I can't be that good - can I?

[Sauf]

When did Molders fly a spitfire????

[Extreme_One]

Well nobody has yet stated that they feel there is anything wrong with the low-level FM and landings so that is great news for two reasons.

1) it means the developers haven't dumbed down the FM as I had originally feared
2) I really am becoming a more accomplished virtual pilot.

I should have stated earlier that my observations were based on comparisons between flying the Mk1 Hurricane in both IL21946 (and earlier iterations ofc) and in CloD.

Nice

[Rattlehead]

I find landing in particular much, much easier than in the old game.


The planes in CoD are less twitchy now, imo, and as said it's a heck of a lot easier to see the runway and judge distance.
I really battled to see the runways in the old game, until I was right upon it...way too late to make any last second adjustments.

Now, I can keep the runways in eyesight all the time, and plan my landing accordingly.
I struggled for days to land the 109 in the old game, and even when well practiced I could still get things wrong and shear off my gear from time to time.
Now that doesn't happen anymore. (Although I have screwed up one or two landings still.)

[Space Communist]

Originally Posted by Extreme_One

In this new game I land flawlessly every time.
Literally every single time!

Heh well so do real pilots (well... most of the time!) Landing is the most difficult thing about normal flying, but it's still not meant to be a Herculean task.

I think, as others have said, the original IL-2 was somewhat more difficult because it was very hard to judge altitude and speed. I was never able to reliably land in IL-2 with the cockpit on, but I can do it flawlessly every time from the virtual cockpit. In CloD I can land fine every time even with the cockpit on.

I don't think that's it entirely though... I find that the planes in this game handle much better at lower speeds. I am not enough of an expert to say for sure whether or not this is more realistic, but I suspect that it is. in IL-2 if you fly the planes at the speeds that documents recommend for your approach they become very difficult to handle. I overcame this by simply practicing flying "mushy" with a very high angle of attack while still at altitude, so if I lost control I could easily recover.

[2033cyborg]

Originally Posted by Extreme_One

lol I know I'm not the best pilot. I remember when I started flying the original IL2 I really struggled, it took me a couple of months (and some desperate posts asking for help over on the UBI forums) to be able to land successfully and even then I often ended up crash-landing. (still, any landing you can walk away from... )

Of course my skills improved over time but I never ever felt like a master. And my cheap HW limited my ability.

In IL21946 I land successfully most of the time but I still come in too fast and heavy a lot of the time, and on grass fields I often nose-over on the runway!

In this new game I land flawlessly every time.
Literally every single time!
Just now I landed with all three wheels touching the grass at the same time and felt like an ace. But I also couldn't help feeling a little like I was cheating somehow.

I have one of the worlds crappiest joysticks, no rudder pedals. This should cause me problems, no?

I play with full-real CEM/FM apart from overheating and I'm mainly flying the Hurricane (Rotol)

I'm struggling to believe that I'm actually that good (perhaps I do suffer from an inferiority complex when it comes to my piloting skills) and am in fact wondering if the current engine is a teeny bit nerfed to bring in the n00b crowd.

I'm not being purposely controversial - I'm genuinely interested in hearing what more accomplished pilots feel about the FMs in the current engine, specifically low level flying and landing.

If the experts reckon the low-level and landing FM is good then that's great news; I am actually becoming a good pilot! but I have my doubts...

I think it's an obvious fact that we're all looking for a game that is more simulation than arcade game and so I'm asking how close we are to that atm.

I am flying with a Saitek ST290 pro yeah i know that was long before your time i bought it with my first sim it was simply called IL2 sturmovik yeap! before the forgotten battles and i am still using it of course those day i am using more and more 3D oil it seems, its not as smoooooth as it use to be you see, well anyway when it comes at crashing airplanes i don't think that anyone in the whole universe has crashed more planes and more kind of planes than me! it was the time when crash landing my plane in view of the airstrip would feel me with a real sens of achievement, crash landing meant that i was still alive to fight another day and near the airfield gave me the impression that i was getting there. ( no true).
then one day i really got kind of... you known absolutly mad about it and i decided that i would not got at shooting at another plane until i could land my plane ( and by god i love shooting at airplanes) so on that day i decided that i will start with the first plane on the list of the flyable airplanes you know in the quick menu and would land everyone of them once before the next one and only after landing all of them will i start flying and shooting again...
And it's what i did and crashes in all different ways you can believe or imagine: too long/tooshort, too hight/ too low, too fast/too slow, too much breaks and not enough,with or without landing gear or wathever, in the field in the building, in another plane or a car, the watch tower,the fuel tank and all and all.
(I am not even going to try explaning carrier landing, that's another book) it took liteally few months but at the end i made it...
And what i can tell you after all that sir, is:
if your landing your plane ( on real setting) it is because you did everything right ,so pat yourself on the back because you deserve it (and yes i am landing safely most of the time those days and its not because of the current engine...)

( I am seriously thinking of finding a new joysticks, yeap maybe one with paddles, what? no no seriouse....).

[Extreme_One]

Originally Posted by 2033cyborg

I am flying with a Saitek ST290 pro yeah i know that was long before your time i bought it with my first sim it was simply called IL2 sturmovik yeap! before the forgotten battles ...

Yeah I started in the original IL2 too.

Originally Posted by Extreme_One

... I remember when I started flying the original IL2 ....

I'm on my second stick now though as the trigger broke on my first stick.

Originally Posted by 2033cyborg

if your landing your plane ( on real setting) it is because you did everything right ,so pat yourself on the back because you deserve it (and yes i am landing safely most of the time those days and its not because of the current engine...)
...

Thank you.

I think a lot is down to experience but I do think it's easier to pull off that perfect landin in the current sim, perhaps because of better graphics giving enhanced awareness.

[Prop~Strike]

I don't have a pilot's license, but I have flown solo in a Fly Synthesis Texan - which is a 2 seater underwing light sports aircraft (really fun to fly!) - and when I first landed the Spitfire in CloD I actually smiled because it felt just like landing the Texan.

The "floaty" feeling just as I flared and pulled the last of the throttle back to zero as I three pointed felt very realistic to me ( I should mention that the Texan has a stick and not a yoke like a Cessna also).
The Texan has a tricyle undercarriage but obviously you land on the rear wheels nose high so it felt very similar at the initial touch down.

Of coarse the Spitfire is heavier in real life and I haven't flown anything in that weight class, but I like the feel of the landings in Clod and I think it's realistic enough for me.

EDIT: BTW I fly in the game with an extended joystick, CH throttle quad and widened CH pro pedals so it feels more realistic.

[BadAim]

Yeah, I noticed it to. I'm very much of the theory that the weight of the planes is modeled much better (as well as drag), so that it's so much easier to set up a nice sink rate. I think that us old hands (Started with CFS1, myself) have struggled with difficult physics for so long that now that we have it done more realistically and we have so much better SI now, it seems easy.

Don't worry guys, the mission builders will have some nasty crosswinds and treacherous gusts in store for us in no time and we'll be able to go right back to "pranging our kites" on landing again.