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Canvas Knights Christmas sale!
By v. Deutschmark,
That's right for the month of November 2015 CK full game is now only 20 USD!
You can get it here: DOWNLOAD AND BUY
Deutschmark
That's right for the month of November 2015 CK full game is now only 20 USD!
You can get it here: DOWNLOAD AND BUY
Deutschmark
FastCargo's Helicopter Lesson
By FastCargo,
How a supersonic pilot flies at 0 knots (a hint...not well).
Back last year, during vacation time, my significant other 'gifted' me with an introductory helicopter lesson for my birthday. Said vacation time including the flight would be done in Lake Tahoe, Nevada/California. The school willing to take on this monumental task of taking a fast jet operator and slow him down is (redacted due to embarrassment of actually letting me fly with them).
This is the story of that 30 minutes. As with all flying stories, it will conform to the fighter pilot 'rule' that at least 10% of the story is true.
Your author here has had real world experience in many types of fixed wing aircraft, from soloing a glider to operating supersonic multi-ton bombers, with just about every type of fixed wing in between.
Pictured: God's gift to aviation.
Rotary wing? Well, I grew up in the world of LHX, Apache, Jane's Longbow, Black Shark and several other PC based helo simulations. So I was well prepared, right?
Pffft...helo's are easy.
My steed for today would be the Robinson R44, a 4 seat, piston powered light helicopter.
Specifically, THIS helicopter.
The R44 has proven to be very popular all over the world due to its price, ease of maintenance and relatively benign flight characteristics. But my helo simming has all been combat aircraft, so I felt it needed some 'improvements'.
Seems legit.
Now that I was in the proper mindset, i was introduced to my instructor, an older gentleman by the name of TC. He spoke with an Eastern European accent, and as we got to talking, I found out he had flown helos back before 'the wall' fell. He named what he had flown 'stackin' which I didn't understand at the time. Unfortunately, I have no good pictures of him because the withering look he would give the camera caused it to glitch every time.
I found out after my flight that TC is a nickname given to him by the other instructor pilots and means 'Taught Christ' (to hover). And that 'stackin' was actually 'Stakan' or 'Стакан'...which roughly translates as "Drinking Glass"...a name given by Mi-24 pilots to early models.
Perfect container to hold some fine wine.
With the preliminaries out of the way, TC asked what kind of flight I wanted...a general 'forward motion' flight over Lake Tahoe, operating the helicopter like a light aircraft but getting to see the sights, or actual 'hover' instruction, where the majority of the flight would be only about 10 feet off the taxiway. Of course, I selected the 'hover' instruction...what's the point of a helo flight if you don't hover. I immediately received the warning that the 'hover' flight was a lot more work.
How little did I know.
After that, I was given a FAA mandated brief on the dangers of unloaded flight. In a nutshell, in a two bladed helicopter, during forward flight, if the cyclic is suddenly pushed forward, the aircraft will unload much the same way a fixed wing aircraft would. The difference is that an uncommanded roll can occur, and the initial reaction of using cyclic to counter the roll may A) not work at all and B) cause the rotor to flex past limits and hit the rotor mast or another part of the fuselage.
Noted here in the Robinson Safety Notice SN-11 (revised November 2000):
Which basically is saying that if you push too far forward too quickly, you may cause spontaneous disassembly of the aircraft. Of course, I was assured that this would take some effort to achieve and so rarely happens.
Sure.
And they were so glad I still wanted to fly with them that they even wanted my autograph! The paper I signed had wording on it, something about "hold harmless"...
Now we were off to the helo! As I recalled from my flight sims, the collective was like a handbrake, with a throttle thumb wheel, the cyclic and rudders were controlled by a stick and pedal arrangement similar to most fighter type aircraft. Annnnd...not so much in the R44.
Is that a yoke?
I've never heard of a helo controlled by a yoke... And why is there just one stick and it's between the front seats?? What kind of crazy helo is this?!? Who signed me up for this flight anyway??? Did I mention I had recently increased my life insurance coverage?
Turns out, the 'v' part of the 'yoke' doesn't actually do anything directly. It's a clever way to have dual flight controls without having dual control sticks. Instead, there is one cyclic control stick, and the 'v' merely places a handle the pilot holds in front of him as it would be in a conventional helicopter or aircraft. In practice, it doesn't feel any different than a normal flight stick (except you can't fly it with your knees).
It was time to get flying! Startup reminded me of my initial training in a Cessna...even down to keeping the door open and calling 'Clear!' before engine start.
The initial part of the flight was a 'box' pattern at the standard VFR altitudes in an aircraft. TC flew most of this part, with me taking the controls at altitude to start getting familiar with how the aircraft felt. The procedures during this part were similar to how you would fly something like a Cessna, with the exception that 'taxiing' a helocopter is still an airborne exercise. I found for the most part, the helo felt lighter than a Cessna in overall mass, and at speed, seemed to fly like you would expect a light prop to fly. The exception was if I was ham handed with the cyclic (lots of overshoots). The rotor would audibly create a 'slapping' sound, with an associated vibration. A combination of aerodynamics and physics unique to a flexible rotary wing causes this phenomenon. If you're rattling like that, you're not being smooth.
Opening a carbonated drink would not have been a good idea on my flight.
Don't be this guy.
After the initial intro to the aircraft, we came back to the airport and settled on the taxiway...way the hell away from any buildings. Almost like we had to give me plenty of room... My wife and friends stopped taking pictures after a while because I was more or less sitting there, from 0 to about 10 feet, and not moving much at all.
In the cockpit, it was a different story.
Something that still has not been able to be conveyed completely successfully in a PC based flight simulator is the feeling of inertia and mass. Oh sure, lots of PC sims have tried to a lessor or greater extent to mimic this using physics models. Even multi-million professional simulators have limitations in this regard, and the comment is always how the "sim" doesn't quite fly right. Nothing yet has quite been able to truly master the combination of inputs your somatosensory, semicircular canal, and otolith organs provide to augment the visual picture.
My actual flight experience has mostly been in aircraft that weigh at least 9,000 pounds, with the majority being either 10,000 - 12,000 lb aircraft or 200,000 - 350,000 lb aircraft. I've had experience in aircraft outside of those ranges, but they are mostly outliers. The feeling of mass behind my inputs is a tangible factor in my crosscheck.
A R44 grosses out at 4,000 lb. We were probably closer to 3,000 lb all total. My typical fuel loads in one tank are higher than the entire weight of this helo.
I swear that I would just belch and the damn thing would change its flight characteristics. We started with one axis at a time. Collective only first, then rudder only, then cyclic only, while TC would hold the other controls. Then combinations...collective and rudder, cyclic and collective, cyclic and rudder. And finally, all 3 together.
This was all needed to just try to keep the helo on the same spot on the taxiway, holding a heading, and staying somewhere within +3 feet of altitude. Any twitching on one axis immediately required an input on another axis. There were small triumphs...momentarily keeping it in the same general space.
"I've got it in a steady hover!" "Holding 50 degrees off heading." "Dammit!"
I was basically doing the whole 'patting my head, rubbing my stomach' thing, while on a tightrope over a lake of fire. Balancing a pencil on its point...which is also on fire.
TC was infinitely patient..."Relax your grip", "Small inputs", "Keep your crosscheck, don't channelize". Yea, yea, I know that, sheesh!! Wait, that's almost the exact instruction phrasing I used to use on my students back in the day. Dammit, I sounded like a giant pain in the ass.
So this helo flight not only was humbling me in the present, it was retroactively giving me grief for the past.
