Flying without crutches

[Interlocutor 0]

I like SPADs. For breakfast, lunch, or with my tea.

Yes, Interlocutor, I prefer turnfighters too (although the Albatros isn't the best there - Dr.1 would be the choice!)

For the Camel, there's one direction, were it's really good (depending on the powerful rotation torque); but I forgot,

wether it was the left or right turn. I think, it was the right, and it was so much faster and safer, that the pilots did

rather a three-quarter right turn than a left (if right was right - ask the experts).

I'll try a Camel campaign soon - she's the only British plane with good twin guns (if we ignore the few twin gun Tripes).

But a nervous little witch, as far as I experienced yet.

 

Yes Olham, I think the real-life Camel turned quickest to the right.

 

About a month ago I spent about 2 hours in QC free flights trying to learn the Camel. I wanted to master right turns, climbing lefts, and loops. I never could get any of these maneuvers right, stalling and/or spinning most of the time. If you figure out the technique, take notes & let me know :yes: .

[Interlocutor 0]

I've been flying BHaH since January, as well, and despite some minor PC problems, have logged many hours. I finaly started playing with a Track IR laast week, and can't believe the difference. I am having to completely re-learn how to fly anyway, so decided to throw away my crutches, following your "12 step program" to the letter

I found it a great help to use TrackIR in RB3D to get a feel for flying without crutches...that way I'm never tempted to turn on cheats like the labels, tracking cone, or tactical display. I can then take what I've learned in a more familiar 2DOF world to the 6DOF BHaH world.

 

BirdDog, yes, TIR does make all the difference, doesn't it . In my old RB3D days a decade ago, with just the hat switch, I had zero situational awareness, could never survive long. But with TIR, I find I actually have a sense of what's happening up there over the lines...

 

BTW, you can go in to the CFS3Config file and "switch off" the TAC, HUD, labels and tracking cone so that you just can't get at them while in the air. That removes all temptation to "have a slip" while in a DiD mission . In fact, if you start to post your DiD pilots on Siggi's kill board, I think it's a requirement to turn these items, plus messages and some others, off in CFS3Config.

 

With messages off, you don't get the blue text telling you when you've hit someone or shot someone down. In one particularly hectic DiD mission yesterday, my LafEsc pilot got into a dogfight & put some rounds into a German plane, but with all the twisting and turning I never saw him crash. When I got back to base, I was told to "file a claim", but since I never saw him go down, I didn't bother. I kind of figured that a real pilot wouldn't get that kind of hint from his C/O when he got home, but maybe I should think of it as a comment from a wingmate, like "I saw that German go down just after to shot at him".

 

What do you think? How should an immersion freak think about this ?

[Siggi 10]

Siggi, that's great! After I fly today, I'll send you the scoop on my two French DiD pilots, assuming thet survive today's missions . They are both early in their careers now, so there's not much to report yet, but we'll see...

 

Only one pilot at a time sir, thangyuverimuch.

[Interlocutor 0]

Wow, Louvert, I love your idea! I'll start trying it out with my DiD missions later today. How did you arrive at the "odds" of the various occurences?

 

About your comments on Archie: what setting in Workshop do you use for "AI Gunfire (range)"? I do try to follow your altitude/evasive action recommendations. But if I get a balloon busting, railyard attack, or airfield attack mission, I feel I have to come down to get it done. If a real-life pilot kept dodging such missions, I suspect he'd be cashiered for cowardice, or at least sent back to become a flight instructor due to loss of nerves .

 

So given that, when I have "AI Gunfire (range)" set to "Normal", I've only rarely lost a pilot to Archie above 5,000 feet, maybe less than 5% or 10% of such missions when I can stay above 5,000 (e.g., a patrol behind enemy lines). But even on "Normal", when I come down below 5,000 to attack ground targets (balloons/airfields/railyards), goundfire gets me much more often, perhaps 20% to 25% of the time.

 

Now when I tried "AI Gunfire (range)" = "Realistic", I lost pilots above 5,000 feet over enemy lines as much as 75% of the time! Maybe it was just a fluke, I'm talking 3 or 4 campaign pilots killed on such missions over the course of the week or 10 days in which I tried the "Realistic" setting, but it was too much for me. No amount of bobbing & weaving seemed to save me. I was also losing wingmen to Archie on "Realistic" as well, and I feel very paternal toward my squadmates. My best LafEsc pilot's longtime wingman, Charles Selden (I'm a Falcons of France fan :yes: , and I change my LafEsc wingmen's names in PilotDossier to reflect real & fictional American flyers who flew for France) was lost to Archie over German lines, going down in flames, and as I sat there in my cockpit crying softly for Charlie, my own pilot, himself himself, was blown up by Archie on the same damn mission :angry2: !

 

I was sooo upset I switched back to normal immediately after, and swore a pox upon "Realistic" Archie...

[zoomzoom 2]

Yeah, it does seem the Archie set to realistic is a bit too accurate. Perhaps in the future "normal" will be allowed in general. I've seen waaay too many AC downed by Realistic setting to make it line up with the first hand accounts.

