Saturday 27 September 2014

Tech Pricing - The UK Getting A Bad Deal - International Shipping & UK Import

With the news today that Samsung is not going to be selling laptops in Europe, I wondered about how in the future we here in the UK would be able to get our grubby mitts on their Chromebook offering, and other hardware.

Whilst trawling the interwebs, I became more and more infuriated, now this is a matter I've seen before, but I've largely ignored it.  But with the purse strings needing tightening here at home I've had to think carefully about hardware changes and upgrades, but this problem I'm going to put forward just pisses me right off...

International Pricing... Specifically with technology kit, I was watching a review from Linus Tech Tips, and he was telling how this kit he had costs less than $1000 US... That's £612.89 at the time of writing, not a bad price for the overall package he was touting... However, paying for the exact same kit, from supposedly the same suppliers here in the UK came to a wallet busting, mind numbing, pay-packet stealing rip off price of £1014.58, over a thousand pounds, which is $1655.41... A six hundred dollar price hike...

I could pay for the same goods in the US, pay shipping and import and not end up paying as much!

Here's an example, two Amazon pages, both showing the same item (honest it is the same graphics card, just different pictures)..


£330 to $339... It almost seems as if they've taken the dollar price and slapped a pound sign in front of it, this clearly aids them, in this particular case the card comes to £208 if we convert the dollar price to sterling... £208 for the latest graphics card seems a lot better than £330... So where does the additional £110 come from?

Well, I looked at "Value Added Tax" in both the UK and US... I wondered if Amazon UK was having to add more, and it seems not, most "General Sales Taxes" in the US are calculated per state, and start around 23.5%, so that's more than the VAT 20% rate in the UK... So the US is paying a lower price even after tax.


Okay, what about shipping?... Are there significant shipping costs to bring goods into the UK?... Nope, same container ships burning the same fuel... And then once in the UK they are moved around on a single tank of fuel, unlike the US where deliveries are quite literally transcontinental!


So, if the sellers of goods are not paying more to deliver, and we in the UK are not paying more in TAX where does this £110 hike come from?...

It plainly seems to be because of greed, I can't fathom out a single other reason for the difference, all the goods I've looked at are made in the far east, it's just as far to sail them across the Pacific or around to Britain... It's less distance from any port to Amazon warehouses in the UK because we're such a small island, even if we look at Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Mann they all stack up to be less distance than some of the Amazon Warehouses from Manhattan!

All in all, it makes my blood boil... 

So, what if I just bought the goods from the US?.. Well, apparently here in the UK I'd then have to pay Tax again, so I've paid for the goods taxed in the US, then to even bring them into the country I have to pay again?...


This, this just makes no sense, in this modern age of the internet and it is full of holes, I can go onto Steam log into a US server and order then download a game, paying for it once in one place, I can do this with Music, with Films, with Streaming services, with Porn, with News, with almost anything on the screen... But I have to pay tax to import the screen, and pay for the imported delivery service, and pay to then get it off of the customs chaps who poke and prod it?... Mental.

And I think just a way for the exchequer to keep an eye on what I'm doing, and to skim off the top.

So, how much do I pay?... Well, say it's this £208 graphics card... This comes under the "Non-EU Country" and its "All Other Goods", and I have to pay "Customs Duty on goods with a value that exceeds £135" and "import VAT on goods with a value that exceeds £15"

So how much are these two costs?

Well, the HMRC website doesn't want to give you clear straight forward figures, they give calculators for VAT deadlines, link upon link to registering for VAT.... But never do they give a figure...

So you go to the internet to find out, and you're met with searches which ironically relate to overseas imports from overseas countries... For example this: http://www.dutycalculator.com/popular-import-items/import-duty-and-taxes-for-graphics-card/ it has a very nifty calculator, so I stuck the $339 price in, selected $50 shipping and $20 insurance, so this is a total of $409, which is still only £250, so we're still making a saving on our price even importing the item...

The calculation site gives us zero duty, and 20% VAT, to be added, this brings the price to £300... Still a £30 saving.

It's a lot of faffing about, but it's a possible saving... My question now is, who wants to try this out?

Thursday 25 September 2014

Story Time - The Stand Up

This story could also be called "Little Red Riding Hood on the Sofa, in the Mr Men ear rings".

In a previous post I talked about my worst ever date, well another time I got stood up... Yep, it happens to us all... The difference here is that in most cases we've been stood up and don't get the booty...

