Ranger, my first post stated quite politely and in a civil way "It's not very realistic" and the response was mindless Krusty-bashing, a knee-jerk reaction from some. I in NO way invited that kind of reaction, nor was it warranted. Had the response been "How do you mean?" I was fully prepared to post all the examples I had on hand. That is how a polite and civil discussion takes place. Instead I was summarily dismissed as some crackpot and always wrong.
The science of it is this: The only reason you get the billowy "bulges" or "bubbles" or whatever you want to call them, where light and shadow create high contrast, is when a stationary fire, on the ground, is pushing more smoke and heat upwards. There's already smoke there, and it has to displace this, thereby creating the outward bulges.
In a plane on fire, this doesn't happen. Why? It's simple: The flame isn't there anymore. It's just a suspension of smoke particles in the atmosphere. Nothing to push it or displace it and create bulges or bubbles or whatever you want to call, and nothing to create such interesting shapes for light and shadow to play upon.
Again, this would only be where the flames are relatively stationary. On your CV, for example, it would look like this if the CV were stationary, otherwise it might only look like this right over the immediate flames. The rest of the smoke trail would be far more solid and dark in nature.
You can't do that with Aces High, though. It's all one smoke trail. You can't place a localized effect over the immediate flame then another to depict the different-looking trail. That's just a problem with how the game is set up. That makes the smoke look unrealistic past the point of combustion.
