CrazyDuck

Just to get the obvious out of the way first - have you tried changing the "Density fo the front-line activity" setting of the career? From "scattered" (which is default) to "normal" or "dense"?

Yeah, that's what I assume also. I-16 spews out a gargantuous amount of bullets per second.

No, no, I prefer the new effects over the old ones very much. However, imagine an I-16 firing a long burst into a fat, chunky target like a Ju 52 or He 111, surely hitting with most bullets. A lot of puffs, sparks and smoke over the target due to a lot of hits. However, during the burst these effects disappear at certain time, so it looks like my bullets are not hitting the target at all (looks like bullets are flying "through" the target). After a fraction (like, half) of second, the effects reappear normally. Looks like a graphic anomaly which stops generating hit effects for a split second, but damage is still received by the target during this time. Also, happened only a few times to me up to now, so not really sure how to go about hunting for it. Actually, could it be my rig hiccuping? Not really the top notch monster under my desk - i5-7400, 8GB RAM, Radeon 560. Never had stutters in IL-2 (up to now).

Why would IL-2 pilot shoot into empty water? He might have seen you there (as a consequence of bad lag). It's only my opinion what happened and I might very well be wrong. It would be nice to see the track file - would you be willing to share it?

I've noticed something different and it might be a bug - it now seems as if here and there the visual hit effects go away and hits are not visible at all. However, it seems that damage gets registered anyway, it's just that visual effects are not there (looks like bullets fly "through" the target - just that they don't appear on the other side). I see that using mostly light machineguns on I-16 - hit effects (the sparks and smoke puffs etc.) simply disappeared for a second or so, despite me being sure I'm hitting the target, and then they reappear. Like I've said above, damage seems to be received by the target during this time as well, so I didn't consider this a critical bug. I can't back this up with anything but my memory - maybe I'll try and capture a video of it.

I'd buy them without hesitation - 1C/777 earned this status in my eyes up to now. However, I'd only do so after many other, historically far more important kites made it into the sim.

Good question. I know it was common on Russian designs, but I never heard about this being used elsewhere. Perhaps its effectiveness was questionable, or cost/benefit wasn't so clear as one would hope.

Speed and firepower are the two most important properties of a fighter in my book. This puts Tempest among the elite.

Wow, an early (non-blown) canopy on Dora! Looks lot better than the blown one on D9 to me. 😃

Pe-2 historically had a system which pumped filtered and cooled engine exhaust gas into the fuel tanks to replace the air there in order to reduce the possibility of explosion or fire (no oxygen). Not sure whether this is modelled in the sim or not.

Wow, I really like this upgrade. Effects are amazing, fuel leak looks much more realistic, as well as shell/bullet strikes. Also like the 190A8 upgrades. Thank you!

I'm seeing quite some claims in style "It's not a dogfighter" "It turns like a locomotive" etc. Well, I woudln't be so sure about this. Comparing wing loading (empty weight), Me 262 is comparable or even better than P-38, P-47 and Fw 190, plus it has leading edge slats over entire length of the wing. Consequently, I wouldn't be surprised if this thing exhibited outstanding high-ish speed maneouverability (E-bleed might be a problem tho), and good stall-speed behavior. Of course Me 262 pilot should avoid dogfighting whenever possible and only resort to it when forced to (since this negates the biggest advantage he has), but this has nothing to do with dogfighting capabilities of the aircraft. Let's wait and see.

Very well written! Comparing number of aircraft in IL-2 BOX with 1946 let's also not forget that BOX has multiple versions of an aircraft available through the single aircraft slot with modifications (190A-8/F-8, Ju-87D and 87G, I-16 type 24/28,...).

Yep, it's gonna be huge!

These are the ultimate wonder weapon - 109s usually discontinue the attack due to smell trailing from these.