Wing stall and subsequent spin

[Spudman]

So I finally decided to try my hand at the Mustang; for the first few days I just strafed ground targets. I got a little bored with that and wanted to do some air to air, well the problem with that is that I can't pull any real G's without the damn thing wanting to snap roll on me. I understand that this is a problem in the real world, but just like in any sim. that I've ever played, or any game that I've ever played the AI seems to be super human. I've never seen the AI in any game plagued with the problems that us humans have. With that being said, I can't get a bogey in my sights to save my life, I just go into spins. While the AI can pulled unrealistic G's. Any suggestions?

[159th_Viper]

A.I. does not pull unrealistic G's. AI. does however fly properly 100% of the time. You do not, hence the stalls. Do not pull so hard on the stick - the short throw of desktop equipment is a major disadvantage. You can also experiment with curvature settings to help somewhat, although this obviously does have its disadvantages.

[Yo-Yo]

So I finally decided to try my hand at the Mustang; for the first few days I just strafed ground targets. I got a little bored with that and wanted to do some air to air, well the problem with that is that I can't pull any real G's without the damn thing wanting to snap roll on me. I understand that this is a problem in the real world, but just like in any sim. that I've ever played, or any game that I've ever played the AI seems to be super human. I've never seen the AI in any game plagued with the problems that us humans have. With that being said, I can't get a bogey in my sights to save my life, I just go into spins. While the AI can pulled unrealistic G's. Any suggestions?

 

Anyway, trying to keep the opponent always in the sight you have to pull more G's than AI. It's the price you pay for the pursuit curve tactics. Instead, try to use lag pursuit. Acting this way you save he energy that is essential and gain it as you perform lazy pursuit having less G's than your opponent.

Track it rather with view control than having always at the windshield.

 

The feeling you will get training is the feeling of the "edge". Try not to pull hard and fast - watch pre-stall buffeting. It's very important to keeep the plane near stall but not further.

[Exorcet]

The AI has a couple of "cheats" but g isn't one. Getting used to the P-51 envelope takes time. The lack of an AoA indicator can be frustrating, but after a while I found myself using the g meter to gauge when I was getting close to stall, and I also became sensitive to the screen shake from buffeting. Just flying should get around stall.

 

For aiming, I can't help you much. It's all that's keeping me from regularly downing the AI.

[Eponsky_bot]

Any suggestions?

 

just give yourself some time

 

[gavagai]

Anyway, trying to keep the opponent always in the sight you have to pull more G's than AI. It's the price you pay for the pursuit curve tactics. Instead, try to use lag pursuit. Acting this way you save he energy that is essential and gain it as you perform lazy pursuit having less G's than your opponent.

 

I remember reading that the number 1 mistake of new combat pilots is always trying to fly at their adversary instead of to a point behind him.

[NineLine]

"You must unlearn what you have learned"

 

I know I carried over many bad habits from previous games such as IL2 and the likes. The P-51 doesn't let you get away with anything, it depends time and practice, someone recommend flying alone just to see what the plane is capable of and what it isn't, I agree... I do that as well...

[Spudman]

IL-2, exactly. I still have that sim on my machine and its almost a decade old. I could yank and bank in that sim and never worry about real world physics.

[VIMANAMAN]

DCS is truly awesome - the highly detailed flight models are truly exceptional!

 

I watched a documentary the other day about the Battle of Britain and an elderly lady was interviewed, who was a ferry pilot during BOB (referring to Spitfires to be precise) her exact words were 'you only had to breath on the controls...'

 

I love the feeling of, and level of, fine control with this DCS P51 - I'm not getting it right all the time yet but I can see it's pretty much all there, and in reach - it's my skill / level of control that's letting me down. (and I've been flying this for a while).

 

It's practise, practise, practise...

[311Gryphon]

Wow. I guess I'm just going to have to practice. I can barely do a slow turn in this game, I must not be coordinating my turn properly. It feels right but then suddenly I'm in an uncontrollable spin all the way to the ground no matter how high I am.

 

I guess I'll just keep trying.

[Yo-Yo]

Wow. I guess I'm just going to have to practice. I can barely do a slow turn in this game, I must not be coordinating my turn properly. It feels right but then suddenly I'm in an uncontrollable spin all the way to the ground no matter how high I am.

