Parachute ejection

[Therion_Prime]

Originally Posted by =WF=RAW

which experience do you mean? combat experience or bail out experience? to gain quickness in bailing out, your plane must be oftenly shot down. %) Then you will have an opportunity to train you'r bailing out ability.

by the way, during ww2 not too much pilots has lots of opportunities to bail out. for example Hartmann was shot down 14 times or something. 14 opportunities to "train" bail out... On the other side highly experienced Ivan Kozhedub never bails out. He was excellent ace-pilot but completely unexperienced in "escape" questions...
Most of the pilots have only one or two bailouts during their war career. More often they died from airplanr crash truying to bail out, or died instantly from eneby bullets, or never bailed out since never shot down....

Not to forget german ace Hans-Joachim Marseille who was killed or knocked unconcious during a bailout. He rolled his plane to canopy down position but while opening his harness, the plane already was in a steep dive and he crashed against the planes tail.

[=WF=RAW]

Originally Posted by Therion_Prime

Not to forget german ace Hans-Joachim Marseille who was killed or knocked unconcious during a bailout. He rolled his plane to canopy down position but while opening his harness, the plane already was in a steep dive and he crashed against the planes tail.

yes, such dramatic things happened very oftenly during ww2. but in il-2 we always see the pilot's body flowing through the plane without any negative results... hope such things will be calculated in CoD, and we can easily get hit by tail or wing of our own plane, while do unlucky bail out.

[Reggie Mental]

Originally Posted by Erkki

Not caring about your virtual life always gets you shot down. Hardly "enormous pilot skills".

Getting home, and getting your aircraft home allows progression in the game. I try to be patient and build up speed and height before attacking a target. I avoid fighters and go for bombers. If fighters won't leave me alone I will attack, as soon as I have given myself some height speed and distance first. The first hint of battle damage over enemy territory and my first concern is to disengage, and get over friendly territory. If anything starts burning, I will bail out, hopefully over friendly territory. Often this means although I've lost my aircraft, I can still progress to the next mission. If I manage to land a damaged aircraft, that usually unlocks hidden target, and awards. On some Eastern front campaigns, especially when flying Me262, Soviet fighters will stooge about at low level around your home airfield, and try to knock you down when throttled back for landing. This was a real tactic employed against these aircraft, as they were very vulnerable at take off and landing. The LW had to employ piston engined fighter units to protect the 'Sturmvogel' at low level. This of course meant less airframes at altitude knocking down USAAF B17s/B24s or Soviet types at various altitudes.

Originally Posted by Therion_Prime

Not to forget german ace Hans-Joachim Marseille who was killed or knocked unconcious during a bailout. He rolled his plane to canopy down position but while opening his harness, the plane already was in a steep dive and he crashed against the planes tail.

Didn;t Marseille fly BF/Me109s? Most types had a sideways hinged canopy, which had to be jettisoned, which didn't always happen due to battle damage and poor build quality/mainteneance. ISTRC that only the Karl variant and after (and there wasn't much after) had a rearward sliding and jettisonable hood. Hitting the tailplane was common for all single engine/single seat types during WW2, pilots were taught to dive over the port wing trailing edge. Easy to do if your kite is doing the straight and level, but after battle damage this was rarely the case, and if it was going along straight and level (and not on fire) why would you need to bail out? If the aircraft is controllable, a wheels up or emergency landing on a local airfield or flat ground is preferable to a bail-out, safer, and possibly meant the aircraft was recoverable.

[SQB]

actually, that raises a good point, before opening the shoot they fell in a ball mostly, almost never in the skydiver posture.
I have even seen footage of the crew after bailing out, generally the curl up but keep their legs out, no hint of controlling the fall.

[Kye]

Probably too terrified to think to arch properly, which may also depend the level of training they receive to bail out.

I have no idea what it was like back then, but with sport skydiving, you receive 6-8 hours at least of ground school. That included practing the reach, correct body positions etc.

[Jg2001_Rasputin]

There is also a very nice russian made WWII training video on the web. It covers emergency procedures especially bailing out from bombers and I CANT FIND IT ANYMORE!

[major_setback]

Premature ejection when you hit the silk really needs adressing.

[Jg2001_Rasputin]

After a 1,5 hour search using all stuff of translators, acronyms, searchsites I finally found it!

Soviet instruction video about bailout procedure from different kind of planes:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3