Belly landings, contrary to the RL guys...

[Eisenfaustus]

3 hours ago, Hetzer-JG51 said:

I forgot to mention that one of our guys in co-op (think it was Mewt) died when he landed by chute in a forest (I was watching in spectator mode). I think that illustrates perfectly how 'out of whack' the crew DM has become. I've read not one account, in war or out, of a parachutist dying as a result of landing in trees.

I hope they re-tune it, it spoils a lot of the fun when realism is compromised to such a degree.

Chuting into trees may not necessarily kill you instantly - yet at crippling injury that puts you out of a military cockpit forever is a very likely outcome. If it has to be binary then „dead“ in game terms is the more realistic outcome. 
 

In general I think you underestimate the lethality of a WWII fighter pilots service. Roughly 10% of the German fighter pilots survived the war - many crippled for life. Of the 90% killed many died in crash landings or in their chutes. 
 

We tend to read a lot (auto)biographies about high scoring aces - confronting us with extreme survivor bias. Reading unit chronicles gives an interesting new perspective. For the Luftwaffe I found the book about the III/JG54‘s time in D-9s on the Western Front quite thrilling. 

[56RAF_Roblex]

3 hours ago, =VARP=Ribbon said:

I work on a fire fighting airplanes so i witnessed a lot of bird and tree branch strikes and lucky none of them caused plane to crash.

 

On the other hand,  I remember looking at a De Havilland  Dove with a massive hole in the nose caused by a Pidgeon.  That is a relatively slow piston plane with a metal skin. Nobody was killed but the aircraft was a write off.

[Yogiflight]

7 hours ago, Hetzer-JG51 said:

I forgot to mention that one of our guys in co-op (think it was Mewt) died when he landed by chute in a forest (I was watching in spectator mode). I think that illustrates perfectly how 'out of whack' the crew DM has become.

It has always been that way. Landing in a forest with your chute has a good chance, that your chute strikes a tree before you touch the ground and you will fall down to the ground and die. This happened several times to me. Since then I always look, where to bail out if possible.

For the belly landing. The only weird experience I had after this update was a takeoff with a Hs 129, which didn't run well. But I didn't have one belly landing, which killed or wounded my pilot. Just go down slow in a shallow angle and avoid sticking your aircrafts nose into a hump.

[CUJO_1970]

12 hours ago, oc2209 said:

Obviously photographers aren't going to take pictures of fatal crashes where nothing's left of the pilot but a smear on the interior windscreen. That's not a story; it's expected, and mundane.

 

You mean like this?

 

You are simply wrong about that.

 

The USAAF documented and prepared a report for every single crash and crash landing in England, and Western France after the landings...and yes many of the reports included pictures of nothing but craters in the ground.

 

I researched over a hundred of them personally for USAAF only...some of what I researched is included in the other thread - complete with photos, serial numbers, pilots accounts, factors etc.

 

And please let's not move the goal posts here to severe, fatal crashes. We are talking about landing in the field - i.e. ditching etc...and the simple fact is that many many severe that resulted in complete destruction of the aircraft were absolutely survivable in real life actual examples.

 

Photos from reports of survived ditching:

SURVIVED

 

SURVIVED

 

SURVIVED

 

SURVIVED

 

SURVIVED

 

SURVIVED

 

 

SURVIVED

 

That 190 went right through a concrete wall. Pilot OK, returned to combat.

 

etc. etc.

 

 

[Cravis]

I don't know. I only play SP stuff and I find it okay for a flight simulation.

Last month I had to ditch my Bf109 4 times in a row (1. debris damage to prop 2. damage to cooler caused the engine to cook off 3. run out of fuel 4. used boost too long and caused fatal engine damage) during my Bodenplatte campaign and it worked out just fine.

Even since then I ditched several times and only once did the pilot die. And I'm not a good pilot.

If the pilot dies during a belly landing my experience tells me that either sink rate or speed was too high, or you hit something.

 

Now in MP maybe some netcode thing might be going on like desynchronization between server and client but in SP I'm okay with the result.

[Oyster_KAI]

My experience with testing last month is:
As long as the sink rate is low at low speed, the Bf-109s can successfully belly landing almost 100% without killing the pilot.
But not so on other planes.
I don't know how the current public version is.

