Less cartoonish muzzle flashes

[Nealius]

Currently all modules have massive fireball muzzle flashes like Hollywood blanks/CGI and it's a little offputting in a simulator that strives for realism. Especially in the warbirds with their 50cals, 303s, or 8mm. On modern jets as well, the big yellow triangle coming out of the Warthog, Hornet, or Viper just looks silly and doesn't reflect any real-world pictures or videos. 

Edited May 9, 2021 by Nealius

[Tank50us]

I mean....

 

Sometimes reality is quite cartoonish looking....

[Mars Exulte]

*shakes head*

[Nealius]

2 hours ago, Tank50us said:

I mean....

 

Sometimes reality is quite cartoonish looking....

 

Right. All our planes should have massive 120mm tank cannon fireballs. This is not a direct comparison. Show me pictures of a Browning M2, Vulcan M61, or GAU-8 producing a large fireball while firing live rounds.

 

This is as big of a flash as you're going to get:

 

 

 

 

[Tank50us]

Ask and ye shall receive:

granted, it's a DShK, but it it still produced one heck of a flash (likely due to the muzzle break), and here's an A10 firing it's massive cannon:

 

So, yeah, large muzzle flashes are possible, even with smaller caliber weapons compared to a tank gun. It all boils down to a number of factors, including the right kind of camera equipment, air temp, and other things.

[Nealius]

DShK is not an M2, 303, HIspano 20mm, M61, or GAU-8, and therefore irrelevant. The A-10 picture is from test and evaluation before many tweaks and upgrades were performed, I beleive some having to do with the gun's flash/exhaust, not to mention much older powder tech compared to today's reduced-flash propellants. Visible flash is a function of caliber and barrel lenght. The longer the barrel the more burned powder = less/no flash. Ammunition companies also make low-flash propellants these days.

 

 

Edited May 9, 2021 by Nealius

[rkk01]

More modern propellant in the low flash photos?

 

seems to go with the low-vis paint schemes - ie a more recent development 

[Nealius]

1 minute ago, rkk01 said:

More modern propellant in the low flash photos?

 

seems to go with the low-vis paint schemes - ie a more recent development 

 

I believe that is a large factor, yes. Even with visible flashes they are nowhere near our massive yellow triangles that somehow illuminate/reflect off the aircraft's surface in daylight. 

[Dragon1-1]

Viper's gun is faired over pretty well, so it wouldn't have much of a flash even in the 70s. It should probably be more subdued on other aircraft as well.

 

WWII guns might have more of a flash than modern ones because of older propellant.

[Nealius]

Another thing to factor in is that while there sometimes is a flash, it is not going to be on every single shot. The flash is caused by unburned powder, which is going to be caused by either a barrel not long enough to burn all the powder or an ineffeciency in a round's charge. You're going to have a mixed bag of effeciently packed rounds and inefficiently packed rounds. Now consider that most strafing events are photographed with shutter speeds around 1/500 or 1/1000, sometimes capturing the round in-flight. An M61 fires 66~67 rounds per second on the low end. If all 66~67 rounds produced a flash then statistically speaking there would be way more photographs of said flash than there are in actuality. 

Edited May 9, 2021 by Nealius

[Tank50us]

20 minutes ago, Nealius said:

Another thing to factor in is that while there sometimes is a flash, it is not going to be on every single shot. The flash is caused by unburned powder, which is going to be caused by either a barrel not long enough to burn all the powder or an ineffeciency in a round's charge. You're going to have a mixed bag of effeciently packed rounds and inefficiently packed rounds. Now consider that most strafing events are photographed with shutter speeds around 1/500 or 1/1000, sometimes capturing the round in-flight. An M61 fires 66~67 rounds per second on the low end. If all 66~67 rounds produced a flash then statistically speaking there would be way more photographs of said flash than there are in actuality. 

 

 

It's also just a core thing of the manufacturing process involved. The rounds are produced in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions per year, and the machines that fill the case with powder typically operate by weight, which means you can get inexact amounts of propellant per case. And given the staggering numbers of rounds produced per year, you're going to get quite a few of them that slip past QC.