Something more realistic, less arcade.

[4brkfast]

Some of the way these planes are modeled don't make sense. For example, the spitmk1 rolls nothing like the spitmk16(which btw did not turn very well, less wing surface means your turn rate suffers. the spit14 and the spit16 are backwards in this regard). That doesn't make any sense. The torque of the engine will have an affect on the roll, but unless there were drastic changes to the control surfaces or boosted controls, the fact the spitmk1 rolls like a typhoon is absurd.

Explosive splash damage. If you are D10 off an e a/c and place a solid burst into him and he explodes, there should be a chance you receive explosive splash damage. This would entice a new damage system, for example, engine strikes should have a gradually negative affect on your planes performance, as opposed to getting an oil hit and being able to fly at 110% until you're out of oil. It just doesn't work like that. Particularly with some of the tougher planes that have the R 2800.

Most importantly, I feel this is the most important for the quality of the game. I keep seeing more and more people everyday pushing negative G's in airplanes that just couldn't do that, not without risking serious injury or death to the pilot. A little push down to avoid guns, to get yourself level, that's one thing, but extended, prolonged negative G, rolling and rudder, sometimes with gravity would KILL a pilot. Please add this! Spitfires should be very bad at it, you should risk killing your pilot after a short period. I see people doing this stuff as opposed to performing an ACM in a superior aircraft. Not to mention you can be entirely too violent with the control surfaces in some of these planes. I see sudden 6-G pulls that would be smashing a pilot's head against his own canopy, without even a risk of an intense black out, not to mention a deadly red out. Do you know -why- it was called a red out? Hahahaha.

<S>

[Karnak]

Some of the way these planes are modeled don't make sense. For example, the spitmk1 rolls nothing like the spitmk16(which btw did not turn very well, less wing surface means your turn rate suffers. the spit14 and the spit16 are backwards in this regard). That doesn't make any sense. The torque of the engine will have an affect on the roll, but unless there were drastic changes to the control surfaces or boosted controls, the fact the spitmk1 rolls like a typhoon is absurd.

The fabric ailerons on the Spitfire Mk I, Mk II and early Mk Vs significantly reduced roll rates, particularly as speed increased.  The metal aileroned Spitfires match the NACA roll rate chart. The clipped wings on the Spit XVI would have a slight effect on turning, as they do in AH, but the heavy Griffon on the Mk XIV would have much more.  Compare the Mk XVI to the Mk VIII, they both use Merlin 66s, but burn some fuel from the Mk VIII first as it has more tankage. 

Explosive splash damage. If you are D10 off an e a/c and place a solid burst into him and he explodes, there should be a chance you receive explosive splash damage.

30ft away?  You are grossly overestimating the explosive power of these rounds.  You can damage yourself with your own cannon rounds, but the range is, correctly, much shorter than 30ft.

This would entice a new damage system, for example, engine strikes should have a gradually negative affect on your planes performance, as opposed to getting an oil hit and being able to fly at 110% until you're out of oil. It just doesn't work like that. Particularly with some of the tougher planes that have the R 2800.

Realistic engine damage would be much harder to model than the gamey suggestion you made.  An R2800 could be tougher, but it could just die upon being shot as well.

Most importantly, I feel this is the most important for the quality of the game. I keep seeing more and more people everyday pushing negative G's in airplanes that just couldn't do that, not without risking serious injury or death to the pilot. A little push down to avoid guns, to get yourself level, that's one thing, but extended, prolonged negative G, rolling and rudder, sometimes with gravity would KILL a pilot. Please add this! Spitfires should be very bad at it, you should risk killing your pilot after a short period. I see people doing this stuff as opposed to performing an ACM in a superior aircraft. Not to mention you can be entirely too violent with the control surfaces in some of these planes. I see sudden 6-G pulls that would be smashing a pilot's head against his own canopy, without even a risk of an intense black out, not to mention a deadly red out. Do you know -why- it was called a red out? Hahahaha.

<S>

Why would Spitfires be particularly bad at it?

