Tripe, Tripehound, or officially the Sopwith Triplane, this three winged scout is now released to owners of Flying Circus Vol 2. It comes with a small patch that still features several dozen updates for the rest of the series. Let’s have a look!
The last aircraft for Vol 2!
Flying Circus Vol 2’s aircraft set is now complete. That feels a bit funny to realize as we’ve just recently seen the release of the Handley Page and Gotha G.V too. Now, it’s the Sopwith Triplane’s turn in the limelight and it marks the end of the aircraft development for this second instalment. The map and the career mode is still to come but this is still a key milestone.
I’m looking forward to the Sopwith Triplane. Although it had only a brief 6-month time to shine, it made an impact on the war and lead German aircraft makers and Fokker in particular to develop what would become the iconic Fokker Dr I.
The patch also comes sporting some upgrades to the core of the sim including improved visualization of medium sized buildings from long distances, improvements to tank gun firing visuals, AI pilots will switch off their nav lights if engaged during landing, redrawn gauges and placards for several German aircraft, and improved map loading times.
The full list and everything you need to know about the latest update are available over here on the IL-2 forums.
Stormbirds 
I don’t really have any issues with the map being the last thing in an installment to be released, but for FC this is somewhat striking. It’s okay for FC2 since the Arras map is also there, but with FC1 people were flying WW1 planes over WW2 Eastern Front maps for well over a year and after all of the FC1 planes were released!
Long story short, we can already fly these planes in RoF and WoFF and have the same, if not very similar, experience so I feel that the (FC) map should be one of the first things released, not the last thing. Plus, Ugra left FC for a year (from my knowledge) and all the SP content for FC1 had to be made by the community and it wasn’t until many months later did Scripted Campaigns arrive for FC1…??
Anyway, this is just an observation I’ve noticed and not meant to be offensive. I’m pretty much playing WoFF these day as it has things missing from FC included: large Western Front and Channel map, 80 planes, Zeppelins, many aircraft which were not in RoF, better AI, a Pilot Career, and only $45.
Novice
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Am with you on the map front (pun!). I wish it were part of an early release effort as I prefer to fly fewer aircraft over correct territory rather than more over a different area.
Just me.
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I too would prefer to see the map release earlier, however, it is the most labour intensive part of the project. As I understand it, the map team is largely busy creating the new map throughout the dev cycle and only finish it very close to the end. Its a prolonged process.
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