I’m a relative newcomer to DCS World and after a flight in a real Spitfire I was anxious to find a completely realistic flight sim. The DCS team are to be congratulated on the realism experienced with the Spitfire, especially now that I have started using it with Oculus Rift. There is always an ‘however’ in this type of message I suppose. I have found that if you ‘bail out’ of the Spitfire, then the rate of descent of the parachute is way too slow. I have a fair amount of experience with both military and civilian type parachutes, both round and square and I have never come down that slowly on any type of parachute. Wartime aircrew parachutes were there simply to save your life and not for sport. They were simple, basic round canopies made of silk and later nylon, and given that they had to fit into the cramped conditions of a cockpit, could not be too large. Early pilots WWII parachutes only measured 22’ / 6.7 metres in diameter and with these you could be guaranteed a fairly rapid descent and landing. Factors such as air density and weight of the pilot would of course affect this, but not by a great deal. Even post-war 28’ / 8.5 metres parachutes (as used by paratroopers), would give you a landing equivalent to jumping off a 2.7 m to 3.6 m wall.
I don’t wish to seem too picky and really would like to think that I’m helping with the realism of the flight sim.
