Acceleration comparisons

[JtD]

Originally Posted by horseback

...but it is still obvious that the elevators on all of these aircraft are far too sensitive...

Actually, if anything is obvious, it's that the control surfaces are far too insensitive. There's a whole bunch of fighter aircraft that could reach the stall angle of attack or designed load factor with as little as 10% control input from trimmed level flight. And as trim is linked to control sensitivity, obviously, trim is too insensitive as well.

[MaxGunz]

If you can't overcontrol at high speeds or in turbulent conditions then you'll get sweet F-A control at low speeds.

Terms to look up are Maneuver Speed and V-Speeds.
Going from flight sims in the past, maneuver speed being the fastest you can pull full stick deflection on ONE AXIS is about 240-250 mph for the P-51. By 360 mph it's -probably- not safe to pull half way, I leave it to someone else to guess why.

Note that in WWII fighters the pilot can't take what the plane can. They had feel and were less prone to trying things that gamers who have no feel take for granted. Also that IL-2 is a simulation. When some G-limit (like 12 G's) is reached even momentarily it is bye-bye wings. Pilot blackout though seems to have a time element.

BTW, I just came across FreeChecklists.net. Here is the P-51 page:
http://freechecklists.net/Resources/.../P-51+Mustang/

And from the 1944 manual on page 19 under Maneuvers Prohibited:
"It is impossible to do a good snap roll with the airplane and most attempts usually end up in a power spin."

[horseback]

Originally Posted by JtD

Actually, if anything is obvious, it's that the control surfaces are far too insensitive. There's a whole bunch of fighter aircraft that could reach the stall angle of attack or designed load factor with as little as 10% control input from trimmed level flight. And as trim is linked to control sensitivity, obviously, trim is too insensitive as well.

Maybe what I should have said is that the aircraft themselves are too sensitive to speed variation and that they are insensitive to elevator or rudder trim while being oversensitive to small rudder and elevator inputs as speed changes. The point remains that constant trim adjustment is demanded over a very small range of speed and that when compared to other aircraft of the era (and especially aircraft well-known to be less aerodynamically sophisticated, as in the case of the P-40 series) the trim model is grossly out of proportion for this relatively tiny group of fighters. It seems to me that the original game was optimized for FFB sticks, and for those of us in the majority with spring tension sticks, trimming out by 'feel' is a bit impractical, because the spring tension is just as high with the stick 5 degrees out of center as it does with it 45 degrees' deflection.

It is just silly to require the Player to click the elevator trim three or four times for every speed variation of less than 20kph indicated (plus a couple of clicks of rudder trim to compensate for nose angle immediately afterwards) for aircraft that history (and multiple current examples) shows (1) didn't require it and (2) will be constantly varying in speed and angle of attack with no accurate on screen display to indicate vector/trim state.

That this group is composed almost entirely of aircraft that exist in large numbers that fly to this day leads me to wonder if their FMs are a bit too detailed for the game engine or that there might be some kind of common mathematical error somewhere, possibly as a result of the conversion from Imperial measurements to metric.

Most of the aircraft instrument panel displays are hard to read at best (always in Wide View, and often in 'Normal' view) and far too many of them are grossly inaccurate; artificial horizons that are indistinct or offset to an exaggerated degree, climb indicators that are slow and frankly, lie much of the time (when you have an indicator that measures feet of climb in feet per minute, and one deflection division mark is supposed to represent 100 feet, you shouldn't be able to change heights by 60 or more feet in less than 3 seconds with the needle just above the '0' mark, and I experienced this routinely in a great many of the aircraft I've tested so far, the notable exceptions being the Soviet and the IJA fighters).

Two changes seem obvious to me; first, the addition of a temporary trim state display similar to the ones we get when we adjust throttle, prop pitch, supercharger or radiator settings. I'd like to see something along the lines of x% up Elevator Trim, x% Right Rudder Trim, and x% Right Aileron Trim with full trim deflection being 100%.

Second, make the cockpit instrument displays consistently accurate to exactly the same standard for every aircraft; currently, there seems to be a great deal of variation in instrument accuracy and readability from inside the cockpit.

I understand that unless there is one common conversion error that is easily detected, major changes in FMs is way more work than can be fairly asked of TD, in the near or far term, but the community shouldn't pretend that the inaccuracies aren't there.

cheers

horseback