"Check Your 6 - Great War edition..." Topic

Had a very enjoyable game of Colorful Skies, the WWI supplement to Check Your 6 this past weekend at Day Con. The rules leverage the core Check Your 6 engine with enough chrome to capture the feel of the air combat in the Great War.

See more pictures on my blog…
link

Looks great. What is the main difference from CY6? Do aircraft do reversals the same?
Thanks,
Mark

These rules are on my "to buy" list.

The main difference I can see is that the maneuver charts have been changed so that the planes move much faster than biplanes in standard CY6. The book is a small number of pages for the few different rules, plane stats, and charts and then probably 98% scenarios.

Immelmans and split-s maneuvers are done the same except you must roll an aircrew check whenever you do one to see if the pilot falls out of the plane, since there were no seatbelts in use at the time.

Oh, and it was not developed, written, or published by the writers of Check Your 6.

I thought the other issue with aircraft going inverted was plain old mechanical issues and primitive engines stalling out.
Thanks

since there were no seat belts in use at the time.

Really? I've seen movies of WWI pilots strapping themselves in. Even shoulder harnesses.

IIRC, rear gunners had to release their safety belts to enable them to stand to aim the gun effectively.

Louis Strange experimented with a solution using a Martinsyde S I biplane. He fixed a Lewis gun on top of the upper wing, high enough to clear the airscrew. While this seemed quite a good solution, it introduced new problems, as Strange himself discovered on the 10th of May (1915) while attempting to shoot down an Aviatik. After firing off a whole drum from his Lewis gun he broke off in order to reload.

Unfortunately the drum jammed, and Strange stood up on his seat in order to try and pry it loose. The plane stalled, flipped over, and began to spin earthwards upside-down. Strange was flung out of the plane, and found himself dangling below the upper wing, hanging on by the very drum he had been trying to shake loose.

By swinging his legs wildly he managed to get a foothold inside the cockpit and drag himself back inside in time to right the plane and avoid a crash. In his wild thrashing he had smashed all the dials in his instrument panel and broken the seat.

(Despite such antics Strange was to survive the war, finishing the war as a Wing Commander. In the Second World War he flew in the volunteer reserve, and set up both the airborne forces parachute training course, and the fighter convoy defence unit.)

Wolfhag