posted 03-14- 08:39 AM               

As far as the B17 wings, I would guess that iff you snapped off the wing tip nice and clean the plane would still fly. I would also guess that in reality there is a very low likelyhood of getting such a clean break. DM is in the works that may allow us to more effectivly update aerodynamics when parts get broken. Right now the only flight changes to the B17 when it looses the wing tip is that 1) the aerodynamics of the wing tip are no longer attached to the B17, 2) The weight and momentum of the wing tip is no longer connected to the B17.

Oh, also I would guess that the remaining inner wing may be very weakened, hopefully we will be able to do this to

------------------
-Sv =FC=

WWI in SDOE!

posted 03-14- 09:56 AM               

I had to keep the joystick right of center as the plane would turn toward the damaged wing. Moving the joystick left would bring on a violent roll.

Managed to get back to the airfield and land, but I thought it was cool that it handled like that.

Way to go LK.

posted 03-14- 10:06 AM               

TS

posted 03-14- 10:58 AM               

What I found with the Corsair was that, if I gave the outer wings ("wingtips" in OP-speak) their proper area, at high speed, they set up an excessive vibration or "flapping" motion. If I left them at the same "strength" as other planes, the wings would simply rip off at 425 mph or so, far slower than the max speed possible in the Corsair, which could flirt with the Mach in a dive and probably live to tell the tale.

Conversely, if I strengthened the wings significantly (look at the Typhoon DOFs for the wings and compare them to the same DOFs on the Mustang to see a "beefed up" wing) I would get what I call "the Hummingbird effect"--the wings would rapidly vibrate and flap, stay attached, and actually INCREASE speed, even in a CLIMB! When last seen, the Hummingbird Hog was accelerating through about 700 mph, climbing through 15000 feet, and shaking like a sumbitch!

I thought that was probably a bit too much to expect guys to swallow so I began "shrinking" the wingtips. When I got to about 2/3 of their actual size, the airplane would remain stable until 550 mph or so at low level (although you have to start pretty high up to get to that speed down low). The wings will still do the flapping thing, but only at around 580, and at low level, the tail will come off before that, so the "hummingbird effect" is hidden.

Long story to illustrate a small point: the sim appears to expect the "wingtips" to be smaller than the "wings" in area. So that means when you lose a wingtip (which may LOOK like a large part of the wing) you don't lose all that much of the overall lift, and you may still be able to fly using rudder and a lot of aileron. The smaller the wingtips are, the more likely you can fly without one, and the more likely you can fly the plane fairly easily with BOTH wingtips missing, using just the rudder, because all you need is sufficient speed to generate lift with the inner "stubs" of your wings.

I would think that this is something we could solve for the WWI planes, since they don't need to be able to fly at 450 mph, but for the "heavy iron," being able to fly at 100 mph and also transsonic is somewhat problematic IMO.

posted 03-14- 11:05 AM               

Have you tried to change the spring max angle or dampening values?

posted 03-14- 11:28 AM               

We had a big discussion about this a couple months ago and a couple months before that I think I'll sit it out this time around

posted 03-14- 11:38 AM               

The spitfires do currently have washout on their wingtips.. the Spit 1a has a huge amount of wing twist compared to the other spits so it's pretty impossible to tip stall. If you look in the README directory that comes with 5.3 you will find a comprehensive list of FM alterations that will likely answer most of your questions.

TS

posted 03-14- 02:25 PM               

Now that's something I didn't think to try. I changed all the DOF parameters, but I only tried moving the DOFs themselves to the exact same point, midway on the wing, rather than moving them to the airPt. I might give that a try. Getting the wing areas back to their proper values seems a worthwhile goal, but only if the proper overall performance can be achieved.

In practice, it's unlikely to lose both wingtips simultaneously, and the Corsair so far is not flyable with one wingtip missing (except maybe by an "ace") but I might do some testing to see how moving the DOFs nearer to the airPt works. Thanks.

posted 03-14- 04:15 PM               

It is a shame that someone can come here and say "Well, maybe Scharmers is right". This only shows their ignorance (but its not their fault). About once a week (or more) someone new comes here - makes a statement, asks a couple of questions along the way, but -still spouting off at this and that -just because they are uniformed/uneducated of "where we are at". Anyone who has not been part of this forum for the last year will never understand really what this game has come through, how it has evolved and improved. A number of you FM/DM gurus have spent thousands of hours improving the game but are always having constantly explain this and that about what has had to be left alone, what has been changed, why, etc... I can certainly appreciate that you take the time to reply to these posts but it is often a waste of time. It takes a lot to explain to them WHY certain things are the way they are (and are they even listening?) I have flown this game since it came out and it has done nothing but improve with time. Yes, the game has some shortcomings, but it is still the best overall WW2 (and soon WW1 too), flight sim out there.

>>The bombers still have unrealistic climbing ability which helps them stay in the air with parts missing. We could give them the >>FM treatment the other planes got but I doubt people will want to fly a b17 for half an hour just to get it up to altitude...

That is due to the small maps. See, I knew the answer - but Aaron doesn't it. This has been addressed numerous times but he was obviously not around (again, not his fault). If we had a FAQ/Timeline where people who are curious about the game and have questions, could go to find out more this would save everyone a lot of time. Just my 2 cents =)

Oh, and Scharmers is such an ignorant *%$# - what a dope.

posted 03-14- 04:56 PM               

Lately I have been flying Warbirds quite a
bit online and I've come armed with
experience of the way planes behave in that
and I am just noting some differences. I'm
not behaving like Scharmers though - I like
the sim, and I have basing my opionions on
fairly up to date plane packs (I only
downloaded 5.3 yesterday so I haven't had
chance to play with that much yet)

posted 03-14- 07:41 PM               

There's a picture somewhere (don't have the link on this machine) of an F-15 with literally the entire right wing missing down to a 1/2 meter stub.

In real life, what usually happens when a big piece of wing is ripped off is a lot of control cables get tangled, hydraulics are cut, etc, making the plane uncontrollable. If the controls don't get jammed or otherwise rendered useless then the plane might be controllable. If the damage is nearly symmetrical, then it's more likely that it would be controllable.

posted 03-14- 08:40 PM               

I thought that model replacement only replaces the mesh, none of the properties are changed. Is this not the case? If we can do model replacement that brings new properties along with it, then we really have something! This would mean we could implement aerodynamic changes for damaged wings, and kill control surface functionality when they are shot off... can this be done? I will try this...

posted 03-15- 10:14 AM               

I just dug it up and posted it along with the story: http://tailslide.firelight.dynip.com/f15wing.asp

TS

posted 03-15- 02:23 PM               

As to the power requirements, I'd be willing to bet a quarter that if you worked the numbers then you'd find that there's plenty of lift from the center section of a P-38 to fly without the wingtips. Most of the lift comes from the center of the wings, anyway. The tips are washed out to avoid tip stalls. And part of the reason for the length of the wings is to get the ailerons out far enough to get leverage to roll.

Again, it's not efficient. You need more power to stay up. But it's not like the tips contribute a huge percentage of the total lift.