Red/Blackouts onset to quickly?

[Crisis_J]

Perhaps I'm just used to the slew of other WWII sims out there, but the Red/Blackouts seem to onset and close in a little to quickly.  I know they didn't have G-suits, etc. then, but still...  Can anyone verify this?  

If this has already been adressed (I didn't see it) then my apologies for the re-post.

[miko2d]

 In a T-6 trainer The funnel vision started around (under) 3Gs for me. I blacked out completely at 4 under Gs. The seat was completely vertical and I did not have a suit, experience and did not do any anti-blackout things (tensing the leg/stomack muscles).
  Of course the professional pilots, suited and seated in inclined seats can sustain much harder Gs. That also depends on their physique (heart, artery, oxygen-starvation tolerance). I read an interview with F16 pilots and they say that sustaining 6+ G for a while without blackout is common, just requires practice and remembering to do the exercise during a maneuver.
 Considering how easy it is to pull 3-4 Gs in WB/AH (or in the real T-6) without intending so, I would say that the blackout modelling in AH is extremely realistic.

miko--

[This message has been edited by miko2d (edited 09-30-1999).]

[Yeager]

I agree high G forces onset very quickly.

Perhaps stick input speed needs to be adjusted down a few percentiles.  This would allow a more realistic entry into the high G environment of ACM.

Yeager

[phaetn]

Check out this article at Combatsim about blackouts:
                    http://www.combatsim.com/htm/may99/blackout.htm  


Agreed, many WWII pilots did not have the conditioning of many modern jet pilots (they were drafted for service, not professional) nor the advantages of an inclined seat or G-suits.  Or a squeakin' Betty: "pull up!  pull up!"  

While I love[/b] the implementation of the blackout through tunnel vision versus the total red out of -Gs, I would like it to be a little more delayed and progressive.  Perhaps not quite so instant a reaction to stick input.  This may very well change as the revisions go on.

Cheers,

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phaetnAT
Aces High Alpha Tester

[ra]

Blackouts seem to start at 4.5 G's, too early IMHO.  A typical loop in a real plane requires 4Gs, and there is no problem with blackouts.  I think 5.5 or 6G's would be better for a trained WWII fighter pilot.

--ra--

[Crisis_J]

I've played around with the stick pitch inputs and managed to reduce B/O so that I never go completely black (I read around a few other posts for this info).  I had to bring the setting a little below mid-range to do this....

[funked]

I think it's perfect.  In real life you don't yank on the stick like a sim pilot because it is not comfortable.  Some of the stuff that sim guys do in a dogfight would really beat up a real pilot.  The blackouts keep this stuff under control.

[Wicked]

I don't think 4 Gs is nearly enough to cause a full blackout unless you are really out of shape or something.  Perhaps a little loss of peripheral vision and color, maybe.

Even some rollercoasters will pull 3-4 Gs and nobody ever comes close to blacking out that I know of.  I think when you start getting up to the 6G+ range is when blackouts can occur.  I think there is a big difference between 4-6Gs than say 2-4Gs.  It also depends on what kind of "pilot" HTC wants to model.  One with a lot of experience, someone straight from soda shop, or something inbetween.  Also, I don't know if it is in their design plan but I think that G-force effects should be accumulative on the virtual pilot.  Maybe they could start out taking a lot of Gs, but the longer you fly and the more high G ACMs you pull, the more fatigued the pilot becomes and blackouts/redouts onset is much quicker and last longer.  Perhaps imput controls become a bit more sluggish as well.

I really believe that in order to obtain more realism that the virtual pilot has to be modeled.  blackouts/redouts should not be a factor of how many Gs the plane is pulling, but the pilot, and in turn that should effect how he is able to control the plane.

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Wicked
The Pale Horses
487th Lil Bastards

[Kats]

Didn't 109's have inclined seats?

[Hoser]

I think the 190's had the inclined seats

[Sixr]

It needs to be modeled, but dont model the girlyman from the pilot pool.

[Zanth]

Totally agree with wicked G's should be accumulative.  It silly that we can pull 7g's all we want an heal up good as new just by easing off stick.   Lotta manuvers guys are pullin off out there just couldnt be done if they truely had to deal with blackouts.

Ask Hitech about this he said way it is is way it was meant to be, I hope he changes his mind though....at least for a "full realism" (shudder use that term for a game) arenas of the sim.

[Ogre]

I'm not really expressing an opinion either way here...but here is another perspective.

Much of the data you see on G-tolerance is pretty modern.  In WWII very few pilots were career pilots (or even pilots prior to entering), most were "converted" civilians.  For many, when they hit the "big show" they weren't what you would call experienced fighter pilots.  Most veterns I have spoken with relate having a shockingly small number of hours of flight time and only a small percentage of that in the high-performance aircraft they would eventually fight in.

They also didn't have a temendous amount of A2A experience to build up their G-tolerance skills.  How much experience did the most active fighter pilots actually see by the end of the war?

What was their physical state at the time?  Most G-tolerance studies use fresh, well rested subjects.  Most WWII pilots flew very often, and on very long missions (think about ETO escort missions), where the opportunity to die quickly was present on every flight.  Many vets I've spoken to tell me they felt tired, emotionally numb, and mentally fatigued a lot of the time.  Then take a more extreme example of a pilot on Guadalcanal in the months following the invasion...exhausted and suffering from the effects of Malaria and Dysentery (dehydrated, fever, chills, etc.)...many pilots were carried from their a/c on landing.  Not exactly a well rested subject  

To me, the question is what do we want to model, the "typical human" or artifically adjust the "typical human" to make the "typical WWII pilot"?  I can see arguments both ways.

-Ogre