airdoc

Disappointing news. Something obviously went awfully bad with this project. I expected a 6 month delay for DCS WW2 but now it appears that we will have about a year of delay, and associated additional risks about its full completion. Even though Wags says that what happened is not open to discussion, I think that the people who paid for all this are entitled to some kind of explanation. This project was crowd-funded. Maybe some time later, after things have cooled off, but we definitely need an explanation by Luthier and an official post by ED about at least some of the major reasons for this.

Just saw this thread. Popped in to say γεια to fellow simmers from Greece Nice work, keep it up!

Nice promo DR. :) a suggestion to the moderators : if this thread is to work as a directory for Squadrons interested in DCS WW2, then it should only hold squadron posts (no commenting posts, etc) otherwise it will get difficult to skim through. Alternatively, it could be transformed into a thread with subthreads, each one named after the squadron, allowing people to comment to the relevant subthreads. feel free to delete my post

Hi all, I 've been trying to shoot some footage with the P51 and I 've been experimenting with the various camera features. My difficulty is that i 'm trying to place an external camera on the fuselage of the P51 so as to take various shots (tail, wing, etc), but the Shift+F4 camera seems to be attached at the wing root, and only rotates from that point. LAlt+F2 doesnt work on de-anchoring it from that point. I tried the F2 camera, along with the LAlt+F2 feature, but the problem here is that this camera cannot move that close to the aircraft fuselage. There seems to be a limit that prohibits it from being placed adjacent to i.e. a wing (i mean really close). Same applies for Ctrl+F11 camera. Although i search the forum, i haven't found a way around this yet. The answer would be to either re-position the Shift+F4 camera or to "un-lift" the minimum distance limit for the F2 camera through .lua files (and if possible create the relative custom views). Any help is appreciated cheers

Hi all, I 'm trying to set up a P51vs190 scenario at 30000ft. I 've found however that the AI very quickly dive to a lower altitude during the dogfight and I 'd like to program the Doras to stay high (say above 25000 feet). Is there any way to do it in DCS with the mission editor or the .lua files? thanks

yep, and even if they do model it (hopefully we 'll also eventually have wake turbulence), they 'll need to implement a gyroscopic-driven AFM for the V1. IIRC, it was the disturbance in the gyroscope that caused the V1s to flip and dive and not the mere force of the mechanical "push" by the aircraft's wing.

Mossie and Tempest : the fastest aircraft in the whole array of WW2 planes for 3 years (or is it 4?) and a serious ground strafer that could at the same time dogfight 190s and 109s on almost equal terms (sorry P47 and IL-2 lovers).

Vlerkies, i think that you 'll get the keys once the reward system is tested and finalised. I believe that it's now in beta, according to the latest post in KS from ilya.

Quite right, LOL!:lol:

Nice to see that project backers finally got a home place. :)

:)

Hi Buster_dee, I 've known Monguse for sometime through our online meetings in Battle-fields.com, and would like to get to know you as well. I truly feel that the work you 've done for the upcoming B24D is outstanding, but i didn't want to use this word before it was released. IL2 fans will figure it out on their own soon enough, as well as the other remarkable changes regarding bombardier station autopilot, etc. I specifically used the phrase "not at DCS level" instead of "not at DCS standard" because i was referring to the differences in the whole modelling process implemented at DCS, relative to virtually every other sim available. And this comparison was not in any way meant to downgrade the quality of your work, but rather to make a point about the amount of additional work hours that would be needed if one was to model the function of every internal system and make every switch and button clickable in a heavy bomber cockpit. Maybe i should have expressed myself in a different way about this. All i can say is that i highly appreciate your work in the B24D, and that the flight sim community will surely be grateful for what you 've done once they get to see it. cheers

Thanks for sharing the B24 IL2 1946 preview video. I 've discussed about this project with one of the two people who developed this aircraft. It took them 2 years to finish it. And although this is top quality work for IL2, it is not DCS-level. So, you can imagine the insane amount of work-hours needed in order to model a heavy bomber. If a DCS-level fighter takes about 6 months to develop, a heavy bomber would take at least a year. Let's hope to see a successful kickstarter for the B17 soon. cheers

