Tailspin

Thanks for the update MontyCZ. Looking good!

Well, I'm running 98SE and a GeForce 3 Ti 200 and 9 is with everything at Med. Its really not that bad in the cockpit with frames more like 20-25 in "combat". I really don't notice any slowdowns and IMHO the sim doesn't look bad at all....as long as you don't do any side by side comparisons. Just goes to show you 1/2 this game is 90% mental.

30+ is good. I'm getting around 9 outside view looking back at my plane and more than one other in view.

I've moved the "Modders, Whats on the list..." topic to a sticky post at the top of the page..... Great idea Laton.

I'm going to make this one a "sticky". Please try and keep posts limited to WIPs and subjects directly related to same. Also please update your posts when a WIP is finished.

IMHO you shouldn't get too carried away with implementing this effect. As the article above relates the flaw was not so much speed related as it was pulling out of the dive too abruptly. In other words you could dive at high speeds, you just couldn't yank the stick back without care when climbing out. Big difference.

Great job Max!!

These planes can't fly fast enough to generate compression as they approach the speed of sound, so why reduce control authority at more than a fast walk? Well, one thing to consider is the control systems these planes used. Many were rudimentary with no boost, counter weights, or assists of any kind or what they did have wasn't that efficient. So the faster they flew, the greater the air pressure on the control surfaces. The greater the air pressure, the greater the resistance to input, the less effective control input became. While the stock MaxControlSpeed may be low, its probably should be somewhat less than MaxSpeedSL.

I agree with RVH. I haven't flown the N28 in a while so I loaded up the last version and I like it very much. Great job EmlD, Tex, and everyone else involved. Its been a good experience watching this project develop. Truly a ray of sunshine.

99.99 percent of the people who post here aren't going to have any trouble. I really doubt anyone will notice any difference because a low tolerance policy has been in place for a while already. We've just decided to make it a ZERO tolerance policy. We just want to make it clear that this is NOT the place for agendas, vendettas, pickin' bones, airing dirty laundry, raggin', or malcontents. Trolls and troublemakers are really a lot easier to spot than they think they are.

Tex, this may be worth a read. The N.28 had several service problems. Most remembered among them was the failure of the upper wing in a dive, the leading edge seperated from the aircraft pulling the fabric off the wing. This failure occurred at least six times (Meissner twice, and once each to Hall, Rickenbacker, Heinrichs and Casgrain.) In each case the failure occurred during a pull up from a power on dive. It was not the dive, but the pull out that wrecked the wing. There are several accounts of vertical dives, for instance Hartney states 'I was soon showing the squadron how this ship could dive vertically at the ground' (2); from this it can be infered that it was possible to safely dive this airplane as long as care was taken with the pull out. Despite the grotesque appearance of the failed upper wings in most cases control of the aircraft was maintained and the machines were safely landed. Had the ailerons been on the top wing like in pervious models this failure would have been much worse. The failure seems to have been limited to the ships of the 94th and 95th. It is quite possible that either the design had been improved by the time aircraft were delivered to the 27th/147th or as Hartney suggests these squadrons pilots were better prepared to cope with their machine's flaw. Hartney proudly noted 'no Nieuport of ours ever stripped it's wings'(3). The Nieuport Page

I hope he gets time to do some fishing too.

catch...the .ini files are stored in the .cat files. Using the extractor, when you open the various folders in the game directory you will see different .CAT files. Highlite and open these .cat files with the extractor. Thats where you will find the different .ini files. Once you've extracted the .ini you can then edit it with notepad.

This is why IMHO its more important to find a balance within the game according to how the other planes perform relative to each other.

Yes. Initial climb to 1000 meters and 1159 up to 2000 meters. Note according to the comparisons it climbs better than the 180hp Spad, the Camel, and the DVII and is more manoeverable than both the Alb. DV and Fokker DVII. Also according to the flight test report, linked on the same page, "3). Rudder................Good. The airplane does not slide." Seems to me the N28 was an excellent performer, at least as good or better than some of the best contemporaries...EXCEPT for the unfortunate tendency to shed its upper wing fabric if pulled out of a dive without care taken.

