60 Degree Limits for Bombers

[earl1937]

  OK, I am like a lot of other guys in this game, I try to fly these aircraft just like flying the real ones! Not saying that anyone playing this game ought to be a real life pilot, but to see some of the crazy things guys do with these aircraft sends a shutter up my 6!
Tell you what Hi Tech, how about putting a limit on the vertical displacement, I.E., 60 degrees nose up or down, you die!
and while you are at it, put a 60 degree bank limit on it too! Then all this crap going on with bombers would stop! I had a guy "barrel" rolling a B-17 the other day on climbout, at 120MPH IAS! While everything about this game is prgramed as best you guys can do and you do a "heckava" job, some of this crap needs to be stopped!

[Wiley]

Forgive a stupid question, but why would the angles play a factor on structural limits?  Wouldn't it be the G loads on the airframe that would cause it to fail?

Wiley.

[bozon]

Forgive a stupid question, but why would the angles play a factor on structural limits?  Wouldn't it be the G loads on the airframe that would cause it to fail?

Wiley.

Bombs will not clear the bay & doors at high bank or pitch angles. If you dive-bomb a real heavy bomber you may have loose bombs flying around inside the plane - the last ones to be released were mounted very high inside the fussalage.

[Wiley]

Bombs will not clear the bay & doors at high bank or pitch angles. If you dive-bomb a real heavy bomber you may have loose bombs flying around inside the plane - the last ones to be released were mounted very high inside the fussalage.

Right, dropping would be a whole nother thing, but I'm just not seeing why a 61 degree bank or dive would suddenly cause a B17 to fall from the sky.

60's a helluva bank in the second place, I rarely see the good ones doing anything like that.

Wiley.

[earl1937]

Forgive a stupid question, but why would the angles play a factor on structural limits?  Wouldn't it be the G loads on the airframe that would cause it to fail?

Wiley.

What I was saying is if the player exceeds those angles, he would automatically die in the game. I could care less about the "G" loading, that would be to hard to program I guess! All I am saying the bombers in game should be limited to what the real thing did, not this crazy crap I see in here everyday!
(And don't get me started on "stick steering")

[Wiley]

What I was saying is if the player exceeds those angles, he would automatically die in the game. I could care less about the "G" loading, that would be to hard to program I guess! All I am saying the bombers in game should be limited to what the real thing did, not this crazy crap I see in here everyday!
(And don't get me started on "stick steering")

Wouldn't that be roughly equivalent to having fighters instantly die if they exceed VnE by more than a couple mph?  Seems to me like it would take quite a bit of the flavor out of the game.

I could see making it so they can't drop at attitudes where they couldn't actually drop, or modeling the crew having to drag their bruised and battered selves back to their gun position after a barrel roll, but what structurally prevents the planes from surviving a 61 degree bank?

What specifically is it that the plane can do in the game that it couldn't do in real life?

Wiley.

[colmbo]

In real life I've done wingovers in a B-17, bank angle around 100 degrees or so.  I don't like putting artificial limits on performance.  If the heavy airplanes flew more like heavy airplanes it would be a self solving problem.  Real life a B-17 would be very difficult to complete a roll in, the roll rate is horrible….good chance you'd run out of air before completing the roll.

Control forces are also very high, more so as speed builds.  While this is modeled to some extend in game I have found that they just don't feel quite like the real airplanes….I'll do things in game I wouldn't think about doing real life.

[Beefcake]

-1

When I get a chance to fly I like doing stupid stuff with the toys Hitech has provided to us, one of my favorite pastimes is dogfighting in bombers, especially the B25. Granted I die 99% of the time and usually it's to me ripping a wing off in a combat maneuver, but it's always fun for a good laugh.

Bombers get pushed to the edge of their design limits in AH and most of the time they're flown beyond what aircrews in WWII did with them. However, if the airframe could take it then let it be. My only agreement with this is if AH models bomb bays that force pilots to drop bombs on a more level fight path, otherwise they risk damaging/losing bombs and or damaging their aircraft due to bomb bay collisions.

[Zimme83]

Planes should be able to do whatever the airframe can handle. However if the stick forces are too excessive it too should be simulated so if it in reality was too hard to roll with a B-17 (as an example) this should be simulated in the game, just like plane can be uncontrollabe in a dive due to excessive stick forces.

