something from Dogfights

[toonces3]

Hub,
I concur with your last statement.

Flying in an La-7 in the current MA environment probably has little real life value outside of practicing basic ACM skills.

If you were to use AH, as is, in a structured training environment, in 1943, I believe that it would absolutely have value as a training tool for WW2 pilots.

Additionally, I believe that if we were to give you, or any of the other top tier players, a couple hundred hours in an era warbird to learn to 'fly in real life' and then started teaching you ACM, along with Joe Schmo who's never played a flight sim in his life, you'd spank him repeatedly.

It's usefulness as a trainer would probably diminish rapidly after a couple hundred hours of real life time, but the help over the initial learning curve would be enormous.

[Shifty]

Originally posted by Squire
It depends on altitude, energy states, fuel loads, ect of the opposing fighters, as to which might out turn the other and force another fighter on the defensive first, just as in AH. Maybe one pilot initiated a hard break turn first?, or pulled more G?, or was more aggressive?, you have dozens, hundreds? of factors involved. One combat will not be a "carbon copy" of another, ever. Add to that that "aces" by their nature were competent, aggressive flyers, often "out muscling" (or out thinking) the opposition in a supposedly "equal" fight.

You can't take one combat, and then demand a "cut and paste" result that matches it exactly, not when its a contest of people, as well as machines.

Good points Warloc. Another thing people tend to forget when hearing combat reports from WWII. In AH we get a perfect airplane everytime we take off. Some planes are pigs. You can take two Bf-109G6s from the same unit, put them in the air and there will be a difference in flight performance. A tired engine, flight controls slightly out of rig, an extra coat of paint causing weight and balance issues, you'd be suprised how disimilar two of the same aircraft can be. Especially in a front line unit during a world war.

[Widewing]

Originally posted by hubsonfire


How could this be useful in a real aerial engagement?

You learn tactics. You learn far more than ACM theory.

I have a friend, in his mid 60s now, who flew F-105s out of Thailand into Vietnam in the late 1960s. Later he flew the F-4 Phantom II and retired in the mid 1980s with about 300 hours in the F-16. He and his wife stayed at our house for a week a couple of years ago. I let him fly online in the TA and MA for several hours.

His words exactly: "I wish we had a tool like this when I was training. It would have been a very big help."

We have several active and retired Navy and USAF who have flown and currently fly Aces High. I doubt that any of them think that there's no benefit to be gained for actual combat pilots. Anything that can demonstrate tactics and ACM theory will be of value. Getting waxed by a fat-assed  teenager playing from his bedroom in Deluth is the only risk they take.

My regards,

Widewing

[rodak]

Originally posted by sullie363
So I was just thinking about an episode of Dogfights from this season, I think the one titled "P-51 Mustang."  Anyway a P-51D is being chased by a 109 in a slightly descending right turn, at what speed they were at they didn't say.  What he did to evade I have been unable to duplicate in the game but he described it as this - pull the stick into your gut to stall the aircraft, kick full right rudder, then the engine torque will pull her back into something flyable and you recover a couple thousand feet later.  I'm just gonna assume somebody else saw this episode and remembers what I'm talking about and have tried to pull it off themselves.  So far all my attempts have resulted in the plane wiggling a little, but nothing like what the pilot described.  Easily attained to the left, just not to the right.

I believe the same episode also had a pilot in the same situation, being chased in a descending right turn, and the pilot snapped the mustang up and to the left, did an insta 360 spin and managed to land rounds on his pursuer.

It's because he was in an airplane instead of a computer sully............

[hubsonfire]

Originally posted by Widewing
You learn tactics. You learn far more than ACM theory.

I have a friend, in his mid 60s now, who flew F-105s out of Thailand into Vietnam in the late 1960s. Later he flew the F-4 Phantom II and retired in the mid 1980s with about 300 hours in the F-16. He and his wife stayed at our house for a week a couple of years ago. I let him fly online in the TA and MA for several hours.

His words exactly: "I wish we had a tool like this when I was training. It would have been a very big help."

