A question for real life pilots

[WolfSkin1]

The planes of AH seems much, much harder to fly compared to any other flight sim out there!

I mean stalls, snaps and spins are a constant fear, one of which I don't think RL WWII had to deal with to such extense. I mean, at times it took mere weeks to train a fighter pilot to operational status - and he would sometimes more than not survive his first sortie! If he had to deal with AH flight, he would surely be dead from spins/stalls before he ever saw the enemy. I see it happen all the time in the MA and it just feels wierd. Also, I've never heard any wwii pilots say that their eg. Spits or Hurricanes were aerodynamic catastrophes! On the contrary, a Spit or even more so the Hurricane are said to be very easy to fly and handle indeed. Not so in AH. Fighter planes are supposed to feel light to handle, not like leaded flying bricks. (Someone said about the F-4 that given enough power, you can make a brick fly)

Another thing, take the B-26. a) The left wing stalls very easily, induced by torgue. It has two engines so I reckon torgue (though present) wouldn't be as hard as this. b) E. It bleeds it all if you so much at look at youre ailerions or elevators. No loops here c) B-25 (I know there are differences, the 26 I reckon, would behave better) reportedly 'can do anything you ask her' - including barrel-rolls, loops, etc. (said by the B-25 pilot who flew the camera plane during shooting of 'BoB').

I've heard one RL pilot say that AH is alot harder than the real thing. What do you think? The question is how AH a/c perform compared to the real thing.

(also, my old quirky joystick inducing snaps and spins + poor skill kills me more than any of the enemy, admittedly I'm terrible at this   )

Best,

Wolfskin

[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: WolfSkin1 ]

[GRUNHERZ]

Troll????

BTW you can loop a B26 in AH, actually you can loop it many times in succesion.

[Broes]

If you drop all bombs it probably will fly alot better  

Broes

[Ripsnort]

Originally posted by GRUNHERZ:
Troll????

BTW you can loop a B26 in AH, actually you can loop it many times in succesion.

Funny, one of the thing Doolittle did in WW2 was to take the B26 to the front lines, and calm fears of the aircraft by looping it with one engine feathered, at low level, and landing it that way.  Read his autobiograhy, it details all the stunts he did with the B26.

[Bodhi]

Dunno bout you guys, but after working on keeping 4 different B-025's in the air over the last 10 years, it will be a cold day in hell before I participate in a loop in a B-25.  My bet is the tail would snap off long before it is completed.  But yet, I am sure it could be done, but too many "what ifs"!
 

[AKSWulfe]

B25 and B26 are two different planes...

Rip, Doolittle flew B25s (Doolittle's Raiders did anyway..)... B26 came out later in the war.

B25 has a tail like a B24 Liberator, B26 has a different tail.
-SW

[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: SWulfe ]

[Ripsnort]

SWulfe, I know.  I'm talking about the B26, with its bad rep...Doolittle was asked to go out to the front lines, particulary Africa, and demonstrate the safety of a B26...has nothing to do with the B25 he flew in the Doolittle raid.

The B26 got a bad reputation, Doolittle was called upon to calm the fears.  Read his autobiography, this man had an incredible life in every sort of aircraft you can imagine.

[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: Ripsnort ]

[AKSWulfe]

Ah okay, did not know that... thought you might have mistyped it, I was wrong. My mistake.
-SW

[Ripsnort]

Not a perfect quote, but his little airshow would have him take off, climb to 2000 feet, come back over the airfield, feather one engine, go into a shallow dive to about 500 feet, loop with the engine feathered, at the bottom of the loop, he'd feather the other engine, then land dead stick.  This convinced most of the young gun pilots that if a "old man" like doolittle could do this, then the they could do it too.  It still carried its bad reputation, but that's human nature, once something gets labeled, its difficult to persuade a different opinion.

"No visible means of support"  

[Arrow]

<B>I mean stalls, snaps and spins are a constant fear, one of which I don't think RL WWII had to deal with to such extense. I mean, at times it took mere weeks to train a fighter pilot to operational status - and he would sometimes more than not survive his first sortie! If he had to deal with AH flight, he would surely be dead from spins/stalls before he ever saw the enemy. I see it happen all the time in the MA and it just feels wierd. Also, I've never heard any wwii pilots say that their eg. Spits or Hurricanes were aerodynamic catastrophes! On the contrary, a Spit or even more so the Hurricane are said to be very easy to fly and handle indeed. Not so in AH. Fighter planes are supposed to feel light to handle, not like leaded flying bricks. (Someone said about the F-4 that given enough power, you can make a brick fly)</B>


Way to stick to the topic LOL.  I'll try to give you an answer on your original question about the way the planes handle.  First I can tell you that the AH flight model is closer to flying than just about any other sim out there (that i've flown).  One of the largest factors that isn't really addressed in AH is the good ol buffet.  Sure the stall horn is in there but there is still a lack of feel.  You really have to feel your airplane to fly her properly.  I suppose that some of you guys are using force feedback sticks but I havn't tried that with AH yet.<BR><BR>
What it really comes down to is...  take your time to learn your airplane.  She is talking to you - listen to her.  She is telling you how she is feeling.  If you push her too hard, she'll quit flying.  This isn't Nintendo, don't expect to use full deflection of your controls and get anything like decent performance.  It takes a level of finesse to do it right.  Try smooth corrections, don't jerk the stick around.<BR><BR>
If you are wondering, my experience in flying real airplanes goes from open pit biplanes to the F-16.  The same basic thought process applies to just about anything with wings.  Tell her what to do, and she'll try to do it.  Confuse her and you will be a smoking hole!

