jocko417

Should be a hex bolt with a couple of plastic bits attached that form a v shaped notch. It's in the quick start guide. You can choose anywhere from 0-15 degrees grip offset (twist) for comfort before tightening the hex bolt.

I'll check it out when I get home. EDIT: Fixed, please DL again ;)

Imacken, do a search for "Dart's Page", he did a lot of entertaining videos about how to do stuff in the old IL-2 series. Under Movies, look for the one on how to use the sight to determine range. He uses some simple rules of thumb based on how the sight works (and Bag the Hun), including how to judge when to open up on soft targets like trucks, given that in aircraft with wing mounted guns, awareness of your convergence distance is imperative for effective strafing.

Didn't Rainer say he'd be processing orders by reverse alphabetical order? Ohh, sorry aaron, this is a bit awkward... J/K :D

Ok... how far to place pipper ahead of target = sine of angle off of target x target airspeed. So, with a "100 mph ring", a 100 mph target at 90 degrees to your flight path (sine of 90 = 1) equals 1 x 100 which equals one ring. Fire when the target's nose touches the ring as he passes in front of you. Sight was designed in the early 1930s, bombers weren't all that quick then, and the powers that be/were decreed that bombers only flew in a straight line and never took evasive action, which may have been true for bombers in formation relying on massed defensive fire, but not for stragglers trying to escape... anyway, that's the base theory, now here's a more realistic example ;) Target is a 109 doing 300 mph. He's 30 degrees angle off. Sine of 30 degrees is .5, 300 x .5 = 150. Put the pipper so that it's along his flight path, 1 and 1/2 ring's worth ahead of him. Or: Sun at your back, you're diving on a 190 climbing out at 200 mph, 45 deg off. Sine of 45 deg is .7, 70% of 200 is 140. So lead your target by "1.4 rings" worth and open fire just before his wings get as big as the gap between the sight bars :) In practice it works, but only when targets hold still. In a furball with rapidly changing airspeeds and angles a whole lot of "Kentucky windage" comes into play. And get close enough that you couldn't miss if you wanted to ;) Edit: I should add, it's beneficial to memorize the following: 0 = 0 15 = .25 30 = .5 45 = .7 60 = .85 75-90 = 1(ish) I still use these values to calculate crosswind component on the fly (pardon the pun), a 20 kt wind at 45 deg off the runway is a 14 knot crosswind component, etc. So, with those values memorized, after you determine your target's angle off and airspeed just times his speed by the appropriate value. Imagine a snap shot at a 109 passing in front of you at 300 mph... 3 rings! A lot of leading, and some would say a waste of time as he's gone in a flash. But if you fire at the right time and range, one cannon shell in the cockpit can end the fight :)

I have some notes about the geometry and the basic mental math required, I'll dig them up when I get home :) If memory serves, the sight was designed (as most of the tactics were) based on shooting at bombers, most of which were quite slow in the 1930s... so that a target flying at 100 mph, crossing your nose at 90 deg deflection, would be placed at the ring in order to get a hit. The formula you have to do in your head includes target speed and angle off and the answer is indeed expressed in fractions of sight radius (.75 of a ring, ring and a half, etc). Remember bullet drop and g loading are not accounted for. Very few new pilots really knew how to use the sight properly at the beginning of the war (old salts may have been through gunnery school). Throw in a target that is maneuvering and the low destructive power of .303s at anywhere but close range and it's a wonder the RAF shot anything down during the Battle of Britain ;)

The range bars are indeed for judging range to a identified target, based on the gunsight settings you've described above. The ring is used for deflection shooting... judging where to put the pipper ahead of a moving target so the bullets will hit him. This is very much simplified in Bag the Hun, the real math is a little harder to do as it must also take into account any speed difference between the shooter and the target.

The Directional Gyro or Heading Indicator is NOT a primary flight instrument. The compass is primary, the gyro simply makes it easier to monitor heading while accelerating/decelerating and during turns, but it must be reset to the compass heading often, especially after violent maneuvers... this is a museum piece after all :D When talking about the Spit and other "less than modern aircraft" examples, one must realize there are only two primary flight instruments... The eyeballs, and the cheeks of the arse... and the latter isn't very precise because It's a SIM, not real life :D