[Traveler]

What isn't modeled into the game is the other 9 member of the B17 crew.  A B17 Commander would never attempt to dog fight, he'd try to put his aircraft in the best position to allow his gunners to do their job.  Remember the guns were not on fixed mounts and the gunners were not strapped they could't do their job if inverted, kind of hard to aim your weapon while dangle off the deck.

[Mister Fork]

What isn't modeled into the game is the other 9 member of the B17 crew.  A B17 Commander would never attempt to dog fight, he'd try to put his aircraft in the best position to allow his gunners to do their job.  Remember the guns were not on fixed mounts and the gunners were not strapped they could't do their job if inverted, kind of hard to aim your weapon while dangle off the deck.

you hit the nail on the head Traveler

Based on Earl's earlier comment, that if you exceed the angles recommended for normal operations, you end up knocking out your AA guns in your aircraft...if the gunners, navigator, and bombardier get hurt cause you're banking 60° or climbing at a stupid angle...barrel roles, you start damaging stuff and your crew... including radios, bomb racks, oxygen tanks, etc etc...

So in effect, it neuters your bomber...

Earl is right on this one guys...sorry. It's not realistic. Actually, it's almost cartoonish to do a barrel role in a B-17/24/29/Lanc/B-26/B-25/Ju-88/etc etc...They're designed for moderate flight control movements and the equipment and crew inside is held in on that same principle.

[Ratsy]

A good friend (who has significant T38 and TR1 hours) once explained to me the frustration of trying to trim a 'bent airplane'.  In the T38, that would describe an aircraft that had excessive positive or negative G loads imposed over a period of time.  There were some tail-numbers that he would avoid because they were such a pain in the bellybutton to trim.

I don't see how this could be any different with a mission-loaded B-17 being driven by a ham-fisted (or enthusiastic) Aces High pilot.  Wouldn't they 'bend' that airframe such that it wouldn't trim properly on the bomb run (accuracy penalty)?  This might mimic the same condition experienced when an outboard engine (1 or 4) is shot out in the game currently. Yaw city.

In other words, fly it like a fighter...level bomb like a fighter.  That's funny, I don't care who you are.   

 

[pembquist]

I think there are two different approaches to games such as AH2. On the one hand you have features such as the crew experience modifiers in world of warplanes and on the other the engine controls of IL2. Both are trying to make their games more 'realistic', however in my opinion neither approach adds realisim to the 'feel' of flying and so have no interest for me personally. The idea that beyond some pitch angle or V speed you'd instantly die seems like a clumsy shortcut that adds nothing to the games central success which is the feel of flying. What makes sense in the context of AH2 would be more complex modeling of the things you guys say wouldn't work or would damage the aircraft in unusual attitudes. To me this sounds like a waste of limited development resources however, that is because the things you think are gamey don't stand out to me as a problem in the context of the game.

To make the game enjoyable there have to be a lot of consessions to playability over 'reality', (how many ground loops do you see? how about that laser bombsite? killshooter? friendly collisions?) does it really make sense to make bombers harder to fly and still have the ability for one person to synchronize a formations worth of guns at a point 500 yards out? (I can't remember what the range is but you get the idea.)

[Oldman731]

you hit the nail on the head Traveler

Based on Earl's earlier comment, that if you exceed the angles recommended for normal operations, you end up knocking out your AA guns in your aircraft...if the gunners, navigator, and bombardier get hurt cause you're banking 60° or climbing at a stupid angle...barrel roles, you start damaging stuff and your crew... including radios, bomb racks, oxygen tanks, etc etc...

So perhaps the fix is to simply lose the defensive guns (and/or the bomb load) if the plane exceeds certain parameters.  Pilots who want to dogfight with their bombers could still do so, there would be no need to artificially limit the flight model, and the effects on the crew and payload would be replicated.

- oldman

[Randy1]

In real life I've done wingovers in a B-17, bank angle around 100 degrees or so.  I don't like putting artificial limits on performance.  If the heavy airplanes flew more like heavy airplanes it would be a self solving problem.  Real life a B-17 would be very difficult to complete a roll in, the roll rate is horrible….good chance you'd run out of air before completing the roll.

Control forces are also very high, more so as speed builds.  While this is modeled to some extend in game I have found that they just don't feel quite like the real airplanes….I'll do things in game I wouldn't think about doing real life.

Our vice president of engineering many, many years ago told me the story of rolling a B17 in training for ww2.  Not on purpose.  The deicing boot failed on one wing.  He said by the time he figured out what happened, he had no choice but finish the roll. He said to his knowledge no one had ever rolled a B17.

On the wish.  Do away with F3 and that will help a lot.