Answers from BoB Spitfire pilot and Rigger

[klem]

Many thank for the information PPP.

I had the pleasure of meeting Flt Lt Ken Wilkinson and Sqdn Leader Tony Pickering back in 2000 when they were travelling around together giving after-dinner speeches.

It was at an Air Warrior convention. (We used to drag our PCs to a Hotel and have a LAN party including on-line connection to the Air Warrior Host and make a late night mass attack on the insuspecting 'homey' Air Warriors.)

I just found a link to one of the guys' website with a brief report on the weekend
http://www.vulch.t15.org/aw2000.html
I particularly liked Ken's comments about flying with the Douglas Bader Wing:-
"Sixty aircraft in perfect formation, Fifty Nine aircraft under strict radio silence;... and Bader, chatting away to all and sundry. We were a grand sight" said Ken, "We never saw the enemy, but we were a Grand Sight."

Tony's wife Chris gets a mention, a lovely lady. I spent a long time chatting to her about her particular passion - her five year old grand-daughter. Later, she said about Tony, "He must be enjoying himself, we never normally stay up this late". He was particularly chuffed as we watched him fly an Air Warrior Hurricane only to realise it had the same markings as he had flown in 501 Squadron, quite a co-incidence.

Happy days.

Basically I think the devs got it almost quite right in the beginning. Now we are at old-IL2 stage which imho IS a bit arcade. IL2 is either no cut or full cut and you really have to push it.

In my opinion it only lacked some inertia in what the devs have provided with the initial release. The issue was principally that at the slightest deviation from 1g we got a lean cut out (not full cut out which occured when really pushing the stick as you describe). The result was that with minor turbulences we got lean cut outs (that looked very dramatic because black smoke was emitted but that was not that dramatic performance-wise). I think a filter filtering out the normal and weak turbulences out and have a small delay before cut occurs would have done completely the trick without going arcade.

Now we have arcadish cutouts and no black smoke.

I really just hope that Luthier is not becoming a second Jason - with all respect to Jason who is a great guy - really! I do appreciate him and his approach very much and he is listening to the community and is concerned about the opinion of his customers. It is just that: In my opinion he just listens a little bit too much to the loudly proclamated complaints in the forum and we all know that the whiners appear to be more preponderant while they are a minority as they are less reluctant to communicate their issues than those for which it is just ok the way it is. You know stuff like the schoolboy making most trouble getting most attention and stuff. Now they've dumped down the SE5 engine which was a bit fragile but only if one did not know how to handle it. Many complained about a glass engine of the SE5 (a fairy tale imho) while those taking time to master the SE5 as it was did not communicate in the forum. Now they removed the sensitivity of the SE5 engine although it was really an engine that was so much pushed to the limits that it should seem obvious that it is a bit sensitive.

[Blackdog_kt]

Thanks for taking the time to interview those men, very valuable testimonies from a hard to reach community, especially as the years go by.

The more technical aspects are of special interest. For one, i was very satisfied to see the different answers about engine warm up that clears up a lot of things: engines demanded a warm-up session to perform adequately, which was part of the ground crews' job.

I guess in the future we could tie this into a script of some sort for online/offline dynamic campaigns:

IF enemy detected by radar ahead of time or squad is on alert rotation, THEN spawn with warmed up engines, ELSE spawn with cold engines (to simulate getting caught unawares by low flying jabos, etc)

The only thing i'd like more detail about would be the fuel question, the way it was asked it's a bit ambiguous and could be construed to only pertain to their squad/airfield. It would be much more beneficial to have asked them specifically if 100 octane fuel was used by all or the majority of the squads/stations.

In any case, i won't let that minor niggle get in the way of a perfectly good interview and the commendable effort of organizing such an event in the first place. Good job and a very good initiative

[zxwings]

Originally Posted by PeterPanPan

Me: Could you hear other aircraft from inside the Spit cockpit?

KW: No. [Looked at me a little strangely as if he really wanted to say, of course not, what a silly question. [So flyby sounds within closed cockpit need to be disabled or at least made optional in the realism menu.]