<BR><BR>
-Arrow

[MarkVZ]

I'm just a student pilot through solo, but I'll give it a shot.  

First of all, next time you enter a spin, take a look at the accelerometer (G-meter) and see how many G's you pulled to induce it.  When you are actually in the plane, you feel this pushing on you.  That is a good warning of what's going on.  Also, in real life, you get pre-stall shudder and you just generally feel the aircraft better, like Arrow said.

When you're sitting behind a computer screen gently pulling on your joystick, you have no feel.  A pilot IRL would have to really haul back on his control column/stick to produce a stall/spin.  It's not like they could just do this at the flick of the wrist like we do.  

 In small Cessnas you actually have to kick rudder in to induce a spin during a stall.  They just like to mush ahead when stalled.

It's all about feel.  With our computers and joysticks we have absolutely no feel for G's, and most of us have no accurate feedback from the controls.  We can induce a stall/spin very easily, but it was much harder to inadvertantly spin in real life.

-MarkVZ-

[WolfSkin1]

Thanks Arrow and Mark.

Basically what you're saying is that IRL it's alot easier because you can feel the plane and your bum on the seat. That's interesting. Perhaps the shudder could be simulated quite easily with head movement - even G force similar, say you're doing from 4-5 Gs and that would make it hard to look in a particular direction (I don't know if that would be realistic, I guess when you pull a lot of G it impossible to do the most basic thing but say UUUNGH).

So, are the planes in AH too hard to fly in you gentlemen's oppinion?

 

[eagl]

MarkVZ has it right.  The planes in AH are actually easier to fly than RL planes IMHO. I can jump into ANY AH plane and takeoff, fight, land, all on the first try with no study or preflight knowledge of it's handling characteristics.  If I tried that in RL, I'd probably crash and kill myself at some point even with around 1000 hours of real life flight time.  The difference is that in the game we're missing most of the tactile feedback we would have in real life so it's harder to know exactly where the plane is in it's flight envelope.  This isn't all that unrealistic of course since some real aircraft don't give any warning before they depart controlled flight either.  You just have to learn to use what cues the game gives you, and that will be more than enough.  For example, you HAVE to watch for any yaw motion.  This is easily seen from any of the level view directions once you start looking for it.  To see what I mean, flip to any level (not UP modified) outside view and kick the rudders.  You can definately see when the plane yaws.  The lesson there is that yaw you want is good, yaw you don't want and didn't ask for is quite often BAD and a sign that the plane is about to spin or otherwise depart controlled flight.

Learn to ride the stall horn too.  Again this closely models real life aircraft performance in that the horn in AH substitutes for airframe buffeting, sound, and feedback in the control stick.  Once you learn that you simply CAN'T pull any harder when the stall horn is blaring and you also need to be careful how aggressively you use the other controls, you'll get a better feel for the plane.

It takes time, just like in RL.  One benefit of AH over RL is that nearly every plane in AH shares the exact same basic flight characteristics...  They ALL have a stall horn, they ALL spin pretty much the same way, they ALL react to rudder in the same basic way, etc etc.  This is somewhat unrealistic but HT simply doesn't have time to write a complete flight engine for each aircraft so we make do with the complexity he has in the single flight engine.  IMHO it's plenty of feedback to make the planes reasonably easy to fly.  Not easy to fly WELL, but easy to just fly around.

[buhdman]

I'm not a pilot, WolfSkin1, but the high-speed stall and departure of the P-51 seems to be accurately modeled.  In fact it was a boon to one P-51 pilot that I had the pleasure of talking to.  Here's his story.

He was a pilot in the 357th Fighter Group (Bud Anderson's and Chuck Yeager's group).  I got a chance to talk to him while he was here in Colorado Springs dedicating a memorial to their group.  He told me the story of one of his kills.  He was flying in a four-ship when he noticed a schwarm of ME109s off to their right and coming in their direction.  He notified his flight lead who immediately called for the flight to break.  I'm not sure about the direction they broke, but whichever direction it was, this pilot told me that the adrenaline kicked in and he "yanked" the stick too hard, which in this case caused his plane to "depart" and do a snap-roll and start spinning.  He fought with the plane and by the time he got it under control, he found himself dead six on one of 109s!  He chased the 109 and shot it down.  How's that for a pleasant surprise?

Buhdman, out

[Voss]

My opinion is formed from discussions with a few guys that fly with us online and fly in the real, too.

The one thing that sticks out as very inaccurate is the way that trims are modelled. Trims are *not* a major control function. Tame them puppies down!

Torque, though, is very undermodelled for planes overall, and I think HT has been fooled (by his flight in the 51) to think that all airplanes of the genre fly similarly. They don't. Everyone I have talked to admit that the 51 is an exception in its handling. With as little as five hours in taildraggers you can advance to a pony (don't spread it around, though).

This opinion has been formed after sitting down over the last two weeks (about) with a lot of different pilots and guys that have seen more *bustups* than you can imagine.

I also think that combat trims and takeoff trims, and all this other trim nonsense has ruined what could be a really nice game. *But*, we have what we have and it's a damn sight better then anything else out there. I really doubt the holy grail will ever be accomplished, but I would love to see it sought by more companies with real bucks to try.

Right now I'm riding the fence on whether to fly more AH, or just toss it and stick with the real. I have some really good friends here, but damn! That real flying stuff is in my blood deep! I have Lear sickness I think.