Graduated pitch indicator/arificial horizon

[stephen]

at certain angles of attack, and in the aircraft that climb very quickly, its hard to tell weather or not my wings are level, and if I am climbing at a constant angle...
Currently we have an artificial horizon with an upper and lower hemisphere, but no graduated markings......Id ask that the "BALL" be brought up to date so when I am climbing out in a 163 I can maintain a constant climb angle, without having to revert to the ft per minute climb gauge....wheeeew

Its a wonder no ones asked about this before, as its a real pain climbing out in 163's having to look out the side window to keep site of what angle your climbing at, and I think it would make a good addittion to the prop fighters as well.....otherwise this instrument seems rather pointless to have in the cockpit

[RTHolmes]

the artificial horizon already shows how level your wings are, as does the turn indicator. dont see how knowing your exact pitch angle is useful, doesnt correspond to angle of attack or climbrate...

[doleboy]

the artificial horizon already shows how level your wings are,

Not if you can only see one colour. With extra markings it would.

[Tec]

so when I am climbing out in a 163 I can maintain a constant climb angle, without having to revert to the ft per minute climb gauge....

Shift+X

[stephen]

Allready described how it is useful..., but let me try again,... when I am CLIMBING STEEPLY the current artificial horizon is unable to show if my wings are level...BECAUSE IT HAS NO MARKING BELOW OR ABOVE WINGS LEVEL...
This would be a huge help when we are at hi alttitude, when the actual horizon is harder to see,...,AND it would make it easier to keep my wings level when I am trying to rope somone into a climb.
Other than looking out the right or left window we have no way of approximating wings level in a steep dive/climb, ww2 pilots had a graduated artificial horizon, so should we...
Its actualy a huge oversite to me that it hasnt been added allready, and any real pilot can see the plus in adding it...(i.e. low visibility navigation)


If you cant understand this im sorry... I fly my aircraft inside the cockpit, and accurate and relative  instrumentation is important to me.
Anyway its about time our instruments reflected real world necessity.  

Its past time for this change,... and I will personaly keep pushing for it....
Any private pilot has this basic instrumentation available to him, im only asking for the same consideration.

Tec, yes that is a nice feature, but its not useful in a dogfight...

Sorry to be so blunt, but it seems to be pretty cut and dry as to why a pilot needs this,,,

[ImADot]

Id ask that the "BALL" be brought up to date

How did it look in WW2?  I'm not sure.  This is a game based on WW2 aircraft; having "up to date" instruments kind of ruins that, doesn't it.

[Anaxogoras]

How did it look in WW2?  I'm not sure.  This is a game based on WW2 aircraft; having "up to date" instruments kind of ruins that, doesn't it.

The cockpit layouts we have are already cleaned up and simplified for us, with the addition of things a real WW2 aircraft didn't have, i.e. ammo counter.

[RTHolmes]

ah i see, artificial horizon only shows up to 45deg - fine for BFM, not so useful for ACM but then shouldn't you be looking at your opponent in a dogfight, rather than the panel? the idea of dogfighting on instruments seems weird to me, although i guess I glance at the ASI, Alt and turn indicator during a fight so maybe not.

[stephen]

I notice that when I split S somtimes, I lose track of where I am relative to my flight path before I enterd the manuever.
Just a way of getting a more finite directional track on where I am ...I think it would help, well thank you for posting fellows, im going to leave this one the way it is after this post...<S>

[USCH]

it makes hammerhead hard

[kvuo75]

im pretty sure the attitude indicators of the era would need to be caged before doing any aerobatics.. i.e. unusuable during those maneuvers.

[Cthulhu]

ah i see, artificial horizon only shows up to 45deg - fine for BFM, not so useful for ACM but then shouldn't you be looking at your opponent in a dogfight, rather than the panel? the idea of dogfighting on instruments seems weird to me, although i guess I glance at the ASI, Alt and turn indicator during a fight so maybe not.

Holmes, are you not Instrument-ACM certified?  

Stephen, IMHO, although a graduated artificial horizon would be nice, in the Aces High world it would be of little help. If you're trying to rope an opponent, your eyes need to be on two things, the opponent and your airspeed indicator. In that scenario, level "enough" is good enough.