Just Wondering . . . .?

[SKJohn]

With the constant upgrading of the interiors and instument panels of the aircraft in search of more "realistic" cockpits, why does HTC continue to use an artificial horizon that looks like something out of a 1970's Cessna Skyhawk?
IIRC, most WWII era artificial horizons were all black with white lines - no blue sky to be seen in any of them.  Doesn't it seem like we should have those in AH aircraft as well?

[Noir]

for better visibilty on the screen ? not everyone got a 22 inch monitor

Remember AH is a compromise between gameplay and realism...for instance the La5 pilots had the shift gears manually with 5 levers to use their engine correctly....yak pilots didn't have ammo count...

[Sincraft]

Well I can tell you just from a web design standpoint, that in the past it was considered pretty cool to have tables inside tables, invisible 1px gifs for alignment etc etc...now it is consider bad form although I haven't made the switch to CSS layouts yet myself.

I find myself struggling to get things to line up and look as intended in EVERY browser above the 5% margin AND for all the items to be as intended IE: images, text, etc

So in one browser, say Firefox 2.0 - I can have everything look great, but in another the heading bars are larger for two articles...why?  Well, there are several reason and I have to configured arduously around those.

THEN you take two different computers, say my laptop with a glossy (lame) 15" widescreen, and a 19" desktop monitor (sony) - and you can see two different levels of hue/saturation/color on each monitor.  On one screen, the website is 100% legible and perfect, on another...there are many issues like words blending too much into the background color and being hard to read, or the intended 'punch' items falling below the immediately viewable range with a widescreen versus a 'normal' screen.

There is a balance they must keep in mind, using just their test rigs will never suffice although I'm pretty sure they must have things like this in mind when they configure plane models.  So it's always going to be difficult to please the masses, but you have to try - in the process...you please most of the people.

As long as I can read the thing and understand what it is meant to be, I'm happy..I just wish there was an easier way to look down toward my instruments...i'm probably going to map something on my joystick to do this as my hat options are all used.

[SKJohn]

Originally posted by Noir
for better visibilty on the screen ? not everyone got a 22 inch monitor
...

You're right - I don't have one either.
Like I said, I'm not complaining or "demanding" it be changed, just wondering why with the push for realistic instument panels, they use a modern instument.  I agree it is much easier for non-pilots to understand its use with the "sky" color and all.

[Engine]

I have a 17" monitor and play at 10x7, and I frequently lose my horizon line. I don't know how to explain it well, but it's the same effect as when I move my head forward/back in the cockpit and lose/gain pixels in my ammo counter. It's clearly a computer limitation and not a human one, so I'm fine with an easy-to-read non-realistic horizon display in AH.

[Noir]

I do have a 22inch CRT monitor lol

Sincraft you can setup the "up" position on the pov to look down on your instruments. I personnaly prefer to use it to look over the nose of your plane for picking activities, but everyone got his preferences......

[SKJohn]

Well, I maybe overstated the case.  It might be just the US planes that have the colored art. hor.  I was in a 109 today, and noticed it's was black and white, and IIRC, so is the Spitfire's.

So, in the words of some long ago lost to memory SNL player . . . . . .

"never mind".