Hauksbee

About rudders in turns: here's how my instructor explained it to me. In a turn, it's definitely a function of aileron, left or right. However, imagine the diameter of the circle your plane is describing. In a left turn, for example, your right wingtip is moving faster than the left wingtip by virtue of being farther away from the center of that circle, so the right wingtip wants to get ahead of it mate, which rotates the airplane around its vertical axis. That causes the nose to drop and the plane falls inward. The cure is to apply some opposite rudder to keep the nose up. I've never tried your method of using the rudder as the primary way to turn, tho' I imagine that, like a boat in the water, it will bring you around. But if there's somebody on your six shooting, ailerons are the way to go. I'm using a Logitech 'twist' stick because my beloved Sidewinder disappeared somewhere in a move, and I find it so frustrating that I check 'Auto-Rudder' in the Workshops. In a diving left turn, the stick has to move on two axes, and I find that keeping that constant while adding 'twist' is damn near impossible, and I'm all over the sky. Auto Rudder cures that. However, in the few Multi-Player sessions I've been in, I seem to have full rudder control again. I guess Workshop settings are determined by the person hosting the game, so a set of floor pedals are definitely in my future. Which ones remain to be determined. One place where your rudder control is invaluable is when you want to fine tune a shot. Assume your target's in a gentle right turn. You're swinging in from behind to get on his tail. The two of you are flying two different circles that have to intersect. Assume again that's he's staying just a bit off to the right of your gunsight. Instead of increasing your bank [which changes your whole circle] just tap some right rudder and the nose swings over and take the shot. Another place where the rudder is invaluable is in strafing ground target. You can fly a straight line [like down a road with trucks] and by lightly tapping the rudder left and right you can hose the area and stay on course too.

Wow! Never suspected that.

When used this way, was it not referred to as PAK: Panzer Abwher Kanone?

As I understand it, you're not totally wrong. Whisky, fresh in the bottle can have a rough 'edge' to it which benefits from time in the warehouse. However, once that's past and it's on the store shelf, more time isn't going to change it very much.

Interesting thought, but the question remains, 'how much better'? From everything I've read [i've never been able to afford the upper end of the research] there comes a point of diminishing returns where more time does not translate into better taste or quality. Wine can mature in the bottle, but whisky matures in the barrel. [i'm using Kentucky Bourbon as the example here] The charred wood colors the whisky, and the alcohol leaches out sugars from the wood. Once it's in the bottle, the process is pretty much over, so a 100 year old scotch would be indistinguishable from a 30 year bottle in a blind tasting. Still, being a beer drinker, I could be wrong.

Sorry, guys. Won't go there again.

I particularly like the other name for the Handley-Page, which was 'the Bloody Paralyser" for its bomb load.

Mither o' Gawd! NO! Just leave it at the edge of the runway. There are qualified people who will dispose of it.

Winston Churchill, [that emminently quotable man] once said that "Americans can usually be counted upon to do the right thing, but only after exhausting all the other possibilities." Seem very true as we emerge from the Bush years.

That certainly puts a different face on things! I'll put it the test forthwith.

Pure inspiration! But, regretably, unworkable. If you're in a cloud you can climb. roll over and be diving straight at the ground, and cenrtrifugal force will hold the whisky level in the bottle. A pendulum hung off the inst. panel will be pointing at the floor. So if you're in a cloud bank, and the 'artificial horizon' has not moved off the mark after 30 seconds, that's the time to drink the whisky!

To help the cash flow along, can we pre-order?

Nothing wrong with picking your fights wisely.

Well...we learned from the best.

I feel better already.

I wish I could have heard what he had to say to you! [LOL]

There it is! The very heart and soul of flight sim! From the moment I first discovered computer flying, [it was a 'Chuck Yeager' title, an Apple II, and a trackball that would fit in the palm of my hand] my interest in shooting planes down was a far second to latching onto a Me-109's six, and staying there, no matter what. I just wanted to totally out-fly the S.O.B. I used to jokingly say that I just wanted to pull up close, be able to look into the other guy's cockpit, and watch him sweat blood. Which, of course, never happened. Then one day, OFF arrived in the mail. Now I really can. This is Hog Heaven!