"I suck." "You have always sucked."
After about 15 minutes of this "exercise" (so called because I lost 10 lbs of water weight), TC decided it was time for some instructor demos. He shows me a rapid acceleration, where he uses of combination of collective and cyclic to move forward quickly. Of course, as anyone knows most helos will nose over dramatically to do this...which we did at 10 feet altitude.
All I could see was taxiway, really close going by really fast. I swear I saw ants that were blue shifted whizzing by.
Pic corrected for redshift.
Then, he did a demo of flying backward...again at 10 feet. Next, a demo of landing and taking off of a hill. Yep, first land one ski and then let the helo 'tilt'. Taking off is the reverse...enough collective to get the helo level first with one ski still on the ground, then lift off straight up.
The final demo was going back out to the pattern, where I got to fly the helo some more at altitude, then he showed me an auto-rotation.
Here's what it felt like:
The timing for the flare has to be fairly tight...too soon and you'll run out of lift before you're close enough to the ground. Too late...well, that's self critquing. It was an eye opening demo...though not as abrupt as I thought it would be. It helps that the R44 is pretty light overall.
After that, I practiced hovering a few more times (which I sorely needed) and finally, TC 'taxied' us back to the ramp.
As we staggered out of the helo, I asked TC what the requirements are for getting a private helo license. He said fifty hours is the minimum before a checkride. But then he looked me in the eye to say some people probably need more hours than that.
The only helicopter they would trust me with...right up until I dropped it.
And thus ended the adventure of me flying a helo. It was a great experience, that reinforces the lesson that less speed doesn't always mean less challenge. It also shows that although we have come a long way in PC based simulation, it is still better as a supplement than a substitute for the real thing. I would recommend that anyone go out to try the real thing...most flight schools (fixed wing or helicopter) offer the 'intro' lesson at a substantial discount.
Keep 'em flying!
Back last year, during vacation time, my significant other 'gifted' me with an introductory helicopter lesson for my birthday. Said vacation time including the flight would be done in Lake Tahoe, Nevada/California. The school willing to take on this monumental task of taking a fast jet operator and slow him down is (redacted due to embarrassment of actually letting me fly with them).
This is the story of that 30 minutes. As with all flying stories, it will conform to the fighter pilot 'rule' that at least 10% of the story is true.
Your author here has had real world experience in many types of fixed wing aircraft, from soloing a glider to operating supersonic multi-ton bombers, with just about every type of fixed wing in between.
Pictured: God's gift to aviation.
Rotary wing? Well, I grew up in the world of LHX, Apache, Jane's Longbow, Black Shark and several other PC based helo simulations. So I was well prepared, right?
Pffft...helo's are easy.
My steed for today would be the Robinson R44, a 4 seat, piston powered light helicopter.
Specifically, THIS helicopter.
The R44 has proven to be very popular all over the world due to its price, ease of maintenance and relatively benign flight characteristics. But my helo simming has all been combat aircraft, so I felt it needed some 'improvements'.
Seems legit.
Now that I was in the proper mindset, i was introduced to my instructor, an older gentleman by the name of TC. He spoke with an Eastern European accent, and as we got to talking, I found out he had flown helos back before 'the wall' fell. He named what he had flown 'stackin' which I didn't understand at the time. Unfortunately, I have no good pictures of him because the withering look he would give the camera caused it to glitch every time.
I found out after my flight that TC is a nickname given to him by the other instructor pilots and means 'Taught Christ' (to hover). And that 'stackin' was actually 'Stakan' or 'Стакан'...which roughly translates as "Drinking Glass"...a name given by Mi-24 pilots to early models.
Perfect container to hold some fine wine.
With the preliminaries out of the way, TC asked what kind of flight I wanted...a general 'forward motion' flight over Lake Tahoe, operating the helicopter like a light aircraft but getting to see the sights, or actual 'hover' instruction, where the majority of the flight would be only about 10 feet off the taxiway. Of course, I selected the 'hover' instruction...what's the point of a helo flight if you don't hover. I immediately received the warning that the 'hover' flight was a lot more work.
How little did I know.
After that, I was given a FAA mandated brief on the dangers of unloaded flight. In a nutshell, in a two bladed helicopter, during forward flight, if the cyclic is suddenly pushed forward, the aircraft will unload much the same way a fixed wing aircraft would. The difference is that an uncommanded roll can occur, and the initial reaction of using cyclic to counter the roll may A) not work at all and B) cause the rotor to flex past limits and hit the rotor mast or another part of the fuselage.
Noted here in the Robinson Safety Notice SN-11 (revised November 2000):
Which basically is saying that if you push too far forward too quickly, you may cause spontaneous disassembly of the aircraft. Of course, I was assured that this would take some effort to achieve and so rarely happens.
Sure.
And they were so glad I still wanted to fly with them that they even wanted my autograph! The paper I signed had wording on it, something about "hold harmless"...
Now we were off to the helo! As I recalled from my flight sims, the collective was like a handbrake, with a throttle thumb wheel, the cyclic and rudders were controlled by a stick and pedal arrangement similar to most fighter type aircraft. Annnnd...not so much in the R44.
Is that a yoke?
I've never heard of a helo controlled by a yoke... And why is there just one stick and it's between the front seats?? What kind of crazy helo is this?!? Who signed me up for this flight anyway??? Did I mention I had recently increased my life insurance coverage?
Turns out, the 'v' part of the 'yoke' doesn't actually do anything directly. It's a clever way to have dual flight controls without having dual control sticks. Instead, there is one cyclic control stick, and the 'v' merely places a handle the pilot holds in front of him as it would be in a conventional helicopter or aircraft. In practice, it doesn't feel any different than a normal flight stick (except you can't fly it with your knees).
It was time to get flying! Startup reminded me of my initial training in a Cessna...even down to keeping the door open and calling 'Clear!' before engine start.
The initial part of the flight was a 'box' pattern at the standard VFR altitudes in an aircraft. TC flew most of this part, with me taking the controls at altitude to start getting familiar with how the aircraft felt. The procedures during this part were similar to how you would fly something like a Cessna, with the exception that 'taxiing' a helocopter is still an airborne exercise. I found for the most part, the helo felt lighter than a Cessna in overall mass, and at speed, seemed to fly like you would expect a light prop to fly. The exception was if I was ham handed with the cyclic (lots of overshoots). The rotor would audibly create a 'slapping' sound, with an associated vibration. A combination of aerodynamics and physics unique to a flexible rotary wing causes this phenomenon. If you're rattling like that, you're not being smooth.
Opening a carbonated drink would not have been a good idea on my flight.
Don't be this guy.
After the initial intro to the aircraft, we came back to the airport and settled on the taxiway...way the hell away from any buildings. Almost like we had to give me plenty of room... My wife and friends stopped taking pictures after a while because I was more or less sitting there, from 0 to about 10 feet, and not moving much at all.
In the cockpit, it was a different story.
Something that still has not been able to be conveyed completely successfully in a PC based flight simulator is the feeling of inertia and mass. Oh sure, lots of PC sims have tried to a lessor or greater extent to mimic this using physics models. Even multi-million professional simulators have limitations in this regard, and the comment is always how the "sim" doesn't quite fly right. Nothing yet has quite been able to truly master the combination of inputs your somatosensory, semicircular canal, and otolith organs provide to augment the visual picture.