[RTHolmes]

wow, so many spurious claims in just one post. no way I'm going to tackle all of them but heres a few things for you to think about:

fabric covered ailerons,
weight of a griffon engine,
clipped wings,
detonation speed of lightly pressurised avgas in a tank vs high explosive packed into a shell,
fire a 30mm in AH from 10yds,
pilot tolerance for Gs,
how spits work under different physics to every other aircraft (I'm kidding - they dont.)

[Tank-Ace]

I would like to see the possibility of fragments from a tank shell or cannon round missing the crew of AA guns. A 75mm shell within 15' wouldn't nesicarily put the gun out of action.

[EskimoJoe]

Feel free to make your own flight model if this one isn't adequate for you.

[MachFly]

Brkfast, where did you get this information? It does not make seance.

Some of the way these planes are modeled don't make sense. For example, the spitmk1 rolls nothing like the spitmk16(which btw did not turn very well, less wing surface means your turn rate suffers. the spit14 and the spit16 are backwards in this regard). That doesn't make any sense. The torque of the engine will have an affect on the roll, but unless there were drastic changes to the control surfaces or boosted controls, the fact the spitmk1 rolls like a typhoon is absurd.

As Karnak said the ailerons on early Spitfires were covered with fabric and therefore were not as effective. The reason why Spit16 rolls a lot better than other late war Spitfires is because it's wings are clipped. Spit14 is significantly heavier than than all Merlin power Spitfires because of the Griffon engine, this means it can not possibly turn tighter than them.

Explosive splash damage. If you are D10 off an e a/c and place a solid burst into him and he explodes, there should be a chance you receive explosive splash damage. This would entice a new damage system, for example, engine strikes should have a gradually negative affect on your planes performance, as opposed to getting an oil hit and being able to fly at 110% until you're out of oil. It just doesn't work like that. Particularly with some of the tougher planes that have the R 2800.

We do not have the ability to partially damage the engine, you either loose it or you don't. When you get an oil leak the oil leaks out of the oil pan not the actual engine, so the engine can still work at full power while you have oil. When you run out of oil the engine will start to overheat and eventually destroy itself.

Most importantly, I feel this is the most important for the quality of the game. I keep seeing more and more people everyday pushing negative G's in airplanes that just couldn't do that, not without risking serious injury or death to the pilot. A little push down to avoid guns, to get yourself level, that's one thing, but extended, prolonged negative G, rolling and rudder, sometimes with gravity would KILL a pilot. Please add this! Spitfires should be very bad at it, you should risk killing your pilot after a short period. I see people doing this stuff as opposed to performing an ACM in a superior aircraft. Not to mention you can be entirely too violent with the control surfaces in some of these planes. I see sudden 6-G pulls that would be smashing a pilot's head against his own canopy, without even a risk of an intense black out, not to mention a deadly red out. Do you know -why- it was called a red out? Hahahaha.

How do you know how many -Gs is the other person pulling? When you pull 0Gs you have to do a steep dive, when you pull negatives for a long period of time your probably doing an outside loop.
It is obvious you don't have much experience with negative Gs, first it becomes painful but the pain does not increase if the Gs are constant, it increases as the Gs decrease. I personally never seen red but according to what I know around -2.5 to -3G you would start seeing it, I can't tell you when you would completely red out as that is very specific to the person and the training. I seen Sean Tucker continuously pull -6Gs and still be able to maintain control of the airplane.
Now a normal airplane is capable of pulling a lot more positive Gs than negative, this is because the wing is designed that way and the airframe in general can sustain more positive Gs. Making continues -G turns in combat is extremely stupid and if someone does that to you just roll over and you'll be easy able to out turn them and shoot them down.


Just for the record, Aces High is the most realistic simulator I seen that is under a million dollars. Sure it does not simulate aircraft operations but the flight physics is done extremely well.

[nrshida]

Could there be a roll rate issue with the Spitfire Mark I though? Surely the fact that the ailerons were fabric covered alone can't be the only explanation for the remarkably sedentary roll rate?

[Krusty]

No. The numbers have been posted. Test flight data has been presented. The Spit1 didn't roll as well as later models.