.......

However... In this case, I'd already had the booty... Let me explain...

A week before the fable stand up, it was a mutual friend's 21st Birthday, and he had a party... So we got together, and it was fancy dress... Now I'm not big on the fancy dress, I have no costumes, and I had been working 6am to 9pm most days, as a consequence my Fancy Dress is my Karate Gi and belt.

Off we run to this party, and there's this girl, she's come as Red Riding Hood... Oh yeah, now I drove everyone around and when we got out my car she gives me this big hug... Okay it was cold, but not that cold... And she's all over me, she's pretty, dark hair, dark eyes... Nice looking.

I'll be honest, I'm single, I'm enjoying the attention, after the time at this (strange) disco we head back to my friend's house and we're all friendly, this girl is still all over me...

It's getting late, we're talking 2am gone, and everyone is falling about passed out or sleeping, anyway, she's next to me on this sofa, cuddled up to me, and suddenly she's hands all over me, she's trying to get my junk out my trunk; I cope a feel, I get busy on there and soon things are going on on this sofa, with people passed out all around us... I don't know whether to take her to my car or what, but... come morning she kisses me and makes her way home.

I'm all smiles, and leave with her number handed over...

I give her a call, and arrange to meet her later the next weekend.  And I call again mid-week just to you know keep in touch...

Saturday rolls around, I'm all pressed and dressed, I pull up at the arranged place, and I wait... And I wait... And I wait...

I figure, she's a girl, she was in fancy dress last time we met... Lets give her an hour... So I give her an hour...

Now this is before mobile phones, this is before the internet is a big thing, so to get hold of her I have to go find a street telephone box.

I call, her house mate answers, she comes on the phone... dead quiet... and I just quietly say... "You're not coming to meet me are you?"...

"No"... She squeeks.

"Right, okay, no problems babe"... I'm friendly, I just want to check before we slam the door on this, she was nice... "I'm guessing you want me to loose this number and never call again?"...

"Yes"  She's a little angry...

"Right, well that's a shame, but okay, good bye"...

As I hang up I kind of hear half an ounce of confusion, which I can't be sure of, but to this day I'd like to think meant "hang on, this guy is kind of reasonable"... But what ever, shut down, home I go.

I get home, watch some TV, think nothing of it and get a hold of some other friends and arrange to go out to meet them the following week, one of them being the guy who had the 21st party... So I'm at least going to tell him about the escapades.

Next weekend, I head out meet these friends and immediately get a strange vibe, the guy seems dead smug, and the lass we're with is all giggling at me... I ask what the matter is...

"We know you got stood up"

But before I could reply, or tell them about the sofa banging, they both laugh... "We knew she was, she told us, she called us"... And then the guy says... "Besides, YOU can have your shot AFTER I've had mine"...

Now, let me explain this guy is a ginger, with a big lump in the middle of his forehead, he's fat and quite boring... I'm a heavy metal listening, heavy drinking, hard working good bodied black belt in karate... Go figure the chances he had.

But I sit back, all calm, and just look at them, inside I'm laughing, I had my shot, and I scored!... Have my sloppy seconds, I'm thinking...

The guy had, until this moment been my friend, but this day ended that because basically sitting there laughing at me when he knew she'd not come pissed me off... You don't do that to a friend, firstly you don't cock-block, if you want your chance have it, but if you've seen a girl garlanded around your buddies neck like this guy saw her around mine he should know to back off and wait... To sit and laugh is just a bit sick.

Then I just filed the guy away into the pile of douche bags in my minds eye.

Unfortunately about a year later, I had to file the lass who was there that day away into the same file, but for different reasons...

And it annoyed the shit out of me, this guy being all high and mightly... Proper childish... "I want my try with her", "I knew she wasn't coming"...

Dude I already had her, I banged her on YOUR sofa, at YOUR party, where YOU spent more time in the Kitchen than with your guests, and YOU took us to that strange disco... I had her.

I'm also fine with her not wanting to meet up again, but I have the strong susicion that this episode, the first and only time, I've ever been stood up was something of your concotion, that you talked to her and you said something about me behind my back... It's a shame you did that.  Shame on you.

Wednesday 24 September 2014

Expert question of the week.... Archaeology

I've just been looking at an article about Roman London, specifically about a Temple found and removed from below the Legal & General building in 1954, which is now going to get placed back for a new development...

One item mentioned in the article is that...

"Roman London is seven meters below current day ground level"...

