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IL-2 Sturmovik: Cliffs of Dover Latest instalment in the acclaimed IL-2 Sturmovik series from award-winning developer Maddox Games. |
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#1
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Cold Start prior to flight: Never done, all engines should be pre-warmed
Salute
Once again the British side is having to deal with the nonsense of not being able to start their engines, or having to wait ten minutes while cranking them over. The fact is, the RAF had a very detailed set of operational procedures in place which determined how quickly their aircraft could be put into the air. These procedures were set up to take advantage of the early warning radar system they had in place. After all, why spend Millions of pounds on creating a radar system which gives you a head start and then having that advantage cancelled because your planes are stuck on the ground warming up their engines.... Squadrons were graded according to their ability to get into the air. 1) 'Stood down', which meant they were not expected to fly. Pilots were released to return to their quarters. 2) At a certain time 'Availability', ie. typically '30 minutes availability', which was the intermediate stage between Stood down and 'At Readiness'. Pilots were expected to be in the mess, closeby and available. 3) 'At Readiness', which meant they were ready to scramble immediately. Pilots were often expected to wait in the cockpit, but more often on the field in dispersal. In some case, only a single flight would be 'At Readiness', if the Squadron was primarily tasked with intercepting single reconnaissance planes instead of major raids, but normally this would be the entire Squadron. Squadrons would be moved from 'Availability' to 'At Readiness' prior to being scrambled. In the case of 11 Group Squadrons, all were typically brought to 'At Readiness' at dawn. ALL Hurricane and Spitfires were started up and pre-warmed by their ground crews prior to the Squadron being declared 'At Readiness'. This was to allow an instant scramble, there was no future in having to sit on the ground warming up the engine of your Hurricane or Spitfire while the enemy formation approached, perhaps to bomb your field. As an example, here is the detailed procedure for coming to 'At Readiness' as recounted by Geoffrey Wellums from his book 'FIRST LIGHT', which is an account of his experience during the Battle of Britain. It is not only a good summary of the activities which happened at dawn to ready the aircraft, but also a great piece of writing from a great book: Quote:
Although they didn't have the same requirement to react instantly to incursions, the Luftwaffe had a similar procedure in effect prior to takeoff, that being the ground crews pre-warming their pilot's aircraft engine so it was ready for takeoff. All aircraft should start with pre-warmed engines. Last edited by *Buzzsaw*; 10-02-2012 at 12:00 AM. |
#2
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Great post, Buzzsaw.
Over at the ATAG Server, "we" (meaning our mission designers, hardly "me" LOL) are looking at just what you've recommended based on the same logic. The Single Player/Quick Mission/Cross Country mission has a good spawning mode - engine ticking over, engine warmed up for immediate take off. This included the problematic Hurricanes which are proving extremely difficult to cold start otherwise. Unfortunately, the Single Player spawn mode we desire does not transfer over to Multiplayer Server mode --at present, as our intrepid designers already have found. Work arounds are being investigated as a high priority -- we need those Hurricanes! (Actually, we have an "airstart" spawn mode for the Hurries at Eastchurch, but understandably the Hurricane squads desire a ground take off). Your post above was far more detailed and polished compared to my presentation to the ATAG admins, using descriptors as "BoB pilots were awakened by their batmen at 3:30 a.m. and sat up in bed sipping their hot tea, listening to the erks starting and running up the Merlins in the distance." Luckily, the admins were way ahead of me and needed no convincing. LOL
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#3
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Good post Buzzsaw!
Have you submitted it as a bug report? It would get my vote. I think its important for Hurris to ground start aswell as all fighters, its part of the game and is a skill just like anything else! Storm of War Campaigns has also had to add an airspawn Snapper, we just threw the one in near Ashford for red aircraft. Its a pain to have to go in and change all the spawns temporaily for something that should be so obvious especially when this has happened before. |
#4
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It should just be a simple tick box in the GUI like in RoF. That way those that want the full frustrating cold start experience could have it. Better yet, make it an airfield option, that way you could have some fields with warmed up birds ready to scramble, and bases further back could have full cold starts.
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Personally speaking, the P-40 could contend on an equal footing with all the types of Messerschmitts, almost to the end of 1943. ~Nikolay Gerasimovitch Golodnikov |
#5
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Super post Buzzsaw!
Absolutely spot on!! |
#6
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Quote:
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#7
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Very good post and deserving of a +1.
It would certainly make for some exciting scrambles!
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Pilot #1 (9:40 hours flying time, 3/0/1 Fighters, 7/2/0 Bombers). RIP No.401 Squadron Forum Using ReconNZ's Pilot Log Book |
#8
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All aircraft should have the option to start with pre-warmed engines.
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#9
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If this were the North African campaign this would be a moot point.
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#10
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i think its awesome engines can start cold, and it should be up to the person who makes the mission and hosts the server if they want the engine to be started when u spawn in or not... If you want your engine pre-warmed, you might as well just say you want it already running so all u gotta do is hit the throttle and go, cause the difference in time between starting a pre-warmed engine and just throttling up and taking off is like 20 seconds, so just having engine starting at all would be totally pointless.
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