 

I guess I'll just keep trying.

 

Real Mustang has very small necessary stick travel and I can say that the most significant feedback is stick force and g-load. In the DCS you have no g-load feedback but it can be replaced with the plane angular speed during looping and turning regarding its IAS and altitude. If you have FF joystick you will have shaking warnings otherwise you have to watch cockpit shaking as a stall sign.

[Tucano_uy]

Wow. I guess I'm just going to have to practice. I can barely do a slow turn in this game, I must not be coordinating my turn properly. It feels right but then suddenly I'm in an uncontrollable spin all the way to the ground no matter how high I am.

 

I guess I'll just keep trying.

 

 

- Enable "Head movement by G-forces in cockpit" in Options/Misc. That might help you to realize when you are flying in an odd attitude.

 

- If the plane starts to shake, then you're about to stall, ease back pressure on the stick. There is no point to keep pulling to close a circle behind an enemy if you are going to stall.

 

- if you start spinning, center the stick and apply full rudder on the opposite sense of the turn until it stops spinning. Then level wings with the horizon and geeeeently recover with back stick pressure.

 

- Adjust the curves of your joystick if you haven't done it yet. I have a curvature of 10 in the Y axis (pitch) and 15 on the X axis (roll)

 

 

This mustang is a pleasure to fly.

[NineLine]

- Enable "Head movement by G-forces in cockpit" in Options/Misc. That might help you to realize when you are flying in an odd attitude.

 

- If the plane starts to shake, then you're about to stall, ease back pressure on the stick. There is no point to keep pulling to close a circle behind an enemy if you are going to stall.

 

- if you start spinning, center the stick and apply full rudder on the opposite sense of the turn until it stops spinning. Then level wings with the horizon and geeeeently recover with back stick pressure.

 

- Adjust the curves of your joystick if you haven't done it yet. I have a curvature of 10 in the Y axis (pitch) and 15 on the X axis (roll)

 

 

This mustang is a pleasure to fly.

 

 

These are all excellent tips... I cant stress enough about stick input... you cant heave on the stick like you could in other games... it takes some adjustment on your part.

[[DBS]TH0R]

These are all excellent tips... I cant stress enough about stick input... you cant heave on the stick like you could in other games... it takes some adjustment on your part.

 

Seconded. I use curve 10 on pitch and roll, would advise doing the same with rudder. My simpeds have integrated exponential curve that does the job nicely so I left that alone.

 

Difference is night and day.

[Baracuda]

When i start spinning in my P51 i decrease the trottle and center my stick .

This way i always get out of a spin.

 

although everytime when i do a sp mission my stick settings are way more sensitive as it is online.

Online without any changes made regarding to finetuning axis etc my P51 flies just perfect with defauld axis settings!

 

I find it strange this ofline and online behavior of my p51 withouth changes made.

[Foul Ole Ron]

I also added saturation on the pitch axis so that at most I can only pull 70% of the full elevator travel - I don't see any need to be able to pull the full 100% as that's just about always going to result in an instant accelerated stall. I then flattened the curve on the pitch axis to 20 so I have some more leeway to pull the stick around a bit without it getting too twitchy on me. For the aileron axis I flattened the curve to 20 as well but didn't add any saturation - I do want to be able to pull the aileron as far as I can to perform quick rolls if necessary.

[Yo-Yo]

I also added saturation on the pitch axis so that at most I can only pull 70% of the full elevator travel - I don't see any need to be able to pull the full 100% as that's just about always going to result in an instant accelerated stall. I then flattened the curve on the pitch axis to 20 so I have some more leeway to pull the stick around a bit without it getting too twitchy on me. For the aileron axis I flattened the curve to 20 as well but didn't add any saturation - I do want to be able to pull the aileron as far as I can to perform quick rolls if necessary.

 

I bet, nobody never ripped off one half of your elevator... :)

[WildBillKelsoe]

the trick with AI is flaps. Period.

[Foul Ole Ron]

I bet, nobody never ripped off one half of your elevator... :)

 

That is the tradeoff but for 99% of the time when my elevator hasn't been half shot away it helps me to avoid accelerated stalls which in turn helps me to avoid getting my plane shot to bits :) My sticks accuracy isn't the best so the changes make it more controllable and reduces the impact of minor inaccuracies. If I do take serious elevator damage I've found that 70% travel is usually just about enough to allow me to still try and run away and make a landing.

