HomeBoy

I see no advantage with going with TIR5 software with TIR4 hardware. If I had TIR4 hardware I would stick with 4.1 software. Yes, I used to get the "lap snap" thing all the time. None of that happens with TIR5 hardware.

You will probably want to experiment with dragging the last few bubbles on the graphs up a bit for Roll and Yaw. It's a little confusing when you first start looking at those graphs but just remember the up axis (y) causes your "in-game" head to move faster as you slide those bubbles upward. You get immediate feedback as you move them so you should be able to adjust it right then and there before you get into the game. There is also a view of sitting in the cockpit of a Spitfire that you should select when you think you've got everything right so you can see what it will look like when you're in the cockpit. I intend to write a TrackIR 5 guide at some point but I've gotten interested in playing this game to the point where I can't get back to stuff like that. Good luck. Feel free to post, PM, email me, etc. if you need specific help. Glad to do it! -mark

Use TrackIR 5 Beta 4 (the latest). Yes, it's beta but it's getting close to production. It's very reliable.

Yes there is: Aces High

I hope you know I was just playing with you Jim. This is a big tent. There is plenty of room for us all. None of us have any right trying to tell one another how to play this game! Glad you got your viewing system figured out. <S>! -mark

Wow! I take that as a real complement! There's not very much truth in it but I'll take it! Thank you very much! I hoppe I can speill a lattle beter then Dale thow.

You are exactly correct BigJim. You must have Control Manager 4.50 or greater. Sorry about that. I need to put that in my guide. Just download the latest CM and you will be fine. Hope that works out dandy for you! <S>! -mark Update: I just updated the guide to reflect the issue you raise. Thank you BigJim!

I have unassigned "Toggle Cockpit" in my copy of OFF because it would be criminal to ever turn off the cockpit. Just poking at you there JimAttrill. You must know though that turning the cockpit off is the ultimate "training wheels." <S>! -mark

Just in case anyone is interested, Condor asked me if I would make a video of me tearing up a perfectly good N17 in a vertical dive test. is that video.

Hi Jim, I list it as "_________" because it is undefined by default. You have to assign a key value to it first. I set mine to "Shift-Control+c" or something like that. The idea of the "________" is so you can fill it in on your card once you assign it. I have no idea why that command is unassigned like that.

Perhaps I've misunderstood the original assertion. I agree with your comment here ONLY if we are talking about a PARTICULAR aircraft with a PARTICULAR engine. Maybe that's the point you and others are making. Sorry if I missed that part of the assertion along the way. If you take a 65hp J3 Cub and put it on a giant treadmill and spin the treadmill such that the Cub cannot get off the ground then, yes [mabe, not even sure], I agree with you. BUT, if I put a large enough motor on that Cub, it will overtake the "treadmill effect" and will take off every time! That's the argument I thought we were having. Perhaps I was wrong and I apologize if so. To give credence to this "treadmill theory" would be to say it would be impossible for any airplane to take off UP the side of a mountain, "with" a strong wind instead of into it, off an aircraft carrier that is turned "with the wind" instead of "into it", etc. All of which would actually be valid arguments in the event that this discussion was about a PARTICULAR airplane (example, the J3 Cub may not have enough power to do any one of those things). That was not however the myth that the Myth Busters were investigating and I was arguing along those lines and not this PARTICULAR airplane case. I'm with you. The fun is waning on this discussion so I'm going to bow out too. Nice energetic discussion. Makes us all pull out our aeronautic books and review the basics. Not a bad exercise. <S>! -mark

You know, this "treadmill theory" beautifully illustrates the mind-twisting problems student pilots have to overcome when thinking about ground and air. A student really struggles with the idea that an airplane flying at a ground speed of 100 knots flying into a headwind of 110 knots does not fall out of the sky. Well, this is an obvious example but is really exactly the same principle at work here as with the "treadmill theory." Ground speed ONLY matters to us humans when we care about how long it takes to get somewhere. The airplane has no concern at all about the ground. It is flying through the AIR not the GROUND. These concepts get tricky sometimes but principles override what "feels right" every time! It's like that old saying "Speed of light, not just a good idea, it's the law!" Have a great day Lou! Fun discussion. -mark

Hi Lou, Ok, I accept that. The helicopter is, based on your point, not the best example. However, you have, with your explanation of the helicopter "wing", proven that an airplane's contact with the ground is irrelevant. You say "A helicopter flys because its blades are the airfoils, (i.e. wings), and create their own air flow." Now, take that airfoil and mount it to the front of a fixed wing aircraft and it will "create it's own air flow" thus pulling the plane forward and create lift on the fixed wings which cause the plane to go airborne. NOWHERE in all of this is the ground EVER a factor. That is of course unless the engine does not have enough power to accomplish this which I previously mentioned. None of this has anything to do with propwash really. It's the "airscrew" nature of a propeller that is the primary issue here. The prop pulls the airplane through the AIR and when enough speed is generated, the wings moving through that air generated from the forward movement will experience lift quite independently from mother earth. Great discussion BTW. This really makes you come to terms with what makes an airplane fly. One of the hardest things when I first started learning to fly was how little of what goes on on the ground matters to the airplane flying through the air.

