sparrowhawkms 0 Posted January 1, 2012 OK I can take-off and land the < SE5a Hispano -Suiza> in < Free Flight >, I even can use the elevator and rudder trim to maintain the aircraft heading acording to the TAC display for a minute, but the aircraft drifts off (due to the wind ??) course as determined by the TAC display. QUESTION: 1. The instrument panel of the < SE5a Hispano-Suiza > does not show the compass clearly enough to read. a few other meter displays are also not clear. How does one Navigate using an external printed Map and a compass that can't be used ? 2. Are the instrument panels of ALL the WWI aircraft in OFF similar? 3.. The HUD Gauges 1 to 5 are displayed over the instrumeny panel, but almost impossible to read, since the meters are not clear. Is this normal or do I have a problem? sparrowhawkms Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
tranquillo 10 Posted January 1, 2012 Hi sparrowhawkms Firstly, I shouldn't rely on trims to maintain aircraft heading - there's all sorts of things that can influence the flight path. Use the joystick, that's what it's for. 1. The SE5a is my favourite aircraft and I fly it a lot. It may take a while getting used to the guages but they can be used for flying by, no problem. There are a couple of ways of navigating: via a printed map and the compass + looking for landmarks (roads, rivers, railways etc.) or by pressing 'M' whilst in-flight. This gives you a very basic map. Pressing 'M' again will make it disappear. 2. I've found that, with practice, all aircraft can be flown using the in-cockpit guages. If you fly a particular aircraft a lot then you get used to it ( just like real life). 3. You can drag the hud guages anywhere you want to - you can even select which ones you want. Don't forget, this is a simulator and not a game. It's hard because that's how it was in the day. I hope you persist with it and come to enjoy it as much as we all do. It takes a lot of practice but you will soon be able to look over the side and know roughly where you are. Those HUD guages will disappear too Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
33LIMA 972 Posted January 1, 2012 As for flying straight and level, with most WW1 air war sims, you have to maintain off-centre joystick pressure to counteract the planes' tendencies to drift eg many WW1 planes were reportedly tail-heavy. I tend to use elevator trim only in OFF, to simulate the plane being rigged to stay level at a given airspeed but even then ofteh need to use a little aileron to keep the wings level. Re navigating, the easiest way is to hit the M key and bring up the in-flight map. I'ts a pretty poor map as maps go but it does show your flightpath, your waypoints (including the one that's your mission target) and a little aircraft icon to mark where your own plane is and the direction it's heading. The front lines and friendly and enemy airfields are also clearly marked (unfortunately other features like towms, roads, rivers etc bear little resemblance to what you can see from the cockpit but the rest is more than enough to find your way around). Like real pilots did, once you've been flying from the same airfield for a while you will get to recognise landmarks which you can use to find your way about; try especially to memorise the area around your airfield and any reference points which will help you find it. If you have ticked the option in the OFF Manager to 'always lead' - which I would recommend - there's nothing to stop you ignoring your mission objective and just flying around looking for trouble. That's close enough to the way scouts (fighters) operated in WW1 anyway, with each side mostly flying patrols, the British and French generally offensive ones on the enemy side of the lines, the Germans defensive ones on their own side. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Polovski 414 Posted January 7, 2012 The dials themselves should not be blurred, make sure you setup your Graphics Settings properly too. Do you mean the ones that show with F5 or the ones in the cockpit? All craft have varying instruments, some hardly any but F5 will bring up the basics if you feel better. Sme early craft especially are very sparse. Looking around with TrackIR or cycle F6 keys will sometimes show other instruments (compass on floor, wing etc). How high am I? Look down How fast am I going? Look down ;) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
