And I thought I'd just completely lost my touch.....

Last night I finally forced myself to fly at low enough altitude to find a good dogfight on the ATAG server.

ATAG folks made a new mission (fictional), in which German's actually had gained a foothold in England for Operation Sea Lion. I spawned in an Me-110 C7 with full bomb load, fully intent on flying from Hawkings to London at treetop height to take out Parliment.

As I taxied out to the runway from the hangar - I could see several tracks of flak bursts circling the runway - then the unmistakable shape of a Spitfire breaking over the airfield and dipping down beneath my view where the terrain falls away to the sea (love this CoD terrain). I knew that there was no way I would make it out of the base with the bombload I was carrying, so I immediately respawned in a 109 at Lypne, about 20 miles to the south.

Warmed up the 109 - taxied out - took off - remaining at 1.5 km alt to go and rid Hawkings of some of these Spitfire pests. Reached Hawkings, gained visual on a Spit at coalt who immediately broke into me head-on. We merged, I pulled the nose up in a smooth, left hand spiral and he followed as expected.

Right at the point I was about to drain all the 'E' out of him - I stalled and entered a Flat spin. Initiated PARE, tried to grab some air and NOTHING.

It was as if I was in a P-39. Rudder neutral, back to opposite, nothing. I'm now very low and very embarassed - thought to deploy flaps and gear but TOO LATE! BLammo! My first good dogfight chance was distributed in pieces all over the green virtual grass of England.

A little down, I thought - Man, now I'm going to have to practice spin recovery in a 109..........

Thankfully, I had enough presence of mind to run diagnostics on my rudder pedals. To my delight, I observed that my right rudder was only articulating 40 to 50% towards maximum. So it wasn't me after all.

Off to Fry's to buy a set of MadCatz Combat Flight pedals (the ones with the F-16 pedals) after work today. I had been coveting a set of SIMPED's for a few years - but to my dissapointment, after checking the SIMPED site in Germany - I found they quit making pedals in July. I contacted a German retailer who usually stocks the pedals and found an email from them this morning saying that "Sorry, we have no more - forever".

SIMPEDS were my last hope to obtain a Gameport interface so that I could continue to control my pedals thorugh my Cougar and Target, obtaining the benefits of all-axis trim and toe-brakes.

My CH's don't communicate the toe-brake channels to the Cougar/Target properly so I've never had them - and I need them in these new sims.

So I guess the good news it - it will be good to have new pedals - a bit wider than my CH's - and though I lose the ability to lock the rudder position - I gain toe brakes..........

Ju-88's and He-111's, here i come.....

S!

Gunny