Why is it archaeology gets covered like this?  Is it dust and dirt?... Floods?... Mud?... Shit?... Plant cover?... I mean, muddy land gets wet you push coins into it, I get that, but whole cities?...

And, since we've concreted and tarmacadam so much ground are we stopping this natural covering???

Tuesday 23 September 2014

OpenBroadcaster - x264

I spent a bit of time last night messing around with OpenBroadcaster, capturing some of my Simulated Battles in WarThunder...


As you can see I've got my name, the game and what I'm up to added as text legends, I've included the track IR window and the game itself.

It worked, I've captured like an hour of game play, including three air kills (which was good going in the Italian G50 I was flying).

My main challenge is playing about with the settings... So I have an EVGA 770 GTX SC graphics card, so not a slouch... And my CPU is a Core i7 (8 threads) running at 3Ghz (I can over clock it, but its not at present)... and I've got fast cooled DDR3 RAM...

However, the x264 encoder really sucked the life out of my machine, making flight hard, but the video very poor quality.

After that I set about looking at using NVENC, but it came out as this very strange sort of effect where as things moved the screen recording was fuzzy, as the screen stopped changing so much it would spring up into perfect detail, and then slowly degenerate again.. Pulse of detail, then blurr... over and over... so it was strange.

Tonight, I am intending to mess about with my settings some more, and if all else fails I'm going to revert to capturing the game with nVidia Shadow Play and using an editor to overlay text.

Monday 22 September 2014

I'm Back - Blog Update & Gaming

Hey guys & gals, I'm back... Where have I been?.. Well, I've been decorating.  I've had a week off of the office job to renovate the house a little, I've done the Utility room, painted the living room and the big job was completely renovating the bathroom.  So a new bathroom suite, new tiling, water proofing, removed all the old 1970's crap...

How Do I know it was 1970's crap?... Well, removing the lights I found they were lined with news paper, dated 1979... and then removing a rotting cupboard beneath was carpet, beneath that was old lino, and then beneath that was more news paper dated the 8th December 1971...

So I stripped all that, and got on with things, only one huge cock up, the ceiling... Which is waiting action from a man with the skillz...

Anyway, other than pulling 9 days of 16 hours elbow deep in shit, grout and paint I've played a fair bit of Simulator Battles in WarThunder, I've maxed out a bunch of aircraft with ace status, and I've also unlocked tier 4 in both the American and German tree's... I need to earn them lions to pay for the new aircraft is all.

So, notable simulator battle experience has been... Setting up all my controls - I may create a video about this - I've flown out in the Tier 3 BF109F4 and got real human kills, took out a P39 who was good.... Then flew the Italian G.50 a lot, so unhappy with how underpowered those 12.5mm BREDA machine guns are, yesterday I managed to get on the tail on a British Nimrod MK II... Hit is 12 times... 12 hits!... And it just flew on... GAH!  Then I also flew the P47, getting hits on targets, but no kills... and also flew out in the P38, which is so smooth (with the counter rotating props) compared to other aircraft.

I'd highly recommend new players to Simulator Battles setting about learning to boom & zoom in the P38, because it is fast; but you do not have to worry about rudder swinging on take off or low speed.  The guns all being mounted in the nose let you also at least spot and take out ground targets (the aircraft does get special ammo for ground target work too - so this is legit tactics), to get the feel for the maps and how to fly....

My biggest problem is still low-level stalls, I seem to be able to put the Fw190 into an unrecoverable flat spin just by looking at it, I've recovered (or not) the same spin in the G.50, the Spitfire Mk IIb and even the BF109E3, F4 and G2.... But the 190, once its in that modus operandi.... It is intent on killing you.

That said, early in the week, I did get a kill in the Fw190-A1...

Other things I'm planning, well we're getting the second house ready to rent, so we'll be moving back to the first house, when that happens I'm going to start a regular Simulator evening, playing and even recording/broadcasting what I'm up to.

I've also got two coding projects to go through with you guys, and even an update on the old "Write your own CPU" series.

Saturday 13 September 2014

Elite Dangerous - Still Not Going To Play It

I am not going to play Elite Dangerous... Let me get that said, not because I have to eat humble pie and say it does not look a bad game, and unlike my prior posts David Braben has proven himself to NOT be a snake oil sales man, as he has delivered the game to the masses (least as a test/alpha/beta so far)...