Performance Combat experience showed the N.28 to have outstanding manoeverability, an excellent rate of climb and a respectable top speed. Major Hartney, the comander of the 27th Aero (and later the 1st Pursuit Group) summed up the aircraft when he described the Nieuport 28 as "a fast moving, fast acting gem" (7). What this means in absolute terms and how this and other early airplanes actually performed is a matter for debate. However, there are clues available in the writings of the day. Included below is a summary of comparisions distilled from books that were written during or shortly after the war. At the very least the table below indicates how pilot's in that day and age viewed the airplane they flew as it compared with other aircraft. N.28 vs Speed Climb Dive Manuever Spad 180 hp same (8) N.28 better(8)(9) Spad better(9) N.28 better(8)(9) Albatros D.V DV faster (10) mixed (10)(11) DV better (12) N.28 better(11) Camel N.28 faster(13) N.28 better (14) - - Fokker D.VII - N.28 better (15) - N.28 better (15) Rumpler (C Type) N.28 faster(16) - N.28 faster(16) N.28 better (16) Albatros(C Type) N.28 faster(17) - - - Pfaltz D.III - - D.III faster(18) - The N.28 clearly benefited from good manueverability and an impressive rate of climb, however it was not considered as rugged as the Spads which replaced it. A flight test (19) of a prototype which weighed about 48 lb less (20) than the version the USAS adopted yielded the following results: Altitude Time to Aprox rate Speed m ft min fpm mph 500 1,640 - 1356 - 1000 3,281 2'42" - - 1500 4,921 - 1159 - 2000 6,562 5'25" - 123 2500 8,202 - 894 - 3000 9,843 8'92" - 121 3500 11,483 - 729 - 4000 13,123 13'42" - 117 4500 14,764 - 475 - 5000 16,404 20'33" - 111 Complete text available here.... The Nieuport 38 Page Well crap. I can't get the text edited to space properly. See the text at the link for comparisons to contemporary A/C

Nice pics LloydNB. Thanks!

Hello Preacher, welcome to CombatACE.

This is interesting. Here an attacking flight (AI) of Alb DVa. I don't recall seeing this type of nice neat formation flying before the patch...or did I miss it?

Sounds good then. While I use a lot of your terrains and I like the shots of FE terrain I still like to keep the original around to do most of my flying on. Being able to use the original with the static aircraft will be a plus.

This was a Defensive Patrol single mission on the French side. The echelon is is a flight of Albatros DVa fighters. I've since seen this several times. Just hit F6 and cycle through all the A/C. At a certain range a little closer to their target the enemy fighters will spread out into a "gaggle" for the attack. If you can catch them early enough in their flight you should see the echelon. Big Al...I think formations sometimes depend on the length of the missions. Short flight don't allow for all the AI to form up. Realistic? Show stopper?

Thanks Edward. Since this type of ground object placement of A/C always worked so well in your WWII mods I wondered if it would work in FE too. Since they are at the aerodromes, could they be used in the stock terrain too...or have you changed the aerodrome layout?

Forgive me for not being as rigid in my thinging of how things should be. The problem with published numbers is that they tend to apply only to the particular aircraft being tested at that particular time. I think this is where the (sometimes) wide variances in numbers come from. Things like maintanence practices, airframe and engine wear and tear, tuning, all had and effect. I think if you are after the most "realism" possible you should start from scratch, take the basic physical charistics and aeordynamic properties of the aircraft, do the math and insert the "real" calculations for the N 28 C1 into the data.ini and go from there. But since we aren't doing that and we are compromising by working off an existing FM from another plane, I think a reasonable compromise in the final performance of the model is OK.

IMHO, unless ALL the planes are historically "correct" then gameplay balance is more important.

Ok folks pay attention. This site is NOT for airing greivances against, complaining about, name calling, posting private correspondence of or attacking posters, developers, modders, or ANYONE. If you have a problem with someone's actions TAKE IT UP IN PRIVATE or SOMEWHERE ELSE. RedVonHammer...I think its pretty clear your accusations are unfounded. People port models into sims all the time. Credit is clearly given in the readme of the ATeam's Pfalz DIII. Its also clear the IF that credit is incorrect or incomplete that matter is being addressed. Topic closed.