Echo38

I see it in the list right now. I have a friend who cannot connect to my server in any game. No one else has any problems joining; only he does. We concluded that our routers hate each other. Hopefully, that isn't the case here. Has David been on your server before?

It depends on the aircraft. The "full-sim" birds (A-10C, P-51D, Ka-50, UH-1H, & Mi-8) have clickable 'pits. The half-sim birds do not have clickable 'pits. If you're using a full-sim aircraft, there's a key to switch mouse modes. I don't recall what the default is, but it should be in the "general" page of the keybinds.

Very interesting! Thanks. Yeah, I live in a pretty low-humidity area. Now I have another reason to visit a state with an ocean shore!

A rare event? What sort of weather?

Again, I've seen countless C-130s taking off, and never any trails from the props. Have you seen this in person, or only in pictures? In person, I've seen them take off in hot weather, cold weather, dry weather, foggy weather, and rain. No prop trails, and definitely not those crazy-long spirals. Just now ran off to Youtube and watched a bunch take off in videos ... no trails. Is it maybe a camera effect? Something to do with shutter speed or something?

It's been a while since I've touched an MSFS, but I would bet my best pair of socks that the A2A P-51 doesn't handle as realistically in stalls as the DCS one does.

Hmm, let me think: what if the top of each tree trunk in a forest block is a vertex, and the top side of the hitbox is comprised solely of these vertices? Then you'd only need additional vertices for the bottom edge of the hitbox, which vertices would be the base of the trunks of the trees that are at the edge of the forest block. Hmm, I think I see the problem: too many polygons on the hitbox, right? But if it were feasible in terms of our frame rates, I think that this system would work reasonable well--you'd only take damage if intersecting a tree trunk, which isn't entirely realistic, but still much more so than not taking damage at all, or taking damage when you're only near to a tree.

I've been watching aircraft for my entire life, and I've never seen anything like those pictures. Indeed, I've never seen any trails at all coming from propellers or rotors. Is there a specific set of conditions under which visible trails on prop/rotor tips are present?

The variable must be the radiators, then. Remarkable! If I ever get back in the virtual sky, I'll be sure to try fiddling with them. I'm still not ready to say that the sim is wrong, though; the five minute was a conservative figure, USAAF aircraft manuals often were in error and/or at strong odds with the manufacturer's own recommendations & data, and we don't know exactly how soon the more dramatic consequences of excessive WEP should began to manifest. Although I'm not ruling out the possibility of sim error, there may be yet be an explanation for the apparent discrepancy. (I even find myself wondering if the real P-51 manual had the five-minute limit because the USAAF personnel responsible for the manual didn't ever try it with the radiators manually opened! These sorts of fumbles plagued the P-38 manual, for sure.) Although no human is infallible, I have a great deal of faith in Yo-Yo, because all of his work that I can comprehend has thus far matched what I've learned from reliable sources. Meanwhile, USAAF aircraft manuals have been proven to be unreliable at times, due to blockheadedness somewhere in the Army chain of command. (The same sort that insisted that the redundant, entirely useless, and ultimately harmful external mass balances be added to the P-38 elevator, against the protests of the designers, and incorrectly listed MIL figures as WEP for the L model. I could go on!) I ask myself if my reluctance to call this wrong is as simple as me wanting to believe the sim is right (which would be a logical flaw on my part), but I don't think that's it. Rather, E.D. have earned a rare degree of trust with me as sim developers, due to the fidelity of the simulation in just about every area in which I am knowledgeable. So, while I agree that this issue should be scrutinized, I'm still not convinced that it's wrong; I'm inclined to look for an explanation.

Well, there's all sorts of skillsets here. When I got DCS: P-51D, I was already proficient at stick & rudder work and gunnery, but completely new to realistic engine management (which was missing in the older sim-games I'd used before DCS). It took me more than a few hours in this sim to get the hang of not overheating my engine to the point of destruction; in addition to learning the normal engine management, I also had to adjust my maneuvers quite a bit, as in IL-2 & AH2 I relied greatly on low-speed spiral climbs, full-flaps slow scissors, "hammerhead flops," and other floaty stall-speed maneuvers (all of which destroy the engine in about thirty seconds at WEP in DCS). Or--case in point--WEP: it took me a while of testing in duels to come to the conclusion that advancing to WEP immediately after the merge (as soon as you've dropped below corner turning speed) is better than trying to save it until he's half-way on your six. So, even some of the virtual pilots at the higher end of the skill pool need advice regarding engine management (among other things). I'm still only moderately comfortable with it myself--much to learn I have, hmm! Even with the new guys, I'm not so sure that we should be recommending that they further handicap themselves by staying below 90% power. I guess, at the beginning, while trying to figure out engine heat, it might not be a bad idea, as long as they understand that--ultimately--using WEP is essential for winning a dogfight unless you have some other advantage (such as energy advantage, surprise, or more flying experience than your opponent). If I were able to chug around on WEP all day like David, then I'd agree that we have a problem! However, since I'm having difficulties reaching even the (conservative) limit in the USAAF manual, I'm not convinced that there's a modelling problem. So, I don't feel that my use of WEP (firewalling it for <5 minutes to keep myself from being shot down) is unhistorical in the least--indeed, I've read of several fighter pilots who, as policy, immediately went full WEP at first sight of an enemy. Not a universal practice, but not unheard of in the real war.

