Black History Month

[-332FG-Buddy]

Being a black man that has played this game for over 6 years now, and has loved the addition of the red tails skin and representation of the Tuskegee Airmen,  I was wondering if we could finally get a African American skinned pilot to go with the 51 skins? 

 

Thanks

[357th_KW]

35 minutes ago, LukeFF said:

What's the point without a North Africa map?

We have official 332nd FG skins for both the P-51B and D.

[DBFlyguy]

10 hours ago, -332FG-Buddy said:

Being a black man that has played this game for over 6 years now, and has loved the addition of the red tails skin and representation of the Tuskegee Airmen,  I was wondering if we could finally get a African American skinned pilot to go with the 51 skins? 

 

Thanks

While it would be cool and fitting for the 332nd skins we have in the game, I just don't see it happening, ever...  especially now that Jason is gone.

 

From a history standpoint, there were black airmen in the RAF too, and they fought over Normandy and the areas covered in Bodenplatte, so that could be an option as well:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 5, 2023 by DBFlyguy

[AEthelraedUnraed]

On 2/4/2023 at 6:51 PM, 357th_KW said:

We have official 332nd FG skins for both the P-51B and D.

And we have official skins and even separate planes for Italians, Romanians and Hungarians, yet there are no Italian, Romanian or Hungarian pilots, nor radio traffic. IMO a much more pressing matter.

 

However, I can perfectly understand that for black people it helps for immersion if their pilot character has a black skin as well. Seeing as it's a relatively easy edit, I've made a small mod to change the skin colour of the USAF fighter pilot as well as the RAF pilot.

 

Do note that you need Mods On, and that this changes the skins of *all* RAF pilots as well as *all* USAF fighter pilots except the P-47.

 

Download: https://www.mediafire.com/file/pi4n9813mrwpgye/il2_black_pilots.zip/file

[-332FG-Buddy]

 

 

 

 

 

Why would it never happen ever, ???? didnt we add female skins? how hard is it really to change the shade of a digital character.  we have people over here talking about the in depth complicities of damage models and flight models but its too hard to add color to a skin?

15 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

And we have official skins and even separate planes for Italians, Romanians and Hungarians, yet there are no Italian, Romanian or Hungarian pilots, nor radio traffic. IMO a much more pressing matter.

 

However, I can perfectly understand that for black people it helps for immersion if their pilot character has a black skin as well. Seeing as it's a relatively easy edit, I've made a small mod to change the skin colour of the USAF fighter pilot as well as the RAF pilot.

 

Do note that you need Mods On, and that this changes the skins of *all* RAF pilots as well as *all* USAF fighter pilots except the P-47.

 

Download: https://www.mediafire.com/file/pi4n9813mrwpgye/il2_black_pilots.zip/file

 

 

Thank you man, 

 

[DBFlyguy]

15 hours ago, -332FG-Buddy said:

Why would it never happen ever, ???? didnt we add female skins? how hard is it really to change the shade of a digital character.  we have people over here talking about the in depth complicities of damage models and flight models but its too hard to add color to a skin?

 

 

The developer landscape here has changed drastically over the last few months...  Jason paid to have the female pilot out of his own pocket.  Would it have been great if he did that to represent the black aviators that took part in the war? Most definitely! I like you am a black dude that happens to play this game and some of my personal heroes are the Tuskegee Airmen too, I was lucky enough to meet Lee Archer several years ago before he passed away.  We have "Ina The Macon Belle" (Archer's P-51) in game as an official skin which was a unexpected but very nice surprise and I know Jason had a part in making happen, so I'm definitely thankful for that! While I completely disagree (but unfortunately am not surprised....) someone decided to throw out the nonsense "woke" comment ? he's unfortunately not far off.

 

A few community members have been gracious enough to do some really high quality skins of the Tuskegee Airmen skins over the years like @Raptorattacker  @352nd_Siqhter and @Bo_Nidle and I am forever grateful for those! I'll take those kind gestures as wins and keep it moving. 

[JG7_X-Man]

 

 

No. 132 Squadron RAF was a mixed squadron - meaning its members were from all over the world. To bad the US War Dept. wasn't as forward looking.

[Wardog5711]

I have removed anything that was not directly related to the OP's original ask.

It was a legitimate question that does not need to be politicized. 

And..... I will pass this on to the team for consideration.

 

 

[Nickkyboy99]

I'd rather have an Italian and Romanian pilot instead

[JG7_X-Man]

2 minutes ago, Nickkyboy99 said:

I'd rather have an Italian and Romanian pilot instead

The issue is pilot ethnicity and not flight uniform.

[Nickkyboy99]

2 minutes ago, JG7_X-Man said:

The issue is pilot ethnicity and not flight uniform.

I'm not talking about the uniform, I'm talking about the pilot himself. Something like in War Thunder, where each nation have their own pilot model.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

On 2/6/2023 at 4:37 AM, JG7_X-Man said:

No. 132 Squadron RAF was a mixed squadron - meaning its members were from all over the world. To bad the US War Dept. wasn't as forward looking.

Not just No. 132 - although coloured people were a tiny minority, there were many squadrons with one or two black or otherwise non-caucasian pilots. For instance in No. 174 Squadron which I'm writing a campaign for, one of the pilots in the otherwise white (though multi-national) squadron was the Māori James Himiona Wetere.

 

13 hours ago, JG7_X-Man said:

The issue is pilot ethnicity and not flight uniform.

