[Michael Skeet]

Barrett: you're right about the Pfalz being more structurally sound than the various v-strut Albatri. The Pfalz D-III, despite its appearance, actually had a two-spar lower wing, which of course made it much stronger. The v-strut Albatros reminds me a lot of the Bf-/Me-109 of WWII: a successful design kept in service long past its best-by date.

As for the other comment: Maybe we could just ask people to flag their subject lines with a rating code, like JPDT (for juvenile, personality-driven thread) so that the rest of us would know which items to just ignore. I find myself getting tired, not just of the sniping, but of the whole ace-as-movie-star content of far too many of the threads lately.