[Ribbon]

3 hours ago, 56RAF_Roblex said:

 

On the other hand,  I remember looking at a De Havilland  Dove with a massive hole in the nose caused by a Pidgeon.  That is a relatively slow piston plane with a metal skin. Nobody was killed but the aircraft was a write off.

We had huge seagull opened soccer ball size hole in the wing leading edge, however it was fixed in a few days.

Speed and hit placement are factors here.

On the matter of topic yes there is many tiny things/details when it comes to realism to be included but where does it ends?

I'd be more happy if they spend time fixing invisible trees and add medium bombers and PTO!

[Jaegermeister]

10 hours ago, Hetzer-JG51 said:

I've read not one account, in war or out, of a parachutist dying as a result of landing in trees....

 

Who would write that account? The enemy? I have read many accounts of pilots parachuting out of their planes and their graves were located in the area later.

[Guest]

57 minutes ago, Jaegermeister said:

 

Who would write that account? The enemy? I have read many accounts of pilots parachuting out of their planes and their graves were located in the area later.

Guys watching other guys, hearing their accounts/reports/stories. You know, like what regular folk do...talk, gossip, shoot the breeze.

 

[Noisemaker]

32 minutes ago, Hetzer-JG51 said:

Guys watching other guys, hearing their accounts/reports/stories. You know, like what regular folk do...talk, gossip, shoot the breeze.

 

My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious. 

[oc2209]

4 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

The USAAF documented and prepared a report for every single crash and crash landing in England, and Western France after the landings...and yes many of the reports included pictures of nothing but craters in the ground.

 

I researched over a hundred of them personally for USAAF only...some of what I researched is included in the other thread - complete with photos, serial numbers, pilots accounts, factors etc.

 

And please let's not move the goal posts here to severe, fatal crashes. We are talking about landing in the field - i.e. ditching etc...and the simple fact is that many many severe that resulted in complete destruction of the aircraft were absolutely survivable in real life actual examples.

 

I was referring more to the famous crash survival pictures that get circulated more often. They get attention because they defy common sense. But I wager that the majority of pilots who crashed in similar manners would end up dead or severely injured. Surviving a major crash is a crapshoot, and the odds are always against the pilot.

 

The only way to scientifically analyze the data would be to take examples of planes that were over a certain level of destroyed (the Germans used percentages, didn't they?), and correlate those numbers to pilot survival percentages.

 

The deeper problem is, how does a sim with a somewhat limited damage model possibly manage to destroy an airframe as depicted in the photos you posted, while keeping the pilot alive? 

 

We can't have an engine torn away from the fuselage. That's impossible. We can't break the tail off right behind the cockpit. Since the airframe can't break into smaller pieces, what it amounts to is that it 'catches' on more pieces of indestructible terrain/objects in the sim, and in the process, transfers force input directly to the crew, which then kills them instantly.

 

That is an insoluble problem, whether we like it or not. At least, it's insoluble for the foreseeable future.

 

Thus the only solution is somewhat of a mutually exclusive dichotomy; one half of which the devs have already explored. That is, allowing us to crash at high speeds into virtually anything and survive. What we have now is the other half of that equation: possibly a little lower than average survivability. But overall, I would say it's closer to reality than before. Neither simplification is perfect, of course.

Edited March 29, 2022 by oc2209

[AEthelraedUnraed]

2 hours ago, =VARP=Ribbon said:

On the matter of topic yes there is many tiny things/details when it comes to realism to be included but where does it ends?

Exactly this. Yes, hitting the very top of a tree should result in some extra christmas decorations on your wings rather than snap them off. Yes, parachuting into a forest should result in a broken leg rather than instant death. Yes, if you ditch too rough you should be paralysed for life with a broken spine rather than be insta-killed.

 

This is a flight simulator. The Devs focus on everything related to flight. They could implement all the above things, for sure, but that would only go at the expense of other functionality and/or processing power.

[Guest]

How about they go back 50% towards the numbers they had previously from the ones they have now?

[Koziolek]

Totally agree. Between that was then and this is now there is always some middle ground we can agree on. Well, most of us ?

[Enceladus828]

19 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

This is a flight simulator. The Devs focus on everything related to flight. They could implement all the above things, for sure, but that would only go at the expense of other functionality and/or processing power.

The devs have made tweaks to the pilot model in the past so that the pilot can be seriously injured as a result of the crash (unlike previously) and made it so a high velocity impact with the trees and ground, and subsequent breakup of the aircraft in the process can kill the pilot but the aircraft is not destroyed/has not exploded.

