IAS

[ONTOS]

Keep the IAS and add TAS in the flight box and everybody is happy. (hopefully)

[Oldman731]

Aren`t aircraft performance calculations done with TAS? best rate of climb, angle of climb, all those flight plan calculations, mass and balance etc?

Not in the POHs I've seen, it's all KIAS.  You use TAS to figure out your cross-country navigation time and distance.  But for takeoff distances, rates of climb, stall speeds, approach speeds, landing distance, all those things, you use KIAS.  Otherwise you'd have to do pressure altitude calculations every time you wanted to move the plane around.

- oldman

[bustr]

Anyone have one of those performance graphs that shows corner speed and other things to altitude and air density to help them understand why IAS is more important to know for each aircraft to understand what it will do differently while moving through the atmosphere column? It's obvious 400TAS at sea level is great while at 30,000ft you are on the edge of a stall and falling out of the sky if you do anything but fly straight becasue of air density.

IAS gives you an idea of how your aircraft's physical shape will perform in the air column while you try to maneuver to get on someone's 6 or runaway from them. And then you end up having to go the extra yard and know that for all the other aircraft you will fight. This game allows you gamey seat of the pants yank and jerk playing or actually knowing what IAS means to ACM maneuvering. In the end TAS is meaningless if your play style is seat of your pants yank and jerk hoping it will all come out OK. That's why WT can let you fly from outside of the cockpit and yank and jerk while flopping about. No one in WT is using their HUD other to locate enemies and the aimbot, they are using all the visual ques being in F3 mode grants you for an aircraft. Same here if you are doing yank and jerk hoping it all comes out alright while using the stall horn noise as a slow speed gauge versus knowing your IAS limits. TAS won't help at that moment.

IAS speeds arn't as sexy in a game where speed is a juicy ego boost as TAS becasue they make you think you are slower than you think. It's just hard to wrap your head around 230IAS while your TA is 300 or faster. But, that IAS is telling you how close to dropping out of the sky you are if you suddenly yank and jerk at the current altitude you are at.

There are a boat load of charts that show you your performance curves for IAS becasue it accounts for the air column at altitude directly to the physical shape of your aircraft type. TAS does not reflect that. We are probably blessed that our game takes place for the most part under 15k where seat of the pants works well enough.

[JimmyD3]

OMG, all he ask for was TAS as well as IAS, you guys don't need to turn it into and effort to amend the constitution!!!!! If Hitech adds it and you don't want to use it, ignore it.

[The Fugitive]

IAS in the HUD has definitely helped me refine my hammerheads and managing my E while keeping eyes on the target.  YMMV.

Wiley.

Thats the point Im trying to make, its just a number. If you do your hammer head at 110, it doesnt matter if its IAS, TAS, KPH, or potatoes. If it works at 110, then you do them at 110.

In a game what the number represents isn't that important, its just a guide. In real life, it is a bit more than a guide and so is more important.

[atlau]

Wrong. IAS would be the most useful number over various altitude ranges when conducting said hammerhead or other maneuver.

[colmbo]

Thats the point Im trying to make, its just a number. If you do your hammer head at 110, it doesnt matter if its IAS, TAS, KPH, or potatoes. If it works at 110, then you do them at 110.

But if that 110 is TAS there is a 20% difference between sea level and 10,000'.  But 110 IAS is 110 from sea level all the way up to as high as your piston engine fighter can go.

[Zimme83]

But if that 110 is TAS there is a 20% difference between sea level and 10,000'.  But 110 IAS is 110 from sea level all the way up to as high as your piston engine fighter can go.

+1.  using TAS for maneuvering is not a great idea, Then you have to compensate for the altitude to get you target speed for the maneuver so it isnt really useful. We have TAS both at the gauge and E6B (where you also have your range) so there is all the information you need. And TAS is only useful because we have no wind down low, Higher up in the wind layers you would rather have Ground speed...

[hitech]

colbmo: Can you think of any time you use TAS (in reality ground speed not TAS)  for anything while you are flying except how long will it take to get there? Obviously this include things like will I get there before fuel is gone.

The only other use I can even remotely think of is Max Mach.

HiTech

[bustr]

IAS explained by seasoned pilots from the real world to gamers in a shootemup fantasy world is like A Win Server 2018 OS programmer trying to explain to an end user with a Win10 workstation how the network stack works for multiple virtualization instances of Win 2018 Server. Lord forbid if he talks about blade servers and how to hot swap filed server instances with seamless fail over.

This game is about speed to gamers not about how the plane really works. TAS has bigger numbers at a glance. So far how IAS is meaningful to them in the game has not been explained for a gamer who wants speed, big guns, and power. When it matters, they will rely on previous experience in the game to how and when to perform maneuvers, not their instruments. IAS and what it really measures to their benefit is meaningless in it's complexity and too small of a number when their real world is measured in miles per hour.

How do you explain IAS in simple terms so it will make their big guns and power land them long strings of kills in a "game"?

[colmbo]

colbmo: Can you think of any time you use TAS (in reality ground speed not TAS)  for anything while you are flying except how long will it take to get there? Obviously this include things like will I get there before fuel is gone.

The only other use I can even remotely think of is Max Mach.

HiTech

No.  And I've never got to fly anything where I would have to worry about Mach.  Dang near got to ride with Steve Ritchie in the Collings Phantom!

[Oldman731]

This game is about speed to gamers not about how the plane really works.

No need for the denigration, bustr.  The OP wants to know how fast he's really going, that's all.  It doesn't have much to do with flying the plane, but it's still an interesting figure.

- oldman

[ImADot]

So if I can see that my TAS is 650, but I'm at such a high altitude that my plane flies like it thinks it's only going 75, I'm an awesome pilot flying a hot plane? Cool.

I have no issue if some wants to add the TAS to the HUD. All the arguing about why IAS is the more important of the two for knowing how the plane should be handled is kind of pointless. If someone chooses to not want to learn why, then that's fine.

[atlau]

Just fly at sea level so that IAS and TAS are the same.

Problem solved.