The assertion that an aircraft cannot take off if it is on a treadmill is absolutely a myth! A propeller (jet, rocket engine, or any other thrust producing device) pulls its payload through the air (i.e. an "airscrew") and has no relation to the ground at all really. If this were not true, a helicopter would NEVER get off the ground as that is the extreme example of the "treadmill effect." Now, if the engine is not powerful enough to pull the plane through the air without the benefit of rolling across the ground (e.g. the need to roll down a steep hill to gather speed) then yes, the treadmill effect appears to be legitimate but what's really going on there is the engine is not powerful enough to pull the plane through the air sufficient enough to produce lift and the "rolling across the ground" is needed to assist the engine. In fact, you could secure that airplane with chains into concrete and if the engine is POWERFUL ENOUGH, it would rip itself free or pull the engine off the front of the plane and move through the air! Extreme example obviously but true non-the-less. I saw the episode of Myth Busters as well and thought they could have done a better job with that particular myth. Their conclusion was correct however.

Just a quick update. BTW, if ever you want to get to my aircraft page and can't find this thread, just find any of my postings and follow the link to my web site (snomhf.exofire.net) shown in my signature. There you'll find everything I've written. There are other things there that may interest you as well as I've been gathering all sorts of flight sim related stuff for a good long while. I am currently performing speed and altitude tests on all the aircraft. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the plane set and am very pleased to find the numbers I'm seeing to be pretty well in line with historical data. As I'm doing this, I'm recording maximum ammo and taking notes on cockpit visibility and will be including all this on the aircraft pages which I'll publish when I'm done with the speed tests. After I finish this set of tests, I will work through the following tests in a similar manner and publish the results as I go. Stalls (power off, full power) Acceleration Climb and dive (including stress testing) Turn rate Roll rate Following these tests, I will then begin systematic dogfighting and record advantages/disadvantages observed. I will complete the write-ups by offering advice on fighting with and against each of the planes. Hopefully at the completion of the project, players will be able to look up their plane of choice and at least have a basic idea of how to use or oppose a particular plane. If there are other tests or comparisons you think are important that I have not covered here, please let me know. All of these tests are being done using CFS3-QC with 75% fuel, mixture set to auto (for consistency), no wind, clear weather. Except for the settings just noted, here is my Workshop data:

I surely wish there was a "Fly Now" feature in OFF. CFS3-QC is close but because you have to have an active pilot, you lose your pilot every time you crash (what a hassle) unless you go to the trouble of going to the Workshop and setting "Pilot never dies." It is also frustrating that you must set up the plane you fly, planes you oppose, weather, field you fly from, etc. EVERY SINGLE TIME you play CFS3-QC. I wish there was a way to tell CFS3-QC to remember your last settings. Fly Now was one of the handiest tools in RB3D and how I learned how to fly the planes in that game. When, in a campaign, you were issued a new plane that you might not be familiar with, you could pop out and go to Fly Now and learn to fly it against a host of opponents of your choosing. It surprises me that there is not more clamor around here for Fly Now. I must be a real odd ball!

Hi Widowmaker! Hope you have fun vacationing here in the US! FYI, here are a couple of my favorite spots (the first one because it is close to home): http://www.littleswitzerlandnc.com http://www.jacksonholewy.com/default.aspx

My sincere apologies here! I am now able to successfully destroy my Nupe due to stress! I just was doing it wrong. After reading Hasse Wind's post about how he accomplished this, I decided to try 15k (I was using 10k before) and using autopilot to hold the plane at altitude while waiting for it to develop full speed before split-ess'ing into a vertical dive. This gives the airplane much more speed initially and increases the chances of stress failure. The other mistake I was making before was at a certain point (around 205mph) the plane begins to nose up slightly. Before, I was just hands off the stick and the nosing up would drop the airspeed enough to prevent the plane from entering that "deep compression" (you hear the engine begin to speed up) just before things begin to fail. Now, I put forward pressure on the stick and hold it down in the vertical dive and force it to compress. At around 220mph things begin to fail. Still, total destruction does not occur unless I try to pull up (I hit the ground before that happens) in which case the plane comes apart. All I can say about this is these Nupes are some sort of tough birds! If I were to try to do something like this in any of my radio controlled planes or any of the planes in Aces High, bad things would happen within five seconds of a full-powered vertical dive. The reason I thought this wasn't working before is because I've learned from experience to NEVER sustain any sort of vertical dive with power for more than a few seconds. Because these OFF planes will dive 15 seconds or longer with full power, I was not forcing the dive long enough to see damage.

Thank you for that Hasse Wind. That's what I was hoping to hear. Now I've got to figure out why my game doesn't work like that. I have never installed any of these damage models. Maybe it's time to try some of them and see what difference it makes. Actually, there is not an aircraft on the face of the earth (modern or otherwise) that can survive a full-power vertical dive from 10,000 ft and not fly to pieces.

