Oleg Maddox's Room #1

[brando]

>>>"Basically it is a compromise for the online community who would not enjoy spending ten to twenty minutes going through realistic starts up procedures......"<<<

This is not correct. Ten or twenty minutes is way more than it took for a pilot to fire up his engine before a scramble for one simple reason - a pre-flight start-up and run-up had already been carried out by the ground crew. This was a customary procedure for all fighter planes that were placed on stand-by for immediate action, certainly in the RAF. In other words, the planes were already warmed up and required much less of a procedure than for a cold-start. Sometimes the pilot was involved in this morning preparation, but more likely it was carried out entirely by the fitter and the rigger. Often the pilot wasn't involved at all in the start-up.

A very good description is made by Geoffrey Wellum, a Spitfire pilot of 92 Squadron, in his book "First Light".

"........ the ringing phone still makes me jump. 'Squadron scramble base angels twelve.'
As one we all make a dive for the door..... I race for my Spitfire....I look and see my aeroplane now only a short distance away. The ground crew are starting up, the engine fires. There's my parachute hanging from the wingtip where I left it. I make a grab and begin to put it on. My rigger has already removed the starter plug and pulled the trolley clear. He climbs onto the starboard wing and waits by the cockpit. With my chute on I hobble round the trailing edge of the wing and up onto the walkway. With an agility that never ceases to amaze me, my fitter is out of the cockpit in a flash and putting his hand under my arm, almost lifting me into the cockpit ......."

Even a cold start is less complex than you suggest, due to the fact that the engine had already been run up and checked earlier. Here's a checklist, again taken from "First Light" from a flight that didn't involve a scramble

".... I fit my oxygen mask, R/T lead plugged in, also oxygen tube, that's OK. Release the Sutton harness lock and check the fuel gauges, full of course. Oxygen on and the needle flicks up to the full mark. Shouldn't need oxygen today but you never know. Elevator trim one degree nose heavy, full rudder bias, pitch full fine and controls free. A quick double check round. Everything looks good. Radiator shutter open, all right then, fuel on, ready for starting. Throttle open a little. Coolant temperature? Shows dead cold, OK so we will have to prime here. Give her six pumps on the Ki-Gas; I lean out of the cockpit.
'All clear?'
A thumbs up from the two stalwarts. 'Clear, sir.'
'Contact.'
'Contact, sir'
Mag switches on, press the starter button and booster coils at the same time and the starter engages with a metallic clang. The airscrew turns slowly, the engine fires, hesitates for just a second, kicks back and then starts with great puffs of smoke which momentarily engulf the cockpit. I adjust the throttle and the Merlin settles down and runs evenly as it warms up. The needle of the temperature gauge comes off the cold stop.....

So you see that there is not much more pilot involvement in the starting procedure than in IL-2. The work of getting aircraft alive after an overnight rest is very much the ground crew's job and can't be put at the pilot's door, as much as you might want to fantasise about it.
Most of the procedures, like setting up elevator trim, applying full rudder bias, manipulating the throttle and mixture, opening the radiator shutter, are all available to the conscientious IL2 pilot before he takes off.

I also deplore the instant spawn, engine on, hurtling dash across the runway that defines much of the dogfighting arena scene - but I suggest that the careful pilot who wants to fly off fully under control and also return, having completed his mission, is already offered most of the pre-launch option.

Twenty minutes, or even ten, isn't in it.

B

[Skarphol]

Think of how cool it would be to see and cooperate with the AI groundcrew during that procedure! For online play I guess it might be higly unpopular because it is timeconsuming, but offline? Great immersion!

Skarphol

[Thunderbolt56]

I'm all about running in a dead sprint to my idling aircraft, sliding into the prepped cockpit, taxiing to the runway and pinning the throttle to go meet Jerry.

More like 2 minutes I'd wager.

[brando]

Originally Posted by Skarphol

Think of how cool it would be to see and cooperate with the AI groundcrew during that procedure! For online play I guess it might be higly unpopular because it is timeconsuming, but offline? Great immersion!

Skarphol

I agree, but with many reservations. Online or offline there is going to be an enormous amount of processing power required to show two interacting ground crew for every aircraft involved in a squadron scramble plus such items as My rigger has already removed the starter plug and pulled the trolley clear. He climbs onto the starboard wing and waits by the cockpit. With my chute on I hobble round the trailing edge of the wing and up onto the walkway. With an agility that never ceases to amaze me, my fitter is out of the cockpit in a flash and putting his hand under my arm, almost lifting me into the cockpit ..... and so on.
There will most likely be up to 11 other aircraft, pilots & crew carrying out similar manoeuvres in fairly close proximity, simultaneously. What price frame-rates if using external view, or even trackIR views come to that?

The more we introduce life-like figures the more careful we have to be in terms of sustaining the reality of the period modelled. I was impressed by the recent film-clip of a pilot briefing using life-like figures - except that none of them resembled a 1940s airman. Their haircuts were too long and none of them talked correctly for the time. While such details can be cleaned up perhaps, it's still asking a lot to reproduce a satisfactory picture of ground life at the instant before a scramble. I guarantee you will notice the bits that don't work far more than those which do.

I'm far more disposed to TB's sprint and go suggestion than getting bogged down in the complexities of mannequin animation.

B

[SlipBall]

Maybe the ground activity will be on a switch...I would think that such activity would be better off, for use by off-liner's...unless of course that Oleg can pull it off for both

[tagTaken2]

I'm sure someone has already suggested it, but could be a pay for patch, or something we could mod for offline only. Let us hope, anyway.

[SlipBall]

After giving this a little thought, I would quess that any ground crew activity would be placed in by the mission designer. So, off-line, on-line, it will all be up to the designer of the map/mission. He could limit the amount of such activity, so as to lessen demand on procesor's

[Skoshi Tiger]

I was just watching some world war two footage of Australian Beaufighters operating out of Port Moresby. One thing that I noticed was when a bomb whent off in the water the spray driffed down wind. (Pritty bleeding obvious but it was the first time I'ld noticed it!!!)

In Bob we are getting dynamic weather and wind, so my question is in Bob will the spray effect from splashes in the water be effected by Wind?

Will ordinace that is released be effected by wind?

It may not sound like much, but if your following another bomber in, all that information can be used to help correct your own bombing.

[Igo kyu]

Originally Posted by Skoshi Tiger

in Bob will the spray effect from splashes in the water be effected by Wind?

Will ordinace that is released be effected by wind?

IMVHO, these are very different things.

Bombs are heavy, and are large enough that their surface area is relatively small, so the wind will not affect them much. In real life wind affected bombing, no doubt, but the effect will have been less than 1%, really not worth bothering about if it's going to take a lot of processor time, which it conceivably might do.

Spray is lots of little water droplets, and their small size means they have a very large surface area. As such, they are much affected by wind. Also, they can perhaps be treated as a lump, like smoke is, so it might be relatively easy to model spray being blown by the wind.

[proton45]

Originally Posted by Igo kyu

IMVHO, these are very different things.

Bombs are heavy, and are large enough that their surface area is relatively small, so the wind will not affect them much. In real life wind affected bombing, no doubt, but the effect will have been less than 1%, really not worth bothering about if it's going to take a lot of processor time, which it conceivably might do.

Spray is lots of little water droplets, and their small size means they have a very large surface area. As such, they are much affected by wind. Also, they can perhaps be treated as a lump, like smoke is, so it might be relatively easy to model spray being blown by the wind.

You could be right...but wasn't wind direction (drift) one of the settings on the "Norden bombsight"? I think that the "Jet Stream" was a big issue when they tried to drop bombs over Japan...