[Echo38]

I also added saturation on the pitch axis so that at most I can only pull 70% of the full elevator travel - I don't see any need to be able to pull the full 100% as that's just about always going to result in an instant accelerated stall.

 

See here:

 

The reason why they make it this way is, having the option of more elevator can only be a good thing, for a trained pilot. You know, "It's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it." If you don't need all the elevator (which is true almost all of the time), then you simply refrain from pulling it all the way. But if you do wind up in a situation where you need to pull full elevator, well, then you have it, because the engineers gave it to you. One example of a situation where full elevator might be needed is when deliberately stalling the airplane, or during spin recovery. In a flat spin, it may help certain aircraft under certain circumstances to pump the stick fully forward and backward in time with the revolutions. The principle is similar to that of the F-16's deep stall recovery procedure, I believe; it's sort of like how a child on a swing gradually rocks back and forth, with his motion increasing each time.

 

Those aren't the only circumstances in which you might want full elevator, either. Yo-Yo mentioned another. Taxiing, too. There are probably others. I think it's foolish to reduce your maximum potential effectiveness to try to make it easier to reach that lowered max potential; it isn't even good for learning, because you're teaching yourself a bad habit. But, it's your training, not mine--I'm letting you know that you're Doing It Wrong, and explaining why, but I'm not going to try to convince you to correct it.

[Echo38]

the trick with AI is flaps. Period.

 

This is true--using flaps will make the A.I. easier to defeat, because his programming does not allow him to use flaps himself. However, I'm not sure that handicapping your opponent makes for good training; if you're used to having an unfair advantage over your opponent, you're going to be in for a surprise when you meet a human player who has the same advantage.

[Foul Ole Ron]

Those aren't the only circumstances in which you might want full elevator, either. Yo-Yo mentioned another. Taxiing, too. There are probably others. I think it's foolish to reduce your maximum potential effectiveness to try to make it easier to reach that lowered max potential; it isn't even good for learning, because you're teaching yourself a bad habit. But, it's your training, not mine--I'm letting you know that you're Doing It Wrong, and explaining why, but I'm not going to try to convince you to correct it.

 

It's not to make it easier to reach the max lowered potential - when combined with the curve set to 20 it lowers the stick sensitivity overall but doesn't result in you hitting the full 100% if you get to the end of the curve where the sensitivity goes up a lot quicker compared to the first flatter section of the curve. I know its "wrong" but our sticks don't have the same sort of travel as the real sticks and my x52-pro just isn't the most accurate stick either. I have leeway now and it works better in practice for me for the vast majority of maneuvers. I know there's times when having full elevator might be nicer to have but as I said I'm willing to forgo those to make the stick travel feel better for me. I haven't come across a situation yet in taxiing or spin recovery where not having full elevator has hindered me and you can spin the airplane just fine pulling 75% (I'd changed it from 70 actually a few days ago) elevator so I'm fine with it.

[Der_Fred]

the trick with AI is flaps. Period.

 

That is one way, but another 'nicer' way is to chase the AI down with speed wrt engine management (CEM).

 

May I suggest learning CEM until it's 'natural', and you'll fly the P51 better than the 'Russian' P51 AI.

 

CEM requires a different type of 'thinking' flying, and the tactics that go with it - practise a bit.. you'll get the hang out it.

[Der_Fred]

I can't pull any real G's without the damn thing wanting to snap roll on me

You're Sooo lucky... I try do that on purpose, and the a/c won't listen to me :-)

[SimHog]

The one thing I found when I first started flying in IL-2 was I had to unlearn each time I decided to fly a new type of plane.

 

In one example I went from Me-109 to Fw-190 and it took me a while to get the right 'mind set' that I wasn't using a turn n' burn aircraft any more but a boom n' zoom type.

 

The Stang is very similar to the Fw, it's not a turn n' burn aircraft, you have to keep your speed high and think about if I try and turn with the AI how much 'energy' am I going to use and what will the benefit be. It's always about effort (energy) vs reward (firing solution) in my opinion.

Edited May 7, 2013 by CoderX71