Dust caused by prop
 

Hello,

I was wondering if there is a way of turning off the dust behind the aircraft that is made when engine RPM is increased during taxiing and takeoff?

Regards

WG655

Sprinkle the runway?:-P

Well, seriously, it would be a kind of "cheating" option - similar to "invisible" planes. IMHO.

Actually, it's not an unreasonable request. Mission builders and server hosts should have the option of turning off dust kicked up by prop wash simulate local conditions.

It's unrealistic for an aircraft's prop to kick up dust on a well-maintained concrete runway. On a grass or dirt field, a reasonable level of soil moisture will also keep the dust down. In snowy or wet conditions, there has to be a lot of loose snow or moisture on the runway to create mist/blowing snow.

Ideally, dust kicked up by prop-wash should be linked to map and weather conditions, and to runway type.

I agree ... and it shouldn't be a very large amount of code, right?

Disabling prop wash effects would be simple.

Creating switch to allow mission builders/server hosts to turn off prop wash effects would be simple but a bit more time consuming.

Getting prop wash effects right, so that they match map, weather conditions and airfield type would be doable but more time consuming, since it would need to call data from map.ini and mission.properties files.

The option to simply switch on or off dust would be better than “always on” as it is now. More option would be even better, of course. In my opinion, the worst problem in visual rendering is not the prop wash effect, but the turning prop effect itself. As it is, it’s largely, LARGELY, LARGELY overdone.

Looking out of the cockpit, any propeller is simply invisible, unless under particular lighting condition, when it can become faintly and momentarily visible. I flew hundreds of hours with a real prop in front of my eyes, and I can remember to have saw it becoming visible perhaps three of four times, and always for a short time.

Another option would be for prop-wash effects to be disabled except on Tropical/Desert maps.

Realistically:

Water: ON for Summer/Tropical maps. OFF for Winter unless overridden by weather. (loose snow on top of ice will get blown away by wind).

Land: OFF by default unless overridden by map, weather, or airfield.

Map type:

Winter Land: OFF by default unless weather is Poor or worse. (Simulates blowing snow. Otherwise, snow is packed down enough that it won't move.)

Summer Land: OFF by default.

Tropical Land: ON for Hazy or better weather. Otherwise OFF.

Runway type:

Concrete Runways: OFF by default unless weather is Rain/Snow or Thunder. (Simulates loose snow or heavy rain which hasn't yet been removed from airfield.)

Dirt/PSP: OFF by default unless Tropical map and weather is Hazy or better, or Winter map and weather is Rain/Snow or worse. (Former condition represents dust. Latter condition represents loose snow/mud.)

Grass: OFF by default unless Winter map and weather is Rain/Snow or worse.
(I was at an airshow recently and got to see WWII era aircraft maneuvering on and off grass runway verges - the equivalent of grass runways. Very clear spring day in a temperate climate. Plenty of prop-wash, but no dust.)

Carrier Deck: Off by default unless weather is Rain/Snow or Thunder. (Represents spray/snow that the deck crew hasn't had time to remove yet.)

A nice effect that wouldn't be too hard to implement would be dust/mud/water getting splashed up when an aircraft belly lands (basically, a very short-lived smoke cloud, with an origin under the plane's nose and leading edge of the wings), a splash of dust/mud/water/smoke from a plane's wheels when it touches down, and small sprays of water/snow/mud when a plane taxis on a dusty/wet/snowy runway.

A harder effect to achieve, in that it would require new effects classes, would be to have bigger/different colored dust clouds for tropical maps. Ground vehicles and taxiing planes in the desert could leave dust clouds that could be seen from a great distance.

Another cool effect would be to link weather conditions to runway conditions. Winter map and Poor or worse weather, or Summer/Tropical map and Rain/Snow or worse equals slippery runway which slows braking (especially for light planes) and can make turns on the ground treacherous.

Agreed. Another problem with the prop visuals is that they're not (always) properly rendered when viewed from the side. Often you get an "invisible prop" when the bases of the propeller blades should still be somewhat visible.

But, because people mostly see aircraft on video (especially copies of old analog film) they expect aircraft on the screen to look the same. Hence complaints about propeller and tracer bullet effects being "unrealistic," and the addition of lens flare effects. It would be nice to have an option switch so you could have "cinematic" view options - visible spinning propeller blades from the cockpit, jiggling tracer bullets, lens flare, and perhaps even motion blur.

True. But this is a simulator that chose uncompromised realism as a trademark, and this overdone effect is anything but realistic.
It could be considered a minor problem, but it’s in front of player’s eyes continuously. To me is so much annoying that many times I switch to wonder-woman view.

The "cinematic" options should be left in to please movie makers. Otherwise, like you said.