My actual flight experience has mostly been in aircraft that weigh at least 9,000 pounds, with the majority being either 10,000 - 12,000 lb aircraft or 200,000 - 350,000 lb aircraft. I've had experience in aircraft outside of those ranges, but they are mostly outliers. The feeling of mass behind my inputs is a tangible factor in my crosscheck.
A R44 grosses out at 4,000 lb. We were probably closer to 3,000 lb all total. My typical fuel loads in one tank are higher than the entire weight of this helo.
I swear that I would just belch and the damn thing would change its flight characteristics. We started with one axis at a time. Collective only first, then rudder only, then cyclic only, while TC would hold the other controls. Then combinations...collective and rudder, cyclic and collective, cyclic and rudder. And finally, all 3 together.
This was all needed to just try to keep the helo on the same spot on the taxiway, holding a heading, and staying somewhere within +3 feet of altitude. Any twitching on one axis immediately required an input on another axis. There were small triumphs...momentarily keeping it in the same general space.
"I've got it in a steady hover!" "Holding 50 degrees off heading." "Dammit!"
I was basically doing the whole 'patting my head, rubbing my stomach' thing, while on a tightrope over a lake of fire. Balancing a pencil on its point...which is also on fire.
TC was infinitely patient..."Relax your grip", "Small inputs", "Keep your crosscheck, don't channelize". Yea, yea, I know that, sheesh!! Wait, that's almost the exact instruction phrasing I used to use on my students back in the day. Dammit, I sounded like a giant pain in the ass.
So this helo flight not only was humbling me in the present, it was retroactively giving me grief for the past.
"I suck." "You have always sucked."
After about 15 minutes of this "exercise" (so called because I lost 10 lbs of water weight), TC decided it was time for some instructor demos. He shows me a rapid acceleration, where he uses of combination of collective and cyclic to move forward quickly. Of course, as anyone knows most helos will nose over dramatically to do this...which we did at 10 feet altitude.
All I could see was taxiway, really close going by really fast. I swear I saw ants that were blue shifted whizzing by.
Pic corrected for redshift.
Then, he did a demo of flying backward...again at 10 feet. Next, a demo of landing and taking off of a hill. Yep, first land one ski and then let the helo 'tilt'. Taking off is the reverse...enough collective to get the helo level first with one ski still on the ground, then lift off straight up.
The final demo was going back out to the pattern, where I got to fly the helo some more at altitude, then he showed me an auto-rotation.
Here's what it felt like:
The timing for the flare has to be fairly tight...too soon and you'll run out of lift before you're close enough to the ground. Too late...well, that's self critquing. It was an eye opening demo...though not as abrupt as I thought it would be. It helps that the R44 is pretty light overall.
After that, I practiced hovering a few more times (which I sorely needed) and finally, TC 'taxied' us back to the ramp.
As we staggered out of the helo, I asked TC what the requirements are for getting a private helo license. He said fifty hours is the minimum before a checkride. But then he looked me in the eye to say some people probably need more hours than that.
The only helicopter they would trust me with...right up until I dropped it.
And thus ended the adventure of me flying a helo. It was a great experience, that reinforces the lesson that less speed doesn't always mean less challenge. It also shows that although we have come a long way in PC based simulation, it is still better as a supplement than a substitute for the real thing. I would recommend that anyone go out to try the real thing...most flight schools (fixed wing or helicopter) offer the 'intro' lesson at a substantial discount.
Keep 'em flying!
An Interview With RAZBAM; Mirage M2000 for DSCW
By Dave,
With the pre-purchase of the Mirage M2000C for DCSW (DIGITAL COMBAT SIMULATOR WORLD by Eagle Dynamics) now available I wanted to get some more information on the project and share it with the simming community. Ron at Razbam was kind enough to answer a few questions I had whipped up and I think you will come away from this a little more educated on the process that is involved on getting a new plane into DCSW. So let’s get into it shall we?
CombatAce: Ron thank you very much for taking the time to answer these few questions. What made you decide on the M2000C when people were asking for Vipers, Mudhens and Hornets?
Razbam: We have many projects in different stages, since RAZBAM and M2M are close teams(RAZBAM made the M2M M-2000C coding for FSX/P3D) and M2M had this beautiful mesh, we decided to move it forward and make it our DCS debut with this project, not to mention the fact that the M-2000 is an iconic aircraft, with very attractive lines. M2M did an outstanding work on this model
CombatAce: How long has the development time been?
Razbam: The complete M-2000C project took almost 2 years to be completed, and it´s still going for the DCS version, but the good part is that we´ve learned tons of new information and expertise that will reflect in future projects, shortening development time. Our future plans involve a 1 year dev time for our next project and then we could go for 2 a year, depending on the complexity.
CombatAce: What was the hardest part about this project? The 3D modelling, the avionics, the weapons systems?
Razbam: Well, being myself a 3d developer, and knowing the quality of level in M2M work, I’ll say that the 3d part was the easiest and that says a lot about it!
DCS is a complete different beast compared to what we have been doing lately, a whole new world of coding needed to be understood with absolutely no Rosetta stone, but we did have extensive support from ED to complete some gaps we had in coding knowledge, but it was (and still is) extremely complex, we are very fortunate to have in our team a highly committed programmer, so it’s safe to say that´s the hardest part CombatAce: How does this compare or contrast to making aircraft for FSX? Razbam: It´s like comparing English with Spanish, both are used to express ideas but are completely different languages. 10 plus years developing for the MSFS series of simulators makes it a natural for us, while DCS being completely new, gave us a lot of speed bumps, like i said, 3d development is almost the same in every stage, once you get the model were you want it, you have to "teach" it to speak either FSX or DCS (to use simple terms), but once we get more comfortable in DCS i have no doubt we´ll become naturals!
At the same time, DCSW gives us a bit of more freedom regarding military planes, since it´s basically a 100% combat able platform, while FSX/P3D are not! I can´t number the tremendous strain it is to "bend" a software to do something it was not intended to, no matter the amount of info you have on x,y,z weapon, FSX/P3D are NOT created to handle them, so they´ll NEVER behave closely like it´s real counterpart, sure, there are amazing developments like Tac Pack and some others but is completely unfair to compare them with combat intended flight sims.This is absolutely NOT an issue in DCSW, all we need to do is concentrate in recreating properly the aircraft and the sim does the rest, as a matter of fact, this really speeds up development in that regard. CombatAce: Were there any setbacks that almost made you throw in the towel? Razbam: Of course! DCSW is always evolving, the stuff that uses to work once, all the sudden doesn´t, and it´s extremely frustrating! we have gone thru some major changes in every aspect of the development, some putting us back to square one (from square 100), and the feeling of being on a dead end (with a full team of very frustrated devs) is very intense, and I’m sure we´ll hit more walls as it keeps evolving, but I also have faith on the team, I’m pretty sure we can conquest all the challenges that lay ahead, and try to keep on top of the game CombatAce: What were some of the resources you used to make this project? Razbam: There is one rule of thumb I never break: Never get into a project unless you can get 1st hand information on it.