But, that said, watching someone competent play is interesting, prior to seeing the below videos I've only watched some mediocre coverage from Jingles and then the terrible developer example videos from back when they were still looking for online funding...

Ralfidude however, a YouTuber with a plethora of DCS and other flightsim coverage, has taken to the space ways, and he's given us these few videos with his coverage of the game... Looks good.


My problem with the game is not the game, I love Elite, and I understand it there is a single player game involved in this title... However, its the online play which counts and it seems to me there are too many ways for people to grief.... And I did all the griefing I needed in Eve-Online.


I'll admit though, Ralfi's Videos have me tempted... But not for £50... Fuck that price point with their millions upon millions start up capitol already in the bag!

Friday 12 September 2014

Scotland

I fucking said it, I posted this around here, I text this to BBC Radio Nottingham... And now the fat little corporal has admitted it...

He's just in it to make history, I fucking said so... Fuck Scotlands future, fuck the economy, fuck security, solidarity, industry, commerce and business... Fuck it, he wants his name in history.



Thursday 11 September 2014

RIP Richard Kiel

We wish the best to Richard's family, for today one of the great characters from British Filmography passed away, Richard Kiel.

Known, or perhaps renowned for his role as Jaws in two Bond films, we all loved Jaws, as the go to Bond hence man.


Fittingly or not, that Richard's passing has made bigger news in Britain today than the anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks.

Wednesday 10 September 2014

Minecraft : Microsoft Edition.

I just heard something.... I.... I....I can't bring myself to say it.... So here's a picture....


Did Notch not look at what happened to Bungie?

All, I can think of is this....



Tuesday 9 September 2014

Scottish Independence - A Sad Rant

Scotland, Scotland, Scotland... I don't know how to really express how I feel about even talking about the Independence Vote... I... I really can't believe its being even considered by a single Scot, not only do I feel its just a strange topic of conversation, but Scotland is part of the United Kingdom, it just is, its something lived with something that just is...

Now, I know there are many Scots with a beef about things like, regional autonomy, like they think they've got a hard deal... I've heard things like the closing of Scottish Industry being a major factor in the numbers of unemployed in Scotland, and that being all "London's" fault.

But, the companies which closed were pretty much private companies, just like the companies in Sheffield, Birmingham, Southampton, Bristol and elsewhere throughout the UK.

Industry has reduced, closed and moved, that's a fact of the whole British Isles, not specific to Scotland, yet I hear Scots bemoaning their being specially put down...

The likes of Billy Connelly, whom makes me laugh, but when he appears waxing lyrical about the ship yards on the Clyde and then declaring his support for an Independent Scotland, he's linking the two, the closed industry with the Union, where as the two have no real connection.

And Connelly himself, he has no vote, he lives overseas; in Australia mainly I believe, but he's been wheeled out twice... Notably getting air time during the Glasgow Games opening.

Other Scots who live outside of Scotland also don't get a vote, many of whom as I've spoken to a few, would vote NO to an independent Scotland.  And they'd vote no for similar reasons as I feel, that we're stronger together, safer together, that we're more than a United Kingdom, we're a united people.

And my deep personal suspicion is that Alex Salmond is pushing this agenda because he really seems to want to get himself noticed, to get himself into the History books.  There are no real long term benefits to Scotland leaving the Union, there is only long term costs and burden to her people.

I can't speak for everyone, but this is very much like a family fued and one member is about to storm out... The difference is, instead of a dinner going cold, or a few snide remarks next Christmas, this is going to end up costing BILLIONS.

People, companies, livlihoods and services are going to be ruined.

I personally as a UK Tax payer don't want to support a struggling independent Scotland, and the figured given for the Independent lobby don't stack up.

With all the firms already saying they would relocate if the country left the Union, its going to leave much of Western Scotland barren of employment.  Glasgow is going to suffer most I believe.

Aberdeen would see a marginal increase in lucrative Oil money as everyone cashes out for the next 20 years, but come 2034 I strongly believe there will be massive defecits, services would start to crumble and I have to say there may even be an exodus of the able and qualified to English and Welsh locations, followed as the quaffers run sterile to a gaping problem in Scottish communities.

Alex Salmond if not buried by then would be a very old man, he'll be happily tucked up in his adult nappy with a glass of Scotch each night and happy his mark was made.

The people of Scotland will be bereft however, and I have to admit as an Englishman I feel snubbed and insulted that there is this faction of Scottish society whom want to be an independent nation without any thought of who they are where they come from.

