I learned how to fly, what now?

[hek4te]

Hi,

I spent about a month doing take offs and landings and I am starting to get comfortable.
I started today a Pilot's Career and it looks like a great feature when you play solo. Mission starts, me and my RAF buddies have to go behind enemy lines in Belgium, throw some bombs at a forest with artillery and come back.

All goes well, smooth flight, we reach the point, throw the bombs, says mission accomplished. However all the Germans in the area get mad and come at us.

Every time I tried to push them back, someone gets on me and shoots me down OR I try to escape following our planned path but again someone comes at me and shoots me down.

My question is, what should I look into after learning how to fly? Should I stick to quick missions instead for a  while before I start a pilot's Career?

Will I need to study real dogfight and escape techniques from youtube?
Thank you.

Edited December 21, 2022 by hek4te

[Hook_Echo]

Watching a bunch of videos and trying it out is what I did. I flew a lot of quick mission duels, waves, 1v2, 8v8. Still do. You can get a lot of practice in a short amount of time. Here's a playlist of the videos I was learning from when I started and what I share with my buds when they take up the sim. It's not in a particular order. It's not an exhaustive list. It's not all applicable to WW2. It's just what I found interesting. Take note of the channels and go look at other videos they have made. There's a lot to learn from out there. Good luck, have fun. Take offs and landings (and mapping controls) is exactly what I did for a few weeks.

 

 

Speaking of landings, this is my landing tutorial...

 

[Charon]

I personally like quick missions because they're, well, quick. Especially when you're new, you're going to get shot down a lot, and you'll have a harder time learning if you need to fly 15-20 minutes across the map before getting into a fight. The objective focused AQMB quick missions, with air start, are my preference.

 

One of the big challenges as a novice is going to be learning situational awareness. Singleplayer makes this harder, because your wingmen won't be communicative. For this reason, many people prefer to find a human wingman and join multiplayer. Either one of the big public PvP servers, or in a coop PvE group. Having someone who can help you spot contacts, come bail you out of a jam, or tell you your six is clear is a very different experience.

[ShamrockOneFive]

It sounds like you're at the point where combat would be useful and yeah the quick mission builder is a great place to do that. You can do 1v1 fights but I don't think those are particularly useful or instructive of the kind of scenarios that you'll see in the pilot career or multiplayer either frankly.

 

My go to is the 4v4 and the 8v8. The more chaos the better. I've spent many an hour doing these kinds of combat scenarios where I just practice my close combat abilities with and versus whatever combination that I want. It teaches me to fly the airplane the limits, it teaches gunnery, and it teaches situational awareness so that you're mentally keeping track of as much of the fight as possible. Very useful skills to apply to the career mode.

 

And also... sometimes you will just get shot down. I don't even want to know how many hours I've put into virtual WWII air combat sims in my life. A huge number. I still get shot down all the time by the enemy fighter I didn't see or didn't pay enough attention to.

[Charon]

1 hour ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

You can do 1v1 fights but I don't think those are particularly useful or instructive of the kind of scenarios that you'll see in the pilot career or multiplayer either frankly.

Truth! I wish someone had told me this when I was starting out.

[Raptorattacker]

4 hours ago, ShamrockOneFive said:

I still get shot down all the time by the enemy fighter I didn't see or didn't pay enough attention to.

It's the one you don't see that gets ya!!... 

[Youtch]

5 hours ago, Charon said:

Truth! I wish someone had told me this when I was starting out.

 QMB is still very effective at teaching you gunnary and how to figure out where you are, where is your relative position in correlation to your opponent, and how to track a plane crossing your window and where to expect it next.

 

It is just not a good school for learning MP tactics, but still an absolutly necessary step to learn all the basics of dogfighting.

 

4vs4 or 8vs8 being of course much better than 1vs1, but it can be overwhelming at the very beginning

Edited December 22, 2022 by Youtch

[DRosa]

Any mid-war british fighter is waay slower than the germans, you wont be able to overrun them. Dont try to push them back losing conscience about your surroundings, your friends can be long gone and you are the only one still fighting. 

 

All this could be fixed with accurate and smart AI calls on the radio, you would never run to home alone, and neither dont know when to leave the fight. But thats not what we have.

You also can try to play as a German to really be in your enemy's skin and feel how are their machines.

Edited December 22, 2022 by LGeorgy

[JG27*PapaFly]

With the right settings, QMB does wonders to your shooting skills. The less time you need to cripple or kill an opponent, the less time you spend in a state of target fixation and compromised situational awareness, the higher your success and survival rate.

 

My go-to QMB pure gunnery scenario is as follows:

Make sure you are the only plane in your section.  Load a second friendly section with 4 empty planes, I.e. no ammo.  Load 8 bandits, all without ammo. Set your side to spawn around 2000 m higher than the bandits.  Now everyone will act like they're actually fighting, but you'll be the only one with ammo. Thus,  you'll have a maximum number of shooting opportunities, without anyone forcing you to defend or stealing a kill. The aiming help is really helpful in training gunnery. Stick to a certain type of weapon and learn to master that before you expand your weapons portfolio.  Different combinations of weapons and gunsights require very different aiming.