We have several active and retired Navy and USAF who have flown and currently fly Aces High. I doubt that any of them think that there's no benefit to be gained for actual combat pilots. Anything that can demonstrate tactics and ACM theory will be of value. Getting waxed by a fat-assed  teenager playing from his bedroom in Deluth is the only risk they take.

My regards,

Widewing

I guess I should have clarified that while the game can provide some useful training, it comes from the folks like yourself, Leviathn, Stang, etc and not simply playing the game, or at least that has been the case in my experience.

All that being said, if some folks who have been there, done that think it would give them a pronounced edge, well, I'm in no position to dispute that. Maybe I'm just a special kind of idiot, despite 7 years or so of cartoon dweebery. This wouldn't be a huge surprise, even to me.

[Badboy]

Originally posted by Widewing
Getting waxed by a fat-assed  teenager playing from his bedroom in Deluth is the only risk they take.

Ouch, my secret is out

Badboy

[Oldman731]

Originally posted by Widewing
We have several active and retired Navy and USAF who have flown and currently fly Aces High. I doubt that any of them think that there's no benefit to be gained for actual combat pilots. Anything that can demonstrate tactics and ACM theory will be of value.  

No question about that.  Most of this dialog has been directed to the contention that AH virtual pilots would be superior to real WWII pilots if put in the same aircraft.

- oldman

[Anaxogoras]

A life-long friend of mine is in the air force, and I have never been able to get him into online air-combat simulators like AH.  What am I doing wrong?

[DaddyAck]

Originally posted by Captain Virgil Hilts
Now you want to attack the credibility of Robin Olds? You are kidding, right? You need to read up on who you're talking about before you go too far. Because you evidently have absolutely no idea who you are talking about.

Wow I like it the way everyone else can post an opinion on something but I can not (as evidently I have absolutely no idea who I am talking about  ). I was not trying to discredit the fighting men who put their lives on the line in the air, as I was trying to point out the obvious bias that that channel has in reguards to the axis airmen according to my opinion.  I was trying to say that in most episodes I have seen the axis just fly around begging to be shot at.  I am familiar with the American aces as well as those from the Luftwaffe and its allies, and I know of their deeds.  My post earlier was not meant to imply any sort of disrespect to Robin Olds or any other person that they have interviewed.  It was an opinion about the STATION  that produced and aired such episodes that portray the Axis as a gaggle of un organized flying targets and rarely as agressive military aviators.  Why has there not been (and correct me if I am wrong, and I know y'all will ) an episode on Hans-Joachim Marseille, Erich Alfred Hartmann, Adolf Galland, or Adriano Visconti? So any how, I am sorry if any toes were stepped on, that was not my intent.  I just do not like "Dogfights" the tv show, it is possible to like the Aces that are portrayed therein but still hold the show in distain.

Ok y'all may commence my flogging.

[SLAMMER]

Originally posted by Anaxogoras
Hey, I thought we were friends with the French again!:p

Hope not, although their wine is pretty good. (need to keep that coming).

[Lye-El]

Originally posted by DaddyAck
Why has there not been (and correct me if I am wrong, and I know y'all will ) an episode on Hans-Joachim Marseille, Erich Alfred Hartmann, Adolf Galland, or Adriano Visconti?  

Probably too hard to interview them for the show.

[sullie363]

I'm still wondering why they haven't done an episode involving maybe the battle of britain, or perhaps the Australians, or the Russians......

[Fencer51]

They seem overly fascinated with the actual living pilots.  There are so many great "Dogfights" out there that actually involve aircraft in lieu of Kamikazes or Battleships that it is disheartening.

I heard that the show has been canceled anyway.

[sullie363]

Even if it was cancelled, Battle 360 seems to basically be the same show just expanded to anything they want involving, well, battles.

[SD67]

Originally posted by Citabria
how many other flight sim developers modelled their rv8 into their sim so they could compare their flight model performance to their real airplane throughout its flight envelope?

name one other than HT.

Austin Meyer. But he used his SR22.
Sorry Fester.... you asked
The X-Plane engine is so good many aircraft engineers and designers use it as a tool to check out their designs and get confirmation of some performance estimates.
Aircraft manufacturers use it to demonstrate some of their airframes to potential customers before scheduling actual RL test flights.
X-Plane however is NOT a combat simulator, and never will be.