Many of the kids of my generation will have had grandparents who fought in the second world war, indeed my own grandfather was in Scotland serving when Rudolf Hess landed there.  My grandfather was the segergant whom guarded him; and was the only guard Hess thanked before he was transferred south.

These links to history, this structure of who Scotland, who WE are is simply being ignored by the "Yes" campaign.

I've hard people in the Yes camp making reference to Bannock Burn... something which would make any Scot's blood swell... But no-one has mentioned the proud traditions since...

The Scottish Highlanders at Waterloo... The Black Watch leading the crossing of the Rhine in 1944... The Scots who fought across Europe to free the people of the tyranny of the Nazi jack boot...

That recent history is being ignored...

Or how about the many Scots who faught, as well as those who died, in World War 1?... Should their legacy be ignored?

It seems one camp thinks "Yes"... And that's got to be thought about seriously as derailed...

Other topics I've seen are the Nuclear Sub's... An Independent Scotland campaign has declared they don't want the base, nor the Subs... I'm pretty sure that Scottish tax payers like that deal, billions spent and they "don't want them"... With a wild acting Russia still flying just off sure of Scotland too...

But hey ho, they don't want the subs... They're playing on Nuclear "fears" to get votes... Not thinking about the communities supported by the sub base, the thousands of jobs in Scotland which depend on those subs being there... Oh no, they just want to be seen as "PC" and get rid of Nuclear!...

What about services which are nationally funded?... I've mentioned the need for RAF cover, Russia does try to overfly Scotland regularly.

How about the Royal Navy's other bases?... How about the Army itself... Does an Independent Scotland want to be a neutral state, like Ireland or Switzerland?... If so, how will it sit with Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France and the remains of the UK in having an unalighed state suddenly appear in the vulnerable Nato North West... The flank through which Cold War Submarine operations so dominated planning and which may come to dominate again, but now without Scottish bases or SOSUS listening stations?

None of this is being thought about, the thinking I've seen from the Yes campaign has been almost a kin to a drunken argument in a bar!  "Bannock Burn, aye Jim laddy the bassads, Independence!"

The "No" campaign, well they've been attacked in the street by numpties with eggs, great way to stop someone speaking to you I must admit...

I have friends who are Scottish, I have friends who are English married to Scots... So far I've not met anyone who has fully furned the "yes" campaign with a vote, nor have I heard how beyond the immediate short term Scotland could support itself!

Simply put, Scotland is part of this Union of the Great Kingdoms on the British Isles, talking of her anything other makes me very sad.


----

Addendum : 10/Sept/2014

I reckon I'm onto something, i reckoned Scotland would be wrecked by economic disaster (if independent) by 2034... Turns out 2035 the Oil runs out... Lovely... Can't wait to see the results of that one...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-29149106


Monday 8 September 2014

War Thunder - Bugs and Brush Offs

Played a lot of WarThunder over the weekend, and I have to thank my friend Craig for signing up to WarThunder and reaching Rank 2 so very quickly... Was great fun introducing a new player to the game.

I was only a little jealous of how good his first few battles went, and it was very interesting watching how his account was reduced to just one Nation and then slowly opened up...

But the tutorials are still terrible.  Improved since I started, but still terrible, and whoever their narrator is... Christ what an annoying voice, and his pronunciation is shite!

I spent much of the weekend however playing with Craig, and his low level Brits, so we spent a lot of time with me acing out planes - since I started playing before there were half as many modifications as there are now.  My British Ace aircraft swelled from two to thirteen by the time we were done, and when Craig unlocked his Hurricane IIB I received a nice 50,000 Lion bonus :)

He's determined to get to Rank 3 now on his own and earn me my 100 gold, as he says he likes the game so much...

I however spotted this problem:


Take a British bi-plane, so we're talking Nimrod I or II, Fury I or II or the Swordfish above their max speed in Arcade, so you get the "Reduce Speed" message and the flutter sound from the rigging... Jump out or die and get into a Gladiator, and you start off with the aircraft well below the max speed of the Gladiator, but you still have the warning and sounds playing!

It also felt like my Gladiator was responding to motion like my Swordfish, but that's hard to tell for sure with the Arcade flight model.

I reported this, but Gaijin don't seem impressed...

I had another bug report accepted...

And another rejected... 

