External sounds audible in cockpit with engine running?

[ATAG_Snapper]

Originally Posted by SYN_Repent

in this example YOU didnt hear a thing over the engine sound, but YOU didnt have 8 browning .303's to fire, or 6 .50 cals firing at you, or other high performance aircraft engines screaming past you.

Good point. I've been on firing lines with, at different times, 7.62 or 5.56 semi-automatic fire on either side which was loud enough. Likewise, I've worked the target pits where even at 300 meters downrange the reports were also very loud. That's my only base for reference. I believe you would certainly hear, albeit muffled due to engine noise and padded helmet, automatic fire from wing-mounted guns and possibly fire directed at you from immediately behind.

I do NOT believe you would hear another aircraft's engine coming up behind you as we can in CoD. Another aircraft roaring close by, very possibly -- but I doubt very much from behind. This has saved my bacon a few times in CoD because I've heard a 109 on my six lining me up and I've broke just in time. But I've never heard a Spit or Hurri pilot claim he HEARD a 109 or 190 doing this. Have you?

[droz]

So, there are several factors you have to think about in this situation.

1. Is the airplane pressurized?
2. What type of headset are you using?
3. Current day ANR headsets drown out external noise.
4. The list goes on.

The complicated answer to this is, back then, aircraft were not pressurized, engines may have been loud, but they did not drown out everything.

Sound waves move in a direction, and decrease or increase in intensity based on several factors.

As a real pilot, when I choose to, I can remove my headset, open the window, and I can hear all sorts of sounds outside of the cockpit. Many times I have opened the window and hear a plane passing by.

In the 1940's, they did not have ANR headsets, and typically, it was just a couple of small speakers inside earmuffs. It's that simple. No noise reduction, nothing to really keep the sounds out. In many ways, what was used was no better than wearing nothing.

So, to keep it simple, I'd prefer realistic. Realistic, in this case, is being able to hear the engines, the wind, and guns firing, you name it. Sound travels. It's more powerful than you think. This is not space. These are not pressurized aircraft. It's that simple.

[Trooper117]

Pilots personal accounts from shed loads of reports and books, too many to mention.. in particular with Hurri's and Spits with Merlins, the engine noise was extremely loud, even with flying helmets on, and remember, they didn't have the noise cancelling helmets that are available now, plus, why do you think the BBMF pilots all wear modern helmets?
MG and cannon fire could be plainly heard inside the cockpit, along with effects from the recoil from the guns.
As to pilots mentioning hearing approaching aircraft, well, I can't remember reading anything about that aspect..

[ATAG_Snapper]

Originally Posted by droz

So, there are several factors you have to think about in this situation.

1. Is the airplane pressurized?
2. What type of headset are you using?
3. Current day ANR headsets drown out external noise.
4. The list goes on.

The complicated answer to this is, back then, aircraft were not pressurized, engines may have been loud, but they did not drown out everything.

Sound waves move in a direction, and decrease or increYase in intensity based on several factors.

As a real pilot, when I choose to, I can remove my headset, open the window, and I can hear all sorts of sounds outside of the cockpit. Many times I have opened the window and hear a plane passing by.

In the 1940's, they did not have ANR headsets, and typically, it was just a couple of small speakers inside earmuffs. It's that simple. No noise reduction, nothing to really keep the sounds out. In many ways, what was used was no better than wearing nothing.

So, to keep it simple, I'd prefer realistic. Realistic, in this case, is being able to hear the engines, the wind, and guns firing, you name it. Sound travels. It's more powerful than you think. This is not space. These are not pressurized aircraft. It's that simple.

Droz, one thing puzzles me. You make no specific mention of aircraft/engine type, just a general "the list goes on". ????

If I'm driving a Honda Civic down the highway how could that compare in any way to an all-out fuelie roaring down the quarter mile strip? To say "engines may have been loud" is an understatement. Do the aircraft you fly actually compare to their noise levels? Do not modern civil aircraft have to conform to specific noise levels? I defer to your experience as a real pilot and only ask this as a "are we not comparing apples to oranges?" - type of question when it comes to relative noise levels. I served two years in the Cdn Artillery (105mm field howitzers) so I have a good idea of what loud is -- and I'm saying the Harvard is LOUD!

[droz]

Oh, the Harvard is loud. I'm lucky enough to fly out of an fbo that houses 3 jack roush p51's. I have heard those things. I understand they are loud. I've heard them up close too. I can compare them to the 172's and seminole I fly. Is honestly say the 51 is louder, though not oppresively so. As such, I can clearly hear other things around me. I was fortunate enough to be ten feet away when the 51 started a runup once. I could audibly hear other things around me without issue.

[JG5_emil]

It's absurd. I've flown real aircraft and once the engine is running and my headset was on I couldn't hear anything outside the cockpit

[klem]

Originally Posted by SYN_Repent

in this example YOU didnt hear a thing over the engine sound, but YOU didnt have 8 browning .303's to fire, or 6 .50 cals firing at you, or other high performance aircraft engines screaming past you.

Never mind what you guys THINK you know about aircraft you haven't flown. Get this reaction from a WWII BoB pilot:

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.]

full interview:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=26512

Note also his comments about warmed engines btw (sorry, OT)

That's also my impression. And I was just sitting in a lousy Cessna ...

I dunno however if one could hear one's own machine gun firing as the Cessna had none installed

That's why I added the option gun sounds.

If you want to know if a fighter pilot could have heared a pilot behind him ask a veteran. Oh wait this was done many times. Not one of all accounts that I have read ever mentioned that they could hear other planes with their own engine running. In contrary they all concorde in that they could not hear it.

I however concede that the first option is badly phrased. Blame it on me not being perfect in English.

[ElAurens]

I've flown in a B-25 both in front (flight engineer's position) during run up, and in one of the waist gunner positions in flight.

Absolutely the loudest thing I have ever done.

If you were not on the intercom headset and wanted to talk to someone you had to SCREAM directly into their uncovered ear to be understood above the din.

I'm sure you could hear the sounds of the guns if you were the operator, but if you were the pilot and the waist or tail gunner opened up you would feel it (possibly) but not hear it. Even when we were taxiing out to the active, nearby civilian light aircraft could not be heard. Standing outside of a warbird is in no way comparable to being inside one. By comparison, the cockpit of a Cessna 172 is as quiet as a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud.

[Upthair]

The tail SONAR again for cheating in IL-2 COD? No! for the sake of 'simulation'. A new generation of flight simulation should by no means let its sounds go arcade.

The wonderful fly-by sounds can be heard when the outside view is chosen, offline and online on an outside view enabled server. So those sounds are not lost if people can't hear them in cockpit.