They wouldn't have had to put in it the Convention if it weren't physically possible. ; )

Ah, but what about when you reach the level of proficiency where neither pilot is making noticeable mistakes in his maneuvering? At very high levels of v-pilot skill, 5% fuel discrepancy is noticeable and can make the difference between winning or losing. There was a pilot in another sim-game whom I duelled very often. At the time, we were fairly close in dogfighting skill (he did some things better, I did other things better--overall, I think he was a bit better than me, but our fights were usually very close and it came down to who was having a better day and who was tired), and some of our fights were practically mirrored. One time, we were in a low-and-slow turning fight, trying to see who could out-turn the other with simple flat turns (we'd done this quite a bit in past fights, too, although our fights varied greatly as we experimented). This time, I was gaining on him in the turn--unusual for the aircraft matchup we were using--I said, "Peter, you feel heavy. You sure you only took 20% fuel?" (That being the agreed amount for the duel.) He replied, "Yes, pretty sure." I shot him down shortly afterward, having slowly gained on him. He checked his settings, and, sure enough, he had 25% fuel. Since I was so familiar with his flying, and since we were so close in skill, I was able to notice that extra 5% fuel. And it let me win in an aircraft matchup where I usually lost sustained turning fights. When you get to that level of dogfighting skill, WEP is more than noticeable; it's a ~10% difference, more than twice the amount that an expert can perceive. In a chaotic dogfight with many people, in which luck plays a large factor, it might not matter so terribly, but in an even duel, WEP-use is a large element. What are you doing differently than me? Why am I struggling to reach even 5 minutes on WEP, but you're able to do a half-hour? Manual radiator? Are you turning at medium speeds (~200–250), or are you keeping your speed high (300+)? You flying at high alt and/or in winter?

Huh. I can't keep my engine at WEP for more than a short couple of minutes in combat. If I try a high-alpha stall-fight, WEP kills the engine in seconds (literally). It's been a few versions since I've flown, but I was under the impression that they haven't changed anything with the P-51 since then. Maybe it's because I leave the radiator on auto? (I've been told it makes a big difference, but I simply can't afford to fiddle with the radiator switch on top of everything else--even if my mind were good for it, it'd mean letting go of my camera keys for, what, 20 seconds?) My view of WEP isn't "go ahead and charge around all day with it, no problem," but more "a dead engine is better than a dead me!" I often burn up my engine during the course of the fight, due to my WEP-use. I lose more often due to engine overheat than to bullets! That sounds like a green mistake, but consider this: if I don't use WEP, I'm going to get shot down by my opponent who is using WEP (at least if it's an otherwise reasonably even fight). So rather than being carefree about WEP, it's more of a desperate race to see who can win before his engine overheats. Kind of like those real-life Russian fighter pilots who had their lend-lease P-40s overboosted and used WEP in every fight against 109s (but had to have the engines replaced every two flights). If I were to question the sim's modelling of WEP (not that I do--I don't know enough about the real-life Merlin to have an opinion about the heat model--my info on the real thing is mostly limited to the flawed USAAF manual), it would be "Why can't I ever last 5 minutes on WEP like the USAAF manual says," rather than "How come we can last so much longer than the 5 minutes that the USAAF manual says?" Uh, that's tongue-in-cheek; I have a pretty good idea why I can't make it for 5 minutes on WEP: because of my relatively slow airspeed (maybe 230 MPH average during the fight), and because of my lower altitude than the escort P-51s were running at (I typically dogfight at 10,000 feet or less). But I've always been perplexed by the reports various people have that their engines in the sim are too tolerant of abuse--mine always is very cross with me when I don't do things just so.

Hrm, so it is. Sorry 'bout that. Looks like Bill here's taking care of you, though. [shuffles out sheepishly]

I'm not a skinner (well, not since Red Baron 3D ... things were simpler then), so I don't know if this is exactly what you're looking for, but I found this after a minute or two of using the forum search: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=73093 You can probably find more by using different keywords. I found that link in another thread called "I am new to skinning, need help please", which was on the second page of search results for the keyword "skinning." Good luck with the painting!

Once the pilot has bailed out, he and his parachute are no longer physical objects in the sim; they're graphical effects (and a camera anchor-point) which have no physical presence in the sim world. Hopefully, they'll someday find time to flesh this out, but at present, that's how it is. For this reason, this should not be reported as a bug. Instead, put it in the wishlist section--physics for the bailed-out pilot & parachute would be considered a new feature rather than a bug fix. (... Along with him being able to be killed by bullets once bailed out, and seen by other players once landed.)