Thanks a lot for the interview and for asking that question .

Valuable information to me who have never flown a piston engine aircraft in real life, not to mention a WWII fighter; neither have most IL-2 sim pilots, I suppose. So it is a definite clarification for many.

Haven't tried COD yet. Is COD's in-cockpit sound effect realistic in this respect?

[PeterPanPan]

I'm hopefully meeting Ken Wilkinson again later this year and, if so, will try and ask him some more questions ... and perhaps show him a vid of CoD!

PPP

[ATAG_Snapper]

At a local airshow a few years ago I paid for a 20 minute hop in a Harvard. Not a WW2 fighter, but not a modern-day Beechcraft either. The pilot was a former RCAF CF-18 pilot who flew these demos for the love of it - a real cool dude. I had a chance to chat with him a bit prior to the ride and told him about IL-2. He responded by snapping in the joystick (it had a spring-loaded button - just like a vacuum cleaner!) in the rear seat (my) position.

After getting us up in the air he demonstrated a few basic air maneuvers over rural Ontario, including a wing-over keeping a barn in sight through the canopy top. Cool!!! He then let me take over for a few coordinated turns. Make that "attempted" coordinated turns! LOL

It was all over much too soon. One lasting impression I got was the NOISE!!!!! Even with the modern insulated helmet I was wearing the noise was still almost overwhelming and almost visceral! Obviously, it was necessary to use the built-in intercom to communicate back & forth. I swear someone could've fired eight .303's beside my ears and I wouldn't have heard a thing! Dunno how a P&W Wasp air-cooled radial compares to a R/R Merlin V-12 glycol-jacketed behemoth from inside the cockpit (ie. Hearing passing nearby aircraft). Probably the best descriptor for either is "EH????"

[winny]

There's a passage in Geff Wellum's book First Light where he overshoots and can hear the engines of the LW bomber from inside his cockpit, but he was very, very close.

I've also read a few BoB pilots accounts where they heard the engines of the enemy, all were also, very close (less than 50 yards).

[mazex]

Really interesting to hear his answers! It's always special when one is talking first hand with the men who where really there!

I once met an old pilot at a late night barbecue at an airfield that flew in the Finnish winter war, we had a bunch of beer together and one of the interesting parts of that discussion I remember was when he told me they used bear fat to smear in a thick layer in the face as it got so cold in the open seat cockpits of the old biplanes he flew (I think he flew Bristol Harts and later some captured Russian planes in the continuation war). As they never knew when the alarm would go off and it took rather long to smear bear fat all over the face they slept with it. They had it for a couple of days but when they got to much lice in the fat they had to take it away and smear a new layer

Another time I flew with an old 109 pilot in his own plane as his certificate had been withdrawn for a weak heart (was in the late 1980:ies). He still wanted to fly so I went with him in his Grob as my certificate was valid He flew all the time but left the landing to me... Later (by a fire with a beer too actually, common at Swedish air fields late summer nights after a day of flying) he told me he never liked landings any way after flying the Me109 during the war He flew late war 109 G:s from 1944 and said half of the pilots at his unit (late war rushed out recruits) where killed in the landings and he was scared to death at every landing.

When I asked him if he shot down any enemies he laughed - "When we where in battle it was all chaos with planes everywhere and I just tried to stay away from the enemies - I fired my guns a couple of times at enemies but I don't think a single bullet hit the target".

Originally Posted by PeterPanPan

I'm hopefully meeting Ken Wilkinson again later this year and, if so, will try and ask him some more questions ... and perhaps show him a vid of CoD!

PPP

please ask him how sensitive was merlin engine to "negative G cutouts". Currently in the game even a slight move forward with stick and engine cuts...

[klem]

Originally Posted by Tvrdi

please ask him how sensitive was merlin engine to "negative G cutouts". Currently in the game even a slight move forward with stick and engine cuts...

It would be interesting to hear what Ken has to say but IvanK recently posted these results from the RAE, made "at the time":-

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...3&postcount=99