Contents:
Flawed
Beginning
History
Begins
Early UOP's
"The Dr.1 is Porked!"
SWWISA
The Last Classic UOP
To
the East!
Revolution
of CdT
A New Breed of UOP
Pat Wilson and WFP
Stachel's Hell's Angels
The Promised Land
The End of the Road
To The East and
Elsewhere! Mark Munro
But the efforts to create historic patches weren’t limited solely to the Western Front. Another SWWISA member, Mark Munro, who was a long time member of the Red Baron community, embarked on some of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken for Red Baron. Instead of creating another patch modeling combat on the Western Front, Mark made works that involved events outside of the Western Front. One of his first patches, the Middle East Patch, modeled combat in the desert theaters of the war. It involved new paint schemes and plane types; not to mention a fresh terrain set for a much warmer climate.
(Screenshot
from the Middle East Patch, featured on Mark’s site)
Mark continued his work with the Italian Front Patch, which covered combat in the Italian theater of operations during the war. He followed up the IFP with his latest release, the Eastern Front Patch, which covered combat between the Russian Air Service and the Central Powers, a topic that has never been tackled in any Flight Sim in history. All of Mark’s works strive to meet the historical accuracy of the events each patch covers, and all provide a welcomed and refreshing change to the very much familiar events over Flanders, Verdun, the Marne, and Alscase. They are all brilliant works in their own right, and are to be commended for reaching above and beyond anything that Red Baron was ever created to do.
The Revolution
of Charles de Thielt
Not too long after the release of 1918 Air War from WingStrut, a major revolution in Red Baron technology emerged. Karel Dooms (also known as Charles de Thielt), a modder within the community began to release incredibly detailed and frame rate friendly aircraft models. These models are still the standard in all patches and nothing like them have been seen before or since. The realism presented in each model is apparent, and it is obvious that Karel created each model with love and care. He is often credited with training many of the SWWISA members in how to make new aircraft models using the program anim8tor. Yet a CdT model remains unmistakable, no matter how good another model looks. Karel simply had a mastery of the art form. And in reality, his works can be considered art. They are completely realistic, incorporate form and function, and are truly beautiful to look at.
Sadly, Karel passed away suddenly in November of 2002, and a true giant within the community was lost forever. His passing stunned the community and his loss is still felt deeply today. Most patches released credit CdT in one form or another, either for helping them along the way or simply being a great artist. A memorial stone was crafted and laid in the virtual town of Thielt in Red Baron for any offline user to fly by and admire. A virtual relationship touched real lives, and anyone in SWWISA will acknowledge that when they lost Karel, they lost a friend.
(The
plane that changed it all: a Fokker Dr1 by Karel Dooms stands
next to its original Red Baron II counterpart)
(A
photograph of Karel Dooms and his memorial stone courtesy of the SWWSIA
website)