What's happened recently is that the devs have made collisions and ditching into the field far too sensitive and as suggested in this  thread have added Random Number Generators (RNGs). 

For ditching into the field, we're not talking about making a hard crash landing, the plane slides through a fence, and then a wing strikes a building and the plane swings around before stopping and perhaps hitting another building before it stopped. What we're talking about here is making a simple ditching in a open field at a slow speed, a shallow sink rate, with the flaps extended and the plane hits no obstacles, but the pilot is instantly killed... even if he wasn't injured before

 

TL;DR, everything was fine a year ago but with the likely inclusion of RNGs, ditching in the field and simple collisions (which were not fatal before) are now far too sensitive. 

The devs need to remove RNGs or if they have made ditchings and collisions far too sensitive --  a 95% chance of being killed in a simple belly landing in an open field at a slow speed -- tone it down so the pilot has a much greater chance of surviving. Personally, I'd rather see the pilot having a greater chance of surviving crash landings than a greater chance of dying in this game.

 

[fogpipe]

On 3/28/2022 at 7:43 AM, Oyster_KAI said:

The landing gear is indestructible in the game, it should be a little weaker, and the human body should be a little stronger.

I had a gear strut snap off (or i could be that it never lowered) so when i hit the runway only the right gear was down and the plane took a lot of damage. I saw it when what seemed to me a good landing went wrong and i hit F2.

I was flying one of the bf 109s an f model i think.

 

And yeah to respond to the subject of the thread i do think pilots are a little too fragile in belly landings lately.

Edited March 30, 2022 by fogpipe

[kendo]

26 minutes ago, Enceladus said:

 

TL;DR, everything was fine a year ago but with the likely inclusion of RNGs, ditching in the field and simple collisions (which were not fatal before) are now far too sensitive. 

The devs need to remove RNGs or if they have made ditchings and collisions far too sensitive --  a 95% chance of being killed in a simple belly landing in an open field at a slow speed -- tone it down so the pilot has a much greater chance of surviving. Personally, I'd rather see the pilot having a greater chance of surviving crash landings than a greater chance of dying in this game.

 

 

I don't see anywhere in that thread that the devs confirmed there was an RNG. What I see is speculation that there is.

 

But does seem to be a consensus that deaths are overdone at the moment. If it's bug will be fixed.

 

[PB0_Roll]

 

5 hours ago, kendo said:

 

I don't see anywhere in that thread that the devs confirmed there was an RNG. What I see is speculation that there is.

 

But does seem to be a consensus that deaths are overdone at the moment. If it's bug will be fixed.

 

Thing is, bug has not been acknowledged yet, and some do their best to do as if it was a feature.

Edited March 30, 2022 by PB0_Roll

[AEthelraedUnraed]

6 hours ago, Enceladus said:

The devs have made tweaks to the pilot model in the past so that the pilot can be seriously injured as a result of the crash (unlike previously) and made it so a high velocity impact with the trees and ground, and subsequent breakup of the aircraft in the process can kill the pilot but the aircraft is not destroyed/has not exploded.

What's happened recently is that the devs have made collisions and ditching into the field far too sensitive and as suggested in this  thread have added Random Number Generators (RNGs). 

For ditching into the field, we're not talking about making a hard crash landing, the plane slides through a fence, and then a wing strikes a building and the plane swings around before stopping and perhaps hitting another building before it stopped. What we're talking about here is making a simple ditching in a open field at a slow speed, a shallow sink rate, with the flaps extended and the plane hits no obstacles, but the pilot is instantly killed... even if he wasn't injured before

 

TL;DR, everything was fine a year ago but with the likely inclusion of RNGs, ditching in the field and simple collisions (which were not fatal before) are now far too sensitive. 

The devs need to remove RNGs or if they have made ditchings and collisions far too sensitive --  a 95% chance of being killed in a simple belly landing in an open field at a slow speed -- tone it down so the pilot has a much greater chance of surviving. Personally, I'd rather see the pilot having a greater chance of surviving crash landings than a greater chance of dying in this game.

There's a couple of falsehoods in your statements.

 

First, RNGs are scientifically/mathematically proven to be a good and accurate way to simulate certain complex processes. There's nothing at all wrong with them, and if you insist I'd be more than happy to explain why RNGs are completely fine - though not in this thread since RNGs are most likely used all across the sim and RNGs don't have anything at all to do with belly landings specifically.

