Wierd ball of fire over Stalingrad
 

I was playing the Stalingrad mission last night (3rd mission in campaign?) and there was this flying ball of smoking flame in the sky travelling roughly 250mph at around 6000ft. It wasn't a plane and it wasn't falling towards the earth. Has anyone any clue as to what I saw?

A Foo Fighter....





I saw one too in the first Stalingrad mission, a shot down plane just hovering there.

lol, maybe your getting virtual aviators vertigo. :P

It has happened to me once where I shot a plane, it bursted into flames, but didn't plummet towards Earth. It stayed in mid-air, but thankfully dissapeared after a minute.

Foo Fighter indeed! I have seen it twice as I have yet to complete that mission. The smoke trail it was leaving was very thick but only about three times as long as the plane. It left no oil on my windshield as I flew through the smoke in an attempt to ID what it was. I will try the mission again tonight and report back if I see it.

In the pilot biz... we call those UFO's.

interesting what are you playing on 360 of ps3 ???
im gonna go check it out now lol

foo fighter wasnt that what the usa pilots called ufos in the pacific theater ???

Foo fighters were also claimed to have been seen in Europe as well. But mostly it was pilots in the Pacific you talked about them the most. BUT! knowing this somehow, it wasn't actually until 1947 that "UFOs" became big after a American pilot claimed to have seen a "Disk like object flying through the air, at incredible altitudes."<---- Quote by whatever the pilots name was who claimed to have seen a "UFO" the very first time?

I'm on a PS3.

After I saw it my first thought was "What the hell was that?" my second thought was "I hope someone on the boards has also seen it or this will be one weird post". I'm assuming that what I witnessed was just a glitch, buy it was strange as there was no plane; just a smoking ball of flame cruising along.

On the topic of that Stalingrad mission; is the point just to intercept each group of fighters/bombers as they come in? If I stay with one group too long the mission ends saying I took too long. Also, maybe I'm not leading my targets enough but I am having a hell of a time taking out the enemy with the I-16. I play on realistic.

Luckily, you have a Soviet Ace to assist you. :) First off, the I-16 is touchy on where your leading its guns. You've already experienced this first hand, so I won't go over that. But to get to the meat of the problem, it's probably at the angle your targeting your enemy. If it's a steep climb after them, just fire when the target is just a bit above your nose cowling. This should just poke some cannon rounds into their engine, or the cockpit if your fast enough?

Second, if your turning or diving etc. you want to use the little marks on the optical sight to know when to fire. Just adjust your angle just a bit, not to much or you'll end up over shooting or firing behind them. So using the little markers on the optical sight will help you greatly. :) It works for me, and every other Soviet plane I fly :D :cool:

Actually it is a bit more simple than that. The Germans are using 109's and outrunning the Russian horde of fighters. For that one I make sure my wing-men are all chasing fighter and try to not go full out, but rather watch them and try to intercept the 109s as the turn around.

Yeah... I just saw these in Stalingrad too. Flaming balls of smoke just hovering along. Just a little programming glitch I'm assuming...

Well chasing after 109s is sorta pointless in an I-16, but if they bleed of enough speed in a turn or climb, you can surely get a decent kill. Diving after them is also sorta pointless, but since your nose is a flat disk basically, you'll be able to recover from a dive fast seeing how your not going as fast :D

'Your' is a possessive adjective, while 'you're' is the contraction of the subject 'you' and the verb 'are'.

Happened to me too. Stalingrad, First mission.

Is this the mission where you have to take on a few waves of HE-111's? God, that mission did my head in... must have spent an hour chasing the 109's around the map, waiting for them to turn so I could try and hit them..

Anyway, the fireballs are caused by the Heinkel's randomly exploding.... it seems to happen when the next wave of Heinkel's is about to appear...if any of the previous wave are still in the air, they blow up. Its probably to clear system resources or something.

Or it could be aliens.

My guess is that you are playing
to much to that game,
and to close to your TV

Sorry mates... you are getting halucinations.... ;)

Don't be scared, It happens to me too, sometimes I spot 5 or 6 Bandits at a time, and then they just vanished.

(ok ok that's just the flak)

Thanks for the grammar lesson "Mrs. Brown"!:rolleyes: But determining the time it was posted, and my life of going out and have some cool ones, I think I deserve a break? ;) :P

Aliens for sure. Only explanation.

Thanks for the info! I assume the optical marks you are refering to are seen only while in cockpit view? I usually play in third person view but I'll switch to cockpit view if targeting is more precise.

i just try the second stalingrad campain mission there they were at first just the one but then after a while a few i crashed on porpose and they all were gone but after flying around for a bit they were back

i also noticed that the flak sometimes sits they like a black mass for a second or two then explodes i think maybe the stalingrad campain has a few glitches

oh and im on xbox 360

Yeah, they're only visible in cockpit view.