Salute Gennadich

We certainly appreciate the work which you are doing, however, I want to emphasize that we all hope there are not any problems in this sim like the FockeWulf/P-47 views in IL-2.

All of these WWI aircraft were designed to allow the pilot an excellent view from the cockpit, down the gunsight, with good deflection.

I am looking at your Sopwith Triplane cockpit, and wonder about the choice you have made for the padded triangle. I hope this will not obstruct the pilot's view.

In fact, this triangle was generally replaced with a simple pad on the back of the gun, as you can see in the following pictures of two different Triplanes in museums:





I am also wondering about the views for the Camel and Dr1. Remember, most pilots removed the telescope on the Dr1.

I hope you are considering all these things, and remembering that pilots would not and did not fly with big obstructions in the view. Any problems in views were dealt with by removal.

Thanks again for all your work on the Sim, and good luck with its completion.

Cheers Buzzsaw

I agree 100%. If something obstructs the in game view unnaturally, like a pad on the dash to protect the pilots head in a crash, I don't think it should be included in the modelled cockpit. Especially if the item will obstruct some cockpit instruments. The IL2 Tempest is a good example, a fantastic cockpit, but the tacho is obscured by a gunsight crash pad.

Even with TIR you can't exclude items on your monitor the way your brain does with objects in real life in a 3D world.

Acknowledged, but it's not the guns that are main occluders. It's the wings - something you can't just remove. In Dr1 this becomes especially nasty - not only the upper hemisphere is blocked, but also you can't see where you're actually landing, due to mid wings.

However, we're going to make sure that users will be able to adjust head position for the front view (and all snap views) individually for each flyable aircraft. And don't forget that all cockpits are open so you can really pop your head way out of the pit. We're 6DOF, remember? So if you don't like the gun butt sticking right into your face - you just dodge your head slightly sideways and save this position in your pilot's profile. So next time you play it's already there by default.

Now that's a cool feature idea.

The following excerpt comes from an article titled The Sesquiplanes, by D.H.R. White, that explored the evolution of airframe design during WWI aimed at improving a pilot's downward view from the fighter cockpit:

Strategic and Tactical

The view from the cockpit of a sesquiplane was naturally well above average. It has been held that this was of especial advantage when landing, but an experienced Nieuport pilot told me that this was absolute nonsense because one of the most serious and elementary mistakes that could be made was to watch the ground below when landing, instead of the view ahead.

The excellent view below was valuable in a scout aeroplane in four ways:

1.) Spotting hostile aeroplanes of all types at lower altitudes when on offensive patrol, and attacking them.
2.) Sighting enemy scouts rising to intercept friendly, escorted aeroplanes engaged in artillery observation, photography, bombing or other special missions.
3.) Better view for contact patrols.
4.) Better view for ground strafing, ballon attacks, and the low altitude flying on the return from such attacks.

While mentioning balloon attacks, it can be noted that a monoplane would not have been suited to the fitting of the Le Prieur rockets which found an ideal location on the 'V' interplane struts of the Nieuports. Another armament feature arose out of the lack of a synchronising gear and the consequent use of a Lewis gun above the top plane. The Foster mounting allowed mobility of the Lewis, while retaining sufficient rigidity. The explotation of this by Albert Ball and some of his successors in "belly attacks" is well known.

The Fokker Eindeckers operated at altitude, attacking in dives. Climbing capabilities were important from the first days of air fighting, and superior altitude always an advantage of the greatest value. The fine climb and manoeuvrability of the Nieuports made them both excellent protectors and interceptors.

They, and the sequiplanes which followed them, proved themselves in combat on both sides, and the influence was evident in single seat fighter design for twenty years after the first little Nieuport XI's rose to do battle.

More views on view (assembled diagrams from White's online article):

Downward Visibility: 1916 Fighters

Downward Visaibility Evolution: WWI Fighters

Pilot view was a consideration, but aircraft weren't built around that one principal. The majority of Biplanes of the era have poor pilot view as there is bloody great wing in the way most of the time.


This sim is going to support 6DOF and you'll be able to look around/above any obstruction.



Buried in the unwieldy IL2 based thread is a discussion on the possiblity that Gennadich will make the telescope an option. You may be able to choose wether you have one or not.


Most WWI aircraft were customised in the field in any number of ways and it'll be impossible to model it all.
As said above 6DOF will relieve most view issues.

Quite a few years back, when the WWI sim project Birds of Prey was still alive, the idea of allowing players to modify their aircraft was being considered as part of an earned-priviledge system that this game was going to incorporate. The idea was to let player characters accumilate priviledges based on a combination of flying time in the air (flying experience), and scored victories, which could then be redeemed at certain intervals to upgrade equipment, rank, mission options, etc. It was an interesting idea, which was meant to provide players a reason to try to keep their online or offline player characters alive, and an attempt to layer-on an additional motivation system for doing this (for the self-preservation of earned campaign persona priviledges).

