Horizontal stabalisers

[samich]

Hello folks,

Its already been discussed in the controls forum and it seems the horizontal stabaliser key is either bugged or not yet implemented.
I don't know how many are really interested in level bombing but its pretty much the reason I enjoy Il2.
This seems like pretty much only a question a dev can answer but i was wondering if there was any intention of adding the key in the near future (or fixing it) as level bombing is pretty much entirely impossible using soley the trim settings or JU88's auto pilot as cross winds or flak or any kind of disturbances to the plane need to be manually corrected almost constantly.

Has anyone had any luck with level bombing at all or are we all in the same boat?

[samich]

bump for great justice

[meplay]

yup still not fixed it, ah well, i suppose il get it clocked by the time they do fix it, and then i wont have to bother using the stabilizer

[Riksen]

Same feeling here friend... In my humble opinion, the key is there but is still non-functional, despite the fact that some people say that the course automation system has replaced it, i still hope the same "old" level stabilizer comes back.

[1.JaVA_Platypus]

Altough I am pretty sure the level stabilizer is not an historic feature on a relative low-tech bomber like the Blenheim or the Fiat Br.20. But well, it is pretty essential if you want to level bomb in offline mode. It is impossible to fly straight and level, while adjusting the bombsight as well.

[ParaB]

Originally Posted by 1.JaVA_Platypus

Altough I am pretty sure the level stabilizer is not an historic feature on a relative low-tech bomber like the Blenheim or the Fiat Br.20. But well, it is pretty essential if you want to level bomb in offline mode. It is impossible to fly straight and level, while adjusting the bombsight as well.

Exactly.

Currently it's basically impossible to level bomb with any kind of precision with the simulated autopilot because it simply doesn't keep the AC flying straight.

When I operate the bombsight the AI pilot should be able to keep the aircraft on course without forcing me to do two jobs at the same time.

[1.JaVA_Platypus]

To tell you the truth, you can click the course autopilot. In conjunction with the auto-rudder feature, it can have good results. I only tested it on the He-111. In the Ju-88, all compasses are broken, or so it seems.

[samich]

Originally Posted by 1.JaVA_Platypus

To tell you the truth, you can click the course autopilot. In conjunction with the auto-rudder feature, it can have good results. I only tested it on the He-111. In the Ju-88, all compasses are broken, or so it seems.

I can get the planes flying straight but it seems the second you get touched by any kind of flak or fighter or even gust of wind the plane swings off course abit and you need to go back to pilot to manually correct it, then of course you're back to square one with the bombsight.

I agree its not realistic to have a level stabaliser but it seems unworkable without it and its alot more realistic to have huge bombers dive bomb targets which is what i've resorted to

[Blackdog_kt]

I had a small test sortie yesterday, i started the cross country mission (so that i could also practice the start-up and take-off) in a He111 and decided to fly to London and find something to bomb.

First of all, there seems to a be a small bug, when you first open your bomb bay doors one of the bombs will drop out of its own accord, as if it was only held in place by the bay doors. Other than that, the other 7 bombs dropped and exploded just fine (i had 8xsc250 loaded).

As far as the actual bombing goes, i have a feeling that either the cross country mission has a wind layer enabled or the Lofte gyros take some time to stabilize. I had only climbed to 1800 meters and was cruising at 280km/h IAS, so my TAS should be about 300km/h. I switched to the bombardier's view, armed bombs, set salvo and bomb spacing and then looked through the bombsight. Just like in IL2, i entered my altitude and then turned on sight automation while aiming at a far away point in order to calibrate my ground speed: if the sight drifts down from the point you want to track, decrease the ground speed value, if it drifts up increase it. When the sight is steady over an arbitrary point on the ground, you have the correct ground speed.

Well, seems like the correct one was initially a mere 150km/h, but as i kept going closer to the target i increased it to 280km/h and the sight was steady. Since it's a bit impossible to have 130km/h winds in a quick mission, i suppose that it takes time for the sight to stabilize properly.

I attacked a bridge and while i did miss again i was actually about 200 meters from scoring a hit on it, which is much better than my previous attempts. I also don't know if the ground on the river banks is elevated above water lever and how much, as that could also cause the bombs to miss: if you are flying at 2km and bombing a target that is 200m above sea level, you will still miss if you just use 2km as the value in the bombsight...the correct is 2km-200m=1800m, we need to take into account the target's altitude as well.


As for the autopilot, i've found out that it always settles a bit off. In the end the aircraft is stable and can be easily flown for long periods of time with the autopilot, as long as the course changes are not too big. The AP only turns the aircaft, so if you command a big heading change it will roll too much and you will lose altitude.

However, the autopilot doesn't disable the pilot's controls.
This leads me to believe that

a) The AP is only meant to be used for minor corrections during straight and level flight and the bomb-run and

b) Maybe we're supposed to correct it when it's behaving strange.

For example, like i said above, if i am flying a heading of 60 degrees, set my directional gyro to 60 and my desired heading to 60 before engaging it, it will start by doing its little left and right turns (that's probably normal as the gyros spin up and align) and then settle after a minute or so but it will not be flying the heading i requested. From that point on it's no big deal to correct things, since it's level, stable and less than 5-10 degrees off: if i want to turn a bit i just alter the desired heading a bit and let it turn, i can see where i'm going from the directional gyro.

I don't know if i'm making sense, what i'm trying to say is that when the plane does go level and stabilizes, it does at a heading 5-10 degrees different than the one at which the AP is set to follow.

For my next test, i will try to "fight" the controls and keep it steady on a selected heading while the AP stabilizes, just to see if i can align it precisely.

[CH_RoadDogg]

I been practicing using the course auto pilot and have found it to be off 7-8 degrees the more practice the easier it is to get going.

Kind of sucks trying to figure things out with trial and error this is my first IL2 game and the manual is lacking any sort of good content.

There needs to be a wiki site set up with shared infomation searching the forums helps some.