Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Grendel on October 29, 2001, 03:04:00 AM
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Virtuaalilentäjät ry / Virtual Pilots Finland society of Finnish online ww2 sim pilots gathered during the past weekend to Aviation Hobby Days to Finnish Aviation Museum, with PCs and PR material demonstrating computer flight sims and online flying.
We also had many visitors. And the finest of them were them:
Kyösti "Kössi" Karhila, ace of 32 victories. Flew Fokker D.XXIs, Curtiss Hawks and moved to Messerchmitt fighters during 1943. Here Kössi flies WarBirds III.
(http://www.byterapers.com/~grendel/scan/aviation/aces_at_museum_1t.jpg)
http://www.byterapers.com/~grendel/scan/aviation/aces_at_museum_1.jpg (http://www.byterapers.com/~grendel/scan/aviation/aces_at_museum_1.jpg)
Kössi continues:
(http://www.byterapers.com/~grendel/scan/aviation/aces_at_museum_2t.jpg)
http://www.byterapers.com/~grendel/scan/aviation/aces_at_museum_2.jpg (http://www.byterapers.com/~grendel/scan/aviation/aces_at_museum_2.jpg)
And his friend, Heimo "Hemmo" Lampi, ace of 13 victories:
(http://www.byterapers.com/~grendel/scan/aviation/aces_at_museum_3t.jpg)
http://www.byterapers.com/~grendel/scan/aviation/aces_at_museum_3.jpg (http://www.byterapers.com/~grendel/scan/aviation/aces_at_museum_3.jpg)
After initial problems with the strange little joysticks and their feeling both gents fast found how WarBirds III reacts and we put them into WBIII offline bomber interception. Especially Hemmo showed his old talent is 100% left - his maneuveres were truly of a real ace. I'll let Kossu tell about that.
Hemmo scored there the first 4 engine bomber kill of Finnish Air Force. And this was good, because if it had been the 2nd or 3rd - that would have been a hell.
Why? THESE two gentlemen were once in Germany getting new 109s to Finland. And the Viermots were once again over Germany. So what they did?
They stepped into 109 cockpits, readied and were in immediate takeoff readiness - they wanted to go hunting 4 engine bombers! Luckily the bomber raid streamed elsewhere - otherwise it would have been SOME diplomating show and proparanga effect, if Finnish pilots succeed in shooting down American heavy bomber.
There are some english language combat stories about them. If interested, read:
Kyösti Karhila:
http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/karhi/karhi.htm (http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/karhi/karhi.htm)
http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/karhi/karhinv.htm (http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/karhi/karhinv.htm)
Heimo Lampi:
http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/lampi/lampi.htm (http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/lampi/lampi.htm)
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Uups.
The other guy is HEMMO LEINO. Put the photos online from work and checked his name through the Aces List on web, and grabbed the first name that sounded "about right" with about correct number of victories. Wrong guy :-)
So the other gent is Hemmo Kullervo Leino, then. 11 victories. Very alive, unlike Heimo Lampi who is dead. Just took the first name and "Heimo, ok Hemmo is his nickanme then". Sorry :-)
Bought a fine painting in the trip too, with signatures of those two gentlemen and two other 109 aces. Oh boy boy boy.
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Forwarding Kossu's expnalation of the gents flying:
Yeah the other Ace is Hemmo Leino
About Hemmo's moves. First he was quite reluctant to test fly WBIII, and said: "I don't want to make a fool of myself in front of all these people." But after Kössi did his hop in the air and managed to ventilate P-38s and Wildcats, Hemmo accepted the challenge and strapped himself in front of the screen. After an orientation flight with some figters here and there and testing the flight characteristics of the Franz he did some coordinated turns and other manuevers. While familiarizing himself with the plane he flew quite far from the battle and I asked if he wanted to do some Viermot hunting. He said why not, and I set him up against 3 Liberators in his Franz
Hemmo started with two high speed passes against the bombers and on the third pass damaged both port engines of the leftmost B-24. "Well, now I'll just kill that straggler, and go after the rest later", was his comment. And so he did. He attacked the lone bomber and killed the already smoking engines and the buff fell to it's death.
After his first virtual kill he then climbed towards the remaining two bombers and attacked them with a good speed advantage. He went past the buffs and almost immediately pulled up for a perfect barrel. During this maneuver (He did not use the views) flying inverted he said: Hmm, the bombers should appear into my view from about there... He pulled the stick back a little and there they were, exactly where he thought they would be (Nice SA !) He did the last pass from the top shooting for the cockpit and went through the box below. He was out of ammo and so the Aces retired for coffee.
A little later I saw them in the Museum Cafe waving hands and going through their virtual fights just before I asked them what they thought of it, and got interesting answers, which also portray their different personalities.
Kössi: "Yeah, it was fun, but to fly with visual cues and gauges only is pretty difficult. In the war I never checked where the ball was or what my speedometer said. I just felt and heard what the plane was doing." A pure seat of the pants fighter pilot.
Mr. Leino was more analytical in his approach to the simulators.
Hemmo: "Many things in that simulator are very well done and the gauges seemed to work right, but what it would really need is some kind of an "artificial feel" for the stick and pedals."
(He didn't know about Force Feedback controllers)
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Nice post. Thanks for the info. HT, lets fly a 109 ace over the pond to speak at next years AH con. :cool:
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That had to be great. Tell me you shook one of these mens hands? woulda been a honor for me.
[ 10-29-2001: Message edited by: Am0n ]
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I damn well shook hands with both of them and talked with them for a long period of time. :-) Great fellows! And bought a painting about a 109 about to attack a Pe-2 with their signatures :-)
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Originally posted by Grendel:
I damn well shook hands with both of them and talked with them for a long period of time. :-) Great fellows! And bought a painting about a 109 about to attack a Pe-2 with their signatures :-)
Thxs for sharing. Nothing like meeting someone who has done the deed.