I don't believe that's possible, unfortunately. As far as I can tell from making basic missions, the extant airfields are your only options for spawning on the ground.

I've felt this way since the day I first joined this forum, but I didn't say anything about it for a long time, because it would have looked like sour grapes when my forum profile was new and had no Reputation points. Now that I've amassed a meaningless collection of green squares, something has recently reminded me of my intention to bring this up. The reputation system, I feel, does little good for the community. At best, it's a popularity contest; at its worst, it's a form of virtual lynch-mobbing. Of all of the + rep I have received, over 90% of it was not for some helpful, lengthy post I had made for someone, but rather for a witty one-liner I'd made or a comment I'd written that my benefactor agreed with. The system is also open to malicious abuse--on at least one occasion, someone has detracted rep points from someone, only to have the latter party call his two dozen squadron mates to all detract rep from the other party, leaving him in the deep red. All in all, I believe the reputation system to be largely pointless; people will quickly discover on their own who is helpful and/or knowledgeable, and who is an ignoramus and/or a troll. (And, of course, everyone has a different idea of what comprises these things!) And, beyond pointless ... potentially harmful. None of the other Internet forums I've attended (and I've attended more than a few!) have had such a system, and most of them got along well without it. This is why I think that the rep system should be done away with. (Hope I'm not stepping on any toes here, but I guess such is inevitable when one takes issue with anything that's been around for a while.)

What do you mean? Long-term (over multiple flights) wear & tear, because of DCS not featuring persistent damage? I must respectfully disagree, Merlin. When two human players in the same type of fighter have a "standard duelling protocol" fight (co-E, co-angle, co-visual, co-fuel, etc.; i.e., mirrored situation when the two begin to approach each other from about ten miles), if the two are fairly similar in skill, the one who uses WEP correctly generally wins if the other does not. Military power doesn't give you enough power to use combat flap more than once in a rare while--it slows you down too much. But when you're at WEP, you can drop combat flap for a fairly long period and this combination of WEP & 10 deg. flap will give you a clear edge over your opponent who does not. I tried it both ways against the same duelling opponents, even during the same fight. Whoever went WEP & flap while the other stayed mil & clean would start to rapidly overtake the other in turning maneuvers (this wasn't limited to flat turns, but included yo-yos and combat turns and such). WEP may be a different story with purely vertical maneuvers, but my maneuvers tend to be more horizontal than vertical; in other flight sim-games, I tended to be more vertical, but I find in DCS that I cannot maintain visual contact with the enemy if I let him get too far away from me and/or too far below the horizon. Additionally, with two similar aircraft having similar energy states, there generally isn't the possibility of pure-vertical fighting effectively. If you try, you're going to lose to the other guy who goes more horizontal (again, not necessarily flat turns), if his general skill is comparable to yours. I've extensively tried being sparing with my WEP, turning it on and off to keep my engine at an acceptable temperature, but I found that I kept losing to my opponent who simply went all-out WEP; his using WEP when I wasn't made the fight short enough that his engine didn't fail before he was able to shoot me down. Only when I started using my own WEP more aggressively at the beginning of the fight was I able to match him (firewalling it only after I noticed that he was out-maneuvering me didn't usually cut it--by then, it was too late). This sort of battle, naturally, is time-sensitive--the trick is to try to beat the other guy before both his and your engines overheat! YRMV, of course, but I have had quite a bit of experience with duelling virtual pilots with both similar and varying degrees of skill, and trying out different things in each fight. I'd gladly have a few test duels with you and show you what I'm talking about--taking turns using WEP & flap and staying cool & clean--but, my hand ...

As I understand it, the manual-pitch switches on the P-38 were there in case the governor failed ... a clumsy back-up system which could enable the pilot to limp back to base.

In the P-38, there was a switch for each propeller to manually increase & decrease the pitch (rather than using the propeller levers to set the desired RPM for the governor to maintain via automatically adjusting the pitch). The pre-takeoff run-up check in the P-38 involved using these switches. However, I'm unaware of such a switch in the P-51D. (I'll feel very silly if there is.)

Mm, yes. And the Luftwaffe was having some awful range problems by the time the P-51D came along, too. I recall the Me 109E could barely reach England on a full tank, and that was before Germany lost the forward bases in France and started to run into supply shortages. Later 109s and the FW 190 didn't have much more range than the Emil, right? All things taken into consideration, I think it would have been uncommon for P-51s to see combat on a full tank of fuel--but perhaps not unheard of. It isn't only theoretical; some of us DCS simmers have been doing multiplayer flightsims since the 1990s or earlier, and many of us know quite a bit about real-life ACM as well. One shouldn't assume that reading a few hours of whatever and playing IL-2 lets one know all about real Second World War air combat. The subject is vast and varied, and you can spend thousands of hours researching it without having really done it justice.

That was my first thought also, but remember drop tanks!

Heh--I'm betting GGTharos would knock him out of the sky in under a minute. I'd like to watch!

ROFL just ... wow. I can't take this discussion seriously anymore : D