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Paul F. Baer in front of his SPAD S.VII

As members of the forum may know, I have some great interest in the Escadraille Americaine/Lafayette Escadrille/103rd Aero. I have a few planes to represent the various stages of this squadron, ranging from two Nieuport N.11 repaints, to the Thaw/Lufbery Nieuport N.17, to four SPAD S.VIIs for the 103rd Aero. Also, one of the interesting American pilots of the war, and one who was the American Ace of Aces ...

It is one of my favorite mid-war decks. While the speed is average, the broad sideslips give this deck an advantage over the V Deck of the Albatros D.I/D.II and the J Deck of the Albatros D.III and Pfalz D.III.



Selecting a plane to use with my one extra I Deck is much easier than my N Deck conundrum. Options are the Fokker D.V, the Morane-Saulnier Type V, Nieuport 17, Nieuport 17bis, Nieuport 21, Nieuport 23, and the Airco DH-5.
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Like many of you I buy maneuver decks as I can. A recent eBay purchase brought several into the humble abode, and then there has been the kindness of others who have sent spares as a result of my endless begging. Most of the latter have been for specific planes in the collection, but now I have some extras and so the great exercise begins of purchasing more planes in order to take advantage of those extra decks. But it is not simply a matter of buying ...

We held another great gaming session at the Dragon's Guildhall. As I do not know everyone's 'Drome handle to list all the players, I will say that we had 6 participants at one table (a smaller group than usual due to vacations and other happening), gaming a little early war action over France.*

The group I gamed with saw the pilots of Escadrille Americaine (N.124), using ...

Starting with another Ares Chaput as the base plane, I have created the Nieuport N.11 of Victor Chapman, the first pilot in N.124 to be killed in combat. A few coats of AK Clear Doped Linen Version 2, some crimson on the wheel covers, and then the addition of the historically accurate roundels on the top wing and we have a nice addition to the N.124 collection. The roundels on the underside of the wings are still the French ones, as found on the actual ...