 

Its great to see so many newly turned on to the graces of the DID standard. I currently aspire to it, but with a few minor exceptions. My machine is extremely limited, so I have all sliders basically set to "1" ,and have to fly without clouds on just to keep the "framerate hangups" from ruining the game. So, this being the case and with out Trakir, I have a few workarounds. The no clouds is one, the other is, since the sky is usually cloudless and hard to get a bearing on from the cockpit at times in a swirling fight, I sometimes pop to external view for a moment to get my bearings and plane orientation, because it all looks the same from the cockpit, and I cant turn my head with the hat switch pan very fast, so a quick pop out and back gets me reoriented, what with zero peripherial vision and all. I wont turn these pilots into the scoreboard...will have to wait for better hardware for that, but at least I'm close!

 

 

 

ZZ.

[griphos 0]

Hmmmm....about flak. I can't remember what my AI "ground fire" setting is. I've been following DiD, but the various patches have changed these settings and I don't recall what the latest did. I know Siggi has now set the AI gun fire range to users choice. All that just to say I don't recall exactly what my setting is, but it's either normal or realisitic I think. I haven't changed it from the start I don't think. But the point is that I've NEVER been shot down by flak, nor have I really even ever tried to dodge it. I see lots of it, but it's not really ever gotten close. I can only recall one time when I lost a wingman to it, and that time I lost both of them to archie right over the line. Knock on wood....but I sort of thought of flak as scenery (mood setting) more than anything else until I started reading these threads about how deadly it can be.

 

This is really interesting if some can fly and it not ever get close and others get knocked down frequently. I've flown a fair bit in this sim since it came out.

 

So, now I'm very curious. Maybe we should do a poll on how many people have been hit by flak.

[Olham 164]

To match Siggi's high realism standards for my DiD candidate for his killboard,

I have changed AA to "realistic". And got badly damaged right after that!

Fortunately, it resulted in a crash landing, I survived. But, my god, these Archies -

I'd like to really strafe them hard!

My pilot now has 4 confirmed kills. Not enough yet for the board; but if he has:

what exactly must I do to take part in that?

[Rickitycrate 10]

I've been realistic AA for DiD and 75% 0f my dead pilots are from Archie. If I understand it can now be set to normal so normal it is for me.

[Siggi 10]

To match Siggi's high realism standards for my DiD candidate for his killboard,

I have changed AA to "realistic". And got badly damaged right after that!

Fortunately, it resulted in a crash landing, I survived. But, my god, these Archies -

I'd like to really strafe them hard!

My pilot now has 4 confirmed kills. Not enough yet for the board; but if he has:

what exactly must I do to take part in that?

 

How do you mean, "not enough yet for the board"? All DiD pilots go on the board with zero stats. For the ACES board you have to have at least five kills, but you only go on that then if you're POW or KIA.

 

Go here to read the rules:

 

http://www.hetzer.talktalk.net/

 

If you want to participate fill out the report and I'll put you on. :yes:

[Olham 164]

Reading the rules, I saw, it must be on version 1.3, which I haven't installed yet.

So, the 4 victories are useless now?

[Siggi 10]

Reading the rules, I saw, it must be on version 1.3, which I haven't installed yet.

So, the 4 victories are useless now?

 

No, you can carry your four victories into v1.3. It's a moot point though really, you'll be dead again by tomorrow night.

[Rickitycrate 10]

:lmaosmiley:

[griphos 0]

Okay, I'm home again so I checked. My AI is set to Realistic. I'll set it to Normal and compare. But it appears that the gods like me. Rickity...75%!

[Rickitycrate 10]

Yes Griphos, I swear. And you have to cross the front. I always cross at 10,000 ft plus but still get nailed. I just could not seem to avoid it. My best DID pilot was brought to an end that way. Who knows if he may have lived another day and gotten more of his claims confirmed, oh well. I am currently inactive and before I start a new campaign I will switch to NORMAL for sure. I knew it was too accurate but I wanted to be flying DiD and thought we were all set to Realistic for AA.

[Interlocutor 0]

Interesting posts about various experiences with "AI gunfire (range)". Does this item affect only anti-aircraft? Or does it apply to other AI gunfire as well, such as ground-based MG's around airfields, or even aircraft MG's?

 

I sent my first killboard DiD pilot to Siggi just now :yes: . Thanks Siggi, for developing & promoting DiD for OFF3, and for runn9ing the killboard !

[Interlocutor 0]

I've been realistic AA for DiD and 75% 0f my dead pilots are from Archie. If I understand it can now be set to normal so normal it is for me.

 

Griphos, Rickity, I'm with Rickity here. When I was flying with "AI gunfire (range)" set to "Realistic", all of my dead pilots during that period fell to Archie!

 

Now I have to qualify that by saying that I flew with that setting for only about 10 days or so, and lost maybe 4 or 5 pilots during that time. But each one of those was shot down by Archie behind German lines. Also, all of that flying was pre-DiD, so I was using 2-mile TAC, labels & warp then.