Having said that, and since the M-2000C began as a M2M project for FSX/P3D, making the lion´s share on finding/hunting information about this aircraft, all information was gathered from top sources, I can´t mention them due to many NDA´s we have regarding this issue, but you can rest assured that is the best on the subject CombatAce: If this is successful what are your future plans for the DCS World? Razbam: Well, if this goes the way we hope it does, I can say with no doubt that RAZBAM will close the FSX/P3D shop as for military planes regards, focusing solely on creating aircraft for DCSW with the same spirit we have done previously for FSX/P3D. Don´t get me wrong, we´ll still be developing for FSX/P3D but 100% civilian use aircraft, creating 2 branches a "soft rock" branch (FSX/P3D) and a "hard rock" branch (DCS) so at the end you decide what kind of "music" you want to listen. CombatAce: Ron, thank you again for taking time from your busy schedule to answer these questions. Rest assured the community is anticipating this with baited breath. If you wish to pre-order the M2000 it can be ordered at the link below at the pre-purchase price of $47.99. http://razbamsims.com/store/ You can get DCS:World for free at http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/
DCS is a complete different beast compared to what we have been doing lately, a whole new world of coding needed to be understood with absolutely no Rosetta stone, but we did have extensive support from ED to complete some gaps we had in coding knowledge, but it was (and still is) extremely complex, we are very fortunate to have in our team a highly committed programmer, so it’s safe to say that´s the hardest part CombatAce: How does this compare or contrast to making aircraft for FSX? Razbam: It´s like comparing English with Spanish, both are used to express ideas but are completely different languages. 10 plus years developing for the MSFS series of simulators makes it a natural for us, while DCS being completely new, gave us a lot of speed bumps, like i said, 3d development is almost the same in every stage, once you get the model were you want it, you have to "teach" it to speak either FSX or DCS (to use simple terms), but once we get more comfortable in DCS i have no doubt we´ll become naturals!
At the same time, DCSW gives us a bit of more freedom regarding military planes, since it´s basically a 100% combat able platform, while FSX/P3D are not! I can´t number the tremendous strain it is to "bend" a software to do something it was not intended to, no matter the amount of info you have on x,y,z weapon, FSX/P3D are NOT created to handle them, so they´ll NEVER behave closely like it´s real counterpart, sure, there are amazing developments like Tac Pack and some others but is completely unfair to compare them with combat intended flight sims.This is absolutely NOT an issue in DCSW, all we need to do is concentrate in recreating properly the aircraft and the sim does the rest, as a matter of fact, this really speeds up development in that regard. CombatAce: Were there any setbacks that almost made you throw in the towel? Razbam: Of course! DCSW is always evolving, the stuff that uses to work once, all the sudden doesn´t, and it´s extremely frustrating! we have gone thru some major changes in every aspect of the development, some putting us back to square one (from square 100), and the feeling of being on a dead end (with a full team of very frustrated devs) is very intense, and I’m sure we´ll hit more walls as it keeps evolving, but I also have faith on the team, I’m pretty sure we can conquest all the challenges that lay ahead, and try to keep on top of the game CombatAce: What were some of the resources you used to make this project? Razbam: There is one rule of thumb I never break: Never get into a project unless you can get 1st hand information on it.
Having said that, and since the M-2000C began as a M2M project for FSX/P3D, making the lion´s share on finding/hunting information about this aircraft, all information was gathered from top sources, I can´t mention them due to many NDA´s we have regarding this issue, but you can rest assured that is the best on the subject CombatAce: If this is successful what are your future plans for the DCS World? Razbam: Well, if this goes the way we hope it does, I can say with no doubt that RAZBAM will close the FSX/P3D shop as for military planes regards, focusing solely on creating aircraft for DCSW with the same spirit we have done previously for FSX/P3D. Don´t get me wrong, we´ll still be developing for FSX/P3D but 100% civilian use aircraft, creating 2 branches a "soft rock" branch (FSX/P3D) and a "hard rock" branch (DCS) so at the end you decide what kind of "music" you want to listen. CombatAce: Ron, thank you again for taking time from your busy schedule to answer these questions. Rest assured the community is anticipating this with baited breath. If you wish to pre-order the M2000 it can be ordered at the link below at the pre-purchase price of $47.99. http://razbamsims.com/store/ You can get DCS:World for free at http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/
Victory at Sea
By 33LIMA,
World War 2 naval action with Evil Twin's 2014 release
For a long time, many of us have been tied up at our home ports, fretting at our virtual quaysides with varying degrees of impatience; waiting for the launch of a decent simulation of naval surface action in World War 2. Sure, we still have the Silent Hunter series for submarine operations and other titles for surface action in earlier and later eras. And we have games like Navy Field and World of Warships, plus older stuff like Battlestations Midway/Pacific. But what we don't have is a proper surface combat simulation, a truly worthy successor to classics like SSI's Fighting Steel and Destroyer Command - notwithstanding some Silent Hunter mods which provide a limited measure of surface ship action.
Destroyer Command did what it did (the clue here, being in the title) reasonably well, despite the gaping ommission of ship-laid smokescreens (other than a purely visual mod, whose screens offered no actual cover). This meant you couldn't use the classic destroyer tactic of launching torpedoes while making smoke, then putting about and disappearing into your ready-made smokescreen. Still, as a sim of operating US destroyers, it wasn't bad and the graphics were better than the earlier SSI sim, Fighting Steel.
Despite very basic graphics, no land, subs or planes, Fighting Steel, especially with the FSP mod, was - and IMHO still is - the classic WW2 ship sim. We get a good range of adequately-modelled warships (and transports) from the German, British, US and Japanese navies and the ability to re-fight most of the classic WW2 surface ship actions, many added by the mod community. The FS command interface was extremely well designed, giving alternative 2d (map) and 3d views and the ability to command individual ships or divisions - which you do by issuing orders for speed, course, target and weapon selection via a neat set of icons. Whether you found this intuitive or not, the thing that struck me was that it looked like the designers' aim was to put the player the role of the ship's captain (or commander of a division of ships), letting AI-run systems take care of the rest. They didn't fall into the trap of giving you some kind of gamey, simplified, crosshaired gunsight to aim your weapons, or worse a floating reticle in the 3-d world. I didn't miss FS's lack of land, even for the Gaudalcanal actions; likewise, the lack of planes or subs. Night battles became much more interesting when the FSP mod added tracers and AI was quite good, with ships making good use of smoke screens. Gun and torpedo action was what FS did and it did both very well indeed. Which I relished, having been brought up in the post-WW2 era and soaked up TV documentaries like The Valiant Years and films like Sink the Bismarck! and Battle of the River Plate. I made many a 1/600 Airfix warship kit, back in the days before multi-lingual instruction sheets no longer told you that part 21 was actually the starboard main armament fire director. And I really loved the 1/1200 Eagle kits, released in themed sets based on famous Royal Navy actions. Each kit had a little potted history of the relevant battle in its box. Marvellous stuff.
Nothing I've tried since Fighting Steel has come close to providing a convincing PC simulation of classic WW2 surface actions, being either too 'gamey' or too limited in scope - usually both. And unfortunately, FS's graphics engine won't run on modern PCs. Still, it was a classic, worth playing if you have an old enough system somewhere to hand (Win 98 to XP inclusive, IIRC).
And so to the to the present day...last week, in fact. While I'm on holiday, I usually visit local video game shops or departments, on the lookout for bargains - typically, games I might not try, at full price. Wargame: European Escalation was a recent example, and a good one, too, bought on Spain's Costa del Sol earlier this year and impressing me so much that I later bought a follow-on title, Wargame: Airland Battle. True to form, last week in a Game store on the Costa Blanca, I browsed the few shelves these days left over to PC games. With my head canted over to scan the end titles on the racked DVD cases of the non-top 10 games, I spotted one called Victory at Sea. Despite keeping a weather eye open for the Messiah of WW2 surface combat sims, I was intrigued that I'd never heard of that one. Worth a look, I thought, if only to confirm it was either an arcade 'ship shooter' or a tedious shipyard stategy game.