Well then, looks like soimething finally shook loose. As I said in the original post, CTRL>SHIFT +1, etc. wasn't giving me anything. But tonight it did. AND...I got the CTRL>H to bring up artificial horizon [of a sort]. This is in a SPAD. Mayhap it won't work on other planes. But it's a start. Thanks for all the patient help. One other thing. Why, when I'm sitting on the field prior to take-off, is my Health Level only 59%? [it's hard to see in the pic.]

I'm trying to fine tune TrackIR 5, using the Track Clip Pro...with mixed results. When I have the UI open to where I can see the Camera and three heads, it works fine. I have Speed set at the midway point [6?] and Smoothing set to 100. [F12 set to 'Center'] But when I get in the air, it semi-locks up. Which is to say, it seems to move fine when I accidently turn my head, but when I turn it on purpose, the view remains looking straight down my guns. My only solution is to give my head a quick, sharp shake, [like trying to clear a drop of water out of your ear] and it's working again. If I continue to look over my shoulder, it'll take another shake to loosen it up so I can see straight ahead again. This shaking of the head makes the viewpoint spin wildly for a second or so, and I often lose sight of where my target got to. Hitting F12 will cure it [at least to return to front view] but that can be hard to find when you're chasing one plane and ducking tracer from another, the room is darkened and all keys are black. Does any of this sound familiar?

I tried the 'Z Option'. There's just too much information in there, the type is small, the lines are packed close, and if that were not enough, the numbers are rapidly changing because the plane is moving.

No hard feelings then, about that 'Revolution thing'?

Thank you, gentlemen...much good advice here. It may well be that 'distance-to-camera' is the heart of my problem, seeing as my 'distance-to-monitor' is determined by the non-prescription glasses I use when sitting at the computer. I will cobble together a shelf and move it back. It has crossed my mind, in a general sense, that I should sit back farther as indicated in the tutorial diagrams. But in the heat of battle, how I sit is driven by the depth-of-field of my glasses; being non-prescription magnifiers, they're only in focus within a narrow range. As far as ambient light goes...might be a contributing factor during the day, but definetly not at night, tho' reflections off glasses could. I'll search out a dulling spray at the hardware store. Thanks. TrackIR is much, much more sensitive than I thought. Sweat? I haven't attempted to adjust the curves yet. First because it all seems to work so well during the set-up, and secondly, the tutorial was written for T4, and I have T5. Everything has changed and been moved around, so I'll go there as a last resort.

We did it! We snagged another one! Welcome aboard, Broadside. Sooner or later, you will want TrackIR. Go for the combo package with TrackIR and the Track Clip Pro that goes on your headset & mic. Once you have it, it's a whole new world to fly in.

Great post! This and RAF_Louvert's article. There's a lot more going on than I suspected with this sight...tho' I remain grateful that I've never had to use one. Never realized that the pilot had to lean forward and put his eye right up to it. That's something we can't do. [maybe RoF will sort this one out for us.] It's hard to understand, at this distance in time, why pilots embraced it, given it's drawbacks, but...I guess you had to be there.

Had to do a complete re-install of OFF and CFS3 today to smooth out the glitches from yesterday [strange doin's in QC]. The good news is that every time I re-install, my realism level creeps higher. Living in QC, as I do, I give myself unlimited ammo and fuel, and I bloody well can't be bothered with dying. [Time enough for that later.] On first install, I was somewhere around -700+, today I was only at -130. Not bad. Normally I set Archie at 'Least Accurate'. I have no interest in AA; all I want to do is chase Huns. [unless I am one]. Today, I was completely bracketed by shell bursts. My SE-5 was bouncing wildly and got flipped over twice. I had taken off my headphones so I didn't hear the AA at first. I thought I was stalling the plane. Then when I put them back on, I realized they were shooting exclusively at me! I'm over my own air base and I see [labels on] British troop columns, and Renault trucks, and out in front of me is this Albatros in completely clean, open air. [i hear Olham laughing his ass off.] This continues as we spiral down until we're both in the weeds, and the Archie is still clobbering me. Admitedly, it never took me out, though I was expecting it at any minute. But why me? Doesn't the AI know that I'm one of the good guys over my own airbase?