 

Regarding ditching in the field, it's not so simple as you think. From the posts I've read, there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who die every single time they ditch, and those who never die when they ditch (I belong to the latter category). Saying that there's a 95% chance of being killed in a belly landing is simply not true - it might be true for a select subset, but definitely not for everyone. There must be some reason that you always crash and I always survive (a RNG might flatten the peaks, ahem). The thing is to find that reason; you cannot simply blame it on the pilot survivability since my pilot has the exact same survivability as yours, yet I always survive.

[oc2209]

5 minutes ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

Regarding ditching in the field, it's not so simple as you think. From the posts I've read, there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who die every single time they ditch, and those who never die when they ditch (I belong to the latter category). Saying that there's a 95% chance of being killed in a belly landing is simply not true - it might be true for a select subset, but definitely not for everyone. There must be some reason that you always crash and I always survive (a RNG might flatten the peaks, ahem). The thing is to find that reason; you cannot simply blame it on the pilot survivability since my pilot has the exact same survivability as yours, yet I always survive.

 

This is true, yet people choose to ignore it.

 

A definitive bug in which our pilots were excessively vulnerable to damage, full stop, would manifest itself during my testing. At various times, I have crashed into various objects at speeds in excess of 60 MPH, and belly landed up to approximately 150 MPH, and survived.

 

That's a pretty generous crash model.

 

To establish that a bug exists, we should be able to recreate it with some reliability, offline, with accurate records of our speed at the time of impact (and not vague recollections like 'I wasn't going very fast'). I have yet to see anyone do this on multiple occasions.

 

I do believe there's a physics bug somewhere, but isolating it is proving difficult. What isn't helpful in that search, is unsubstantiated claims that belly landing is a death sentence, without supporting, clear, data.

 

I'm not saying everyone has to record a track every time. But at the very least, turn your HUD on, and write down what your speed was at the time of touchdown.

[Enceladus828]

3 minutes ago, oc2209 said:

I'm not saying everyone has to record a track every time. But at the very least, turn your HUD on, and write down what your speed was at the time of touchdown.

At the very least go through this entire thread, all 5 pages of it: read all of the posts, watch all of the videos, and look at all of the pictures.

 

 

[oc2209]

13 minutes ago, Enceladus said:

At the very least go through this entire thread, all 5 pages of it: read all of the posts, watch all of the videos, and look at all of the pictures.

 

Seen it before today, and revisited it now.

 

I'm still not impressed. The vast majority of complaints either specify they're online (which then becomes a probable lag issue), or don't specify at all.

 

Very, very few people can show anything definitive occurring, with regularity; and an ability to demonstrate a bug on demand, offline. That's what I'm asking for, and that's more or less what the devs are probably looking for as well. If it's a very straightforward and simple bug where everybody dies if they hit a sandbag, all the time, then it really should not be at all difficult to recreate, should it?

 

This reminds me of the claim that bomber gunner AI can't hit anything (again, the overwhelming majority of complaints refer to online behavior) while I have a recording of an AI gunner killing my pilot from +300m at night. At 1 AM. Offline.

 

Now, this is the point in the discussion where you'll tell me that your experience was offline, I expect. 

 

If so, then recreate it. Or tell other people how they can recreate it. Without the ability to recreate something, it can't easily be classified as a bug, which then means it gets low priority. This isn't just my opinion, but pretty much how every developer works.

 

I don't call 5 pages of mostly vague accounts, with only a few solid clips showing an issue, and those online--I don't call that enough substance to determine if there is a bug, and the general cause of the bug.

[Enceladus828]

 

These are the best examples to show that ditching in the field is far too sensitive.

 

https://youtu.be/KYHbT4aJkCk

 

https://youtu.be/x67k7rZ1Bp8 Guy's going at 135 MPH on landing

 

https://youtu.be/la1ghviab6I    Going at 100 MPH

 

https://youtu.be/0OvqcgfWH6U   A simple bump while going at 75 km/h

 

https://youtu.be/sW25IZbOdrg

 

https://youtu.be/iYDrnAk8X8I

 

https://youtu.be/MyM3hW6Q-FI   A simple bump while going at 64 km/h kills the gunner

 

IM just say OK. =( : il2sturmovik (reddit.com)

 

The reason why this doesn't happen to everybody on every single occasion is likely because of RNGs added.

