A question of height
 

I recently bought IL2:1946 on steam, and have spent many happy hours since then playing it. However I must admit that I'm very confused by the course announcements over the radio when my flight reaches a waypoint.

For instance, I played the single mission US/P-51B/P-51B.mis with all the other aircraft removed to be sure that I wasn't hearing somebody else's instructions, and let the autopilot figure out the height, and here are some highlights:

Radio says: "Vector 090 Height 01 (350)"
Altimeter says: 1100'
Speedbar says: 330m

Radio says "Vector 330 Height 05 (1,500)"
Altimeter says: 1650'
Speedbar says: 500m

The heights I'm giving are the heights that the aircraft stabilizes at after the autopilot makes any course corrections. The trouble is, neither metres nor feet seem to bear any relation to the height instruction that comes over the radio. Different air forces all seem to have the same numbering scheme, too, which is strange.

There is no such ambiguity with the vector - it's simply the compass heading.

Am I just supposed to know the mapping between the number that comes over the radio and the height we're supposed to fly at? What is that mapping?

Thanks

In the subtitle "Vector 090 Height 01 (350)", the 01 stands for 100 m, or 0,1 km ; the 350 is the same alt, but in feet. A feet grossly equals 1/3 m.

In the second one, you have 05 -> 500 m, or 0,5 km ; and 1500 feet. Your altimeter must be graduated in feet ; your speedbar in meters. You can change the settings of the speedbar, but of course not the altimeter...

Hope it helped.

Okay...that all makes sense.

But that's not the height that the altimeter reads. None of the aircraft are flying at 350 feet. They're flying at 1100 feet. And it can't be a difference between height above sea level and height above ground, either, because the mission in question was partly over sea and partly over land.

In any case, why would a pilot of issue instructions over the radio that don't match up with the instruments used by the aircraft receiving the instruction?

Perhaps I'm coming at this from the wrong perspective. First of all, is this discrepancy something that others have noticed, or is it just me? Perhaps this is just a problem with the steam version of IL2.

Your not necessarily listening to your flight leader. If you have radio chatter enabled, you will hear information unrelated to you over the radio whether there are other flights with you or not. You have to follow your flight lead over the indicated waypoints on your map, not verbal instructions.

You must remember that the base code is over ten years old on this game, don't expect to much. In spite of the fact that it's the best game in town, IL2 is very long in the tooth.

Oh, I forgot to mention - the announcements over the radio came exactly as we passed over the waypoints, and the headings indicated were exactly the headings we were taking. There was nothing else in the sky. There was no other chatter.

I think that the orders mean that your leader want you to dive from 1100 ft to 350 ft, because the next waypoint is at 350 ft ; if you are already at 350 ft and heading 090 the order (and the waypoint) would be useless, isn't it ?

I already said: "The heights I'm giving are the heights that the aircraft stabilizes at after the autopilot makes any course corrections."

Play the mission I mentioned and you'll see. There are really only two heights to fly at in that mission, and most of the waypoints are simply heading adjustments. But I've noticed the same problem in different campaigns for different services all across the game.

Sorry then, I misunderstood...
Maybe there is a pb in low-level missions ?

So if you fly that or similar missions, do what do you hear over the radio?
Does the height given at a waypoint match the height your formation is flying at when you get to the next waypoint? Or is it mis-matched, like mine?

I think the height and the vector are random, just authentic sounding noise. That could be wrong, I'd like it to be.

Sometimes I think the height is given in feet and converted from that height in metres to feet. It certainly often seems to be about that much wrong. From that discrepancy I've jumped to the conclusion that the vectors are noise too, I'd be glad to hear that's wrong.