aircraft disappearing against terrain.

[Rattlehead]

One good thing about those God-awful arrows is that it has forced me to play without icons on, and I'm really happy that I can now play this game guilt free.
After all, pilots didn't have big friendly arrows and icons in real life, and if I'm playing the sim with realism in mind, why should I?

It's not easy to play with icons off...at first it's really daunting and a bit frustrating, but you have to learn to train your eyes to spot a hint of movement, a flash of cross or roundel as the enemy flashes past you, a speck in the distance, a hint of yellow nose (in the case of the 109) and also you have to learn to discern between the different shapes in the sky and what aircraft they represent - especially from the 6 o' clock.
Not easy.
But at the same time, so wonderfully rewarding when you bag a kill.

On the other hand, I've spent a fair bit of time tracking an aircraft only to find out he was a squad mate, and on more than one occasion I have killed a friendly by accident.
I remember shooting down this poor Defiant, thinking it was a 109, and as I realised my mistake I actually said out loud: "Sorry mate."

But to the topic of the thread...it's difficult to spot aircraft on the deck, but by no means impossible. As said earlier, if you really can't find anything, take a page out of Helmut Liepfert's book and dive to the deck yourself and look above. It's helped me many times.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Heliocon

Yep you are correct. I do alot of diving and am kinda known for my excellent eyesight, even though it sucks horribly and I have to wear glasses to drive. Why? Because I have excellent vision, especiall for movement. Thats what you need when you are looking for a cuttlefish or octopus. Also a tip, dont look excactly where you think the plane is, just hold steady because your peripheral vision is actually much more sensitive to movement than what you are directly looking at (for picking up movement).

Now that's weird, i also use a similar method to pick up contacts and i also wear glasses.
Maybe people who wear glasses and have to look through a somewhat narrow field of view for the majority of everyday tasks have a more pronounced reflex reaction to movement outside it, who knows. Or maybe it's just that four eyes are better than two

[Romanator21]

I'm just going to echo what's already been said, and mention that it is indeed hard to spot planes in real life - and all the planes I've seen were glossy white, not camouflaged.

Scan just a certain "sector" of your field of vision at a time, using your peripheral view to detect moving objects, or even stationary faint ones (For instance, I tend to see stars better when not looking directly at them).

[xnomad]

This could turn into a problem in the full real servers. I just got off a server and everybody was flying on the deck. Hardly anyone above 1000 metres.
I wanted to go high but nobody else went up and planes at 100m are impossible to spot at 3000m.

We need some kind of incentive to force people to gain some altitude otherwise we are back to Eastern front scenarios.

[BlackbusheFlyer]

It is realistic, a fly-in to Perranporth airfield a few years ago there were 13 or 14 aircraft all within a couple of miles of the airfield whilst I joined the circuit, I could only see around 4 of them. Gliders (cloud huggers) particularly can be hard to spot. Sunlight glinting off hoods is often a good visual clue. Aircraft heading on an opposite bearing also can be tough to spot even when you have been warned by ATC services of their presence.

I do however believe pilots learn to spot them by developing a good scan. Passengers tend to not notice aircraft so easily.

[BlackbusheFlyer]

It is realistic, a fly-in to Perranporth airfield a few years ago there were 13 or 14 aircraft all within a couple of miles of the airfield whilst I joined the circuit, I could only see around 4 of them. Gliders (cloud huggers) particularly can be hard to spot. Sunlight glinting off hoods is often a good visual clue. Aircraft heading on an opposite bearing also can be tough to spot even when you have been warned by ATC services of their presence.

I do however believe pilots learn to spot them by developing a good scan. Passengers tend to not notice aircraft so easily.