Two areas of discussion in the IL-2 community over the last several months are surrounding the issues of spotting and G-force modeling and if the sim is doing the right thing about each of them. A discussion last week has resulted in polling this week by the team to determine what the community response is. Here’s your chance to weigh in!
Community feedback
Although I don’t think a poll necessarily captures all of the possible nuances of these discussion, I think at this point it does give the developers a sense of the overall temperature of the community on these sometimes difficult debates.
Here are links to the two polls in question:
- G-resistance of the virtual pilot – opinions and discussion
- Airplanes visibility issue – pool after discussion
The more voices added to the polls the better I think we’ll see a consensus within the community.
Check them out and see for yourself!
Stormbirds 
The comments regarding negative g and ‘flip-flapping’ to me are the most interesting. I fail to recall a single pilot account that mentions such wild behaviour as it is both massively uncomfortable and tactically marginal.
I applaud the open discussion enacted by the developers, but it also might require an examination of energy lost by the aircraft during such wild stick inputs: doing this kind of thing should make any fighter decelerate and difficult to control.
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You mean the discussion about stirring the stick and doing some negative G pushes? I suspect that may not be so much of a physics/flight modeling thing as it is a human consideration. If I were a real world pilot I may have lost my lunch doing a few of these moves but our virtual pilot eats low fat 1’s and 0’s and seems fine with it 🙂
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Yep, that kind of thing. Unloading at 0 g is a good idea when being pursued, but I am sure you have seen online the rapid full back / forward stick with rudder and huge bunting that pilots simply do not do – at least, I have never read of anyone doing. You would lose your lunch and the aircraft would drop energy tremendously. Which is not good. But it remains a standard online evasive manoeuvre.
I would keep the g / pilot impact setting as it is as a way to mitigate against the benefits of armchair flying.
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I wonder if the solution there is less in a flight model change (assuming its otherwise accurate) and more in the pilot physiology.
A video I’m going to post shows me having an intense battle with multiple aircraft. I managed to shoot three down but the fourth got me because my pilot was fatigued and the vision had gone blurry (I also relaxed a bit).
A bit more fatigue from doing a bunting maneuver may keep it tactically relevant and realistically possible while offering up an incentive not to do it.
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I’ve flown fast movers and used a g-suit (“fast pants”) and find the g-effect and the g-suits (technically, “anti-g suits”) to be realistic. I’ve done hard acrobatics with and without g-suits and my only beef with the BoX effect is that in real life with positive g you gray out, get tunnel vision, then lose vision, then go unconscious. It’s all due to lowered blood pressure in the eyeball (intraocular pressure).
There should be a phase between gray out and loss of vision (black out, not unconsciousness) where you get tunnel vision as if you’re looking at the world through a cardboard toilet paper roll. It’s a very distinctive effect. There is also a phase where vision is lost yet you’re conscious (this doesn’t seem to be in BoX?) and you should be able to manipulate the aircraft without being able to see.
Also, especially with 9AF P-47 pilots operating during the winter in France and Belgium, these guys were cold and tired and lacked sleep. Thus, they, like overworked pilots of their opponents and Allies, were not at peak physical condition, physically and mentally. Note pilot narratives of unheated tents, waking with your canteen frozen solid, and when they get leave they remark how exhausted and in need of rest they are. This reduces resistance to g effects.
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My IL2 forum topic on a/c spotting:
I’ve flown fast movers to canvas-covered Cubs and Champs. It’s far easier for the experienced eye to see a/c moving against the background terrain and sky in real life than it is in BoX. Nuggets see very little but with experience you see other a/c everywhere. With the Mark 1 eyeball (unlike VR) you catch movement better with your peripheral vision rather than in the center of the visual acuity in the middle of the retina. You constantly scan in pie-shaped sections, stopping at 1, 2, 3 o’clock, etc., rather than sweeping in smooth, uninterrupted fashion.
I find aircraft unrealistically hard to pick up with VR and wish there were improvement. Flat screens are better but I won’t fly without VR for the immersion.
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Thanks for notifying us of the two polls. Both are relevant to every flight and both are of keen interest to us all. I’d have missed these were it not for you. Great blog, check your posts every day.
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Hey Stephen! Thanks for your comments on this and sharing your experience on both of these subjects.
Appreciate the kind words on the blog too! Glad to be of service.
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I agree with Stephen about the g effect (though I have never flown anything faster than a Tucano). I am not sure how fast grey should go to tunnel then to black – I will leave that to pilots like himself. The thing that does irritate me is the use of manoeuvres that in real life would not be used – hence the plus / minus pitch that tends to be used.
My view on spotting is the issue between movement (a contact) and wider movement (the landscape through VR). At present there is simply not enough differentiation that captures the automatic focus our eyes / brains have when we detect something.
But I do disagree: this is not a ‘great’ blog – it is the ONLY blog for anyone who loves sims!
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Thank you as always Blue 5 for your thoughts and kind words! It’s great to have regular and thoughtful commenters!
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Hell – you put in the effort. I think – I hope – that most of the Il-2 and DCS forum readers check your site. For my money it is indispensable as a resource.
Though your optimism is irritatingly infectious.
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