Pol, Sorry if I have sounded negative or complaining. Please don't misread my passion as nitpicking or grumbling. I'm just testing and reporting. Nothing more. The fact that stalls, spins, max speeds, mixture effects, etc. appear so excellently modeled, I find this stress modeling issue both surprising and disappointing. This thread going into the second page since Condor originally posted basically unchallenged was what made me do my own tests as I just didn't want to believe his finding. Now, if you say the tests are flawed, nothing would make me happier! That's part of the reason I wanted to post here. Condor stated that perhaps he was doing something wrong and I certainly hope that same thing. I just can't for the life of me see what that might be! Yes, having the "model stress" setting turned on was the FIRST thing I verified after taking the N17 in a full-power vertical dive from 10,000 feet and pulling out at 1,000 feet with absolutely no damage at all to the aircraft! I am using v1.30c with no additional DM at all. Everything is stock. Should I be using one of the other DMs? I certainly didn't think so. I'm very suspicious that Condor and I both must be doing something really bone-headed as this is such an obvious thing! I implore anybody and everybody to do the N17 test I just mentioned and report their results. It's easy to do. Hopefully EVERYBODY will come back here and show Condor and I how wrong we are. I have been doing these tests in CFS3 QC (because of the full availability of the entire plane set). I can't imagine why there would be two FMs for these two aspects of the game. Could it be that "aircraft stress" is somehow disabled in CFS3-QC but not in campaign? I seem to recall though that Condor also tried this in the campaign and had the same results. ?? Trust me, I'm teachable here. Please show me the error of my ways. <S>!

I have tested Condor's findings and confirm exactly what he is saying to be true. I put the N17 through the most violent maneuvers I possibly could and it pulled right through with no damage. In RB3D, that plane would have popped a wing in short order. I have ripped apart similar radio control models in much less stressful dives than what I put the N17 through. I have to say this is pretty disappointing.

Indeed OLP. Great info to have. Must useful! thanks -mark

Hi Tuba, I get your point but I think it is a bit of a stretch to try to justify TrackIR for non-game applications. There is a "mouse control" utility that comes with it but I have never tried it or know of anyone who has. I suppose you could work with it and get it replace the mouse to some extent but I'm not sure of the value there. Sorry. As for TIR4 vs TIR5, it's the resolution that is THE difference between the two and not so much the wider field of view (though that comes with the territory). You are going to get (and instantly notice) much smoother and responsive movement out of the TIR5 that you cannot get from TIR4. Now, you can tweak the TIR4 and get it to behave more responsively than how it comes out of the box but it's pretty tricky and takes a bit of work. The TIR5 on the other hand will work pretty much with the default profile what you would never be able to achieve with TIR4. That's not to say TIR4 is bad it's sort of the difference between a Pentium processor and a dual-core. Better and faster technology. Personally I think it's worth the extra $30-$40 or whatever. Others may not agree but being as the viewing system is the most important aspect (IMHO) of this game, I would not want to skimp there. You are going to get people telling you TIR4 is great and that's all you need. They are right, it is great (compared to hat switches and padlock views, etc.) but I would bet money that they have never tried TIR5 and if they did, they would tone down the rhetoric a bit. Sorry, I don't mean to come across as some sort of fanboy for TIR but I did LOTS of research before replacing my TIR4 with a TIR5 and felt very foolish for doing so until I got it installed and tried it for the first time. Just my thoughts of course. You know what they say about opinions. Best of luck with your decision. Getting any sort of TIR is a good decision so weigh your options and trust you will do what's best for you. Hope I've helped a little. -mark

After much discussion with the techs at NaturalPoint, I decided to plop down $148 for the TrackIR 5 hardware. I am also running the TIR5 Beta 4 software (latest) as well. I must tell you honestly that this is a HUGE upgrade over TIR4. Much more than I thought. The primary difference between TIR5 and TIR4 is "increased resolution." I really scoffed at that and really thought it was nothing but marketing hype. I was so wrong. With TIR5, because there is greater resolution, there is much more responsiveness, but it is also much much smoother as a result too. I was really amazed right away. You'd have to experience it to really appreciate what I'm saying. Within fifteen minutes, I was able to get the profiles adjusted for Aces High and OFF in such a way as I have never experienced. I even left the "Roll" axis enabled in the AH profile which allows me to look around the tail better. Many of us have left that axis disabled because it caused so much confusion. With TIR5 however, the movement is so easy to control and natural feeling that the roll axis is just as natural as the other axes. Personally, I'm loving this thing and am glad I got it. BTW, I canceled my Aces High account the other night after ten years! Do you think I'm enjoying OFF? I don't have time for both and one had to go.

Black Knight, I can't imagine why TIR5 software would interfere in any way with the OFF install. They are totally separate programs and only begin to interact once you are in the virtual cockpit (and the right side light on your TIR camera comes on). Sounds like OFF got corrupted somehow in some unrelated to TIR way?? Odd problem. I just replaced my TIR4 with TIR5 last week and had no problems like this at all (not gloating just trying to get TIR off the hook :blush2: ) Good luck. Keep us posted as to what you find. -mark