Nice article about sensitive controls, tricky landings and all that...

[andyw248]

I know you must all be sick and tired of the ongoing discussion about landing characteristics, sensitive controls, and the flight models in general. However, I thought an article in the Jan 2014 edition of the AOPA Pilot might be of interest. You should be able to read the full article once its online.

 

It's been written by a guy from California that went to England and payed a lot of money for the privilege of flying a Spitfire for an hour or so. The guy is David "Pablo" Cohn (http://davidpablocohn.com/category/roadtrip/flight/), not exactly an aviation historian, but since he's a flight instructor he would have reasonable experience flying airplanes. The plane is a Spitfire, used for classes at the Boultbee Flight Academy (http://www.boultbeeflightacademy.co.uk/).

 

Now this is about a Spitfire, whereas we have different types of aircraft in BoS. But I guess the difference between today's airplanes and any warbird is bigger than the differences between different warbirds. Just my 2 cents...

 

Here are some quotes from the article:

 

"The first real challenge of actually flying a Spitfire is getting it to the runway. [...] a few minutes on the apron with its single-lever pneumatic brakes and castering tailwheel will humble even the most seasoned pilots."

 

"The airplane is neutrally stable around all axes, so a constant hand on the stick is needed. A light hand, too, as stick forces are minimal in both pitch and roll. At higher speeds, the ailerons stiffen, but the elevator remains, as Pilots Notes phrase it, 'particularly light'."

 

"The back pressure I associated with a two-G steep turn was generating more than four Gs in the Spitfire. I was going to need a much lighter touch on the stick to fly well."

 

"Then, the landing itself - you really want to be at precisely 85 mph coming over the fence. None of that [...] carrying an extra five for Mum. If you do, you'll be carrying it all the way down the runway to the farmer's field."

 

Like I said, you can read the full article in the Jan 2014 edition of the AOPA Pilot once it's online.

[Furio]

Thank you for sharing, Andy. Standard in stability and control are surely changed a lot through the years. A look at average fin dimensions is enough to see it. A Spitfire designed today would have a fin twice as big. Moreover, the “debate about flight models” is in great part focused on controls settings, and I believe is giving useful information to developers. Nothing to be sick or tired of, I think.

 

But, if we accept mr. Cohn words as reliable, and surely I do, a big problem is facing us. If an experienced flight instructor found the Spitfire so demanding, how many people will be successful in correctly “flying” BoS? What hardware they will need? How much fun it’ll be such a task? How much steep will be the learning curve? How many people will buy BoS new planes and campaigns?

If (a big if, in my opinion) the present flight model and control settings are realistic, then we’ll need a lot of options in difficulty settings.

[Crow]

I think this post still pretty much sums up most FM debates: http://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/1178-way-too-long-discourse-flight-modeling-disputes/

 

My stance is that 1CGS has the potential to make a very accurate simulation. If they can do this by simulating the actual physics involved and then verify the results by actual data that is the best method available. There are lots of biases in anecdotal evidence. A person's perception (and memory) of events when they are hopped up on adrenaline is very different from a scientific collection of data and a reproduction of physics through simulation.

Edited December 24, 2013 by Crow

[andyw248]

Nice post Crow, thanks for sharing the link, I must have missed it back then...

 

Yes, that article about flying a Spit is all about perception; for the author the Spit was harder to fly than what he had flown up to then. Most of us find our two BoS fighters harder to fly than what we had experienced in other sims before. It doesn't necessarily mean the BoS FM is completely accurate, but we will get used to it just like the RAF pilots got used to the Spit back in the day.

[Uriah]

One way or the other I think it would be good to have Mr. Cohn try BOS and tell us what he thinks.

[Mogster]

I don't think it'd do too much good unless Mr Cohn was also familiar with flight sims. I mess around with driving sims, even with a nice PC wheel and a good modern realistic sims like RFactor 2 and Assetto Corsa I find it hard to relate what's going on on the PC to my real world driving experience.

