Compasses are 180 degrees out
 

Well certainly on the Spitfire and Hurricane. I fly south, the compass reads 0. I fly North, the compass reads 180.

Confirmed here as well, early Spit and Hurri. Wasn't it this way in Il-2 as well for a while?

Cheers,
Fred

The gyro compass heading needs to be set by the pilot.

Go to the Control Options menu and in the 'Aircraft' category map the following keys,

Directional Gyro Increase
Directional Gyro Decrease

(You will find them near the bottom of the page) ;)

Use these keys to set the compass prior to take-off. :grin:

That's what I pay the ground crew to do! Well, swing it and leave me do do the local adjustment. Not a whole 180'. :)

Yer just can't get the staff!

EDIT: Just one question. In FSX I can get a Tooltip magnetic reference heading off the standby/Whisky compass but the floating Spifire compass doesn't give me that and in any case its is too obscured to read. Where do I get a heading reference from in the cockpit so I can set the Gyro?

In real life aircraft, the Direction Indicator(gyrocompas) picks up errors due to gyroscopic precession. It needs to be corrected occasionally to be accurate. Don't know if the same errors occur in the sim. So even if your ground crew did set it, by the time you've finished your first cup of tea, it's probably out!

Cheers!

http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/o...g/compass3.htm

I also noticed in Bf109 E series, the gyro moves opposite direction, so if you turn 90 degrees to the right, it moves wrong way, and when it settles it moves back 180 degree
So it actually show correct heading, but its animation is wrong.

You need to first determine the current magnetic heading from the Main compass. Once you have this set this on the directional Gyro.

Gyro precession is modelled so every 15mins or so you need to repeat the process. You also need to do this after hard manoeuvering.

To further complicate things acceleration and turning errors on the magnetic compass are modelled so you need to take this into account as well.

Magnetic variation is NOT modelled in COD

Yep, I know that but I didn't expect it to be that far out :(

I can just about read the floating compass but I'm not sure it's readable for an accurate setting. Still we only need an indication most of the time.

When we talk about compasses of Spits and Hurries, can somebody help me a bit out in how to read it at all? I googled and didn't find much helpful information out there.

Here's a Spitfire compass: What direction does it indicate? 80° or 260°?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/s...56764770_1.jpg

try this?
http://www.cixvfrclub.org.uk/downloa...%20Compass.pdf

so with the pic shown North is 80 deg clockwise from planes heading ie plane is heading 280.

in pic shown 'course setter' is North so to fly north turn right till the arm of the 'spider' with the cross on it is is pointing to the red N