"Seat of Pants" Sideslip indicator

[Kweassa]

I'm curious - you guys who wouldn't use it... do you not fly coordinated at all and don't ever intend to? Or are you saying that you are just so good that you can already fly coordinated without looking at any sideslip indicators (ala Bubi up there).

They're saying it doesn't take 1000 kcal of calories to move your eyeballs and sneak a glance at a small, black ball in between two vertical lines from time to time.

[boomerlu]

They're saying it doesn't take 1000 kcal of calories to move your eyeballs and sneak a glance at a small, black ball in between two vertical lines from time to time.

Wow. Read the content of the thread.

Do you happen to fly exclusively in the forward view (and if you do, tell me where you fly so I can pad my stats by repeatedly shooting you down)? Do you not realize the risk of losing track of your target to shift your view back to forward? Do you realize that once you take your eye off the ball, you could possibly I don't know... roll or pull more elevator deflection, thus ruining your centered sideslip that you peeked back at? And why are you bringing calories into this? This has nothing to do with laziness.

I don't care if you shoot down this idea with legitimate criticisms, but my God...we are 0/2 on critical posts that actually mean something, and only one person has given any reason WHY they would not use such a feature.

[EskimoJoe]

I don't care if you shoot down this idea with legitimate criticisms, but my God...we are 0/2 on critical posts that actually mean something, and only one person has given any reason WHY they would not use such a feature.

Well, if it makes you happy, I wouldn't use such a feature because I do not need such a feature. This sim/game already allows me to fly on the ball without looking at it (autopilot).

[boomerlu]

Well, if it makes you happy, I wouldn't use such a feature because I do not need such a feature. This sim/game already allows me to fly on the ball without looking at it (autopilot).

Thanks for being reasonable. However... centering the ball isn't just for flying straight. If it were, I would not have put in this request.

What about in the middle of a turn? Any turn for that matter, combat or not. What about while rolling? All of these situations benefit from ball-centered/coordinated flying if you can do it without affecting your situational awareness. You roll around your axis properly, bleed less E in all cases, and turn just a smidgeon faster.

The point of the request is "without affecting your situational awareness". Currently we can do it, but it requires far too much concentration on the forward view to be healthy in a combat environment and more concentration on the forward view than is realistic given the fact that pilots could physically sense sideslip.

[guncrasher]

just a dumb question here, u talking about flying straight and level right?  so u use the ball in the plane.  reason i asked is because i never used it, actually when I started ah  i didnt know what it was for, so I learned to fly without it.  I always used the horizon as a reference point.  and for this i have all my views set up to my stick and I always look around, specially when on somebody's six as this is the time u get picked most of the time.

I am by far not an ace or an expert but there's some things that I better know or guess at all times without looking at the gauges (sometimes a quick look just to make sure wont hurt), airplane speed, altitude (as in can i do a reversal and not hit the floor ) where the enemy is (all of them), flaps, wep on/off (from engine sound),  and ammo left and your artificial horizon.


but going back to your request, it wasnt available in ww2 to the pilots, so it shouldnt be available here.  we have way too many gamey tricks as was mentioned early in the threads.  but if you must have it because you need it then I want the opportunity to turn it off.  It may block my view of something else I am keeping track.

semp

[boomerlu]

Man, looks like I need to clarify the entire purpose of having the sideslip indicator. Using it to fly straight and level is only the simplest case.

Any time your plane has Yaw AoA (that is, its nose isn't aligned with the direction the plane is traveling), you get sideslip and the ball moves away from center. This happens while rolling, while in flat turns, etc. The ball moves in virtually every maneuver so long as you don't use rudder to correct for it. Contrary to what the masses think, the rudder's main purpose is to correct for sideslip - NOT to set the proper deflection for a HO .

The main point of keeping the ball centered with regards to ACM is to reduce drag by making your airplane fly true into the wind - this allows you to retain more energy.

As for realism - ask any real pilot. If they fly with sideslip, they can FEEL it. They don't need a ball to fly approximately without sideslip because it just feels weird when the ball isn't centered. A good analogy is when you are turning in a car - you don't need to see the road to know that you are turning. You could be blind, but you can still feel the fact that you are turning. In fact, the inertial Gs you feel while turning in a car are basically similar forces to sideslip. Flying without sideslip basically means you no longer feel the side-to-side forces.

The reason it isn't gamey is precisely the fact that WWII pilots could directly feel their aircraft sideslipping. The lack of such a mechanism is what Hitech calls "false realism" - sure the pilots wouldn't have something taped to their eyes to tell them the sideslip, but they could feel it all the same.