For the rejected one I have two Videos, and they are different situations, but I don't see the point of allowing for trimming in the test flight models... Surely it will result in NOT comparing like for like... I felt very much as it I'd been given the brush off, despite making the post, making it informative, I obviously see this as a bug, eve the original responder must because he didn't know the policy was to have trimming in the test flight models, so not a 100% match up there and very much not testing what is happening in the game for real.

The code may behave differently with or without trimming...

And certainly for pilot training - which was why I noted the problem - it made for a false impression, in the FW190, I used the Aileron trimming on take off to stabalise the torque... I used it and was very thrown after traning for 4+ hours to go into a full real battle and suddenly not have it available!

So, available in test....

Not in simulator battle...

I dunno, I just get the impression that as excellent as the code and ideas from Gaijin are, their development style and especially testing is very much "We Do As We Want, You Follow"... I dunno, maybe it's a Russian thing?

Thursday 4 September 2014

Story Time - Pulling My Nutz Out the Fire (Work Place Meetings)

Last week in Story Time I talked about my best-worst day, related to that is my most embarassing moment at work... It happened at that actual company I got caned by....

And this story came to me after I'd read this post from DadHacker... 

The company was split into two custom made buildings, the down stairs of building 1 was admin and offices, most of the directors sat there with plush offices, there was also a single large meeting room - which was always the hottest room in the company, come rain, wind, shine or snow you could pop in there in and get warm.

This was important between the two buildings as if you were based in the more technology orientated building 2, then you had to cross the open car park frequently to meetings & presentations, and in the hills of Derbyshire this was COLD!

So a warm, communal and often empty warm room got you back up to speed, you could organise yourself and your notes and then pop into the meeting you had on hand.

But this warm, embrace, was also a deadly enemy.  I was once called over to a very boring meeting, three technology guys, the totally real director and then me on just a couple of hours sleep...

They presented their idea, the tech guys dissected it for the hardware, and I was to provide the software, but it was way beyond any of the machines they had in the building, I straight off asked for a few reference books and a nice graphics card... Spending money!...

And Spending money on something other than camel cigarettes was something this guy didn't like, so he shelved me and they four went off on their own conversation.

Now I don't know how long it took, or what noises I made, but I was startled awake a indeterminate amount of time later by the lit cigarette end of this guy waving up and down in my wave... He was holding my shoulders and looking very angry.

Panick, panick... What to say... "Oh help" I wimpered "my bloooo" I stumbled on purposed "blood sugar low"...

SAVED IT!

The anger melted from his face and ordered one of the techies out to find something to eat, they came up with a banana from the receptionist - I hate banana's, but I unzipped that one and ate half chewing slowly and then holding a piece under my tongue as if recovering...

With the secretary at the door looking concerned a flow of cool air came in from the glass fronted reception area, and it revived me more.... I could almost convince myself that I had had a hypo... Despite not being diabetic.

They clocked me later, as another time I munched down a four pack of mars bars for lunch, but on that day... I pulled my nutz out the fire.



Monday 1 September 2014

WarThunder - Simulator Battles

I've spent a lot of time playing WarThunder, I've in fact only played WarThunder this weekend.  Importantly however, I've almost exclusively been playing Simulator battles... Not with any luck, I hasten to add...

I've spent a lot of time looking at clouds and seeing nothing, but I have been flying well enough and getting used to take-off and landing procedures.

I have to give a big shout out to "Viper" a nice chap I met in the Simulator Battles room... And whom took me up in a battle - where he absolutely owned - in ME109E3's... And where I ended up hit by flak and returned to base just as the wife started shouting me... She didn't care I was fighting a war... But hey ho...

Later I flew out in my P47 and was immediately bounced from above, out the sun, by Hayabashi's...

Even later still I flew out in my HE112, and saw nothing but got killed by AI - yes I could not even out fly AI..

And finally I flew out in my FW190A1 again, saw no-one... Finally spotted a target, dove on it and got a couple of hits, pulling out however I suddenly saw above me two La5's... And they tore me to shreds.

I think I'm okay at flying... I'm below average at spotting.. and I'm utterly useless at manoeuvring.

Now I have lots of screen shots, however, I can't find the memory stick they're saved on, so trust me they were stunning.

But later on Sunday night I came back to play again and my funds are exceedingly down on WarThunder,  so I played a few Realistic Battles, made 100,000 credits and called it a day.

I've unlocked two aircraft this weekend - the upgraded P47 and the Fw190-A5... Neither of which I can afford...

But I'm determined to play more Simulator battles.