How Many Out There Are Real Pilots???
 

I just wanted to see how many of us are either real pilots (fully licensed) or have at least had hours in a real plane. I have about 20 hours into my private pilots license...

I have like 1 hour? like one lesson!

I posted a similar thread a while back. You can find it here: http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=8831

So, for those who are actually pilots...

How are the physics in BOP??? I do understand that there just aren't enough buttons to give the FULL sim experience... But do the planes fly correctly?

And to those who know a lot about WW2 aviation... Do the Spitfire and Mustang seem to have proper stats as far as speed, agility, and ceiling goes? My friend keeps arguing that the planes aren't fast enough. I explain to him that the planes are fully loaded and will probably not be able to go as fast as stats sheets state.

This Goat needs answers!

The aircraft speeds depend a lot on altitude. For example, the Spitfire II in the demo has a 360mph top speed. Therefore, if you are flying the Spitfire low down and can't get past 300mph with WEP you might think there is something wrong. But this is the right speed for sea level, the 360mph top speed is achieved only at 15,000ft, above and below this the performance drops off.

Same goes for the Mustang. 438mph at 25,000ft, but only 370mph at sea level. Factor in the way you are carrying rockets and have a full fuel load and you will be lucky to reach 340mph at this altitude, which is where most of the combat in this mission.

Flight models are very accurate, being taken from the PC Il2 series where they have been refined over the years to produce excellent represenations of the individual aircrafts handling.

I haven't tried climbing the planes to find out their in game ceiling but I would expect it to be very close to the real life ceilings, like it is in the PC Il2 games.

David i hope to find you online! you seem to know alot, and could teach me some good stuff!

I am not licensed but i have been flying single engine private planes with my dad for a long time. He taught me how to fly when i was very young. I've never gotten licensed but I have over 25 years of experience now flying cessena's and pipers.

I am flying a vintage glider. Me and my family owned a german Göevier (we sold it) and now we are restoring a French Carmam 200.

Heh heh, this reminds me of one my favorite jokes.

Q. "How can you tell if there's a pilot with you in a elevator?"

A: "He'll tell you."

To answer your question, though; I am a certificated flight instructor and am actively instructing. If you have any questions I'll be happy to help out, though some around here would probably get tired of my long posts if I keep it up for too much longer ;).

At any rate, from what I've seen so far, I am very impressed with the physics of the game. The developers added some very nice touches (some of which you will only notice on sim mode), such as the left turning tendency of the airplane (made more pronounced at low speeds, high angle of attacks, with high power settings, just like in real life).

It may not make you a perfect flyer, but there are plenty of real life physics being represented in this game.

And yes, you do need to trim that much in real life!

I'm sitting on 3000 or so hours. The planes in the game handle very accurately and like the guy before me said, yes you do need that much trim and you need it all the time. Otherwise, you would be fighting the controls constantly. This game has the physics down. When I start a landing in the game I usually throw it into a slip, works exactly the way it's supposed to.

got to fly a beechcraft bonanza for an hour or so once, we were already airborne when he flipped the control wheel over to my side and that was after he asked me if i wanted to fly and i said "NO", yeah i was 15 at the time and the first time i had ever been up in a plane, needless to say it was awsome after i settled in a little bit ( IE holding the contols frozen in a slight climbing to the right) he told me to put the nose down a little bit so i pushed the stick/wheel down about a half inch and my stomach just about came out of my mouth. after i realized only gradual pressure on the controls was needed it truly was awsome , at least for me all i had to do was pretty much follow a highway, probaly barely turned and he was working the rudder so it really wasnt all me flying but it was still a great memory and i still hope one day to take some real lessons.

and oh yeah love the demo, cant wait to meet yall in the game and learn a few things, deffinately going to play this game in at least realistic untill i learn enought to play on sim mode, ive never played a real flight sim but being a 360 owner have to say im tired of arcade flight.

I have my Private license, just topped the 100 hr mark. I am also within a few weeks of obtaining my Instrument Rating.

I feel for you there. IFR is the ultimate Jedi mind-screw training wise. The positive side is that the checkride is a little more lenient since the DPE already trusts your judgement. Just watch the new changes to void times, that just changed 8-1. They need some night/IFR type missions in BoP. Make us navigate to the target on instruments, then give us a narrow opening in a broken ceiling to bomb the target. Asking too much? Probably.I think this is the first console game where I have seen all of us with an actual pilots license (only the FAA calls it a certificate), come out in droves. Has anyone paid attention enough to the Spitfire cockpit to know if the Turn Slip Indicator is working and accurate?
It's a shame they couldn't bend the historical rules a little and give us a PAPI, that would be a lot of fun to mess around with. They should at least make you use a VOR on simulator or realistic, they were invented at the time. If we can't get an IFR mission, give us a mission where you have to track on the VOR to your target. Once again, that is not asking too much for such a great game with such a realistic representation of flight.

Haha IFR training is so different, my flight examiner who is based at the airport KMGY is about 83 years old and can fly like those red bull air race guys. He told me that "Instrument training is an Unnatural Act that is only punishable by god" What that means? i dunno. I just did some NDB appchs and some GPS appchs today. I would LOVE a VASI or PAPI. VOR navigation, REAL dead reckoning. Get some transponder and TCAS action. How about ATC comms, DME arcs, Holds, LASHO, Missed appchs procedues, Circle to land, sidestep.....as i have lost about 80% of the people here. haha im so excited about this game........Or a makeshift LOC/ILS for those in need of help with decents without crashing.