[guncrasher]

no, seriously learn to fly without it, less you look at the gauges more time u have to look around you. and if you cant tell that you are flying straight while looking back then wow...

semp

[Kweassa]

Wow. Read the content of the thread.

I have. There wasn't much.

Do you happen to fly exclusively in the forward view (and if you do, tell me where you fly so I can pad my stats by repeatedly shooting you down)? Do you not realize the risk of losing track of your target to shift your view back to forward? Do you realize that once you take your eye off the ball, you could possibly I don't know... roll or pull more elevator deflection, thus ruining your centered sideslip that you peeked back at? And why are you bringing calories into this? This has nothing to do with laziness.

While you are at it, why not just ask for a Radar GPS so you don't have to swivel your head around and look for enemies in the first place?

The risk you take in the game concerning this matter, is not so different from the actual risk real life pilots took. They couldn't look at the guages and at the same time track an enemy with eyeballs, so why should we?

I don't care if you shoot down this idea with legitimate criticisms, but my God...we are 0/2 on critical posts that actually mean something, and only one person has given any reason WHY they would not use such a feature.

In our land, we call your attitude [mental victorizing].

Dumb idea -> people laugh -> ignore the crowd and claim moral vicory

[RTHolmes]

guncrasher u cant really tell someone they dont need a sideslip indicator when u plainly dont know what a coordinated turn is and what it involves. reread boomerlus post...

[boomerlu]

The risk you take in the game concerning this matter, is not so different from the actual risk real life pilots took. They couldn't look at the guages and at the same time track an enemy with eyeballs, so why should we?

If you had bothered to interpret even my original post or given a thought to the title, then you would have realized that real pilots don't NEED to look at their sideslip indicator because they could feel it. That is the ENTIRE REASONING of the request.

Ask a pilot. If you can't ask a pilot, learn some physics and go drive a car.

If it weren't true that real pilots could feel sideslip and thereby correct for it without looking at the ball, then everything you've ridiculed this thread on would of course be right on the money. That I plainly admit. Of course it would be gamey.

Unfortunately you missed the whole point.

[Kweassa]

If you had bothered to interpret even my original post or given a thought to the title, then you would have realized that real pilots don't NEED to look at their sideslip indicator because they could feel it. That is the ENTIRE REASONING of the request.

...and if you had stopped to think about the many concessions the game already offers, you'd soon have realized such points are trivial to the point of insignificance, and hardly effects the game in any way for the absolute majority of people who've been playing this game a lot more than you have.

A 0.2 second flick of a thumb quite kindly swivels your neck around at any direction for 360 degrees despite the angle, position, speed and Gs the plane is being effected at, at which point it takes about another 0.5 seconds to move your eyeball and look at the ball and return to your view of the enemy plane.

Plenty of pilots already fly and fight well enough without a constant, ahistoric HUD update. If they have no problems with it, why should you?

[guncrasher]

guncrasher u cant really tell someone they dont need a sideslip indicator when u plainly dont know what a coordinated turn is and what it involves. reread boomerlus post...

so on a coordinated or even an uncoordinated turn wont the ball be on one side or the other but not in the middle?  so u want to be able to see the ball on the side while looking anywhere except forward.  please enlighten me as I really dont understand how u cannot tell whether  your plane is flying level of not without looking at the ball at all times.  trust me I dont have a state of the art set up where i can feel the g forces and I can tell if my plane is flying level or not.

You sure the real reason is so to make sure your flying level while looking behind u so u can run away faster?



semp

[RTHolmes]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_flight 

[Ghosth]

Mostly in combat I fly with my head out of the cockpit watching the enemy.

However, I do NOT expect "HUD" in WWII.

So why ask for what is essentially a unrealistic hud?
This is where the "art" of war meets the "science".
Using the visual cues you have, along with experience to fly close to coordinated.

[Anaxogoras]

...and if you had stopped to think about the many concessions the game already offers, you'd soon have realized such points are trivial to the point of insignificance, and hardly effects the game in any way for the absolute majority of people who've been playing this game a lot more than you have.

A 0.2 second flick of a thumb quite kindly swivels your neck around at any direction for 360 degrees despite the angle, position, speed and Gs the plane is being effected at, at which point it takes about another 0.5 seconds to move your eyeball and look at the ball and return to your view of the enemy plane.

Plenty of pilots already fly and fight well enough without a constant, ahistoric HUD update. If they have no problems with it, why should you?

Something must really bother you about his idea, because this is the fist time I've ever seen you "go vet" on someone who is new to AH but obviously knows a thing or two about computer flight sims.

There are so many ahistoric concessions to playability in AH that using "it's not historical" as an objection to an idea borders on linguistic nonsense.

...edited for spelling.