Landing

[THRASH99]

In game, your plane simply "blows up" if your pilot is killed. And your pilot will be killed, if you slam your plane on the ground too hard. And again, level airspeed is only part of the equation.

If I barely tap the ground, it shouldn't blow up. If I went straight in nose down I could understand, but barely tapping it, come on. All I see that should happen is either damage and/or catch on fire, not an explosion.

[THRASH99]

If I barely tap the ground, it shouldn't blow up. If I went straight in nose down I could understand, but barely tapping it, come on. All I see that should happen is either damage and/or catch on fire, not an explosion.

What I mean by tapping the ground, is to were it sounds like the Me-163 gear hitting the ground softly, but you don't see it explode when it hits

[Lusche]

If I barely tap the ground, it shouldn't blow up.

I am barely tapping the ground a lot, and never blow up. I even slam my plane on the ground rather rough, and don't blow up. I'm almost sure you are just having the perception you are "barely tapping", but actually you are not.
At this point, all you could do is either providing a film where such a thing happens to you (should be easy to provide), or you just meet one of us or a trainer at the TA, demonstrating the issue.

[Ack-Ack]

Wow, already knew that they can catch on fire, thx for telling me that, your only the 500th person to tell me over and over. If you didn't see, I said "BLOW UP" on impact on the runway, not catch on fire. Films of it work a bit better than pics.

The pictures I posted of the B-29s both exploded and caught fire after hard landings. 

ack-ack

[ImADot]

This has wandered off topic.  To address the original posters issue.

I have no idea what would happen to a WW2 plane if it landed at 120+ MPH as I have never been in one nor flown one in real life.

The choice made in game is to help prevent gaming the game by requiring everyone to land at reasonably safe air speeds.  By doing this it prevents people from plowing in without paying any attention at all to landing correctly.  It adds to the challenge of landing a sortie and makes that "name in lights" mean just a little bit more.

Here's the answer to the original question.  There should have been no need to go any further, but people just can't let it go.  Says a lot.

[Wizer]

Here's the answer to the original question.  There should have been no need to go any further, but people just can't let it go.  Says a lot.

Thank you Imadot

[Tigger29]

THRASH, You seem to forget my original point in your thread.

Several years ago, it WAS possible to 'gently' touch down with NO GEAR at over 200mph, slide to a stop and get a successful landing in the game... the problem is that it got so ridiculous that way too many people started landing this way which in itself (IMO) is much more unrealistic that going KAPLOW the second you touch the asphalt.  Because you couldn't lower the gear at above 200mph (in most aircraft), it was faster and easier to do a belly landing at 225mph and skid to a stop, than to take the time to bleed off speed to a safe landing speed, land, apply the brakes, wait to stop and THEN END SORTIE.  In real life, almost no airplane, ESPECIALLY ANYTHING BUILT DURING THE WWII era, could land successfully at those speeds even WITH functioning landing gear.

To combat this kind of behavior, HiTech made it so that any gear up landing above 120mph (or so) results in instant death, which is represented as an explosion from within the game.  NOBODY is claiming that is how it would happen in real life.  This is not a BUG (for people just tuning in, this was originally posted in the BUG REPORTS forum)... this is BY INTENTIONAL DESIGN to help prevent people from 'gaming the game' (refer to Skuzzy's post).

So consider this:  In real life, if a WWII fighter-sized plane were to land at a speed greater than 120mph with the gear up, the plane probably would not blow up instantly, but would roll and spin and bounce and hit things and catch on fire and there is almost no chance that any of the crew would escape unharmed.  If a plane had damaged or malfunctioning gear, the pilot would take the time to bleed off speed... dump fuel... find a safe, open place to land, and GENTLY land the plane at speeds below 80-90mph... and even then there is a huge chance of injury or death.

On another note, if the plane is damaged to the point to where it cannot slow down enough to lower the gear without losing control, then there would be almost no chance of the crew surviving anyway.  Might as well eject and ditch the plane in that case.

So basically... if you want help learning how to land, I'll be more than happy to offer my services.  If you want to cry and whine that landing in this game above 120mph with the gear up isn't realistically modeled... then you're correct.  It probably ISN'T... but the game was programmed this way for an intentional reason to prevent an even MORE unrealistic practice that it appears you wish to practice as well and are now complaining about because you can't. 


You've made your point, we've made ours, HTC has made theirs... there really is no reason to continue this thread any further.

[danny76]

+1 tigger 

[Lusche]

To combat this kind of behavior, HiTech made it so that any gear up landing above 120mph (or so) results in instant death

You can make a belly landing up to 170 mph:

http://www.mediafire.com/?2oi2mtmg0zn

Prop hits the ground at 170, fuselage at 168mph.

[uptown]

You can make a belly landing up to 170 mph:

http://www.mediafire.com/?2oi2mtmg0zn

Prop hits the ground at 170, fuselage at 168mph.

yep. i did the same today with half a wing. i was just under 170 or so.

[WMLute]

I always try to be just under 150 to land.

<==never uses gear except on CV's and then only sometimes.