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6S.Tamat 10-27-2011 03:49 PM

I obviously agree totally with you; indeed we were talking about seeing a contact, not identificating.

We can think also about identification but perhaps is a slippery slope..

6S.Manu 10-27-2011 03:59 PM

Hi Anders, thanks for your addition to the thread.

With your experience can you help us to better understand the result of the test on the document? Note that the ones on the graph are max distances, so they could only decrease.

In the first post we have a test where pilots look for a DC3 and detect it (unassisted) in collision path at 5,5-8,7km (being in a collision path I assume that they are looking at front/side). According to the graph the DC3 should have a MAX distance of detection of 9km FV and 14,5km SV (FV = 226sf, SV = 592sf... measures taken with not so detailed blueprints). If they are not trained in spotting ACs I think it can be a truthful result and anyway it's probable that optimal conditions are not available.

A 737 is bigger than a DC3 and in the same conditions it should be more visible.

Can I ask if you are using a specific method to scan the sky? Is it like the one explained in the doc?

6S.Manu 10-27-2011 04:59 PM

It's not an official document but I think the site's name is notable.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...raft-early.htm

Quote:

During World War I (!!!), visual detection in daylight did not exceed 15 miles. Experiments with stealth capabilities occurred as far back as the early part of the 1900s when Germany tested an aircraft with a transparent wing, designed to make it difficult to spot by observers on the ground.
Quote:

During WWII, The US Navy's Project Yehudi used lights mounted on the leading edges of the wings of a torpedo bomber to successfully hide the plane in broad daylight when attacking a submarine. Visual detection range in the tests dropped substantially from 12 to 2 miles.
EDIT: About Project Yehudi, in the test they used an TBM 3D Avenger.

http://books.google.com/books?id=q06...bomber&f=false

41Sqn_Stormcrow 10-27-2011 05:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 335th_GRAthos (Post 354944)
Yesterday I flew for 2hrs 5min (the time before CTD due to the usual memory leak bug) on the ATAG server.

My whole flying was devoted into intercepting incoming bomber formations.

I did not intercept a single formation for two hours.

The worst moment was watching a Wellingtoin (BIG bomber) formation of nine planes flying above me (distance xxxx - how can I judge in this game... ;) ), following from behind while climbing in order to reach their altitude. Then, I moved my eyes away from the sky while checking my fuel gauges/ switching among fuel tanks ... and I completely lost sight of the bomber formation (9 big bombers)!

Then flew for 30mins circling around trying to find them again, without success!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Of course I may be a noob and ignorant* but based on my 7+ years IL2FB in full real online flying, this is complete and utter XXXXX³\#~ **

I like that it is more difficult to trace airplanes, but this is not realistic.

~S~




*always debatable... :D

** Moderators, please add the word of your choice, suitable to a 2-3 week ban... :D

I think the situation is not so unrealistic. There are numerous accounts that say after a very short dogfight they were first surrounded by many ac then all alone. Alone probably just because they could not spot the others despite still being in visual range. It is a difficult task to scan the 360 deg sphere around you and spot everything.

6S.Manu 10-27-2011 05:26 PM

Another gem, really detailed: "The probabilty of visual detection of reconnaissance aircraft by ground observer".

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_me...006/RM4562.pdf

Sadly it is only for altitude from 500feet to 10k feet. But there are interesting data about effect of altitude, luminance ect...

Insuber 10-27-2011 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 41Sqn_Stormcrow (Post 355179)
I think the situation is not so unrealistic. There are numerous accounts that say after a very short dogfight they were first surrounded by many ac then all alone. Alone probably just because they could not spot the others despite still being in visual range. It is a difficult task to scan the 360 deg sphere around you and spot everything.

I've read many accounts of this type, mate. But I tended to explain it with the high speed that planes reached at an height. For instance, in 3 minutes a plane at 400 km/h runs for 20 km. And planes running in opposite directions at the same speed separate by 26 km in 2 minutes.
Or maybe they could not spot the others because of thick layers of clouds, as it happens frequently ... Who knows ... but instead of subjective opinions, we can have a look at the experimental and quantitative approach of Manu and Tamat, and at the US Navy documents.

Cheers,
6S.Insuber

6S.Manu 10-27-2011 05:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 41Sqn_Stormcrow (Post 355179)
I think the situation is not so unrealistic. There are numerous accounts that say after a very short dogfight they were first surrounded by many ac then all alone. Alone probably just because they could not spot the others despite still being in visual range. It is a difficult task to scan the 360 deg sphere around you and spot everything.

I think stress, adrenaline and fatigue can have a role in these anecdotes.
And of course the pilot can find himself in a different fighting area: think about diving, about the speed of these machines and the distance that they cover in some dozen of seconds (that surely seem to last minutes) (EDIT: as Insuber writes).

I really can't believe that in RL you can lose a formation of 9 bombers... above all if they are still flying in formation at medium-high altitude (and no stress, no fatigue for me). Airplanes of that size are visible at great distances and after some minutes you should have find them if you were circling in that area...

Two days ago on Repka I've found a bomber over England.. I did 2 attacks, the bomber was smoking: I looked at the fuel gauge and could not find my victim anymore (btw after 5 minutes CloD CTD)
Probably at 4 km it was just a pixel.

topgum 10-27-2011 05:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Insuber (Post 354939)
My concern, apart from the immersion-breaking effect of icons, is that stealth approaches and surprise attacks would not be possible.

Hi Insuber, therefore I proposed 3 gegrees of difficult settings:
"Hard" (2-5km-labelding) for example, would not break a surprise attack. On the contrairy, normaly it happens to me that I am approaching friendly a/c inadvertently and I only can stop the attack in the last moment. A waste of fuel and energy. At happens to often that I have to fiddle arround, not able to identifie anything in the mid and far range :( To me this is also immersion-breaking.
Of course, I agree, every other solution renderingwise is prefrerabel, but will it ever come? Lets hope .... I love that sim!

TUCKIE_JG52 11-16-2011 09:06 AM

I don't understand where's the problem.

Compared to reality in which I fly, I never had a simulator with a plane detection modelling so realistic as CoD.

What was unreal were the big dots in 1946, not the way it represents in CoD. Of course I compare to reality, not to another (easier) simulator.

Contacts are difficult to see. Depending on the day, color and background as said, and weather condition. Often, haze mades you only see a plane when it suddenly comes close. Sometimes, a contact you have spotted a second ago disappears from a sudden. I don't mind if the disappearing dots in CoD was considered a bug by many. For me it's not a bug, but a realistic feature.

The only contact easy to see it a big plane, higher than you, in a brigt sunny day.

Anything else, it is very difficult. An I speak on WHITE civillian planes! :) I assume camouflaged planes hiding against the terrain is even more difficult to see!!! Did you guys ever flew over a dark plane?

Insuber 11-16-2011 10:15 AM

We are approaching a hard spot of this discussion, that is the compromise between a pure simulation and a pure game. This wasn't OP's point, who was more concerned about the unrealistic invisibility of contacts, which often disappear even at close distance.

I underline my opinion, based also on my real life experience: close contacts and contacts against the terrain are too hard to spot with respect to reality. Far contacts against sky are a mixed bag, sometimes easy, sometimes vanishing. LODs are to be revised here, among other things. Playability is at stake.

Cheers,
Ins


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