Low speed rough landing deaths

[No.23_Starling]

Is it just me or is it now easy to get killed trying to land on anything that isn’t a field? I find that if I plant all three points down on the edge of a stall and don’t flip I’m fine, but nosing over with any momentum seems to always result in bad wounds or death. Watching the speed indicator, sometimes it’s pretty low. I know ppl from my aeroclub who have walked away from crashes at 50kts into trees (wings torn off with cuts and bruises but alive). Worse, some low speed nose overs are resulting in explosions.

 

Is this something inherited from the WW2 side? I vaguely remember an update recently where crashes resulted in more deaths.

 

Im sure ppl here can supply tracks if necessary. I’m no flight instructor but I don’t consider myself a bad pilot. If I’m having this issue I wonder how the new ppl are getting on. It’s not a dealbreaker but it’s annoying given how often ww1 pilots safely ditched or even landed in fields for directions.

 

[VBF-12_Stick-95]

9 minutes ago, US93_Rummell said:

...but nosing over with any momentum seems to always result in bad wounds or death.

 

I was not aware of changes to this but if they were made I think it is for the better.  IMO survival in bad crashes was way to high in this sim.  

[J2_Trupobaw]

1 hour ago, US93_Rummell said:

Is it just me or is it now easy to get killed trying to land on anything that isn’t a field? I find that if I plant all three points down on the edge of a stall and don’t flip I’m fine, but nosing over with any momentum seems to always result in bad wounds or death.

 

Landed the plane on the airfield all right. Slowed down to taxi speed. Let go of stick few meters before plane would stop. Prop grazed the ground. Plane stood on nose, tail up. Pilot died spontanously.

I've heard the prop hitting the ground in general is dangerous to the pilot. Giving plane the bad vibes, peraps ? .

 

[No.23_Starling]

54 minutes ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

Landed the plane on the airfield all right. Slowed down to taxi speed. Let go of stick few meters before plane would stop. Prop grazed the ground. Plane stood on nose, tail up. Pilot died spontanously.

I've heard the prop hitting the ground in general is dangerous to the pilot. Giving plane the bad vibes, peraps ? .

 

I think you’re right there on the prop hitting the ground. That’s what I’ve seen too. 
 

I get that higher speed crashes are dangerous, but I’m talking about the kind of weirdness Trupo describes above. It seems that nosing over at almost any speed is a death sentence. There’s got to be a bug here somewhere.

[JGr2/J5_Klugermann]

1 hour ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

Landed the plane on the airfield all right. Slowed down to taxi speed. Let go of stick few meters before plane would stop. Prop grazed the ground. Plane stood on nose, tail up. Pilot died spontanously.

I've heard the prop hitting the ground in general is dangerous to the pilot. Giving plane the bad vibes, peraps ? .

 

 

Same happened to me...drink your milk and eat your spinach so your neck doesnt snap due to osteoporosis.

[J2_Trupobaw]

 

[RNAS10_Oliver]

Can’t say that I’ve noticed it personally. Most of my (and squad-mates) ditches when nosing over end up being survivable ones. But that’s not what I’ve heard from yourselves and other players.

[76SQN-FatherTed]

4 hours ago, RNAS10_Oliver said:

Can’t say that I’ve noticed it personally. Most of my (and squad-mates) ditches when nosing over end up being survivable ones. But that’s not what I’ve heard from yourselves and other players.

Maybe it's plane-specific?

[No_Face]

Are you talking about this kind of death?

 

 

I admit I was surprised to die, I didn't feel like it was a brutal shock.

[=IRFC=Gascan]

It has always been very difficult to successfully ditch a plane in the game. Some are easier than others, but even for the easier ones its still difficult. I think I can dead-stick a Bristol into a landing in a field 1 in every 10 or 20 times, and even when I succeed I get wounded or killed. I'm a bit more successful ditching with the SE5a and the D7/D7F, but it still results in significant damage and wounding or death more often than it probably should. I don't get many opportunities to ditch with the Camel and SPAD since I usually get killed outright rather than ditch. I kinda get the feeling that the ground is too sticky, which causes planes to be more likely to nose over if landing on ground that isn't an airfield.