At nearly twenty Euros, Victory at Sea wasn't coming at a knock-down price, and therefore wasn't something I was inclined to pick up, on the off chance that I might like it. I was offline and unlikely to return to the store from the resort, so I'd have to decide there and then, without checking out online reviews. Decisions, decisions! Disregarding the flashy cover artwork of what looked like a KGV battleship and a Gato-class sub being bombed by Japanese Army fighters, I had a look at the back, studying the little screenshots and applying my very limited Spanish to the 'blurb'. This actually looked promising - WW2 naval combat in the Atlantic, the Med or the Pacific, with campaigns in the British, German, Japanese and US navies; quick battles which added French, Dutch and Italians; subs and aircraft as well as surface action; over a hundred types (classes?) of ship; and real-time 3-d world action, not just some overly map-based navy-building strategy game. Victory at Sea appeared to be firmly single player and firmly historical, not some kind of Multi-Player, third person 'battleship shooter'. The cover boasted a TIGA award by for 'Best action adventure from small studio', which also sounded promising. OK, decision made! I'd give this a go. Maybe this would finally be the one, something that at long last came close to filling the seaboots vacated by Fighting Steel.
Having picked up the DVD from the shop's desk, I noticed I also got a mini-manual and browsing this soon after exiting the premises, my heart sank. Apart from brief installation instructions (via Steam) and a tabular listing of about 30 hotkey commands, the mini-manual consisted of several pages depicting the game's 'classes of ship'. First problem, the ship images, evidently featuring game models, were rather basic - more detailed that Fighting Steel's ships, but rather crude, with some inaccuracies and simplifications. And a quick count showed under thirty distinct ship classes, leaving major gaps - for example, Germany had no battlecruisers or heavy cruisers. Were they counting every named ship in each class, to reach the claim of '100 tipos de barcos' in the blurb? But I needn't have worried - many more classes of ships are included. Any WW2 naval afficionado will understand how important this is - a WW2 surface combat sim which doesn't provide famous and important ships like (sticking with the Kriegsmarine example) the Deutschland class 'pocket battleships', the battlecruisers Scharnhorst or Gneisenau or a Hipper class heavy cruiser, just isn't cutting the mustard. There were few enough real WW2 surface actions and a Battle of the North Cape for example really must have Scharnhorst, as well as a KGV (for Duke of York) and sundry British cruisers. Even if you're just going to fight your own semi-historical campaign, you need to have a representative selection of the ships your chosen navy had, in that theatre and during that period. But they're all there and more besides, in Victory at Sea; they're just not all listed in the mini-manual. Phew!
So, back home and unpacked, it was time to blow the cobwebs off the PC, fire her up and then load up my latest sim. This review is the result. So is Victory at Sea a shell-swept triumph on, above and below the seas, or a soggy defeat, best consigned to Davy Jones's locker? Time to find out what this simmer thought of her, anyway!
...to be continued!
Panzerangriff, Ostfront!
By 33LIMA,
Battling the Red Army in Steel Fury – Kharkov 1942
This is another instalment in the stock German campaign from Graviteam’s excellent WW2 tanksim. Well, not quite stock. First, I’m playing with ‘mods on’; and while the STA mod I use doesn’t affect the vanilla campaign, I’m also using two other mods which do – the STA variant of ‘early spring weather’ which improves the landscapes, and the ‘grey color’ mod which - as its name suggests - reverts German vehicle schemes from the varied mid-war colours of the STA mod, to the ‘Panzer Grau’ used from the start of the war up to the period of the stock game – early summer 1942. Panzer III J, STA European camouflage scheme (header pic above is in 'Grey color' mod) And yes, I know some experts tell us panzers were brown and grey (low contrast supposedly hiding the pattern, on most B&W photos) till the summer of 1940. But I’m with those who believe plain grey was the norm before officially being so ordered during the 1940 Battle of France. Anyway, despite some exceptions like Afrika Korps vehicles being diverted to the Ostfront for the German summer 1942 offensive, it seems grey is best for the Summer 1942 Battle of Kharkov that the sim is built around.
The second non-stock aspect of this campaign is that I’m using the variant that’s been modded to use the Panzer III, rather than the Panzer IV. At this time, the ‘Mark 3’ (as the British called it) was still the standard German medium tank, with the later ‘Mark 4’ only beginning to lose its original ‘support tank’ role as more of them appeared with a long 75mm gun in place of the original low velocity, short-barrelled original. Panzer VI F2, with longer-barrelled, 43-calibre 75mm KwK 40 Apart from that, I believe the campaign is the same as the stock ‘Fredericus 1’ Wehrmacht campaign – same maps, same objectives, just different tanks in the player’s platoon.
As usual in Steel Fury, you start with the mission map, but can’t zoom out far enough to see the whole battlefield and must scroll about a bit, to see what’s what. Also as usual, the narrative briefing is structured in a format which may be authentic (for the Soviet side?) but is a bit discursive for someone used to the (to my mind) better-presented NATO format for orders (the British WW2 system was functionally identical). As for the content, you need to look at the map to find out what sort of force you’re operating with, because the briefing doesn’t go much below Regimental level. That’s fine as background but doesn’t tell you much at platoon or company level, which is what you need most, when playing as a platoon commander.
At any rate, I can see that our objective is to attack and clear a series of enemy defensive positions, these being strung out in a rough line, over to my right. Then, we must stave off any Soviet counterattack. We have some pre-programmed artillery support – a mere platoon commander, I have no say in this – and the Luftwaffe is to drop supplies to some friendly forces besieged in the village of Ternovaya, nearby (tho not near enough to see on the map, although I'm told to advance in its general direction after fending off the counter-attack). You can see the situation a bit more clearly below, with the briefing text suppressed. We are mounting concentric attacks (the blue arrows) on the enemy defensive positions (red markings, specifically the 'dead hedgehog' graphics). My 'blue arrow' is the one coming in from the left. Historically, this is all part of a series of vicious battles near Kharkov in the Ukraine where a Red Army offensive knocked the Germans back on their heels, until the latter re-instated their own offensive plans and threw back the Soviets after much hard fighting.
Looking at the map to get a better picture of our operation, I could see that my three-tank platoon - though said to be on the right – is on the left of a company-sized mixed (tank-infantry) force. With me are some panzergrenadiers, in SPW armoured half-tracks. Over to our right – rather far away, for mutual support – is another platoon of tanks – Panzer IVs as I will later discoverare and beyond them, some more SPWs. There is no ‘headquarters unit’, which should have been there to represent the company commander and his immediate entourage, who would be on the ground and in command of a group of several platoons like ours. Though long included in the ‘Army lists’ used by wargamers and having an important role in Wargame: European Escalation and the like, many tanksims omit important HQ units, in terms of their physical presence on the battlefield and not really simulating their exercise of command and control during a mission (mission designers can and should try to represent the latter with mission triggers which prompt radio messages like fresh orders, exhortations or excoriations). To help formulate my platoon plan, I spent a bit of time working out the lie of the land. SF’s maps are quite good but this can be tricky, with few spot heights, a limited zoom-out and no ability (added to Steel Armor Blaze of War in a recent update, but absent from SF) to view the ground in 3 dimensions, before you actually start the mission. I nevertheless noted that the enemy defensive positions seemed to be in a line, with little depth. This suggested we should ‘roll them up’, from left to right, pretty well straight from where we were starting. As to how, my platoon was deployed with an SPW platoon. I well knew how vulnerable the latter usually proved in SF attacks, having a tendency to advance fearlessly when discretion might be the better part of valour. So I decided to keep it simple and work closely with our grenadiers. In the absence of information or instructions on routes and formations in the briefing, I expected that the SPWs would drive directly towards the nearest enemy. So that’s what I would do, trying to keep ahead of them. The ground was fairly open, and in such country, it seemed best for the tanks to lead.
