milestone

[Gurkesaft]

I actually put a bullet into someone's wing today. It made a spark, and for a moment I bet he wondered if I was a real pilot. But just for a moment.

Then I ran out of guns, crash landed, and got strafed by about 3 other fighters, likely including Mr. Holewing.



Jack

[:FI:Falcon]

Good job mate!

That sounds like my experience the first year or three I play'd this thing, but last month I put TWO holes in someone's wing and I DIDN'T crash land.

Keep up the practice and remember, we do carriers on Sundays!

Ak!


Falcon

[:FI:Genosse]

I actually put a bullet into someone's wing today. It made a spark, and for a moment I bet he wondered if I was a real pilot. But just for a moment.

Then I ran out of guns, crash landed, and got strafed by about 3 other fighters, likely including Mr. Holewing.



Jack

Now you now how it feels to be a Fighting Irish! Well, ... you just need to stand up and get a bloody nose beaten again ... u c ... as long as you stand up at every time ...

You´re almost in, m8! Meet us on next Sunday ...

[Badger]

Top Job!!

Come on - will we see you Sunday?

[:FI:Scott]

Good one Gurkesaft,

Sounds like a pretty accurate description of my ongoing flying career. Try us on Sundays and I will show you how to really crash with style.

[Gurkesaft]

Heh--I wager I'm going to fly with you whenever I can make it *regardless* of whether I get in or not .

The whole process is enjoyable, from chasing and shooting at someone to watching a really good pilot flip around in front of me and make me look stupid (though I'm sure if it happens enough this part will move from awe-inspiring to obnoxious)

After posting this, I also got a bullet or two into someone's smoke generator (why do they install those on airplanes?) and chased him into a spin. At first I thought "HAHAHA WOW. How can he spin his plane around so quickly!?" and then a few silent moments later, "Ooooooooh, that's embarrassing." He break-danced all the way to the ocean. I thought that only happened to me, but then...whoever got one of MY bullets in them...

The other guys online get behind people, unload on them, and they just EXPLODE. That's crazy. They do it over and over!

[:FI:WillieOFS]

YEAH!! What Gen said!!

Keep smashing their fist with your face!! They'll give up eventually.

[:FI:Fenian]

Mr. Holewing went down to the cobblers to have his hole seen to (didn't say that, did I?)... and apparently it was burning and quite red, as you said.

Good job old bean!

You already scare me!!!



Mr. Falcon... release the Ferrets!!!!!!

[Gurkesaft]

cool. Took off and landed on a still aircraft carrier Is it me or is it way easier to take off and land on a carrier instead of those crazy dirt roads!?

In an unrelated topic, you guys all use TrackIR I assume. I use cam2pan, but it's similar. Do you all have the same problem I do, where when you look up, you hit that singularity straight above you and looking up ceases to do anything? Is the axis of head rotation fixed or can it be edited somehow?

Ideally, the axis would rotate backwards when you look up. Guess we can't have it all!

Man. I can put my dot on some dude flying straight at 0.5 distance, and just unload all my bullets with no effect. Do I have to be closer? Is 0.5 = 500m?

-Jack

[:FI:Nellip]

Man. I can put my dot on some dude flying straight at 0.5 distance, and just unload all my bullets with no effect. Do I have to be closer? Is 0.5 = 500m?

-Jack

Jack

You need to be a LOT closer. You also need to think about what you cannon and machine gun convergence settings are set to.

For maximum effect you open fire at the distance that your gun convergence is set to so that streams of bullets meet on the target. Too far and the paths of bullets will have "crossed" and although your gunsight may be centred on the target, no bullets will be going through this path. This is particularly true for planes with wing mounted guns - planes with guns on the centreline like the P38 don't have such an issue.

Most online "aces" - not me by the way - have their convergence set to between 150 and 250m and will try and close to this sort of distance before opening fire. You will start getting kills when the target fills all of your gunsight.

Obviously you also need to think about leading your target for deflection shooting?

Apologies if this insults your intelligence and experience? Just trying to be helpful.

If all else fails you can also try being a "mudmover" like me - I prefer ground targets because they don't move much

[Gurkesaft]

I appreciate any help I can get, regardless of how stupid accepting it makes me look

The default convergence is 500m, so I had been trying to use that as the sweetspot. Yesterday I switched it to 200m, but then I got my ass pounded by some invisible source of bullets over and over and gave up for the evening. Didn't get close to (or see) anyone.

[:FI:Scott]

Sounds like you are getting bounced from above. Day in day out I got (and frequently still do) clobbered by this tactic. Someone is way up above you and when they see you latched onto a target they are dropping down 2-3 thousand meters onto you and by the time you realise it you are dead.

Two things help, firstly eyes on stalks, never stop looking around you, above you and below you (yes, some pilots preffered tactic is to sneak in beneath you and rip you up from underneath) the second is to get some height yourself. This gives you more chance of spotting the baalambs in the first place so you can engage on equal terms and being able to translate that height rapidly into speed if you need to hoof out of it. It will also give you the chance of doing a bit of killing of your own.

I think Gadje posted some tracks a while ago and they show very well what Im talking about. I may have them at home if you cant find them.

[Gurkesaft]

Sounds about right. I had tried following someone on my team, but he basically just kept climbing and climbing. SO boring, so I broke off.

On this topic- When I play missions with the computer, I can never keep up with the leader! How do they go so fast and keep pulling away? I've tried diving to catch up, changing my wings, overheating my engine. Nothing seems to give me the speed boost.

Yes, my gear is up. :P

[:FI:Sneaky_Russian]

Sounds about right. I had tried following someone on my team, but he basically just kept climbing and climbing. SO boring, so I broke off.

On this topic- When I play missions with the computer, I can never keep up with the leader! How do they go so fast and keep pulling away? I've tried diving to catch up, changing my wings, overheating my engine. Nothing seems to give me the speed boost.

Yes, my gear is up. :P

1) Dont climb so hard.
2) Use Autopilot to catch up.

Always a problem online (more so) - Lesson 1 in "lag pursuit".

RE: convergence

I tried the "Real World" 200-250 m. convergence but have gone back to
750/500 m . My reasoning being that in-game @ 200m its hard to miss even with the longer settings, if you have problems keeping up 200 m gives a lot wider angle of spread than 750 .

[:FI:Falcon]

1. Climb at best rate-of-climb speed. That varies between aircraft, but it is usually somewhere between 140-160 knots.

2. Keep the "ball" in the center. While climbing, turning, descending, etc keep an eye on the turn-and-slip indicator. It's usually a lozenge shaped tube with a wee black ball sliding back and forth inside. the ball is your tail and the center graduations are kinna your nose. To move through the air efficiently you need your tail following your nose with as little slipping sideways as possible. If the ball is sliding to the right side of the indicator,

I I 0

step on the right rudder,

(left ... left rudder) until it is sitting inside the two graduations.

I 0 I

3. Supercharger stages. As you climb the air gets thinner. Super chargers and other similar gizmos force more air into the engine. Stage one is for down low; stage two is for a wee bit higher and stage three is highest. This also varies between ac. Look in the book for the altitudes or learn to watch the manifold gauge.


Well ... that's three biggies. Prop pitch full forward, trim, cowl flap setting and other things can effect speed too.


Falcon