While crashes certainly can result in severe injury and death, I suspect it is happening more often than it probably should, and is exacerbated by the inability to land except at an airfield.

[US103_Baer]

On 12/13/2021 at 7:30 PM, VBF-12_Stick-95 said:

 

I was not aware of changes to this but if they were made I think it is for the better.  IMO survival in bad crashes was way to high in this sim.  

In Flying Circus or in BoX? 

We're talking specifically FC here.

[=IRFC=Gascan]

6 hours ago, US28_Baer said:

In Flying Circus or in BoX? 

We're talking specifically FC here.

Update 4.604 lists changes to the pilot physiological model, including G tolerance and pilot fatigue. More on topic, this was listed:

17. Impact and excessive overload injuries model has been adjusted for aircraft and vehicle crews. Collisions with the ground have become more traumatic for pilots;

So yeah, the patch right before the Breguet made impacts more deadly. Since ditching is already almost impossible in some planes and difficult at best in other planes, this makes ditching a very deadly proposition. I suspect that a closer look at how FC aircraft handle on non-airfield landings may make this a bit better.

[US103_Baer]

Thanks @gascan. Those changes seem designed for WW2 and probably not tested in WW1 ditching scenarios. 

 

However, could the other component, very bumpy off-airfield terrain, be creating unrealistic shock/trauma levels on ditching?

 

Roads are an option. They're smoother than fields but are narrow, very 'humpy' and often tree-lined. It might take a bit practice to be proficient landing on them. 

Edited December 15, 2021 by US28_Baer

[Charlo-VR]

4 minutes ago, US28_Baer said:

Thanks @gascan. Those changes seem designed for WW2 and probably not tested in WW1 ditching scenarios. 

Those changes in that update are a little too murderous in WW2 planes, too. At least we usually have the option to bail out

[US41_Winslow]

It does seem like there is an issue with the pilot getting killed from relatively low-speed impacts, like flipping at relatively low speeds.  However, I think another factor in this issue is that most people are fairly bad at landing, which greatly contributes to the frequency of death or injury.  I was just able to land the SPAD successfully off-airport six or seven times with no damage to the aircraft though I flipped it three times.  However, I survived two of these, but the one time I died seemed a bit off, with the pilot being fine until the tail hit the ground when they were promptly killed.

[JGr2/J5_Mueller]

There is in my opinion an exaggerated damage effect associated with ground impacts, pilots die far too easily in low speed flip overs, this could be the pilots head hitting the ground, i remember having to duck to save my pilots life in ROF, but i have noticed this in vehicle crews as well , like bouncing over a bridge at speed will now disable vehicles that were fine at the same settings pre patch, something is a bit too crunchy with that shock update.

[J2_Trupobaw]

4 hours ago, J5_Mueller said:

There is in my opinion an exaggerated damage effect associated with ground impacts, pilots die far too easily in low speed flip overs, this could be the pilots head hitting the ground, i remember having to duck to save my pilots life in ROF, but i have noticed this in vehicle crews as well , like bouncing over a bridge at speed will now disable vehicles that were fine at the same settings pre patch, something is a bit too crunchy with that shock update.

No need to flip over, pilot dies if plane tails up.

[J2_NobiWan]

53 minutes ago, J2_Trupobaw said:

No need to flip over, pilot dies if plane tails up.

When injured you can even die by a hard three point landing, with the plane standing upright and looking fine after your death.

[J2_Trupobaw]

Now we know what killed MvR. It wasn't bullet, it was landing.

[No.23_Gaylion]

So if I'm reading everyone's responses correctly, we're all in agreement that we elect Low to take this matter to the devs?

[1PL-Sahaj-1Esk]

Happened to me last night during FiF as I was forced to grap a Spad.

 

So the first curious thing was that the engine just stopped (Engine failure) like after 7 min of flight down low, just like that without any notifications what so ever.

 

Then I tried to land without the engine, was slow, touched down, flipped and pilot dead.