[PB0_Roll]

Set your career to easy and frontline density to sparse, should help your flight not be anihilated at every mission because someone thought it's fun to have bots tracking you wherever you go, even your own airfield in late 44 when Luftwaffe was only able to do it once and never again, and it happens with any other settings.

 

If you do this and apply training program as others suggested, you should do fine.

 

Also, always keep a look at your wingmens, sometimes they bug out without warning. Usually they are useless ascwingmen after they dropped their bombs, but if an ennemy bot wants to chase you they can still be used as baits.

Edited December 27, 2022 by PB0_Roll

[Knarley-Bob]

Setting the 'BAD' guys up with no ammo? I LOVE IT!!!!!! What a concept!

 

THANK YOU  

[JG27*PapaFly]

On 12/22/2022 at 12:38 AM, hek4te said:

My question is, what should I look into after learning how to fly? Should I stick to quick missions instead for a  while before I start a pilot's Career?

 

50 minutes ago, Knarley-Bob said:

Setting the 'BAD' guys up with no ammo? I LOVE IT!!!!!! What a concept!

 

THANK YOU  

Let's see,  the OP can handle take off and landing, and is asking how to build proficiency beyond that.  I believe shooting skills are fundamental if he wants to become a complete virtual pilot. I described what I believe is the fastest and most efficient way to build shooting skills. We at JG27 use this as our warm up routine for many years, and wirth great success. On a side note: this is by far the only scenario where I find AIs to be useful, or "fun". I hate every aspect of the AIs with the exception of this scenario in which they serve as unarmed target drones. Armed AIs kill each other and follow you around,  which is nothing but a waste of time.  They are totally unfit as tools for your defensive training,  as they are super easy to shake off compared to any human opponent who knows what he's doing. They are equally worthless as training tools for offensive tactics, or even formation flying. Nope, sorry. If you feel you must be "fair" to bots, be my guest, but I found only this one use for them.

[RNAS10_Mitchell]

The easy answer  is now learn how to stay alive.?

[amadeusdemarzi]

On 12/22/2022 at 1:31 AM, Raptorattacker said:

It's the one you don't see that gets ya!!... 

oh don't worry, even the ones I see usually shoot me down as well

[Denum]

Once you get a bit better at SA (situational awareness) throw the AI on Ace and try to be out numbered 4 to 1. 

If you fly straight for too long, they will blast you everytime. Really helps get your head on swivel and allows you to work on defensive flying. 

My only bit of advice is

If they have guns on you, NEVER give them your cockpit. Its a sure way to kill your pilot!

[AnPetrovich]

Every pilot goes through the three stages in his career. At each stage he is seaking an answer for a specific question:

 

1. How to control an aircraft?

 

2. Where to fly now?..

 

3. And eventually: what for?...

[CUJO_1970]

Honestly the best thing you can do right now is go watch Requiem's tutorials, found here:

 

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/forum/82-manuals-tutorials-guides-and-tips/

[Lusekofte]

15 hours ago, AnPetrovich said:

Every pilot goes through the three stages in his career. At each stage he is seaking an answer for a specific question:

 

1. How to control an aircraft?

 

2. Where to fly now?..

 

3. And eventually: what for?...

This is why I never took ppl. I spent 35 years figuring out what to  answer on the two latter , still got no answer. 
3 or 4 mates did it. And lost it due to inactivity after few years

Edited January 1, 2023 by Lusekofte

[FlyinCoffin]

For the the ENDSIEG!!!!

[AnPetrovich]

12 hours ago, Lusekofte said:

This is why I never took ppl. I spent 35 years figuring out what to  answer on the two latter , still got no answer. 
3 or 4 mates did it. And lost it due to inactivity after few years

 

Common, mate!

Have you ever heard about $150 hamburgers?.. 

[AnPetrovich]

But no jokes,

there are no any questions if you love to fly.

The same as there is no question what is a reason to sing, if you like to sing. You just do it, no matter what for. Because you like it. That’s it.

 

The flying might be not a business at all, or doesn't have any practical reasons. You just invest your money and time into the life you want to live. Isn't it what we come for to this world? To live our lifes? So, if you don’t see a reason to get PPL that's okay, it means you have something different in you life that makes you happy. 

[Lusekofte]

Yeah, I do not have the time or motivation to circle over my city endlessly. All my sim flying need to have a purpose. 
I scubadived for years. Visited all shipwrecks and airplanes submerged in Northern part of Norway also a bit of cave diving. When that was done I really could not go back to recreation diving. So I stopped. I guess I am more of an aviation historical interested and not so much pilot interested. 
I do get it why people fly, but in Norway motorised vehicles are very restricted and aviation has not much room for recreation flying. Hangars and airstrips for use to such things are limited. Making it a nightmare to really do

[DD_Arthur]

53 minutes ago, Lusekofte said:

also a bit of cave diving. 

?

[69th_Panp]

17 hours ago, CUJO_1970 said:

Honestly the best thing you can do right now is go watch Requiem's tutorials, found here:

 

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/forum/82-manuals-tutorials-guides-and-tips/

?

Practice practice practice

[RNAS10_Mitchell]

Start out slow.  A.I. set to easy level.  As you get better, increase the number and abilities of the AI.

 

And as others have said,  practice, practice, practice.