Flying without wings?

[Andurula]

I am not sure if damage modeling is more of an ED controlled thing or something AvioDev is responsible for but I have managed to blow both of my own wings off several times now and still remain in control the aircraft.

 

I have been exploring Mk82 dive bombing profiles in the C-101.  Despite the dive tables in the Chuck's Guide manuals showing release altitudes down to 500 feet, I find sometimes when I release around 1000 feet agl or lower I take blast damage from my own Mk82's.

 

The most common damage I receive is both wings get removed with flames coming out of the stubs.  Oddly, while I do lose aileron control, I can control the bank just fine with the rudder.  I get no warning indications on the annunciator panel and no sense that the aircraft is in distress.  My cruise speed actually increases so I guess the model is accounting for the reduced drag. Under these conditions I have managed to continue flying for over ten minutes before returning to an airport and performing a sucessful landing.

 

Seems like an awfully blatant bug to have not been reported but I haven't seen it anywhere. Unfortunately, the track files don't replicate the same result and I haven't had the video player running in the background to get a good record of the incident when it happens   If it is useful I could get a live recording of the bug.

Edited January 18, 2021 by Andurula

[Vincent90]

There are a couple of different tables in Chuck’s Guide, which one do you use? Could you upload a video or Tacview of it?

 I’ve tried to verify it, but didn’t succeed. I’ve done the following tables from chuck’s guide: (All attempts were done twice to get some form of variability out of the equation without going overboard). All tests were done by dropping 2 mk82’s at the same time.
- 250 kts, 500 ft, -20⁰
- 280 kts, 500 ft, -20⁰ (outside of guide scope)
- 300 kts, 500 ft, -20⁰

- 250 kts, 500 ft, -30⁰
- 300 kts, 500 ft, -30⁰

I also did a 130 kts, 100-150 feet shallow run, just to check the damage model and if I could continue flying with the wings gone. I did indeed get hit by the 82’s and lost the wings, but the plane crashed as well.

[Andurula]

Thanks for the reply.

 

Happened to me again today except this time it happened when dropping practice bombs so I stand corrected that it is not blast damage that is causing the issue.

 

I had practice bombs on the inner pylons and regular Mk82's on the outer pylons so I believe I am overstressing the wings on the pullout. 

 

I just reviewed the Tacview and it shows the aircraft being destroyed when the wings come off but continues recording ... nothing for another fifteen minutes while I flew back and landed.  i wish I had the video just prior because the tacview file shows an IAS of 386kts just prior to breakup.  Losing the wings at 386kts seems like something that should happen. Typyically, I begin my pullout around 325kts so not quite sure why the increased speed on the last run but I was adjusting parameters to tweak my bombing profile.

 

 

I think the bug is that client doesn't recognize the aircraft has been destroyed and keeps on going.  Both the track file and  tacview file thinks the aircraft was destroyed.  I am putting together a video file today and will upload it "soon".

Tacview-20210120-102345-DCS-Iron_Bombing_Range_V21 (2).zip.acmi

Edited January 20, 2021 by Andurula

[Andurula]

And a quick video of what happens after the wings are ripped off.

 

https://youtu.be/AZiNFXfvvVc

 

To confirm, it is the wings coming off due to excessive forces on pullup.  I can reproduce 10 out of 10 times.  Load 4 Mk82's on pylons, roll into 30 degree dive, accelerate to 350kts, pull up sharply, (not sharp enough = no joy, pull up too sharp = you blackout and wake up to a spin) enjoy the ride.  Last month I would usually feel a little "bump" and then look around to find my wings were gone.  While trying to reproduce the last two days, the wings are departing about a second apart putting the aircraft into a wild yawing action.  You can then straighten out with rudders and fly home without wings.

 

Edited January 22, 2021 by Andurula

[Vibora]

You are flying with partialy missing wings. There is still some lift and other forces acting, taking into account the changes in lift surfaces, all of it calculated based on flight mechanics. The issue is that, the chances to have a totally symmetrical brake of both wings IRL, would be almost zero. There should be random moments and forces acting when both wings are teared off. We'll investigate why they are missing, at least in CC, according to your report. Thank you.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Vibora

[Madfish]

I'm having a hard time seeing sustainable lift happening with that surface and especially at the bank angle visible in the video. It's also not just limited to the C-101 - other planes have the same thing happening. e.g. mirage with ripped off delta wings.

I for one am super glad this is still visible to players and not hidden under those random moments mentioned since we don't have a lot of (any) debugging tools on our hands as players to actually display lift in a meaningful way like in other simulators. So there's no way to simply sanity check the FM.
Would be interesting if an engineer could pull off a fluid dynamics simulation on this.

[Andurula]

"You are flying with partialy missing wings. There is still some lift and other forces acting, taking into account the changes in lift surfaces"

 

 

I think it is fair to say that the modeling in DCS is complicated and sometimes these things happen in a simulation designed to run on consumer grade computers. 

 

Edited January 30, 2021 by Andurula

[Vibora]

There is definetely something wrong. We are working on it. Thanks again for your report.