 

@Jason_Williams, @Han

Can we please address this and just make the pilot model or survivability rate how it was 1 year ago? Though it may be a bit on the forgiving side, it's better to have that than to have a simple ditching in the field instantly fatal when it wasn't 1 year ago.

 

Thank you

 

Enceladus

 

[oc2209]

1 hour ago, Enceladus said:

The reason why this doesn't happen to everybody on every single occasion is likely because of RNGs added.

 

@Jason_Williams, @Han

Can we please address this and just make the pilot model or survivability rate how it was 1 year ago? Though it may be a bit on the forgiving side, it's better to have that than to have a simple ditching in the field instantly fatal when it wasn't 1 year ago.

 

Thank you

 

Enceladus

 

 

I don't think it's RNG. I think it's some kind of massive physics spike that's being incorrectly applied at various times for various reasons.

 

I mean, RNG would be the simpler explanation, surely. But I just don't see it as being purely random.

 

I decided to test out one of your claims from that ditching thread. The one where you mentioned a Pe-2 in a field.

 

See, what's always confused me is how I can't recreate anything in a single engine plane. But belly landing in a twin engine, multi-seat plane? Wow, does that make recreating inexplicable crew deaths easy!

 

Seriously, it's like night and day. I first tried landing with flaps down, which caused too high a sink rate and killed everyone in the plane, and usually started a fire besides. Then I tried keeping flaps up, which prevented everyone from dying and fires, but often resulted in the radioman being killed. I figured maybe it was something stupid, like his feet were counted as hitting terrain or whatever.

 

But then, then I got these gems:

 

Pe-2 where only the pilot dies, no other crew injury/deaths:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Ju-88, again with only the pilot killed, no other crew injured or killed:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Touchdown speed for Pe-2 was 199 KPH, and 230 KPH for the Ju-88. For those who prefer imperial units, that's ~124 MPH, and 143 MPH respectively. So, it's on the high side, but I've gotten away with those speeds in single-seaters many times.

Edited March 31, 2022 by oc2209

[oc2209]

Continuing from my previous post:

 

If RNG were a factor in causing the above crew deaths, then landing a single-seater at high speeds should not be possible without an equal level of random deaths as I get in the Pe-2 and Ju-88. Yet, according to my own testing and other people's accounts, this is not the case.

 

Here's an I-16 touchdown at 130 MPH:

 

Spoiler

 

 

P-38 at 150 MPH:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Both speeds are higher than the ones wherein the pilot died in the Pe-2 and Ju-88. In the case of single-seaters, I can land them at lower speeds with nearly a 100% survival rate, and at needlessly high speeds with a higher than 50/50 survival chance.

 

With the bombers, the probability of all crew surviving drops way below 50/50, under the exact same landing conditions.

 

This, again, tells me it's a physics issue. Something to do with extra weight, extra force, etc, being imparted to the crew. Which crew member dies from the flawed physics input--that might well be random. Otherwise I don't know how the sim could be accurately and logically killing my pilot and no one else in the two recordings above.

 

In any event, flawed physics calculations would explain why lag is a factor in seemingly worsening this issue online, to the point that even single-seaters are affected.

 

If the issue was entirely random, or entirely related to pilot physiology simply being too weak, these deaths could be far more reliably recreated using any plane type, in any scenario.

[kendo]

3 hours ago, Enceladus said:

 

...

 

@Jason_Williams, @Han

Can we please address this and just make the pilot model or survivability rate how it was 1 year ago? Though it may be a bit on the forgiving side, it's better to have that than to have a simple ditching in the field instantly fatal when it wasn't 1 year ago.

 

Thank you

 

Enceladus

 

 

Let's not.

 

If you are going to speak for the entire community at least do a poll first to ask what they think.

 

Personally, I (offline exclusively) haven't seen overwhelming evidence of it. Not discounting it either. But the previous way was too forgiving. 

[oc2209]

1 hour ago, kendo said:

Personally, I (offline exclusively) haven't seen overwhelming evidence of it. Not discounting it either. But the previous way was too forgiving. 

 

I agree we shouldn't go all the way back. But as others have said, maybe there's some middle point.

 

I'm doing some more bomber testing (by which I mean: belly landing at prescribed regular landings speeds, on the flat ground beside a runway), and the Pe-2 is far and away the worst offender for causing crew injury/fatality.