 

 

[No.23_Starling]

I’m convinced this is over modelled. Does anyone have tracks they can share on the bug page?

[Todt_Von_Oben]

In 1981, a two-place kit plane (forget which kind) lost power on takeoff from Rio Vista Airport in California; pilot descended straight ahead and appeared to make a nice landing on the gear.  Nobody got out.  Inertial forces on impact broke their necks.

 

Then again, in 2018 another Rio Vista pilot cracked up in his Pup replica; but suffered no injuries.

 

So ya never know.

 

One aspect of crack-ups I don't see in the sim is that, much of the time, they catch fire; like this guy did over in Byron.  I'd like to see that added.  More incentive to learning how to land.  ?

 

 

[=IRFC=kotori87]

I pulled a landing almost exactly like this yesterday in a Dr1. Started tipping over, tottered for a bit, then flipped. Instant death. Today I only survived a single landing - in a recon DH4, perfect landing, and then my AI gunner died while taxiing. While it's true that pilots can die in crashes, it's also true that pilots can survive crashes. And that's just not happening right now.

[J2_Trupobaw]

17 hours ago, 1PL-Sahaj-1Esk said:

Happened to me last night during FiF as I was forced to grap a Spad.

 

So the first curious thing was that the engine just stopped (Engine failure) like after 7 min of flight down low, just like that without any notifications what so ever.

 

Then I tried to land without the engine, was slow, touched down, flipped and pilot dead.

 

 

Happened to me last night during FIF when gunning for Lucas. We landed on an airfield, Lucas was taxying in no hurry to park where he wanted, suddenly the undercarriage and wings fell off and observer (that's me!) died. No flipover; undercarriage collapses, fuselage sinks into ground,  passager dies. I was left with external view of Lucas sitting in bare fuselage.

[No.23_Starling]

Thanks for the examples chaps. Do any of you have tracks we can post in the bugs section? I’m out of action for another week.

[vangel]

Second this. Surviving landings is way to difficult, can't survive the slightest slow rollover since a few weeks. Plus that the planes roll over on the slightest bump.

This sucks big time. Have seen WWI footage of a german recon plane vertically crashing in a flat spin and the pilot survived. Also the modern video from the Dr.I rollover from kotori87 with the pilot unharmed. Devs please improve.

[=IRFC=kotori87]

On 12/20/2021 at 11:01 AM, US93_Rummell said:

Thanks for the examples chaps. Do any of you have tracks we can post in the bugs section? I’m out of action for another week.

Unfortunately, no. These were all routine landings, which I did not consider in any way hazardous, so I had no reason to record. I guess I'll have to start recording now, though.

[No.23_Starling]

15 hours ago, kotori87 said:

Unfortunately, no. These were all routine landings, which I did not consider in any way hazardous, so I had no reason to record. I guess I'll have to start recording now, though.

I’m still sick but when I’m back on my feet next week I’ll do the same 

[J2_Trupobaw]

Will try to record all encounters with the field from now on...

 

[No.23_Gaylion]

All you have you do is quick mission and try to land anywhere that's not an airfield. You will definitely encounter this bug within the first 5 tries.

[SCG_motoadve]

Land slow with minimum vertical speed and its very survivable.

[Todt_Von_Oben]

On 12/13/2021 at 1:16 AM, US93_Rummell said:

Is it just me or is it now easy to get killed trying to land on anything that isn’t a field? I find that if I plant all three points down on the edge of a stall and don’t flip I’m fine, but nosing over with any momentum seems to always result in bad wounds or death. Watching the speed indicator, sometimes it’s pretty low. I know ppl from my aeroclub who have walked away from crashes at 50kts into trees (wings torn off with cuts and bruises but alive). Worse, some low speed nose overs are resulting in explosions.

 

Is this something inherited from the WW2 side? I vaguely remember an update recently where crashes resulted in more deaths.

 

Im sure ppl here can supply tracks if necessary. I’m no flight instructor but I don’t consider myself a bad pilot. If I’m having this issue I wonder how the new ppl are getting on. It’s not a dealbreaker but it’s annoying given how often ww1 pilots safely ditched or even landed in fields for directions.