Luthier already mentioned during the kickstarter something about moving to the PTO in the future. However, it is highly unlikely that such an expansion will come to life in the near future. It is reasonable to assume that once DCS WWII launches with the late war 6 a/c and Normandy as a theater, the next move will probably be to accomplish some of the kickstarter intended projects that did not get funded (i.e. B17, Normandy map extended to South England, A26 invader, Hawker Typhoon, etc). We still have a very long way to go, and if all goes as planned, i think that the most optimistic projection about a PTO theater would be in 2-3 years from now. So let's just hope that DCS WWII lives up to the expectations and also addresses some of the major issues of this sim first (like multiplayer, lack of dedicated server, visual damage model, etc).

Nice! Thanks for posting this

+1 i hope that DCS WWII team will have a serious look into this

The 3 participants are the actual authors, and are quoted as "experienced observers" in the paper. All underwent visual acuity test by an optometrist. However, you are right in that comparing their eyes to pilot's eyes may introduce a bias. They tried to adjust for this by comparing their results against the results of the earlier study by Howell for the DC-3 (which was done on pilots). As you can see, the results are not very different. There may be a way that these data could be used by the engine, but only the devs could know if the impementation in code is feasible. First off, they provide a data pool for extrapolations that is based on research and not speculation or sporadic pilot accounts. For example, if the current game engine starts drawing the pixel for the P51 at X meters, the data mean that it should start drawing the pixel for the B17 at 3X meters. By referring to the above chart, various aircraft sizes could be initially drawn at the respective distances. Second, developers could adopt the same strategy as the authors did in their paper, in order to test their LODs. You are absolutely right that the game is played at different monitors, with different size, contrast, etc, and also FOV, which introduces great variability in the results. However, the mean matters most when it comes to estimations. So, if a consensus is reached that i.e. a player with normal (standard) FOV should be able to spot a P51 against the sky as a background, at 7-8kms (which comes close to real world data), then a simple mission could be designed to test this : the tester spawns at a static point looking at a specific direction in the sky where the enemy aircraft is coming from and pushes a button as soon as the target is spotted at his rig. The results of many tests and many testers (why not even the whole alpha backers who represent the player pool with vastly different rigs) would give a chart similar to the DC-3 study, which the developers could use in order to adapt their LODs so that the mean threshold range is similar to real world data. This way, they will also get feedback on the degree of variability and which factors affect it the most -i.e. resolution? warm colors? monitor size? graphics settings? Please note that variability is significant even in the real-world study by Howell: if we look at the DC-3 chart, some pilots spotted the aircraft at 13kms, whereas others at 23kms (under the same visual conditions). The results of each tester could be transferred to the devs in a similar way that the 1.2.7. beta did. However, this strategy may be too time consuming for the devs or not feasible at all. It's just a suggestion.

Hi all, The issue of what should be the most realistic aircraft visibility range in a flight sim has been raised before in these forums. There seems to be a paucity of real-world data in this matter and a lot has been left to speculation. A lot of the available evidence comes from very old experimental studies (dating back half a century ago), and then again, this evidence is very hard to find. The multifactorial nature of this problem and the emergence of radar probably played a role in this. Recently, a research paper came to my attention, that was published in PLoS one (a respected scientific journal) addressing this issue. The authors are affiliated with NASA Ames research center, and the results of their work may be of interest to flight simulator development. Their paper is entitled : "Predicting Visibility of Aircraft" and the link can be found here : http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0005594 (access is free). In their work they describe a tool that they have developed, termed Spatial Standard Observer (which they have patented), which incorporates divergent parameters such as aircraft size, shape, lumination, colour, contrast, etc, and predicts various parameters, the most relevant of which -for flight sims- is the threshold range (or threshold distance). The latter is defined as "the largest distance at which an aircraft can be seen" (for the given parameters). Their model predictions are tested against human observer results, setting up an experiment with 3d aircraft images in a monitor. They also compare their results with older data from real-world experiments. Their work highlights the fact that for given atmospheric conditions, threshold range depends largely on contrast (the difference in luminosity between aircraft and background), target size (i.e. wingspan, etc) and spatial frequency of the background (roughly a measure of its complexity). The characteristic of the targets tested are shown in the image below : And the model predictions for these targets (threshold range vs contrast) is depicted in this chart : The authors do note that these results are for specific view and illuminations conditions, and smaller or bigger threshold ranges may arise if these are varied. However, they could prove useful experimental data for a flight sim, in my opinion. According to this chart, the threshold range for an F-16 (wingspan 9.8 meters) is about 5 kilometers at an average level of contrast of 0.50, and reaches 7km at high contrast rate 1.0. A C17 (wingspan 51.7m), should be visible at 20km and 30km at the respective contrasts. Making an extrapolation, a WW2 fighter such as the P51 with 11m wingspan should be visible at slightly higher ranges than the F16, whereas a B17 (wingspan 32m) should be visible at approximately 15-20 kilometers. In this paper there is also another interesting chart from a study in a real-world setting, where pilots where asked to spot a DC-3 (wingspan 29m, close to a B17), coming at different angles in a collision course (this is not in a monitor setup). The threshold distance, over the same conditions, averaged from 17.3 to 23 km. And a final interesting paper referenced in the citations : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title%20Word&term=Contrast%20sensitivity%20predicts%20pilots%27%20performance%20in%20aircraft%20simulators. In an experiment done in pilot instructors in aircraft simulators, their performance in detection of targets was found to be better related to their contrast sensitivity and not their visual acuity. I hope some of you guys find this stuff useful. cheers

