Bail out bla bla...

[CRO_Adriatic]

Hi

I'm not asking anything to be done in BOB, I'm just wondering and imagining...

1. What they have to do to bail out in real life?
2. Were there big difference between different planes?
3. Did parachute open automatically or they pull some line?

Will be nice to know, if somebody really knows something about it...


As sim fan, I'm dreaming about to be able to stay in "firs person view" after hitting "bail out", maybe jumping from whatever view to cockpit view, have to look at belt or something and hit trigger (who is not weapon after pressing bail out) , than look at plug to throw away window and pres trigger, from moment pilot starts to move I lose controls of aircraft and "steer" pilot with joystick, if he survive all that and get the air I can continue to steer him with joy, (that way I can choose where to land if he bail out in higher altitude), with pressing trigger I open parachute.


As IL-2 - BOB is not "bailing out sim" I will never ask Oleg to implement something like that, I'm just wondering what woos in reality and how you imagine it should be done in sim in "everything is possible" scenario..?

THX

[Bobb4]

It would be very difficult to model bailing out accurately in any sim, especialy say in a bomber.
But lets look at real life.
Some pilots dreaded bailing out, prefering to ditch unless the plane was on fire, other hit the silk so-often it was frightening.
Most top aces hit the silk at least once...
Think the record is twelve times by Johannes "Macki" Steinhoff to go along with his 176 kills.
Basically to successfully bail out, pilots had to battle G-forces and the wind to get out of their plane.
Most chose to flip their planes onto their backs and with the cockpit point downward, droping out of the plane.
The risk of hitting the tail sections was very great.

What would the pilot have to do in real life ... stabalise the plane, eject the canopy or slide it back, unclip his safety harness, then literally climb out of the cockpit and roll over the side hoping to miss the tail section.
One in free fall and once clear of the plane he would pull his rip-cord which would hopefully open his chute.
Being of the round variety he would have little control of it and would float in the direction of the wind.
If he was pointing backwards, their would be very little he could do but smash into the ground backwards.
He would then have to roll to absorb the impact of the landing and prevent breaking any bones.
If winds were high he would have to unclip the chute to prevent being dragged along the ground.
If he was over water you can times the trouble he was in by ten.
Add any other element to the scenario, a spin, a dive, a fire, pilot being wounded and bailing out and you can see why most pilots hated bailing out.

Il2 does a reasonable job of simulating bailing out. Try puting your plane in a dive press your bailout key (CTRL E) and time how long it takes.
Then try it again, go into a dive and keep rolling the plane as you dive (simulating the loss of a wing) and see how much longer it takes you to get out.
Do a positive loop maintianing high positve G and hit the bailout key and see if your pilot can eject as long as you keep the G's positive.

[Feuerfalke]

I think it is simply not worth the effort. You don't run through a bomber like you run through Deck 17 in UnrealTournament. It's a very confined space and depending on your position your have to struggle your position through different compartments even when standing on the deck.
How would anybody model the circumstances of a turning, falling, tumbling aircraft, smoke, fire, damaged doors and structures blocking the way or even you dead comrades.

Dunno if you really want that.

And fighters? Even bailing out of a fighter is difficult to model. Even if we just take the sequence we have now, it is extremely difficult to model how a pilot moves and what happens if wind and gravity fights you after sticking your head out. Remember that pilots bailing from the P38 were often killed because they collided with or were even beheaded by the elevator.

What I would like to see is an option to manually control when to open the chute. That would prevent this shooting at pilots on chutes. On the other hand, there were many pilots who fixed the line to the aircraft so the chute opened automatically after bailout.

[JG52Uther]

What I would like to see is an option to manually control when to open the chute. That would prevent this shooting at pilots on chutes..
Thats a pretty good idea.Or how about once the pilot had bailed then he becomes an 'indestructable' object,set as an option by the server?

[Feuerfalke]

Thats a pretty good idea.Or how about once the pilot had bailed then he becomes an 'indestructable' object,set as an option by the server?

Naaahh. They'd probably simple deactivate the collision system and if they really shoot you hanging in a chute they should at least be able to collide with your silk and take some critical damage. But maybe you should be able to pick out your sidearm while hanging in a chute. :grin:

[brando]

I was totally freaked-out the first time I ever bailed out of a bi-plane when I was flying in Dawn of Aces, the WW1 sim from the Warbirds stable.
IIrc, keying eject flipped one into the eyes of the falling pilot, with the option of hitting an outside view of the descender. Trouble was, no parachute!! After a long drop the view flipped to a black silhouette of the dead pilot, like one of those superhero "he ran through the wall" drawings.
The weird thing was, the silhouette was of a one-armed man! Spooky, I thought, how do they know? (I only have one arm).

I discovered the simple explanation when I moved to the Warbirds WW2 sim and saw that any bailed pilot went down holding his service pistol pointed forwards, fore-arm extended at 90 degrees to the upper arm. It was actually possible to fire six shots at any thing which came in range, and also to rotate the pilots body/ chute in the vertical axis. I don't recall anyone ever getting a kill :)

In DoA the pistol was there, unusable though, and the game rendered the impact outline as a one-armed man.

B

[Thunderbolt56]

A simple eject key to bail and another press to open the chute thus enabling mouselook to use a sidearm. That would be cool...along with a small percentage chance for your chute to foul or even fail.

[I/ZG52_Gaga]

You know what i would like the best!!
well i would like a) to be able to control the opening of the paraschute
b) control it's direction
c) cary a sidearm that i can fire at the enemy pilot that has also bailed
d) have the ability to drive back to airbase
e) mount aaa
d) refuel - rearm
possible ever?
also i would like Olleg to merge IL2 with some Tank & Infantry sims along with Naval sims so we can have a freaking amazing on-line war !!!!

