Three basic enquiries
 

1: Is it possible to have on-screen speed and altitude displayed in mph and feet?

2: Is it possible to suppress the on-screen conversation: it is quite intrusive.

3. I had always assumed when I came across a figure for max speed in my readings that this referred to the speed attainable in level flight. I seem to recall that Sea Fury was something like 475 mph. Yet I never seem to get any where near these values, so I suppose such figures refer rather to max speed in a dive. Can anyone confirm, please?

Cheers.

There is a command to toggle the Speed Bar - look at the Controls window in the Start-up screen.

Go to the conf file in the main game folder on your hard-drive. In the following section:

[game]
Arcade=0
HighGore=1
mapPadX=0.6744792
mapPadY=-0.111666664
viewSet=38
Intro=0
NoSubTitles=1 <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<change to this instead of =0
NoChatter=1
NoHudLog=0
NoLensFlare=0
iconTypes=3
eventlog=eventlog.lst
eventlogkeep=1
3dgunners=1

These figures usually relate to level flight - but you should check at what altitude they are obtained.

B

1) Yes, you just have to assign a key to cycle through the different readouts.

2) I don't know, I am sure it can be taken out.

3) When you look up real specs on an aircraft, those specs represent the stripped down, factory fresh ratings. Add more fuel, other weight, and pilot inputs and those specs go out the window. The real specs even take into account the perfect day, which is not all that common.

Make sure you are trimmed up nicely. That ball should be in the center.

I haven't yet figured out how winds effect the flight models in IL-2. Compared to a flight sim I am used to playing, it feels like I am flying in a vacuum with IL-2 (IL-2 seems much easier). But of course, winds and such will effect the speeds you can achieve.

Splitter

Thanks Brando and Splitter. Brando's two tips were just right. :)

I will come back to speed and trim another day - more complicated.

The maximum speed for an aircraft is usually attained at a medium-high altitude. It is measured in level flight, but note the speedbar and instruments give indicated airspeed (IAS), rather than the true airspeed (TAS) - instruments of the time couldn't give accurate TAS, and for many purposes, IAS is more relevant, but IAS gets relatively slower than TAS with increasing altitude. If you shitch to 'no cockpit' view (ctrl-F1 toggles this, I think), you will get a dial showing TAS (or more correctly, groundspeed, though without wind TAS = groundspeed anyway), this is in Km/h.

Thanks Brando and Splitter. Brando's two tips were just right. :)

I will come back to speed and trim another day - more complicated.

Where it really matters you should be working with CAS or EAS not IAS.

In terms of speeds at sea level ... CAS=TAS=GS at standard temp and pressure with no wind.

Yes, of course you're right, though having to explain the difference, and all the complexities involved, seems a little OTT in this context, I'd have thought.

Actually, I'm not sure that as far as IL-2 is concerned, IAS and CAS would be any different in any case, though I don't know how you could prove it one way or another.