Most of that stuff existed during WW II and was in use on the battlefield so I don't understand why we don't get some of it. It's kinda hard to argue for more realism in this game, though. Having to look at the instrument panel and actually follow a radial is unheard of in a console game, could be another first for BoP. They could even have you hold in the pattern so that damaged aircraft could land, give some kind of points for actually staying in the pattern instead of flying off to the coast to look for baby seals to club. It would be a very interesting mission if you had to ride a radial to pick up the bombers that you are going to escort instead of instantly starting near them. Everybody says they want realism, at least until they find out that not all of flying is terribly exciting and a lot of it is routine.

Well with the night missions maybe we will get a suprise and have you follow a radial or at LEAST a working compass like in PC. Im not sure if we have one, i havent looked in the demo for the compass. I would have thought that BOP would have used Keyboards and have extensive controls. (like that game Phantasy Star, unless im wrong that keyboards are not compatable)

Keyboards are compatible with 360 and PS3, not sure why they didn't include the feature in BoP. My big question with everybody overheating their engines is why they didn't include cowl flaps? I know that if you go to the virtual cockpit you have a compass across the top. It's not quite as precisely marked as what we're used to, but it's a game, N S E W is enough I guess. I am going to hammer out the demo some more and really check out the cockpits to see what all gauges we have and don't have. I know we have an RPM gauge for the prop and naturally MP, but I haven't seen a VOR/DME which they had in the mid-1930s, or the old-school radio beacons like the ones the Japanese followed to get to Pearl Harbor. I wouldn't put it past them, though, this seems to be one of the very few games where the developers really listened to the gamers and talked to actual pilots about what we do and don't use.
We could ask them to throw in ILS approaches, void times, designated routes and all that is IFR, but come on, it's a game and that stuff is hard in real life. Can you imagine being on a mission with a wounded plane and having the tower tell you "Spitfire #### establish on the localizer then enter the 45 you're #3 behind a Blenheim hold on left downwind for 16, maintain visual seperation and establish glide slope at discretion." I really like the way you think, but man would we crash a lot.

Hey just out of curiosity, what plane are you doing your IFR training in? I did all mine in my 182, kinda the easy way out because 182's are notoriously stable. It's always nice to talk to other pilots, both about real flying and the game, we all learn so much that way.

Im doing all my training in C-172SPs....one has a Garmin 430, the other does not. In regards to the game, the PC version of IL2 has almost 150 controls and can be configured any way you like. Im not sure if you are familar with the Il2 series, but it had everything you could ever want in configured controls. except Navigation. Though they did a good job of mapping the ground to the map with cities and stuff you would see on a sectional chart.

Until they include airfields on the map with $100 hamburgers I refuse to be satisfied.

haha

I fly gliders from time to time (Money is expensive :P) so I haven't had the money or time really. I have flown a Cessna (Can't remember what model) but I've only got a couple flight hours or so.

No way would i ever fly a glider, that seems to me like a REAL engine failure all the time, i dont like NOT having a "go around" option:(

Well for the fact that I've never actually flown a glider that had an engine, I'll agree that its a engine failure, but the "go around" option is there, you just have to know when :P

You sir are more brave than I, the closest I have come to a glider is a Simulated Engine failure over some freshly harvested corn fields. My FAA examiner was a real old school guy, i was scared to death because from stories saying hes made students touch the pavement on roads in the country before saying he takes controls. I however got about 5-10ft, low enough to see clumps of dirt and holes before he takes the controls to recover. There isnt anything close to the feeling of passing your Check ride and the FAA examiner handing you that white paper. I had to ask him "So, am I a real pilot now?" he responds with a smile "Your not any more of a pilot today then you were yesterday, its just now the government knows"

They make some self-powered gliders now, but I have never seen one physically. Been flying for 17 years, since I was just 12, since 17 legally, but that's irrelevant, and I have never ever ever ever even touched a glider. They say that they're pretty easy on the controls but the idea of not being under power scares the holy hell out of me. It's not like you can go around in a glider. So I am asking, exactly what do you do in a blown landing when you are in a glider? Do you just ride it on down? Also, I heard from a CFI that you have to do a cross-country in a glider to get your chicken papers from the FAA, how do you go cross-country in a plane, and I use the term loosely, that can't power around the countryside? It's nothing against gliders or their pilots, it's just a science I don't understand and don't have the grapes for I guess, but it's a fascinating concept. What can I say? I don't know everything, I'm not Jesus!

You just have to follow the head winds etc. I mean not everywhere you go, can you fly around in a glider. If I went to like Nebraska or some other flat state, I probably wouldn't last very long unless I was towed by another plane (Since I don't fly engine powered gliders. And yes, that is what the engine is for, so you can stay in the air long.) But if I took off from say Heber City, Utah. Actually not a bad place to fly gliders, then I just get towed up high enough, that I could catch a good breeze, and follow that breeze. Usually there are more than one breezes going different paths, so going from city to city isn't bad. I actually did fly from Heber City, Utah to somewhere in Idaho, and it was like a 14 hr flight. I think I was lucky on that flight actually because there were reports that day of some really strong head winds and that a possible storm was coming through my flight path, but somehow I beat the strong head winds, and didn't even see a storm. Even though several hours later when I watched the news, there was a storm coming through my previous flight path. :P
And I've never heard of having to fly cross-country to get chicken papers. If you talk with him/her again, ask if its a non-stop flight or what because I don't see how unless for some reason the earth begins to get several jet streams in the northern hemisphere, a glider not powered by an engine could go cross-country??

But really, they aren't bad to fly if you want just something to be quiet and think. If your in a good enough flight, you can take your hands off the controls, and just sit back. I've done that several times, and it's really is fun.