AH has it right in that regard.

Machfly: I agree it's the best but there are many areas it could be improved.

I wonder if the OP is talking about the inverted push-up planes do for extended periods of time to stick stir their way out of a sure death? In THAT case it's been proven most engines cannot operate for more than a few seconds (15 seconds in some cases) inverted due to the oil starvation or some such. The oil pumps are meant to work in gravity-fed situations. Many (if not all?) aircraft have restrictions in the manual saying do not fly inverted for "X" period of time.

In that regard I think HTC could improve it a bit. It might cut down on a lot of the gamey fish-out-of-water manuvers, but it wouldn't stop short, rapid moves (i.e. "jinks" etc) that are under that duration.

[Slade]

AH has it right in that regard.

They get it right so much more than many give them credit for.  I mean, it is their full time job after all!  Most of us geeks just research this kinda thing part time.

Perhaps if one is going to challenge the modeled behavior you could include multiple diverse reputable sources to backup your claims.  In that way one can become part of the solution rather than venting a preferred behavior characteristic.

I mean, I wish the FM2 came with a bubble canopy.  I really do!  Maybe there was an instance of an infield mod or two where they did this.  I can understand though that my preference has no business making it into their programming workload.  I have no facts to back it up even if it were true.

These AH guys really have done a bang up job on modelling these planes.  I've have heard they do change planes if\when more accurate facts are presented.

Its all good though.  Get back in the cockpit and fly on. 

[Krusty]

Slade: They're not infallible. They get the cold hard numbers down most of the time. Roll rate is a number recorded more often than not. It's sometimes the subjective things like stall handling or qualitative aspects (rather than quantitative) that may be more suscecptible to having issues.

They do make changes (sometimes slowly ) if you can present more accurate info than they had/have.

The P-38G weight was fixed in somewhat moderate time, but it took many many years of solid asking/requesting to get the 109 ammo limits increased. You never know how busy they'll be and how much time they might take to address any particular issue. I like that they try, though.

[nrshida]

No. The numbers have been posted. Test flight data has been presented. The Spit1 didn't roll as well as later models.

Where is the 'test flight data' please?

Regardless I would like a deeper explanation from some of the Spitfire experts as to why the Mark I is so much worse than the Mark V for example.

[Krusty]

I will leave it to the many spitfire experts. Suffice it to say this topic has come up many times.

[EVZ]

In THAT case it's been proven most engines cannot operate for more than a few seconds (15 seconds in some cases) inverted due to the oil starvation or some such. The oil pumps are meant to work in gravity-fed situations. Many (if not all?) aircraft have restrictions in the manual saying do not fly inverted for "X" period of time.

FIGHTERS - with inverted restrictions ?  These are not Dodge Pickups - DRY SUMP, positive feed, oil tanks became standard military design in the 1920s. CESSNA 150s may have such limitations.    One of my old instructors had a Meyers OTW trainer (bi-plane primary trainer) that we did 60MPH inverted passes at 50 ft - straight down the runway with at airshows ... including approach and point rolling exit, we'd be inverted 2 -3 minutes at a time.

As for he Spit Mk1 ? Someone should check, but I THINK it has an older, thicker, airfoil - like a Hurri. The Spit evolved from a winning race plane design that was built for SPEED not Manuverability.

[Krusty]

Yes, high performance WW2 aircraft could not perform inverted. I believe it was the F4u that said you can't do it for longer than 15-20 seconds. Flying down a runway for an airshow pass doesn't take all that long. He probably knew his limits and what he could do.


Those engines are not meant to be used inverted. Not for a long time. In AH you get folks neg-G flip flopping upside down while running away from somebody on their tail because that's all they know how to do in a game that allows it. In WW2 you did the same thing and you'd be in major trouble.

[colmbo]

FIGHTERS - with inverted restrictions ?  

I know the Mustang is limited to 10 seconds inverted due to oil starvation with prolonged negative G.  That probably pretty much goes across the board for WWII fighters. There really wasn't much need for sustained negative G.

The AT-6 will quit running when inverted due to carb issues.