[1.JaVA_Sharp]

You know what i would like the best!!
well i would like a) to be able to control the opening of the paraschute
b) control it's direction
c) cary a sidearm that i can fire at the enemy pilot that has also bailed
d) have the ability to drive back to airbase
e) mount aaa
d) refuel - rearm
possible ever?
also i would like Olleg to merge IL2 with some Tank & Infantry sims along with Naval sims so we can have a freaking amazing on-line war !!!!

google ww2online; you might be surprised.

[1.JaVA_Sharp]

A simple eject key to bail and another press to open the chute thus enabling mouselook to use a sidearm. That would be cool...along with a small percentage chance for your chute to foul or even fail.

wasn't something like that in EAW?

[Skarphol]

One thing I've never really understood is why people get injured by the tailplane of planes. When you look at parachutist jumping from a plane, they allways fall with the same forward speed as the plane, and they fall clear of the tail by several meters. I realise this has something to do with the speed the plane moves, as the distance to the tailsection will decrease with increasing speed. Some pilots even chose to step out on the wing if the plane was stable enough.
This is a quite dramatic allmost-bailout-story from an american Avenger-pilot operating from USS Ranger in Norway, 1943:

"The tracers that flashed by made a complete circle of the cockpit. Then, just before I pushed the bomb release over the ship, my engine took a direct hit. There was a small explosion with a brief flash of fire and smoke over the cockpit as I pushed the pickle releasing the two remaining bombs. One 500-pounder landed on the deck of the tanker. The ship exploded and ran aground as it burned.

Garner, my turret gunner, shouted, "We're on fire!" I hauled back on the stick to gain altitude, then picked up the mike and shouted over the intercom, "Bail Out!"

At about 800 feet, I opened the hatch, sprung my safety belt, and started to climb out of the cockpit. I had never bailed out of a plane before and in the confusion forgot to pull the radio cord from my helmet. Consequently, I heard a call from Garner. "Don't jump, don't jump. Jackson's popped his chute in the plane and he can't get out!" It seems that Jackson, in his excitement, had accidentally pulled his ripcord inside the belly of the TBF. The spring-loaded silk had let loose all over the place. He tried several times to bundle the slippery silk in his arms and work his way through the narrow door, but no such luck--he was trapped.

As I settled back into the cockpit, I picked up the mike and gave instructions to Jackson and Garner to fasten their safety belts and prepare for a crash landing. Our plane was still over the shipping lanes--not far from the burning tanker.

There was no way I could land on that rough, rocky shore of Norway, so I chose to make a water landing. I started letting down toward one of the small islands to make a wheels-up, full-stall water landing.

About then I realized that I was the lone target of concentrated AA fire. It got hotter as I lost altitude. I began to think I would never make it all the way down, so I shoved the throttle forward and headed toward the open sea, taking some violent evasive action to shake the gunners off my tail. It was a miracle that I wasn't hit again--or maybe I was.

At about two miles out I started climbing to gain altitude. The plane was still laying down a stream of smoke. I checked the cockpit instruments expecting to see several red warning lights, but there were none. Oil pressure, OK; cylinder head temperature, OK; tachometer and throttle, working. I was carrying about 30 inches of mercury--what a relief!"

The whole story is here: http://www.airgroup4.com/book/indx/index1.htm

Skarphol

[Rama]

they allways fall with the same forward speed as the plane

This would be true only in a vacuum....
But the plane and the pilot move in the air, and the CX of both is completelly different.
So as soon the pilot gets out of the plane, the air friction will slow him down considerably.... it's the same as if you drive a car 100mph, open a window and put your hand out of the window, you will feel the friction forces pulling your hand toward the back of your car.
Then, with a WWII warplane, you can add to this effect that the propeller push the air toward the tailplane, and you will understand "why people get injured by the tailplane of planes"

[Skarphol]

You are of course right about that, you point out a very good example by the way.
But what I am thinking about is; when you see parashooters jump out of the side door of a plane, they never seem to be anywhere near the tailplane. I guess planes used for parashooters fly as slow as possible in order to reduse the risk of hitting the stabilizer.

Skarphol

[Rama]

Yep, and they don't exit the plane by the top of it.
A usual procedure for a "safe bailout" out of a WWII fighter was to:
- jettison canopy
- get free of belt, safeties, inhalator, hearings, etc...
- push quick and hard on the stick with a leg to gex "expulsated" from the pit.

When canopy can't be jettisonned, it becomes harder...

[Bearcat]

I haven't gotten into a serious flatspin in a long time.. but I remember in IL2 one of the "Ohhhhh woooooow" things for me was that if you were in too great a spin the centrifugal force prevented you from bailing out... I would like to see the view changed for a bail out... in addition to the closeup of the pilot that we now see I think it would be great to have a first person view also... sort of like the view that happens when you explode in the air.... but moving and with a chute above and legs below...

[proton45]

Without making things too extensive (or complicated) I suppose it would be cool if the game had a run, jump, lay down feature for the pilot once he landed on the ground (parachute or crash landing)...that way the game could have a feature where the pilot trys to make his way back to friendly territory. The exsisiting tanks, artillery, and vehicles could act as enemy obstacles the pilots needs to avoid (line of sight shooting)...as long as the pilot "lives" he can keep going...I would not see the pilot having a gun. In most "real life" situations downed pilots just tryed to get home (or they got caught) they didn't spend a lot of time playing "Rambo"...

[Avimimus]

It would be nice to have all of the bailing out be in first person though (even if there had to be a short fade out for the transition).

[I/ZG52_Gaga]

It would be nice to have all of the bailing out be in first person though (even if there had to be a short fade out for the transition).

excellent idea !!

[Blood_Splat]

I wonder if pilots bailing out ever smacked into another plane yikes!