 

Perhaps the developers should study belly landings with it specifically; to determine the possible causes of, in my opinion, unnatural force spikes. Something about the plane makes it especially vulnerable.

 

Seriously injuring my pilot is, out of tonight's Pe-2 testing, the best result I've obtained with it so far:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Ground contact speed was 160 KPH. In terms of plane attitude, I made contact with the ground about as gently as humanly possible.

 

I successfully landed the A-20 with no injuries, and the He-111 with pilot and navigator injuries, along the same testing ground. But the Pe-2 injures or kills someone every time for me. 

[AEthelraedUnraed]

7 hours ago, Enceladus said:

The reason why this doesn't happen to everybody on every single occasion is likely because of RNGs added.

Actually, the disparity between the results for several people is pretty solid evidence *against* RNGs being the problem.*

 

Let's apply some high-school level probability theory to my case of let's say 20 belly landings and I think 2 deaths (both justified IMO, but let's assume they're not), assuming the discrepancy is caused by a RNG as you suggest. The chance of having at most 2 deaths with this sample size can be calculated as the chance no deaths occur, plus the chance of one death, plus the chance of two deaths. With P as the probability the RNG would kill someone, this can hence be calculated** as P^20 + 20*P^19*(1-P) + P^18*(1-P)^2*20*19. With P=0.5 this would give 0.0003824234, so about a 0.03 percent chance. Maybe there are RNGs involved and I'm simply the one out of 2615 men who are lucky enough to attain such low death rates***, but the more likely explanation is that RNGs are not part of the problem.

 

Given that you seem to report a similar death rate as I, only the other way around, this chance would rapidly decrease with P not equal to 0.5.

 

* It's just evidence against them being the problem, not against them being used at all, which may or may not be the case.

** I'm sure there's faster ways with nCr and such but I cannot be bothered to recall how they work.

*** Of course, there's still the possibility that the RNG is seeded by some static value like the player name, but I think it's highly unlikely anyone above a Kindergarten level of programming would be stupid enough to do that.

[Gingerwelsh]

5 hours ago, oc2209 said:

 

 

 

I successfully landed the A-20 with no injuries, and the He-111 with pilot and navigator injuries, along the same testing ground. But the Pe-2 injures or kills someone every time for me. 

 

I agree with your findings on the Pe 2.

It can be done, but appears to be more delicate than the rest, (out of 25 different types I successfully

tested in 100 landings). With the twin engine cushion, I would expect it to be better for the crew.

 

..

 

The I 16 was a close second and needed some practice for success.

 

Aircraft landed from 1500', wheels up, engine off, randome maps and locations, no airframe damage.

 

If either of these two had control damage, I would bale out.

..

Edited March 31, 2022 by Gingerwelsh

[PatrickAWlson]

My criteria are fairly simple.  If I belly land and skid then I should survive without serious injury.  If I flip then all bets are off.  Not saying that flipping should automatically mean death, but I won't complain if it does.  I am not going to claim to understand all of the different aspects of a wheels up landing, but those criteria seem pretty reasonable to me.

[migmadmarine]

Maybe add "skid without bouncing or excessive deceleration" but on the whole that seems pretty reasonable to me. 

 

[PatrickAWlson]

1 hour ago, migmadmarine said:

Maybe add "skid without bouncing or excessive deceleration" but on the whole that seems pretty reasonable to me. 

 

 

Fair enough.  If my skid is halted by a berm then, well, my bad luck.

[oc2209]

9 hours ago, Gingerwelsh said:

I agree with your findings on the Pe 2.

It can be done, but appears to be more delicate than the rest, (out of 25 different types I successfully

tested in 100 landings). With the twin engine cushion, I would expect it to be better for the crew.

 

Thanks for testing it, I appreciate any reinforcing evidence.

 

I, too, would expect a plane with as much height as the Pe-2 has, gear-up, to offer much better protection to its crew than some designs. Especially landing on perfectly flat terrain, as I did.

 

The fact that the Pe-2 is so touchy implies to me that there is some kind of calculation problem with physics forces; and for whatever reason, the Pe-2's specific plane construction or shape or balance or whatever, lends itself to suffering from said problem with greater frequency.

 

But in my opinion, no plane should kill the crew on a perfect or near perfect belly landing on the flat terrain beside an airfield.

