner in which you spoke of certain people made you look disrespectful of their achievements. And -I hope you won't take this as an insult, it isn't intended as one- some of the things you said were downright rude. I know it is partly because of your "rebel nature", but please note that many people here defend their beliefs without rudeness.

I agree with you on Boelcke, but bear in mind that it was still MvR's OWN capability that made him pick up Boelcke's lessons so amply. Remember that Hans Reimann -the pilot Boelcke deemed to be the most talented- died after having scored four victories. Talent is no guarantee for success, and that is one of the reasons why MvR stands out. After Bloody April, Allied planes were technically superior before the introduction of the DVII, and MvR still managed to down almost 30 planes after Bloody April! About his conduct: the previous threads that dealt with that subject ended in the same controversy it began with, there were no definite answers (not a big surprise).

I didn't mean to deprive Rickenbackers feats of any difficulty, but the Reimann example shows us that it isn't just a good teacher that is the guarantee for success. Captain Eddie is the top US WWI combat pilot in my book, and he faced the same dangers any other pilot faced.

I would never ever say you're full of crap. That WOULD be denying your right to individuality.

I hope I have shown a bit of my motivations. maybe the air can be cleared a little now.

Kind regards,

Reinout

Reinout and Stephen,
I take no offense at what you've said. I have grown up in a military affiliation all of my life. My father was a career military man, and so was my older brother and now myself. There are some things in this world that no matter how you slice it, can't be put without someone being offended. A 'rookie mistake' is a rookie mistake no matter whether it's the pilot's first time or his 100th time in combat. Some of the phrases that I applied to MvR were in response to the tone of reply's I'd gotten from some of the groupies on the forum here. I have acknowleged that he was good, there is no doubt of that in my mind. I just don't think of him as being the best of that war, or the great icon that some have built him up to be. I believe in who I've written of as hero's. As a pilot, most historians will tell you that MvR was mediocre, but as a strategist and tactician he was brilliant. Killduff states this on the flyleaf of his book 'Beyond the Legend of the Red Baron'. Reinout people don't change my mind, I change my mind or opinions if there is sufficient facts to warrant it. In this case the facts are pretty much all in unless we can find a long lost brother, which that isn't going to happen. Some of your argument about Boelke just setting things up isn't very valid as Boelke had to have knowledge of strategy and tactics to write his Dicta down. Boelke gained his in the school of hard truths, aerial combat, he had no written rules to guide him. All MvR did was to improve some of Boelke's tactics. The German pilots Motto
states 'I will be like Boelke'. It doesn't say anything about being like MvR. If MvR is your hero then good on you, but I don't consider him as any more than an average pilot who ran up some good numbers because he made sure that he had all the advantages. We khow what happened to him the one time things weren't in his favor, he got himself killed. It is a rookie mistake to get yourself into that situation. Sorry if you don't like the verbage, but there it is. In warfare it has been historically proven that mistakes cost lives, doesn't matter which side they're on. A mistake is a mistake is a mistake. The ones that were careful enough not to make those rookie mistakes survived the war. Combat leaves no spots for second place, so if you don't do it right on a continual basis, you're going to die. Just like my job here on ship is, if it's not done right, somebody dies, except in my case a lot of somebodies because I work with explosives. I know this to be true as I've seen it happen with my own eyes. So the same can be applied to aerial combat. Get hold of the book, 'Fighter Combat, Tactics and Manuevering' by Robert L. Shaw. It will open your eyes up as it did mine.
VBR,
Jim

[Reinout]

just a message so this thread won't be erased before I can copy it.

Kind regards,

Reinout

[Billy_Bishop]

Hopefully this will help, I've seen a few in here I'd like to copy too.

VBR,

Al Lowe