great! Do your magic :)

thanks for the reply Yo-Yo. Makes perfect sense. However I do think that there should be some buffeting of the airframe at high speeds with the gear down, although I can't quote any sources for the P51. I 've read about this (which also produces very loud sound) from accounts of modern aircraft pilots who used the gear to slow down. cheers airdoc

I did a quick test with the droptanks. It seems that they cannot be hit by bullets (no explosion or even a bullet whole) and they do not damage other aircraft if they crash onto them. They go right through it. I don't mind the crash thing, but fuel tanks being shot should cause an explosion or fire. By the way, now with DCS WWII on its way, is Yo-Yo monitoring this thread about the P51? Seems like he hasn't posted anything here for a while.

Same here. I 'm on the 100$ matrix tier and have no message from RRG up to now. I presume we are going to be contacted later on.

Hi all, this is a question for Yo-Yo. I observed that one can lower the landing gear at any speed without any significant effect on the airframe. The only difference noted was that the nose pitches down a bit and the speed decreases somewhat. However, after testing this on a dive from high altitude, it seems that the aircraft can reach up to 500mph with it down, without any major effect on maneuverability. I was able to pull 8G's on the zoom turn, and then raise the gear up again. Shouldn't there be at least a vibrating airframe with the gear down at high speeds (and a pretty severe one)? And shouldn't the gear sustain damage at these speeds? In the checkertails documentary, there are pilot accounts of a P51 accidentally dropping the gear during a high speed dive, with a result of the whole airplane being ripped apart : watch from 1:53' onwards. It has shots of the ripped apart P51. thanks

Nice to hear that you are modelling hardcore Yo-Yo. Given that in reality a pilot has a warning about the imminent stall by the buffeting (which he can feel in the stick, in his body by the airframe vibrations, and hear the sound as well), whereas in a sim we lack the haptic feedback for this (except for the guys who use FFB, but they can only feel it in the stick and not in their body), the only real feedback that is left for us is much less. We have the sound of the buffetting and possibly the visual aspect of the vibrating airframe. In the P51 you included the sound of buffeting, but i find it somewhat less loud than what it should be in order to use it as a warning sign.Do you think you could do something about this? Like providing a user option for turning such sounds up? thanks

Absolutely. We should not forget that the Lancs flew in a lot of daylight missions. And they were the heaviest bombers in regards to loadout capacity in the ETO. 20,000 pounds is much more than the 17's 12,000. Plus it had outstanding maneuverability for its size. It could perform a slow roll when empty. But you have to love the 17. And the 24. Hell, all the heavies. Let's hope it makes it sooner than later. I 'll gladly support another kickstarter just for the Fortress. "When the Germans are bombing, allied troops take cover. When the RAF are bombing, German troops take cover. When the Americans are bombing, everybody takes cover" :)