Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: BigCrate on February 20, 2002, 11:28:55 PM

Title: Cockpit mirrors
Post by: BigCrate on February 20, 2002, 11:28:55 PM

Were cockpit mirrors factory installed or field installed?? I know the 38 and (i think) F4Us had em to.. But I don't know if they were factory installed. If they were factory installed any chance of seeing em in AH?? Maybe HTC could perk em and you pay like 5 points for a mirror and you put it where you want in the plane.
But there would have to be a limit on mirrors per plane.  What yall think??

Cw
=Twin Engined Devils=

Title: Cockpit mirrors
Post by: Vruth on February 21, 2002, 10:18:57 AM

I know canuck drivers put mirrors on their spits.  Here's one from the 401...  Mirrors are VERY hard to model in a sim.

(http://www.rcaf.com/photos/401/rcaf7deacon.jpg)

Title: Cockpit mirrors
Post by: FLS on February 21, 2002, 10:38:50 AM

I have a book on the 357th fighter group showing a bubble canopy and what is called a "spitfire" mirror on a P-51B.

Resolution issues would give mirrors a questionable value in AH and I'd hate to see the frame rate hit.

--)-FLS----
Musketeers

Title: Cockpit mirrors
Post by: Tac on February 21, 2002, 11:06:18 AM

You dont need mirrors. You can snap your head to any location even under 9 G's.

Pilots put mirrors because in combat, under high g's it was nearly impossible to look behind.

Title: Cockpit mirrors
Post by: pimpjoe on February 21, 2002, 11:06:27 AM

we dont need them since we have the dead 6 view

Title: Cockpit mirrors
Post by: BigCrate on February 21, 2002, 12:28:49 PM

Ever fly a f4?? You can't see watermelon behind you. And AW modeled them just fine why not HTC???

Cw
=Twin Engined Devils=

Title: Cockpit mirrors
Post by: fats on February 21, 2002, 01:57:03 PM

Mirrors aren't hard to model in a sim.


rendering a mirror image is not really that different from what you see when you play AH. Rendering it will be costly in FPS how ever, cause you have to render 'everything' ( well a different data set each times ) twice. For example terrain algorithms are often optimized so the terrain is only detailed in areas you can see, to save memory and CPU. With mirrors you get roughly twice the memory usage and CPU usage.



// fats

Title: Cockpit mirrors
Post by: Kratzer on February 21, 2002, 02:32:54 PM

.mis a ni ledom ot drah t'nera srorriM.

There you go.

You know that you can move your 'head' around, up sideways, etc. to look around the back of the cockpit, don't you?  Once you get it where you want it, hit F10 to save the position.  Problem solved.

Title: Cockpit mirrors
Post by: BigCrate on February 21, 2002, 02:40:53 PM

LOL low blow!!! You can only move your head up only so much.
still can't see behind very good. tho in a f4u looking back and to the right or left helps some but its hard to see right behind you.


Cw
=Twin Engined Devils=

Title: Cockpit mirrors
Post by: mipoikel on February 21, 2002, 02:45:24 PM

Try also arrow keys. You can move your sight enough to see all you need.

Title: Cockpit mirrors
Post by: funkedup on February 21, 2002, 02:51:22 PM

I asked a Spit ace about the mirrors (Jerry Collinsworth, 31st FG).  He said they were useful on the ground, and useful for formation flying, but not useful for spotting bogies.  P-51 and P-47 used the Spit mirrors too, and I assume they had the same value in those aircraft.
P-38 mirror was no bigger, I doubt it was very useful.
The mirrors I've seen in F4U are more extensive, maybe they had some value in combat.