Stopwatch? Where can I map it?

[1./ZG1_ElHadji]

Am I missing something here? I can't fint the stopwatch in the key bindings so the question is how are we supposed to navigate without it? I mean I can see it it the cockpits but I don't know how to operate it. Any suggestions?

[Finkeren]

Suggestion: Use a real stop watch.

 

This detail is not modelled in the sim. I guess it could easily be implemented, but thinking how few people would actually use it, it's propably not worth the hassle.

[1./ZG1_ElHadji]

Strange since it is a very essential feature in WW2 planes... Well, guess I will have to use a real stopwatch then. How do most people navigate at night? I mean how do you know when to turn if you don't know for how much time you have spent on each leg of a route?

[Finkeren]

I think most people who try their hand at real navigation at night (which I think are preciously few) use a stopwatch. Pretty much all of us carry a stopwatch around in or phones anyway.

 

At night dead reckoning is pretty much your only option in this sim, unless you want to try your hand at using astronomical observations (the stars are in their right places - should be doable)

[migmadmarine]

I just keep a mental note of what the clock will read when the time is up. (reads 5:16, need to fly for 5:00 min, so turn at 5:21) 

[GridiroN]

Can someone explain what you guys are actually talking about? I'm totally lost reading this conversation.

[Finkeren]

Can someone explain what you guys are actually talking about? I'm totally lost reading this conversation.

The stopwatch is used for dead reckoning navigation. DR is when you navigate by setting a course and then determining your position as you go along based on your calculated ground speed and adjusting for wind.

 

If, for instance you need to go from point A to point B a leg of 105 km, you set your course, calculate ground speed (let's for the sake of simplicity say 315 km/h) and adjust your course for drift due to side wind. As long as you keep your heading, altitude and speed, you can expect to arrive at or very near your target location exactly 20 mins later, at which point you should try to confirm your exact position by other means before continuing on the next leg. Without confirmation underway, dead reckoning gets increasingly inaccurate the more legs there is on your route.

 

Dead reckoning is very useful at night or in cloudy weather, for obvious reasons, but it's really useful otherwise as well. Setting a course knowing that if you keep your heading and speed you'll arrive at the next waypoint in Xmin, Xsec leaves you free to do all sorts of useful stuff such as scanning the sky for other aircraft, looking for ground targets etc instead of constantly looking for landmarks to know your position.

[1./ZG1_ElHadji]

Just to add to what Finkeren said:

 

What most armchair pilots does is called pilotage (unless they cheat and use full in-game autopilot). Pilotage means that you look out the window to find reference points while you fly. It can be rivers, cities, bridges, etc, etc and it all helps you to know where you are going.

 

For obvious reasons pilotage won't work at night or when flying above the clouds so that is why dead reckoning is used. Properly used you need to take compass deviation and wind drift into consideration and you need to use some sort of reference points as well so that you know you are not going astray. During WW2 navigators used celestial navigation in addition to dead reckoning and used the stars to get position fixes.

 

This video, eventhough it is aimed at nautical navigation, describes the basics of dead reckoning very well:

 

Personally I would love to see more complex navigation in Il-2 in Expert mode and introduce a navigator role for the bombers. It would be awesome to just know the location of the target and then having to plot a course with necessary adjustments and then fly it (or provide the skipper with the info in multiplayer). That would add a new dimension to Il-2.

Edited April 3, 2016 by -=XBOYZ=-ElHadji

[GridiroN]

The stopwatch is used for dead reckoning navigation. DR is when you navigate by setting a course and then determining your position as you go along based on your calculated ground speed and adjusting for wind.

 

If, for instance you need to go from point A to point B a leg of 105 km, you set your course, calculate ground speed (let's for the sake of simplicity say 315 km/h) and adjust your course for drift due to side wind. As long as you keep your heading, altitude and speed, you can expect to arrive at or very near your target location exactly 20 mins later, at which point you should try to confirm your exact position by other means before continuing on the next leg. Without confirmation underway, dead reckoning gets increasingly inaccurate the more legs there is on your route.

 

Dead reckoning is very useful at night or in cloudy weather, for obvious reasons, but it's really useful otherwise as well. Setting a course knowing that if you keep your heading and speed you'll arrive at the next waypoint in Xmin, Xsec leaves you free to do all sorts of useful stuff such as scanning the sky for other aircraft, looking for ground targets etc instead of constantly looking for landmarks to know your position.

 

 

If you don't use map icons you can often navigate by roads/rivers/towns/woods/rivers etc. But if you are above cloud level, in an area with few definite landmarks, flying at night, or maybe just wanting to scan for contacts instead of watching the ground you can fly at a known speed, on a known heading for a known time to cover a calculated distance.

 

Re:op...i just note the time on the clock as someone said.

 

Thanks bruh.