 

4 hours ago, PatrickAWlson said:

My criteria are fairly simple.  If I belly land and skid then I should survive without serious injury.  If I flip then all bets are off.  Not saying that flipping should automatically mean death, but I won't complain if it does.  I am not going to claim to understand all of the different aspects of a wheels up landing, but those criteria seem pretty reasonable to me.

 

Agreed. Flipping or structural breakup creates enough of a probability that something bad can happen, sufficient to possibly kill a (very unlucky, anyway) pilot or crew. Inclusive of this is impacting any object above a reasonably safe speed (i.e, 60+ MPH).

 

What I find considerably less tolerable, is imagining anyone dying during a Sully Sullenberger landing at ideal speed, on ideal terrain. That's the point where I readily admit a problem exists.

[Asgar]

I landed the Pe 2 ser 87 a couple times in a row, not a single injury.

Again, all testing conducted in SP... which leads me to the conclusion, either you are all bad at landing or there is a netcode issues. but it's not the damage model or the physics if you ask me. 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Asgar

[oc2209]

16 minutes ago, Asgar said:

I landed the Pe 2 ser 87 a couple times in a row, not a single injury.

Again, all testing conducted in SP... which leads me to the conclusion, either you are all bad at landing or there is a netcode issues. but it's not the damage model or the physics if you ask me. 

 

The test is as follows:

 

Half fuel load, gear-up landing, beside an airfield, at approximately 160 KPH.

 

You can see my recording of the same parameters above. There's no serious error I made.

[Enceladus828]

19 hours ago, oc2209 said:

I decided to test out one of your claims from that ditching thread. The one where you mentioned a Pe-2 in a field.

 

See, what's always confused me is how I can't recreate anything in a single engine plane. But belly landing in a twin engine, multi-seat plane? Wow, does that make recreating inexplicable crew deaths easy!

 

Seriously, it's like night and day. I first tried landing with flaps down, which caused too high a sink rate and killed everyone in the plane, and usually started a fire besides. Then I tried keeping flaps up, which prevented everyone from dying and fires, but often resulted in the radioman being killed. I figured maybe it was something stupid, like his feet were counted as hitting terrain or whatever.

 

But then, then I got these gems:

 

Pe-2 where only the pilot dies, no other crew injury/deaths:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Ju-88, again with only the pilot killed, no other crew injured or killed:

 

Thank you, oc2209!

 

I'm sorry if I was being very whiny here, it's just that I have really good hopes for this game and am really excited what the devs have planned for BoN and after: planes that have never been flyable before (save for Mods, WT) like the Me-410, Li-2, etc.; possibly the PTO with carriers. There are some issues in the game that can be quite annoying that the don't appear to get addressed (I once PM'd Jason in a very calm and friendly way about parachuting into water being instantly fatal for the pilot and though he read it he never responded). In my case with this 'physics issue' making simply belly landings fatal for the pilot got me a bit frustrated that I primarily played CloD, 1946, RoF, and WoFF.

I'm in a position where I don't have enough storage space to install IL-2 GBs onto my laptop, nor can I hook up a Joystick; it won't be until July at the earliest when I can play it again.

 

Maybe select "Simplified Pilot Physiology" and see if a simple belly landing in a Pe-2 is still fatal for the pilot when going at the speeds and conditions you stated (do 2 or 3 landings just to be sure) ?

 

 

[oc2209]

50 minutes ago, Enceladus said:

(I once PM'd Jason in a very calm and friendly way about parachuting into water being instantly fatal for the pilot and though he read it he never responded).

 

For the record, I'd also like parachuting into trees to not be automatically fatal. I'd change it like so:

 

If you hit a tree while uninjured or lightly injured, you become heavily wounded. If you hit a tree after first being moderately/heavily wounded, you die. I think that's fair. What it's representing is an uninjured pilot's ability to climb down a tree after getting stuck in one, or bracing themselves for a fall so that they only suffer a twisted ankle or broken leg, etc; while an already injured pilot would be incapable of effectively steering the parachute's descent, climbing, or doing much else.

 

Water landings are tougher to deal with. That does almost require a coin toss. Maybe some real world data could be analyzed to give water landings something like a 50/50 shot at survival (or maybe a little less). Needless to say, landing in water after already being heavily injured should be a 100% death rate. No room for miracles in sim calculations.