 

As others have said its the difference in controls that's a huge factor especially now we've got home PCs capable of quite advanced physics. People with a sim cockpit and long throw stick often have a totally different view of the FM than the other 99.99% of us with normal short throw sticks and cheapo plastic pedals. I don't know how you resolve this though....

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 Well the most lacking feature is that we do not have G force affecting us. When I had the possibility to fly a F/A-18D from the backseat for 15 minutes it really was an eyeopener. No matter how well as sim is made it just falls short due forces missing as they have quite an impact on your performance. So no wonder devs of sims have problems. Now give us a good thingy to swing us around to simulate G forces

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 Well, we have to live with the limitations of the gaming software I think devs will polish the FM etc. before release. Until then just more testing

[Quax]

Flanker, this is the reason, why the plane didn´t matter too much. The better pilot prevailed. But this can´t be modelled in a sim. All discussions ( http://forum.il2stur...oad-and-stress/  f.e. ) lead to nothing. In RL you couldn´t predict, against whom you were fighting. If pilot load and stress limits are implemented in the sim, you could predict everything, which makes it in the end less real, as implementing nothing.

 

If the plane could take -4/+10 f.e. , it could take it in short sequence, all day long. Lot of chaps call it "totally wrong FM" (in other threads). That´s nonsense, as the plane was the last restricting limit. You can blackout in a Beech Bonanza with two fingers at the yoke (if the wings dont fold). Peace of cake to do it in a 109 at high speed with two fingers at the stick. To implement restrictions at that point (stick force) are only another way to restrict the "load and stress" on the pilot. But this influences the characteristics of the planes behaviour more than the FM in the end. I don´t like that idea at all.

 

The only thing, that could be done IMO, is to polish the blackout and redout a bit. But that will not change a lot. We just have to live with being extremely tough pilots in front of our desktops  

[RupertVonHentzau]

 

Flanker, this is the reason, why the plane didn´t matter too much. [...] We just have to live with being extremely tough pilots in front of our desktops  

 

 

Interesting point. But what about hardware (sticks/throttles/pedals/TrackIR ... - or not)? I always feel inferior to those (but no one to blame here except myself) that got themselves a fully equipped flight-sim-corner in their houses and a family, that accepts "daddy" to be off "flying" for hours (= practice)!

 

Just my two cents here. And - of course - only loosely related to the original thread/FM, my apologies!

[EdwardTheGreat]

thx, very much appreciated post. Thats what I always wonder... Now I feel much more comfortable with the controls and how it is modelled in the games.

I don't think it'd do too much good unless Mr Cohn was also familiar with flight sims. I mess around with driving sims, even with a nice PC wheel and a good modern realistic sims like RFactor 2 and Assetto Corsa I find it hard to relate what's going on on the PC to my real world driving experience.

 

...

 

The Popometer is still missing. IT is so much important but hard to model it... Heard something about buttkicker, but it is still not comparable with the Real Reality

[Crump]

Thank you for sharing, Andy. Standard in stability and control are surely changed a lot through the years. A look at average fin dimensions is enough to see it. A Spitfire designed today would have a fin twice as big. Moreover, the “debate about flight models” is in great part focused on controls settings, and I believe is giving useful information to developers. Nothing to be sick or tired of, I think.

 

But, if we accept mr. Cohn words as reliable, and surely I do, a big problem is facing us. If an experienced flight instructor found the Spitfire so demanding, how many people will be successful in correctly “flying” BoS? What hardware they will need? How much fun it’ll be such a task? How much steep will be the learning curve? How many people will buy BoS new planes and campaigns?

If (a big if, in my opinion) the present flight model and control settings are realistic, then we’ll need a lot of options in difficulty settings.

 

This topic has been covered in other games.  It was not very productive due to the fandom outcries.  The fact remains stability and control engineering is the largest variance in WWII fighter designs.  Only two nations even had stability and control standards during the war.

 

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?s=bb93c5034d34a498061af6cf8b02c3f6&t=33245