The issue as stated by the OP is that there is no African American pilot to go with the official Tuskegee P-51 skins. This is a quite equivalent issue to there not being any Italian pilot to go with the MC.202 or various Italian skins for other aircraft.

 

I don't think African-American or Italian people have any inherent "right" over the other group to see their pilots represented first - and to suggest otherwise is racist, plain and simple. Therefore I think the deciding factor when determining priority should be how "necessary" it is to have in game. And there, an Italian pilot clearly wins. It's not historically incorrect to have a caucasian pilot flying a Spitfire or Mustang over Normandy. It is historically incorrect to have a German pilot, uniform and language and all, flying an MC.202 near Stalingrad.

[CountZero]

they probably save-ing it for next project, Korea ?

 

[JG7_X-Man]

11 hours ago, AEthelraedUnraed said:

I don't think African-American or Italian people have any inherent "right" over the other group to see their pilots represented first - and to suggest otherwise is racist, plain and simple. 

 

I was just pointing out the fact that all the pilots we have are of European origin anyway, so I am not sure there is much use to represent European subcategories. We have RAF (British), USAAF (American), Luftwaffe (German) and we have an Italian aircraft, thus an Italian pilot.

 

All of that to say a pilots ethnicity is pretty much determined by their uniform in this game.

 

In that argument - there will never be a African-American pilot in this sim. So for one to specifically ask the developers to consider creating one like a female pilot was created for the VVS isn't that tall of an ask.

 

If having an African-American pilot is important to some members of our community. If the developers have the bandwidth - let them decide. I am 100% in support.

Edited February 8, 2023 by JG7_X-Man

[Bullard]

I agree with 332FG-Buddy's request. While we're on this matter, there is also a skin recognizing WWI pilot Eugene Jacques Bullard's "All Blood Runs Red♥️" SpadVII. I would like to see a pilot that resembles him. Oh, and by the way, the game has the Arras Map, so that shouldn't be an issue.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

4 hours ago, JG7_X-Man said:

I was just pointing out the fact that all the pilots we have are of European origin anyway, so I am not sure there is much use to represent European subcategories.

So Europeans are all the same, is what you're saying? 

 

4 hours ago, JG7_X-Man said:

We have RAF (British), USAAF (American), Luftwaffe (German) and we have an Italian aircraft, thus an Italian pilot.

 

All of that to say a pilots ethnicity is pretty much determined by their uniform in this game.

If the aircraft would make the pilot, we wouldn't be having this issue. It's the combined 3d model and skin of both uniform and face that makes a pilot's ethnicity, and that goes for ethnic Italians just as well.

 

4 hours ago, JG7_X-Man said:

In that argument - there will never be a African-American pilot in this sim. So for one to specifically ask the developers to consider creating one like a female pilot was created for the VVS isn't that tall of an ask.

 

If having an African-American pilot is important to some members of our community. If the developers have the bandwidth - let them decide. I am 100% in support.

There *is* room for black pilots in my argument since it's a historical option (more so for the RAF since we don't have an Italy map, but as some have pointed out, we do have official Tuskegee aircraft skins). All I'm saying is that based on the relevance for the game and its historical authenticity, Italian and Romanian (after release of the IAR) pilots should get precedence. 

 

That said, creating a black pilot is obviously less work since you don't have to redo the uniform, so it *may* be worth it to do that one first. That's something for the Devs to decide.

 

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

You guys are a 1000% more likely to see a third party mod for something like this first before anything is officially released by the team. 

You may have noticed that I already made one a couple of posts back

And yes, I would make an Italian pilot as well, if I could, but I can't. 

[Wardog5711]

The initial ask was for a pilot bust specific to the Tuskegee skins which I fully support. That same bust could potentially be used for other nations.
As for individual pilot unforms, that is a separate topic of discussion.

Lets not get off on a tangent about individual nationalities vs. something as obvious as skin coloration.

Uniform aside, with a flight helmet and goggles on, can you easily identify a light skinned American, German, Russian, Commonwealth , European etc. flyer by just the pilots face?  And no ethnic jokes/comments need to be provided. ?

But a dark skinned pilot would be much more obvious.  Regardless of the nationality they flew for. 
 

Anyhow, the topic has been submitted for review and cluttering it up with a bunch of additional asks doesn't improve it's chances.

 

 

[Enceladus828]

Jason commented on adding the Tuskegee pilot model here:

 

[-332FG-Buddy]

On 2/8/2023 at 9:08 AM, Wardog5711 said:

The initial ask was for a pilot bust specific to the Tuskegee skins which I fully support. That same bust could potentially be used for other nations.
As for individual pilot unforms, that is a separate topic of discussion.

Lets not get off on a tangent about individual nationalities vs. something as obvious as skin coloration.

Uniform aside, with a flight helmet and goggles on, can you easily identify a light skinned American, German, Russian, Commonwealth , European etc. flyer by just the pilots face?  And no ethnic jokes/comments need to be provided. ?

But a dark skinned pilot would be much more obvious.  Regardless of the nationality they flew for. 
 

Anyhow, the topic has been submitted for review and cluttering it up with a bunch of additional asks doesn't improve it's chances.

 

 

Thank u so much man!!!!

On 2/8/2023 at 4:40 PM, Enceladus said:

Jason commented on adding the Tuskegee pilot model here:

 

Brother Jason doesn't work here no more and I wasn't a fan boy of him ...thanks again @Wardog5711 for ur response.