 

55 minutes ago, Enceladus said:

Maybe select "Simplified Pilot Physiology" and see if a simple belly landing in a Pe-2 is still fatal for the pilot when going at the speeds and conditions you stated (do 2 or 3 landings just to be sure) 

 

Yeah, I could try this.

 

For now, I have these recordings:

 

All were done with the same (half) fuel load, same 50% flap setting, with touchdown speeds ranging from 150 to 155 KPH.

 

Radioman killed:

 

Spoiler

 

 

No injuries or deaths:

 

Spoiler

 

 

No injuries or deaths, second example:

 

Spoiler

 

 

What's puzzling about that last one, is how it looks so much worse than my other landings, yet nothing bad happened to the crew. There really doesn't seem to be much logic to it. I can make a more controlled landing at 160 KPH (no wing drop), but that ends up killing or injuring my crew more often than a near-stall 150 KPH touchdown.

 

And yes, I'm aware of the weird shadow graphical issue I have. It's really obvious over the snow. I think it might be something introduced by the last game update.

[oc2209]

1 hour ago, Enceladus said:

Maybe select "Simplified Pilot Physiology" and see if a simple belly landing in a Pe-2 is still fatal for the pilot when going at the speeds and conditions you stated (do 2 or 3 landings just to be sure) ?

 

Okay, tested.

 

5 tests, same conditions as before. I won't bother to upload recordings, since my landing attitude is becoming robotic in its similarity from one recording to the next. I had much less wing drop than the above tests, because I came in faster in most. I varied landing speeds considerably in this test group (to see if the simplified physiology mattered).

 

Test 1 touchdown speed and result: 170 KPH, no injuries.

 

Test 2: 152 KPH, no injuries.

 

Test 3: 189 KPH, radioman killed. No other injuries.

 

Test 4: 234 KPH, pilot killed. No other injuries.

 

Test 5: 181 KPH, pilot seriously injured, no other casualties.

 

It's possible that simplified physiology offers a little more leeway. I'll have to test it with narrower variations to properly compare it to previous results. As in, make 5 landings at a very precise 150-155 KPH range. I know that's what you first suggested I do, but I wanted to push the envelope a little.

[oc2209]

Going to suspend testing for today. Too mind-numbing to continue. But I have one more clip to show:

 

Spoiler

 

 

People are of course free to disagree, but in my mind, that is an absolutely perfect belly landing. It's 25% flap, which I find better for combating uncontrolled sinking.

 

This is what I'm finding absurd:

 

Here's my instruments during the above landing:

 

Spoiler

 

And this is the instrument panel during a landing where no one was injured:

 

Spoiler

 

In the second screen, my wing's dropping because I'm stalling. The plane is hitting the ground unevenly. That should not give the crew a better result, a better chance at surviving unscathed. Yet, because I'm going a little slower than in the first screen, everybody's fine.

 

It really defies common sense.

 

Something else that really stands out to me: in all of these tests, now amounting to several dozen, my gunner/navigator, who sits directly behind the pilot, has never once been killed or injured in the same instances where the pilot or radioman are seriously injured and/or die.

 

Further proof, in my mind, that something's not being calculated correctly.

[oc2209]

Had an idea. The Sturmovik's landing gear construction makes it an ideal testbed to perform high speed belly landing studies on.

 

This is a sample of my preliminary results:

 

250 KPH ground contact, exterior view:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Same recording as above, interior view:

 

Spoiler

 

 

So it's not speed that kills. Not entirely. I suspect the engine nacelle shape of the Pe-2 is related to its high kill/injury probability. Some planes rest on their bellies/engines a certain way, and this promotes bucking or imperceptible (to the naked eye) pitch forces to suddenly spike if any tiny terrain snag is hit. That's my theory.

 

If the physics rules were as simple as: travelling over a small terrain bump (even if the overall terrain area is flat) at high speed = crew injury/death, then those same forces should be transferred up through the Sturmovik's retracted gear, correct? If skidding along in a Pe-2 at 170 KPH can severely injure the pilot, then, surely, skidding at 250 KPH should injure/kill a Sturmovik pilot.

 

Yet, it does not.

 

So it's really not a matter of realism here. It's a matter of exploiting a plane's shape to land at much higher speeds in one plane, versus another, without injury.

 

If people don't fly a wide variety of planes (and most don't, I assume), this might explain why some people experience this issue a lot more than others. And then throw in whatever extra problems are caused by online versus offline differences, and I'd say that's the problem in a nutshell.