I kicked off the mission and in the map view - whose icons are the main command and control tool, as there are few hotkeys usable from the 3d world – I ordered my tanks into line formation, close order and to ‘Do as I do’. As usual I switched to the gunner’s position, from where (as in most tanksims, presumably for playability’s sake) you can also do some tank commander stuff like select ammo types and give commands to the driver. Ordering an HE round into the breech, I oriented myself in the external view and off we went, uphill but directly towards the enemy’s right flank positions. Looking around, I could see the SPWs deploying and then moving off in the same direction, just behind and to my right. As usual in SF, our light armour seemed to be in a big hurry and I had to go flat out, to stay ahead of them. This left my two other tanks lagging behind on either side. And there was no time for me to scan ahead from the halt, for possible enemy positions. I’ve come to like and enjoy SF’s stock campaigns, but I do wish the attacking missions were scripted to allow a more tactical advance, with regular halts to observe ahead and time to apply a bit of ‘bounding overwatch’. If you try that in SF, the party could be over by the time you get there. And the lighter armour will likely have rushed ahead and been badly knocked about. With SF attacks, it’s often a bit of a mad charge. This mission was turning out to be no exception: get stuck in, worry about the finer points when it hits the fan. Which it did, soon enough! ...to be continued!
This is another instalment in the stock German campaign from Graviteam’s excellent WW2 tanksim. Well, not quite stock. First, I’m playing with ‘mods on’; and while the STA mod I use doesn’t affect the vanilla campaign, I’m also using two other mods which do – the STA variant of ‘early spring weather’ which improves the landscapes, and the ‘grey color’ mod which - as its name suggests - reverts German vehicle schemes from the varied mid-war colours of the STA mod, to the ‘Panzer Grau’ used from the start of the war up to the period of the stock game – early summer 1942. Panzer III J, STA European camouflage scheme (header pic above is in 'Grey color' mod) And yes, I know some experts tell us panzers were brown and grey (low contrast supposedly hiding the pattern, on most B&W photos) till the summer of 1940. But I’m with those who believe plain grey was the norm before officially being so ordered during the 1940 Battle of France. Anyway, despite some exceptions like Afrika Korps vehicles being diverted to the Ostfront for the German summer 1942 offensive, it seems grey is best for the Summer 1942 Battle of Kharkov that the sim is built around.
The second non-stock aspect of this campaign is that I’m using the variant that’s been modded to use the Panzer III, rather than the Panzer IV. At this time, the ‘Mark 3’ (as the British called it) was still the standard German medium tank, with the later ‘Mark 4’ only beginning to lose its original ‘support tank’ role as more of them appeared with a long 75mm gun in place of the original low velocity, short-barrelled original. Panzer VI F2, with longer-barrelled, 43-calibre 75mm KwK 40 Apart from that, I believe the campaign is the same as the stock ‘Fredericus 1’ Wehrmacht campaign – same maps, same objectives, just different tanks in the player’s platoon.
As usual in Steel Fury, you start with the mission map, but can’t zoom out far enough to see the whole battlefield and must scroll about a bit, to see what’s what. Also as usual, the narrative briefing is structured in a format which may be authentic (for the Soviet side?) but is a bit discursive for someone used to the (to my mind) better-presented NATO format for orders (the British WW2 system was functionally identical). As for the content, you need to look at the map to find out what sort of force you’re operating with, because the briefing doesn’t go much below Regimental level. That’s fine as background but doesn’t tell you much at platoon or company level, which is what you need most, when playing as a platoon commander.
At any rate, I can see that our objective is to attack and clear a series of enemy defensive positions, these being strung out in a rough line, over to my right. Then, we must stave off any Soviet counterattack. We have some pre-programmed artillery support – a mere platoon commander, I have no say in this – and the Luftwaffe is to drop supplies to some friendly forces besieged in the village of Ternovaya, nearby (tho not near enough to see on the map, although I'm told to advance in its general direction after fending off the counter-attack). You can see the situation a bit more clearly below, with the briefing text suppressed. We are mounting concentric attacks (the blue arrows) on the enemy defensive positions (red markings, specifically the 'dead hedgehog' graphics). My 'blue arrow' is the one coming in from the left. Historically, this is all part of a series of vicious battles near Kharkov in the Ukraine where a Red Army offensive knocked the Germans back on their heels, until the latter re-instated their own offensive plans and threw back the Soviets after much hard fighting.
Looking at the map to get a better picture of our operation, I could see that my three-tank platoon - though said to be on the right – is on the left of a company-sized mixed (tank-infantry) force. With me are some panzergrenadiers, in SPW armoured half-tracks. Over to our right – rather far away, for mutual support – is another platoon of tanks – Panzer IVs as I will later discoverare and beyond them, some more SPWs. There is no ‘headquarters unit’, which should have been there to represent the company commander and his immediate entourage, who would be on the ground and in command of a group of several platoons like ours. Though long included in the ‘Army lists’ used by wargamers and having an important role in Wargame: European Escalation and the like, many tanksims omit important HQ units, in terms of their physical presence on the battlefield and not really simulating their exercise of command and control during a mission (mission designers can and should try to represent the latter with mission triggers which prompt radio messages like fresh orders, exhortations or excoriations). To help formulate my platoon plan, I spent a bit of time working out the lie of the land. SF’s maps are quite good but this can be tricky, with few spot heights, a limited zoom-out and no ability (added to Steel Armor Blaze of War in a recent update, but absent from SF) to view the ground in 3 dimensions, before you actually start the mission. I nevertheless noted that the enemy defensive positions seemed to be in a line, with little depth. This suggested we should ‘roll them up’, from left to right, pretty well straight from where we were starting. As to how, my platoon was deployed with an SPW platoon. I well knew how vulnerable the latter usually proved in SF attacks, having a tendency to advance fearlessly when discretion might be the better part of valour. So I decided to keep it simple and work closely with our grenadiers. In the absence of information or instructions on routes and formations in the briefing, I expected that the SPWs would drive directly towards the nearest enemy. So that’s what I would do, trying to keep ahead of them. The ground was fairly open, and in such country, it seemed best for the tanks to lead.
I kicked off the mission and in the map view - whose icons are the main command and control tool, as there are few hotkeys usable from the 3d world – I ordered my tanks into line formation, close order and to ‘Do as I do’. As usual I switched to the gunner’s position, from where (as in most tanksims, presumably for playability’s sake) you can also do some tank commander stuff like select ammo types and give commands to the driver. Ordering an HE round into the breech, I oriented myself in the external view and off we went, uphill but directly towards the enemy’s right flank positions. Looking around, I could see the SPWs deploying and then moving off in the same direction, just behind and to my right. As usual in SF, our light armour seemed to be in a big hurry and I had to go flat out, to stay ahead of them. This left my two other tanks lagging behind on either side. And there was no time for me to scan ahead from the halt, for possible enemy positions. I’ve come to like and enjoy SF’s stock campaigns, but I do wish the attacking missions were scripted to allow a more tactical advance, with regular halts to observe ahead and time to apply a bit of ‘bounding overwatch’. If you try that in SF, the party could be over by the time you get there. And the lighter armour will likely have rushed ahead and been badly knocked about. With SF attacks, it’s often a bit of a mad charge. This mission was turning out to be no exception: get stuck in, worry about the finer points when it hits the fan. Which it did, soon enough! ...to be continued!