In that case, It's not helpful. But never fear, you have other instruments you can rely on in the cloud... There's an archaic term that was still floating around when I learned to fly (when the earth was still cooling...): Needle-Ball-Airspeed Meaning, you have a way to tell if you are wings level and you can monitor your turns with the Turn and Slip indicator, the up and down arrows thingie at the lower right of the panel. One arrow shows a bank left or right as long as you are flying coordinated (the other arrow, or ball in non-British types) You can also tell if you are climbing or descending by watching your airspeed. At a constant power setting, an increasing airspeed means you are descending and a decreasing airspeed means you are climbing. Put them together with the compass and altimeter and you can do anything. The old instructor's trick of "failing" the artificial horizon by putting a suction cup over it was always questionable to me (even when I was the instructor), because a failure in real life could be far more insidious than a suction cup, and more distracting as the failed instrument remains uncovered and must be ignored by the pilot during his instrument scan. Have fun...

For interest, a Canadian T-33 costs approximately 3000 Canadian dollars per hour to operate, that's one Rolls Royce Nene engine vs. two afterburning J85s, not to mention spare parts. Hawk One, a Canadair Sabre based in Quebec, Canada, has sadly been put up for sale due to high operating costs. The mind boggles at the defense spending of the Cold War era when we had 12 squadrons of Sabres overseas and another 12 twin engined jet interceptors based at home...

The Spit, like the P-51 and F-86, are day fighter/interceptors with very limited instrument flying capabilities. The gyro instruments are really to assist you when climbing and descending through cloud to get to visual conditions above or below. We're talking 1930s technology here, light years from the information the average light aircraft is capable of providing these days thanks to electronic nav gear. The Spit and Hurri were pure interceptors, they were point defense aircraft that were never designed to do anything but scramble, shoot down bombers, and land again, very short range aircraft. Tooling around in the weather was an occupational hazard, if you read Geoff Wellum's excellent book First Light, he describes a lone bomber intercept in horrible weather and scud running home afterwards that will have you on the edge of your seat when you realise just how scary it would have been to fly these aircraft in poor weather. All in a day's work for a 19 year old in 1940!

Very, very nice :)

Skin updated to take advantage of new code letters/serial numbering: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3108021&postcount=16

Generic Day Fighter livery updated Redid the description.lua and the serial number characters for my Generic Spit skin so the new Tail # assignments should work in the mission builder now. You can populate the code letters and serials by typing a 3 digit code followed by a 5 digit serial, with no spaces in between. In the example below I typed hcgmh831 into the Tail # space in the mission builder... Spitfire Mk.IX MH831, coded HC-G, flown by W/C Hugh Godefroy of Toronto, Ontario, late 1943. You can DL the updated generic Spit skin here: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/2268383/ In future I may create different serial characters to match the different fonts used. At the moment the serials are based on the "standard" font used by the RAF. I might add the squared off stencil style font seen on many Spits (see my Beurling skin for an example).

Hi! Yeah, I think the code/serial assignment is still a WIP at the moment... I'm planning a few different liveries, some pilot specific, some generic for mission builders, etc. It's a lovely model to skin, and yes, I still wake up some nights in a cold sweat thinking about the rear fuse mapping on the IL-2 Spit V and IX :cry: I'm taking my time adding various effect/weathering layers to my template right now, won't be really hitting the high gears until we get an official template from ED. As stated earlier I'll probably stick to RCAF schemes initially as this will be a very popular aircraft with skinners of all nationalites.

Have been on the road, will check it out when I can :) TBear is already working on an invasion stripes blank skin so he can take it from here ;)

I'll see what I can do.

Nice work! :)

Yeah, right now it looks like glossy aluminum paint ;) Once we get a real template I'll start adding more bare metal effects but right now I'm just getting different layers ready :)

Haven't decided which unit yet, W.I.P:

Squeaky wheels get greased? :smilewink:

I may have DL'd some Russian Mil fonts from Simmers' Paintshop before it shut down for good. Let me check when I get home.

Lol, nice... Bump for the template :)

There can be just as much rivet counting, etc, in making liveries :) (BTW, ED, I think there's too many cam lock fasteners along the aft edge of the upper cowling. Should be 7 for a late war Mk.IX I think) :music_whistling: No, I'm serious. And you may want to check the orientation of the slot in the cam locks when they are locked. :D

"Pistol Packin' Momma", MJ959, flown by Ed 'Lucky' Likeness, 412 "Falcon" Sqn, RCAF... Likeness wasn't a Sergeant, he was a Flight Lieutenant, but I haven't gotten around to officer rank on the pilot figure yet :) That song actually made a come back of sorts, if you played Fallout 4 :)