 

 

I've been down for months; up again on a new computer.  I was fooling around testing my rig at Flugpark, my wheel clipped the top of a tent on landing, and I ended-up with crunched mains and the plane on it's nose but otherwise upright.  Nonetheless, I was killed on impact.  It didn't look real bad but then again I've known pilots to actually die in hard landings where the plane looked better than my D7F did.  No problems when landing the plane normally. 

 

I'll fly today and check it out in the Alby, Dr.1, and D7F for variety; trying to make sloppy landings that should otherwise be survivable.   

Edited December 26, 2021 by Todt_Von_Oben

[Garven]

3 hours ago, SCG_motoadve said:

Land slow with minimum vertical speed and its very survivable.

What are these weird futuristic machines?

[J2_Seya]

Boo died today to the can't eject and then cannot land anywhere but an airfield. I enjoyed the old way more than this.

[No.23_Gaylion]

4 hours ago, SCG_motoadve said:

Land slow with minimum vertical speed and its very survivable.

Hey show us how you do it in FC.

[SCG_motoadve]

1 minute ago, US213_Talbot said:

Hey show us how you do it in FC.

Sorry, I don't fly FC, it should be easier, I hear it is not.

Wil try with the Russian biplane.

[No.23_Gaylion]

Its not lol. Its ridiculously easier in wwii. We have a clip of this bug affecting a P40 smoothly ditching on the snow like in one of your clips. I'll try to see if he can post it. 

[Todt_Von_Oben]

Okay, I just tried it five times with mixed results.  

 

1. Albatros: (Flies beautifully, BTW.)  Landed in the boondocks and actually had to work to get it on its roof.  No injury.

 

2. D7F: Looked for the worst field I could find; landed perpendicular to the rows, across a trail, etc.  Again, had to add power and wrong controls to get it upside down.  No injury.

 

3. Dr1: Was listening to bullet impact noise volume and got too close to a SPAD 7; he lost a wing and I caught it in the prop.  Did three Split-S to lose altitude and lined up sideways to another plowed field.  I actually tried and three-pointed it. No injury.

 

4. Dr1: This time I looked for a rough field and wheel-landed it moving fast; skipped twice and looked like I was going to make it so I flared, added power, and max-crossed the controls to get it upside down.  That killed me but I wasn't really moving all that fast on impact.  Could it have been fatal?  Arguably. Think I could have walked as the sim was six months ago, though.

 

5. D7F: Tried a too-fast wheel-landing in a rough field again.  This time was not what I would have expected.  I touched down on the mains, skipped once, maintained control and touched down on the mains again but I got that "blood splatter" that happens when you're hurt.  This time it stood on its nose without me trying and I died.

 

That's all I had time for.

 

Things do seem different than they were six months ago.  Bullet holes in cloth look like aluminum under paint; bullet impact noise on target planes is too loud at too great a distance and arguably up close, too; impacts look like somebody working out with a grinder and an arc welder; sparks everywhere.  I like it but realistically that explosive effect looks more like someone shooting a steel ship with a 50 cal than a 7.92 hitting wood, cloth, and occasionally mild steel or aluminum. 

 

But I'd rather have that than no impact effect at all.  It's not real but neither is this.  A little arcade is tolerable, I think.   The sim would be a little less exciting if we got all potatoes and no meat.  

 

First twinge of aerial-nausea in months, too.  But I can't fault the sim for that.  ?

Edited December 27, 2021 by Todt_Von_Oben

[US41_Winslow]

5 minutes ago, Todt_Von_Oben said:

I just tried it five times with mixed results. 

I did something similar in the Camel, SPAD and Bristol a week ago and got to similar results.  It seemed overall fairly survivable if you had a good approach, even if I flipped it.  However, when I died, it was not when I expected.  Once I overturned in the Bristol and was fine until it flipped fairly gently, with the pilot being killed instantly.  The other death I remember occurred in the Camel when I hit a hanger.  The strange thing here was that the pilot was okay until the wreck hit the ground after falling several feet where I was killed, instead of in the initial impact.