[seafireliv]

Just to add to what Finkeren said:

 

What most armchair pilots does is called pilotage (unless they cheat and use full in-game autopilot). Pilotage means that you look out the window to find reference points while you fly. It can be rivers, cities, bridges, etc, etc and it all helps you to know where you are going.

 

For obvious reasons pilotage won't work at night or when flying above the clouds so that is why dead reckoning is used. Properly used you need to take compass deviation and wind drift into consideration and you need to use some sort of reference points as well so that you know you are not going astray. During WW2 navigators used celestial navigation in addition to dead reckoning and used the stars to get position fixes.

 

This video, eventhough it is aimed at nautical navigation, describes the basics of dead reckoning very well:

 

Personally I would love to see more complex navigation in Il-2 in Expert mode and introduce a navigator role for the bombers. It would be awesome to just know the location of the target and then having to plot a course with necessary adjustments and then fly it (or provide the skipper with the info in multiplayer). That would add a new dimension to Il-2.

 

Great stuff. dead reckoning is something i try to do in sims all the time. Not only because it`s realistic, but even be something useful to use in life one day.

[AwesomeSprawvy]

The X-52 joystick has a timer function that I use for this very purpose.

[busdriver]

GridiroN if I may add another technique to Finkeren's example. He posited a groundspeed of 315km/h, flying a leg 105kms long, requiring 20 minutes. In a previous career I flew Phantoms and Vipers. It was standard USAF practice to plan our low level mission at a speed that is a multiple of 60. Typically 420, 480, or 540 knots Indicated airspeed, which is 420, 480, and 540 nautical miles per hour. The A-10 guys I talked to planned 240 and 300 knots enroute.

 

What's magical about multiple of 60 you ask? Let's use 420 knots in our equation. If you fly 420 nautical miles in 1 hour, how far will you fly in 1 minute? (I'll give you a second...)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Think of it this way...1 minute is 1/60th of an hour (or said differently, there are 60 minutes in an hour). Divide 420 by 60 and you get 7...but what is this 7? It's 7 nautical miles per minute. At 420 knots you're travelling 7 nautical mile per minute. At 480 knots...8 nautical miles per minute. You get the picture.

 

So how does this apply to BoS/BoM? If I were trying to DR in the game I'd pick an airspeed that's a multiple of 60. Perhaps 360 km/h in a heavily loaded He-111, and 420 km/h in a Ju-88 (480 km/h might work, I don't know I've NOT tested it). The point is planning and flying a multiple of 60 makes it pretty easy to get a ballpark idea of time enroute on each navigation leg and total time to target. Using Finkeren's example, I'd chose 300 km/h which means 5 km/min. That means it will take 21 minutes (105 divided by 5) at 300 km/h. If I elected to fly at 360 km/h (6 km/min) then it would take 17 and a half minutes (105 divided by 6).

 

The caveat is that I'm discussing low level flying. Typically "down in the weeds" you are not subjected to the vagaries of winds aloft. Just something to add to your bag of tricks.

 

Cheers

[Sokol1]

NoobyNoobs map has stopwatch integrated.

 

http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/13908-map-stalingrad-web-browser/page-1

Edited April 5, 2016 by Sokol1

[LukeFF]

GridiroN if I may add another technique to Finkeren's example. He posited a groundspeed of 315km/h, flying a leg 105kms long, requiring 20 minutes. In a previous career I flew Phantoms and Vipers. It was standard USAF practice to plan our low level mission at a speed that is a multiple of 60. Typically 420, 480, or 540 knots Indicated airspeed, which is 420, 480, and 540 nautical miles per hour. The A-10 guys I talked to planned 240 and 300 knots enroute.

 

What's magical about multiple of 60 you ask? Let's use 420 knots in our equation. If you fly 420 nautical miles in 1 hour, how far will you fly in 1 minute? (I'll give you a second...)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 

Think of it this way...1 minute is 1/60th of an hour (or said differently, there are 60 minutes in an hour). Divide 420 by 60 and you get 7...but what is this 7? It's 7 nautical miles per minute. At 420 knots you're travelling 7 nautical mile per minute. At 480 knots...8 nautical miles per minute. You get the picture.

 

So how does this apply to BoS/BoM? If I were trying to DR in the game I'd pick an airspeed that's a multiple of 60. Perhaps 360 km/h in a heavily loaded He-111, and 420 km/h in a Ju-88 (480 km/h might work, I don't know I've NOT tested it). The point is planning and flying a multiple of 60 makes it pretty easy to get a ballpark idea of time enroute on each navigation leg and total time to target. Using Finkeren's example, I'd chose 300 km/h which means 5 km/min. That means it will take 21 minutes (105 divided by 5) at 300 km/h. If I elected to fly at 360 km/h (6 km/min) then it would take 17 and a half minutes (105 divided by 6).

 

The caveat is that I'm discussing low level flying. Typically "down in the weeds" you are not subjected to the vagaries of winds aloft. Just something to add to your bag of tricks.

 

Cheers

 

Thank you for sharing this! This was very insightful.