A bit more reasonably, the different countries/manufacturers used different fluid and balls in the slip gauges and where they were different the IL2 gauge takes that into account.
Obviously not every little tidbit on every model got complete full treatment even with the upgrades that some models did get. They may have stopped short of counting rivets as well as not having oleos in the struts of all planes or gotten every compass right for that matter but they did get a whole lot in and done without saying about all of it.
There have been more than a few cries of bug where no, it was deliberate simulation of actual history.

Don't know - but I have read that the P-51:s that the Swedish airforce bought in 1945 had ash trays installed... In the land of political correctness (and in this case common sense sitting on tons of fuel (especially with the fuselage tank ;))) they where removed immediately ;)

Maybe this is already known facts? Did other allied fighters have ash trays?

Corsair??

Wouldn't surprise me a bit if that story is apocryphal (i.e., BS in the entertaining sense, or simply a rumor that grew with the telling). On the other hand, it also wouldn't surprise me if some American pilots had their crew chiefs install an ash tray for them, or put one in themselves. It is quite possible that since Sweden's Mustangs were taken from US stocks already in Europe, one or more of them may have had 'non-regulation' ashtrays. Most Americans smoked back in those days, and fighter pilots were no exception. When you're addicted to nicotine, a six or seven hour mission would be long time to go without a smoke, particularly because of the stress before and after combat.

CDR David McCampbell reported that during his epic 9 kill sortie over Leyte Gulf, he took "a few" cigarette breaks while waiting for an enemy aircraft to make a break from their defensive circle. Since he was the Commander of the ESSEX Air Group, I would guess that at least his personal Hellcat had an ashtray installed. I doubt that he was the only one.

cheers

horseback

While the motive might be considered admirable, where no data is available, it becomes a matter of the programmers' best guess and uneven treatment. Hence Japanese instruments that seemed to me to react near-instantly and much more accurately than their counterparts in aircraft from the country that supplied most of the licensed original designs.

In a flight sim where there is a one-eyed tunnel vision view instead of a full range field of view and an absolute dependence upon the instrument displays instead of a seat of the pants 'feel', accurate instrument displays in a full-real cockpit seem to me to be both fairer and more realistic than the current method.

I would assume that the 'correct' data would be available via Devicelink, which would confer an unfair advantage on those who were able to take the trouble and expense of setting up an accurate and/or (at least) legible cockpit display on a second screen. Isn't that the same class of exploit that the thrice cursed trim delay:evil: was supposed to defeat and make the game fairer?

cheers

horseback

Devicelink was set up to allow people to make and use their own instrument panels. It should reflect what you see in cockpit.

Do you have any difficulty making charges against Maddox Games and DT for not checking when you don't check what they have done? Just wondering.

Galland had a cigar lighter installed in his 109 and the pilot of a 109 sat right on top of the fuel tank.:o

Max, I, too, am sceptical about horseback's issue regarding P-51 trimming (I think P-51 trimming is just normal compared to other planes), but I completely agree with this point by him:

It might sound paradoxical, but as we lack a lot of visual and non-visual flight info (what a RL pilot had), the kind of 'realism' we have is only partial and therefore a bit unfair. And those who have a 2nd display with the instruments have an advantage over those who don't have one -- just as a shortsighted person with his glasses on has an advantage over shortsighted persons without glasses. It's a fact, not a charge against anyone. The question is how we handicapped could get some similar aid. ;)

Walter Lord in Incredible Victory (on Midway) quotes the recollections of American pilots who mention several times that they were smoking in the cockpit. Whether they used an ashtray is not communicated, though.

Old story, those with better PC's, bigger monitors or better controls also have an advantage.

You can run IL2 in a window and put a bank of virtual instruments run through devicelink below, above or to the sides of the IL2 window. They don't have to be physical gauges.

I believe that Maddox Games did the best job they could given hardware, time and money. I keep seeing people who know little of making such games work pulling "it needs" critiques out of their imaginations. Sure, it needs to be real planes for all the good that will do!