Arcade armchair "expert" debunked.

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by KG26_Alpha

There's as much comparison with all 2D sims be it cars, bikes, planes or tanks none are realistic at your desktop level PC incarnation to real life
perhaps only visually and audibly can direct comparisons be made.

I'd think without further training and in an easy to fly plane with a flight instructor present most of the people having a few hundred flight hours in IL-2 would be able to make a few basic maneuvres - no start and landings of course - but I may be wrong. After all you learn a few things about flight physics in IL-2 that are still valid in real life. I'd expect the most startling difference would be the feeling of gravitational forces. I'd bet there are a few virtual pilots out there, that have flown planes in real life, maybe they can tell us something about RL vs. IL?

[KG26_Alpha]

You will never be prepared for the noise vibration and feeling in RL flying.

IL2 sterilizes those sensations into no more than a desktop 2D experience with some procedural button pushing and stick waving at best, the rest is all about gaming the game, its not a simulator,
but it can give you some thrilling experiences with a busy Teamspeak and your fellow pilots screaming for help.


There's lots of different people in squads and flying solo who use the game to suit their needs with CooP's or DogFight missions.
They are all entitled to fly how they see fit and how they interpret the way it should be for them.

[Derda508]

Many, many years ago an uncle of mine allowed me to join him for a flight in an open bi-plane (Bücker Jungmann) he restorated himself for aerobatics.
As Alpha stated: the vibrations and the noise were overwhelming, even befpre take off. Trying to simulate the sound eralistically would bring you into real trouble with your neighbours. It got even louder, when the air was rushing by. I found the headsets for communication pretty useless.
The feel of gravity and acceleration is equally strong. When doing rolls or loopings a beginner has huge problems to trust into his seat belts and not to press both feet on the pedals out of sheer terror (which would not be a good idea). Basic manouevres, like gentle turns almost everybody can master without instructions. It took a while for me to understand the crackling sound of the headset, but at some time my uncle informed me that actually I was flying the plane for about five minutes ...
In a glider noise and gravity are much less radical, but still noticeble. What I remember most is the heat and the blinding of the sun when it wandered through the canopy. Something that I found reflected somehow with the dynamic shadows in CloD, sadly impossible in Il-2.
So I think that at least 50% of the experience are missing.
Luckily, because if they could be implemented most of us would not be allowed to use such a sim for medical reasons.

[Pursuivant]

There are two big things that even folks using "realistic" settings forget.

First, flying a high performance airplane requires a high degree of athleticism, especially if you're pulling serious Gs, and/or you're flying a plane which doesn't have powered control surfaces (and sometimes even then).

Pilots from WW1 and WW2 could easily be physically exhausted just from having to wrestle heavy control surfaces in otherwise "normal" flight. In combat, pilots would get a physical workout pushing on the pedals, pulling the stick/yoke and trying to move around while being pressed down by G forces. That was one of the rationales for choosing young men as pilots.

Second, even the best game graphics and HD screens cannot mimic the real world as seen using the Mk.I Eyeball. Even flying on "full real" settings, you can still typically see distant aircraft far more easily than a real pilot/air crewman could, because the world you see on screen nicely compresses everything into two dimensions. Real life aces spent hours learning how to spot distant aircraft, and rookies were functionally "blind" in that regard.

On the other hand, that 2D display also messes with your depth perception, and graphics which provide less than 15 million pixels per inch resolution (the approximate resolution of the human eye) aren't going to give you the same detail about what you see as you'd get in real life. With that in mind, there's nothing "unrealistic" about having some variety of padlocking and HUD information about targets.

[Janosch]

Hmm, I don't remember real life ww2 pilots having padlock or advanced HUDs.

[KG26_Alpha]

Originally Posted by Janosch

Hmm, I don't remember real life ww2 pilots having padlock or advanced HUDs.

I don't remember them clicking re-fly either after plummeting to earth in a meteoric fireball..............

Next time you get killed in IL2 1946 ............ throw the game away and find something else to do.

[IceFire]

After you die one time during the game you have to exit out, uninstall the game, and never play again.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Janosch

Hmm, I don't remember real life ww2 pilots having padlock or advanced HUDs.

I don't remember them having to view the world through a computer screen or having to use special controls or devices to turn their heads, either.

Things like padlock and HUD messages correct for the limitations of computer graphics and reduced scope of vision. If implemented properly, they are realistic, even if they look wrong.