Amazing Details Here!
 

I have crash landed a Spit just after take-off and retracting the gear, and when the plane came to a halt I could see the (fairly detailed) wheel in his well through a large hole in my wing. And ... the wheel was still spinning ... a bug? Nope! Inertia! The wheel in fact slowed down progressively, until it stopped. I swear that I expected that it started to oscillate around the equilibrium ...

WHY THE HELL did they took the pain to model such a small detail, when maybe I'm one of the few to ever see it?

At any rate, it was a great moment of simulation ...


Chapeau to Oleg and C.!

you answered your own question..

Why have so much detail?

Because it's a simulation.

That.........Is Cool!!!

that is really really coool. they went so far to do such a painstaking job of simulating realistic behaviors. 1C team you have my admiration.

I was taught to tap the brakes just before raising the gear. You can mess up the wheel well if the tire is spinning when it gets up in there.

binky9

Maybe not quite as cool as yours, but...

I was flying a Hurricane, and was bounced by some 109s. I got shot up. I was yankin' and bankin' for all I was worth when I heard a strange rumbling noise and the plane's handling seemed to change somehow. I looked around, and saw my left wingtip and aileron were on fire!

That's not the cool part.

This is the cool part. The fire started as just a small burning patch at the trailing edge of the left wingtip. I could "feel" the Hurri fighting the increased drag, wanting to yaw to the left. In a few seconds, the fire smoothly spread to cover about the last 25% of the wing, including most of the aileron. As the fire spread, I could "feel" the aerodynamics growing steadily worse. Most impressive to me, the loss of roll authority was gradual as more material burned off that aileron. No more "aileron controls damaged" and the stick goes dead.

The damage models in '46 were and still are so very much better than just about any other game... and what I experienced in that burning Hurricane was way ahead of anything in '46.

The metal wingtip was on fire? There's almost nothing to burn in a Hurricane wingtip. I think the DM needs a tweak.

I could be wrong but I am pretty certain that the hurri was covered in fabric. Anyway if it wasn't phosphorus would certainly set aluminum ablaze.

There were very few rag wing Hurricanes left at the start of BoB. The metal wings were a vast improvement, performance wise, on the rag wings and only took a little over 3 hours to convert to.

As far as a fire goes, it's (just) my opinion but I don't think a fabric wingtip or aileron at flying speed would catch fire without a good fire already going in the wing, assuming it used butyrate. (I'm a mechanic/pilot who's worked extensively with fabric aircraft so I'm ... an expert - lol) And as far as aluminum goes, it would likely be an unusual situation (in this context) where an aluminum alloy catches fire.

This is why we love Luthier (and Oleg) despite of the pain they gave us and the fact they rarely post regular updates... ;)

But thanks for sharing this, it feels my heart with pain knowing that soon many of us will be flying full real thus hve no possibility to enjoy these great graphics :(

Crashed during take off ona ME110 yesterday, plane flipped over, I was amazed looking at the wheel, tyre blown off, still turning, irregularly as the axle had been twisted...

~S~

This is game physics, the physX stuff, so the event wasn't specifically modelled but the wheel movement was so it reacts. You won't see the same event like this twice, similar, but not the same.

Nowadays it's all about Dacron, but the good ol' linen caught fire like nothing,especially if hit by the fierce German incendiary/tracer rounds,think of the poor Wellingtons,burning down to their geodetic framework whilst airborne. In order for aluminium to catch fire you'd need at least a 20mm hit with a HE/I round, not impossible but still..

I was actually thinking cotton/butyrate. Cotton/nitrate was practically explosive but SHOULD have been off the shelf for military aircraft before WW2, but maybe not in some cases as it is a much better adhesive - why it is still available today. One of the planes I take care of (a C120) has 34 year old linen/butyrate - still looks and tests like new (it's kept in a climate controlled hangar with a jet ...).

I heard that aluminum skin burned readily if there was a fair amount of magnesium in the alloy.

In any case, I take it that those fires don't happen often - mostly just the usual fuel tank stuff?

Check out this B-24 on fire. As far as I know, there are no fuel tanks in the fuselage. Other things can burn:

http://www.footnote.com/image/#29021348

Yes, planes can burn.

After made clear this subject, last week I was shooted in my Spitfire left wing, just few rounds and some damage decals, nothing big. When I drop gear, the left tire was flat...

Amazing!

There was a fuel tank in the fuselage. It was between the wing roots and above the bomb bay. In the picture, that tank is burning, with flames exiting the top of the fuselage and the waist gunner positions.

Also, notice the crew member sitting at the emergency exit above the cockpit! Wow.

binky9

OK - that's wierd you saw the spinning wheel
 

Because I specifically noticed that the wheels were not spinning on take-off and thought that it was quite a shame that it wasn't modelled that way.

I'll triple check tonight, but I'm almost positive.

They do spin, so if your wheels dont you have a problem at your end.

+1 to this thread.

shame they put so much detail in and at the same time so little detail, i just cant understand what happened in the office to produce a sim with individual leaf movement and the accounts some people have given in this thread yet have borked sounds and GUI's and lots of simple things within the process of making the game such as marking working, it just dont make sense.

The result of one guy working on AI, another guy working on sound, etc, and no quality check on the way.

Sad to think they probably sacked the genius who did this, because it took too long, instead of make him focus on the important stuff. (or maybe he wanted a too big paycheck?)