Quote:
Originally Posted by IvanK
"The Ju88 should work in a similar manner but due to a bugged gyrocompass it's currently limited to skip bombing and dive bombing."
Whats the JU88 Gyrocompass bug ?
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It just stays wherever it's set without updating: no matter if you align it or not, it doesn't move when you turn.
This is not a big deal in terms of navigation, because we have a perfectly useful course setter on the magnetic compass and in the 88 that's much easier to read (it's fairly big) and its right in front of the pilot.
However, the inoperable gyrocompass messes up the heading hold autopilot, because the AP uses the gyro and not the magnetic one as its input source, then compares it with what the pilot has set as the desired heading and decides which way to turn.
The end result is that since the directional gyro doesn't move, engaging the autopilot and commanding it to turn a couple of degrees results in a never-ending turn because the autopilot can't reach its goal: if i'm heading 015 and tell it to fly a heading of 010 it will start turning left but the the gyrocompass keeps showing 015, so it keeps turning and turning.
A workaround would be to fool it into leveling off by resetting the commanded heading to what the gyrocompass is stuck at, then only use the magnetic one (and the bombsight view) to line up the target.
It's only a couple of button presses extra for each turn, i just don't know if manually fooling it to level off will give the same precise responses that the correctly functioning autopilot does (i tried it in the He111 and it works like a charm if i make small inputs), because the heading hold commands don't display on-screen values apart from "course autopilot left/right": we would have to be switching back to pilot view and look at the instrument whenever we wanted to level off, then go back to the bombsight view and see if the target is correctly lined up and repeat as needed, while in the 111 it works fine while looking through the bombsight scope and helps line up the target accurately without changing positions.
Maybe it could be done in reverse as a temporary workaround, setting both the DG and desired heading to the same value and messing with the static/inoperable DG that does display on-screen text with the selected values, the problem with this is that it reverses the process: to make the AP turn right i'd have to move the DG left.
In any case, that's a description of the issue and a short term workaround. I hope i'm making sense here