Il-2 WW1 - Monty's new missions
By 33LIMA,
Flying World War 1 from the start, with some new campaigns for Il-2's CUP mod!
The recent Combined User Patch (CUP) for Il-2 1946 now has four modules: Dawn of Flight for World War 1, Golden Age for the inter-war period, Wings at War for WW2, and the Jet Age for the post-war era. For the first of these, SAS's Monty, of The Full Monty fame - the Il-2 mod, not the movie! - has just released a set of scripted-mission campaigns. And naturally, being long interested in the air war of that period, this was one that I wasted no time in trying out.
So far, the first part of an eventual 32 'mission set campaigns' is available, and you can find the details over at the SAS forum, here. Most unusually for a WW1 sim, what this first part gives us is the ability to fly from the very start of the First World War, in August 1914. The first mission set - 'Demarcation' - kicks off in the Vosges, where the demarcation line ran between the French and German empires or that period.
Up to now, the earliest WW1 flight sim missions have flown have been from the era of the Fokker Scourge in the summer of 1915. So while I knew not to expect too much in the way of air combat at a time when most aircraft were unarmed and those that were, generally relied on carbines or pistols carried aloft by their crew, I was keen to try out something new, with the option of jumping ahead any time I wanted; in particular, the 1916 Verdun campaign tickled my fancy, with the opportunity it seemed to fly as the famous Jean Navarre, whose Nieuport Bébé, painted red before von Richthofen copied him, was the terror of the Boches and the hero of the Poilus.
The 'Demarcation' campaign is the first mission-set in the series and sees the player flying a Nieuport N4 monoplane. This famous French company is of course more famous for their V-strutted fighters starting with the Nieuport 10 and 11. But pre-war, Nieuport was noted for its racing or sports planes including a line of neat monoplanes, from which comes the aircraft I’ll be flying on this campaign. There’s some more info about the type on Wikipedia, here; evidently the type was quite widely used, albeit in small numbers, notably by the Russian Air Service. For this campaign I’m with the French air service, which was probably the biggest and best of the combatant air forces at the start of the war and in the thick of it from start to last.
In the early months of WW1, aircraft were purely for visual reconnaissance and were not routinely armed. Rare exceptions included the Farman of Louis Strange, 5 Squadron Royal Flying Corps, who contrived to fit a Lewis Gun, only to be ordered to remove it after the extra weight resulted in the aircraft failing to get high enough to intercept a snooping German warplane. Thereafter, pistols and carbines remained the only (generally ineffectual) option for aircrew who fancied having a crack at their opposite numbers in the air. The first air-to-air ‘kill’ came in October 1914, when Sergeant Joseph Frantz and Corporal Louis Quénault brought down a German Aviatik; Quénault reportedly had to finish the job with a rifle after his Hotckhiss MG packed it in.
As I was soon to discover, my single-seater Nieuport is armed from the get-go, with what looks like a Danish Masden mag-fed LMG. The real catch is that it’s mounted to fire upwards to clear the propeller arc, this being before the introduction of deflectors or interrupter gear. Lanoe Hawker had some success in 1915 in a Bristol Scout with a Lewis gun mounted to fire left and ahead so this arrangement isn’t entirely untypical of the sort of lash-ups early aviators made from early in the war, to get a decent crack at the enemy in a single-seater, with no observer to man a flexibly-mounted gun. Here’s the mission brief. It's just as well I've got the MG, because apparently, the enemy fliers have been activer over our territory. While my patrol zone is marked as a recce objective (eye graphic on a yellow triangle) our aims are offensive in nature. It's a defensive patrol, for two of us, though by the sound of it, my companion’s dodgy motor means that I might be alone. We don’t have far to go, in the horizontal sense anyway. But this is the Vosges and elevation will be a different matter, as I will soon find out. Typically for these new missions, you can forget about one of IL-2's most useful navigational map aids - there's no minimap path. This is 1914 after all, just over ten years from Kittyhawk and Orville and Wilbur's first successful flights in a heavier-than-air flying machine. Intrigued to find out how my first venture into virtual 1914 military aviation will work out, I wasted no time launching the mission, having made sure that in the difficulty settings, I had turned off flutter and wind effects (which the WW1 flight models can’t cope with – IIRC they result in planes having regular attacks of ‘the wobbles’).
And this is what I saw. Truly, our airfield is a veritable diorama, packed with people, vehicles and other aircraft. While the people aren’t animated, it’s still an impressive spectacle, packed with interest. My number two tried a couple of times to get his engine running but each time it spluttered to a stop; possibly just as well as the bloke in front of him seemed disinclined to get out of his way. My motor showed no such reluctance and after a quick look around I decided to take off straight ahead, without worrying about runways. This worked out just fine, my lightweight aircraft lifting off at a speed which didn’t seem much faster than some of the trucks motoring around the airfield. Sitting roughly at mid-chord above a broad wing, it was obvious I wasn’t going to see much from the cockpit. The Voisins and Farmans parked around the airfield would have made much better reconnaissance machines, and indeed they served on after Nieuport monoplanes had disappeared from the front lines. Flying from the external view, I got a much better view of both my aircraft and its surroundings. And fine surroundings they were. Our airfield turned out to be on a little plateau set into the side of an impressive mountain, which comprised a series of peaks with lower ‘saddles’ in between. I resisted the temptation to play that song from that musical, but the hills, if not alive with the sound of music, certainly looked worth the trip.
After a bit of sight-seeing, orienting myself with the help of the map, I realised that my reconnaissance objective had been rather inconveniently sited at the top of the highest peak. As my rate of climb seemed to be rather close to the ‘imperceptible’ end of the scale, this presented me with a bit of a problem. Throttle fully open, I settled into the best climb I could manage on a course parallel to the long side of the ridge or peaks. Compared to the WW2 planes I’m used to flying in Il-2, it felt like I was in a powered glider, and a nose-heavy one at that. Heck, this ‘racing’ plane felt slow, compared to the WW1 planes I’d flown in other sims. Slow...but not too sedate, with a tendency to dive away or begin a roll to either side, if I didn’t concentrate on keeping things level. With little dihedral, a small unbalanced rudder and wing warping for lateral control, this seemed to make sense. Quite an interesting experience in itself, the flight was shaping up to be. Realising that I was not going to gain enough height on one leg, I could not resist the temptation of turning right and crossing the ridgeline over one of the saddles. Even getting high enough to do this, took a certain amount of time and effort and I just scraped across. Having gone over the mountain to see what I could see, like the bear in the song the result was not unexpected – the other side of the mountain.
I now flew a long leg away from the objective to gain sufficient height. That done, I turned around - gently, so as not to lose any of my precious height - and made my way back, aiming for the top of the correct peak.
Finally I was right over the summit. I should have over-flown my objective to one side or the other, but I was quite keen for my track on the map to intersect the centre of the target marker, lest such precision was needed for mission success or to trigger some necessary mission event.
