Quote:
Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger
With visibility being a matter of life and death, and I'm not talking just about spotting an E/A, but just seeing out of the cockpit when headed into the sun. Even a small amount of grime or dirt can make it impossible to see out under the wong conditions.
I think the ground crews would have spent a very large ammount of time polishing those canopies. Also you see the photos of the planes with canopy covers to protect them between missions.
On the space shuttles the windows were polished with toothpaste after each mission to get rid of any scratches or blemishes. We're talking a bout hours of hand rubbing here!
A realistic weathering of the canopy would be Ok, but once the visiblilty reduced past a certain point no one in their right mind would fly in the plane.
Cheers!
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And that's the problem. You think the aircrews had the time to spend many hours on cleaning and hand rubbing with toothpaste but I don't. Do you actually seriously think that?
I simply don't believe the conditions of the planes were always perfect and I very much doubt they ever had the time to polish the canope with toothpaste for some hours while the planes literally fell apart, had failing engines, torn wings and other brute damages - all that while flying multiple sorties a day mind you. I really very much doubt that, sorry. If you can please elaborate what squadron had such a luxury then I'd be really interested.
Did you watch the video I posted? Do you believe the visibility is that bad? I think it's perfectly normal and all the pictures and videos I can find are similar.
The point is that right now it's completely unrealistic: The glass isn't there right now. The reflections are way to subtle. You would normally see them much stronger and there is no indication of even the smallest scratch. PC gamers are just too used to "perfect vision".
Maybe the only way to clear up this myth is to actually ask a veteran about it.
I'm not talking about a thick layer mud when I said stains or dirt by the way. I'm talking about micro scratches that are mostly only visible when under the right sunlight conditions and natural dirt grease that gathers relatively quickly - especially considering the weather conditions during take off mixed with some good ol smashed bugs.
The video I posted shows a very realistic image of the canopes I have seen. I haven't seen an unscratched one in my life. I don't think we should mix up warbirds during BoB with a space shuttle that sees one mission a year or less and has a service crew 100 times bigger than a whole squadron during BoB.