In fact it worked – I got the ‘mission completed’ text so that was it. And I didn’t get shot at, or even see a single enemy aircraft. They were there, though, but I only realised that later, when I noticed an enemy aircraft icon on a screenshot which I had taken with the mini-map view briefly turned on!!! To be honest, I'd sort of forgotten the briefing, having been so taken up with the actual flying side of the challenge. And I had become rather fixated on overflying that big marker, as if I were genuinely on a recce flight. Anyway, the top of that mountain was about as bare as a mountain-top can be. Giving up on earlier ideas about putting in a flypast at the castle I’d seen on a lower peak nearby, I decided that honour had been satisfied; it was time to go home. A nice hot brandy in the Mess would help me recover from the rigours of flying amongst the mountains in my little powered glider. Down we went. The early aviators were in the habit of turning off their motors during a descent but I just cut the throttle to idle and experimented a bit with diving angle and airspeed. The unfamiliar flight model I found quite convincing; I have no idea at all how a real Nieuport 4 handled but this one felt just about perfect, for such an aircraft. It wasn't long before I was turning onto my final approach...although to the wrong airfield I believe, a deceptively-similar one on a similar mountainside plateau. I must have had my mind firmly set on that brandy! For a sortie on which I'd missed my opportunity to have my first air fight, I'd actually found the experience surprisingly absorbing. I think I'll try at least one more campaign mission in the Nieuport 4, before moving on to something more warlike. There's just something about the mission which seemed to capture so well the experience of stooging around in an aircraft that is little more than a docile but ungainly powered glider..albeit one with a sting. ...to be continued!
In the early months of WW1, aircraft were purely for visual reconnaissance and were not routinely armed. Rare exceptions included the Farman of Louis Strange, 5 Squadron Royal Flying Corps, who contrived to fit a Lewis Gun, only to be ordered to remove it after the extra weight resulted in the aircraft failing to get high enough to intercept a snooping German warplane. Thereafter, pistols and carbines remained the only (generally ineffectual) option for aircrew who fancied having a crack at their opposite numbers in the air. The first air-to-air ‘kill’ came in October 1914, when Sergeant Joseph Frantz and Corporal Louis Quénault brought down a German Aviatik; Quénault reportedly had to finish the job with a rifle after his Hotckhiss MG packed it in.
As I was soon to discover, my single-seater Nieuport is armed from the get-go, with what looks like a Danish Masden mag-fed LMG. The real catch is that it’s mounted to fire upwards to clear the propeller arc, this being before the introduction of deflectors or interrupter gear. Lanoe Hawker had some success in 1915 in a Bristol Scout with a Lewis gun mounted to fire left and ahead so this arrangement isn’t entirely untypical of the sort of lash-ups early aviators made from early in the war, to get a decent crack at the enemy in a single-seater, with no observer to man a flexibly-mounted gun. Here’s the mission brief. It's just as well I've got the MG, because apparently, the enemy fliers have been activer over our territory. While my patrol zone is marked as a recce objective (eye graphic on a yellow triangle) our aims are offensive in nature. It's a defensive patrol, for two of us, though by the sound of it, my companion’s dodgy motor means that I might be alone. We don’t have far to go, in the horizontal sense anyway. But this is the Vosges and elevation will be a different matter, as I will soon find out. Typically for these new missions, you can forget about one of IL-2's most useful navigational map aids - there's no minimap path. This is 1914 after all, just over ten years from Kittyhawk and Orville and Wilbur's first successful flights in a heavier-than-air flying machine. Intrigued to find out how my first venture into virtual 1914 military aviation will work out, I wasted no time launching the mission, having made sure that in the difficulty settings, I had turned off flutter and wind effects (which the WW1 flight models can’t cope with – IIRC they result in planes having regular attacks of ‘the wobbles’).
And this is what I saw. Truly, our airfield is a veritable diorama, packed with people, vehicles and other aircraft. While the people aren’t animated, it’s still an impressive spectacle, packed with interest. My number two tried a couple of times to get his engine running but each time it spluttered to a stop; possibly just as well as the bloke in front of him seemed disinclined to get out of his way. My motor showed no such reluctance and after a quick look around I decided to take off straight ahead, without worrying about runways. This worked out just fine, my lightweight aircraft lifting off at a speed which didn’t seem much faster than some of the trucks motoring around the airfield. Sitting roughly at mid-chord above a broad wing, it was obvious I wasn’t going to see much from the cockpit. The Voisins and Farmans parked around the airfield would have made much better reconnaissance machines, and indeed they served on after Nieuport monoplanes had disappeared from the front lines. Flying from the external view, I got a much better view of both my aircraft and its surroundings. And fine surroundings they were. Our airfield turned out to be on a little plateau set into the side of an impressive mountain, which comprised a series of peaks with lower ‘saddles’ in between. I resisted the temptation to play that song from that musical, but the hills, if not alive with the sound of music, certainly looked worth the trip.
After a bit of sight-seeing, orienting myself with the help of the map, I realised that my reconnaissance objective had been rather inconveniently sited at the top of the highest peak. As my rate of climb seemed to be rather close to the ‘imperceptible’ end of the scale, this presented me with a bit of a problem. Throttle fully open, I settled into the best climb I could manage on a course parallel to the long side of the ridge or peaks. Compared to the WW2 planes I’m used to flying in Il-2, it felt like I was in a powered glider, and a nose-heavy one at that. Heck, this ‘racing’ plane felt slow, compared to the WW1 planes I’d flown in other sims. Slow...but not too sedate, with a tendency to dive away or begin a roll to either side, if I didn’t concentrate on keeping things level. With little dihedral, a small unbalanced rudder and wing warping for lateral control, this seemed to make sense. Quite an interesting experience in itself, the flight was shaping up to be. Realising that I was not going to gain enough height on one leg, I could not resist the temptation of turning right and crossing the ridgeline over one of the saddles. Even getting high enough to do this, took a certain amount of time and effort and I just scraped across. Having gone over the mountain to see what I could see, like the bear in the song the result was not unexpected – the other side of the mountain.
I now flew a long leg away from the objective to gain sufficient height. That done, I turned around - gently, so as not to lose any of my precious height - and made my way back, aiming for the top of the correct peak.
Finally I was right over the summit. I should have over-flown my objective to one side or the other, but I was quite keen for my track on the map to intersect the centre of the target marker, lest such precision was needed for mission success or to trigger some necessary mission event.
In fact it worked – I got the ‘mission completed’ text so that was it. And I didn’t get shot at, or even see a single enemy aircraft. They were there, though, but I only realised that later, when I noticed an enemy aircraft icon on a screenshot which I had taken with the mini-map view briefly turned on!!! To be honest, I'd sort of forgotten the briefing, having been so taken up with the actual flying side of the challenge. And I had become rather fixated on overflying that big marker, as if I were genuinely on a recce flight. Anyway, the top of that mountain was about as bare as a mountain-top can be. Giving up on earlier ideas about putting in a flypast at the castle I’d seen on a lower peak nearby, I decided that honour had been satisfied; it was time to go home. A nice hot brandy in the Mess would help me recover from the rigours of flying amongst the mountains in my little powered glider. Down we went. The early aviators were in the habit of turning off their motors during a descent but I just cut the throttle to idle and experimented a bit with diving angle and airspeed. The unfamiliar flight model I found quite convincing; I have no idea at all how a real Nieuport 4 handled but this one felt just about perfect, for such an aircraft. It wasn't long before I was turning onto my final approach...although to the wrong airfield I believe, a deceptively-similar one on a similar mountainside plateau. I must have had my mind firmly set on that brandy! For a sortie on which I'd missed my opportunity to have my first air fight, I'd actually found the experience surprisingly absorbing. I think I'll try at least one more campaign mission in the Nieuport 4, before moving on to something more warlike. There's just something about the mission which seemed to capture so well the experience of stooging around in an aircraft that is little more than a docile but ungainly powered glider..albeit one with a sting. ...to be continued!
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