The historical basis for the idea harkened back to the tinkering done by such mechanically-inclined and experienced pilots as Albert Ball, James McCudden, and Werner Voss, etc., who all modified their aircraft in an effort to get that little extra performance advantage. Anything from adding extra cockpit instruments, different pitch props or a prop spinner, rigging changes, and engine tweaks, to personal ammo load-outs, rate of fire adjustments, and as mentioned above, even removing physically obstructing bits and pieces too!

Now, I've got no idea of how much "adjusting" of the standard airframes will be managed in Knights of the Sky, but this line of thinking might have some usefulness for future game play considerations (you never know).

I'm not so sure that 6DOF is the complete view answer for people who don't have TIR. I have view control on my hat switch so where am I supposed to map the head position controls to? I can't really see myself using the head position movement controls much other than to set my view at the start of a flight.

People like to post contemporary accounts by pilots that certain aircraft had good cockpit visibility, but compared to what? Other multi wing aircraft which isn't saying much.

That's right - chuck it. To hell with historical accuracy - its a flight simulation after all.

Im use snap vewis on hat/buttons too, so dont worry - well gonna take care about this subject

The interesting thing about GT's attempt to get the cockpit and airframe modeling as exact as possible, is that as players we'll be discovering these visibility limitations firsthand, and then will need to interact with them in-game.

One of the underlying needs for this exactness resides in the fact that failure to detect one's aerial opponent(s) was the leading cause for combat fatality in WWI's hostile skies. That is, the whole tempo of air combat was predicated on the time and tactics needed to find the enemy, before the closing engagement could begin. Everything from the quality of the recreated environmental conditions, to the exactness of the 3D modeling works to refine the desired end.

However (and it's a big however), as individuals, we've all got different styles and habits when it comes to our gaming likes, and any sim designer needs to keep these collective wants in mind when considering gameplay options (besides, customer appeal is part of commercial simulation "reality" too)!

From a personal point of view, I hope GT can get the sky environment and the 3D modeling here as exact as possible, and then allows us simmers additional choices for gameplay/hardware consideration (and this sounds like what they've been planning). However, the first goal of exacting simulation is to get things as close as possible, and then next, to consider how this exactness can be made playable within the artificially recreated environment (I would imagine).

Salute

If the cluttered cockpit is modelled, then it will be a case of the less used design being selected, rather than the normal setup.

Most of the shots of Sopwith Tripes I have seen show them without the triangular headguard, and with the much less obtrusive pad on the rear of the gun. As you can see from this shot of Raymond Collishaw in his Tripe 'Black Maria'. The view over the gun is completely unobstructed.





Having something there which blocks the view is going to affect things, whether or not the player has track I.R. For those who don't have Track I.R., it is going to be a disaster.

Cheers Buzzsaw

Collishaw's Tripehound also has a Aldis sight fitted.

"An Aldis optical sight is fitted, and the ineffective Sopwith windscreen has been replaced by padding on the gun."

Ought to make this a field mod available to late period Naval Air Service Triplanes and/or for experienced pilots perhaps(?).

Salute

And the caption describing this cockpit view in Mick Davis's Sopwith Aircraft says:

The Sopwith-patented padded windscreen was not popular in service - it restricted the pilot's view and many chose to replace it with more practical designs. That shown here was a typical and necessitated the addition of padding to the rear of the Vickers gun. The sighting arrangement, shown here, could then comprise a rear bead sight and an open, rectangular forward one. Compression strusts, betweeen the centre-section struts and the rear Vickers mounting were a frequent modification. The photograph clearly shows the fuel pump and disposition of the cockpit instrumentation.

So this picture describes not only the elimination of the standard patented-Sopwith windscreen (also found on the Pup, and 1 1/2 Strutter btw), but the addition of another custom-installed windscreen, an addition of a rectangular open sight, plus the leather pad, and this Triplane has compression struts added between the mid-wing (all semi-to-non-factory-standard equipment).

The next question is "not that these mods didn't hppen in the field", but, how does one control the addition of squadron/pilot aircraft mods in a commercial-planned WWI flight sim? What if a particular player wants the Aldis sight to this combination above, or perhaps not the custom windscreen or the rectangular sight, and instead whats the ring and bead sight? How about the twin-Vickers version of the Sopwith Triplane, surely someone wants to try this version of the Tripehound. Then there's the wide and narrow versions of the horizontal stabilizer that came from the factories to reduce the Triplanes inherent over-stability which made prolonged diving possible, that's certainly a desirable feature too!

What I'm saying, is that everyone likes more choices, and there's nothing wrong with this, but you have to have a system for managing these choices (options) first, and this takes additional time to plan and implement. It's not just a matter of if exceptions existed, it requires creating a system to manage these deviations from the standard issue equipment.

I hope GT can code in something that will handle things like gunsights, etc.

I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Salute

I think the solution is to make one version, with the cockpits looking like those most commonly used in combat situations. They should not look like the factory standard if the factory standard was replaced as soon as the aircraft got to an active Squadron.

Cheers Buzzsaw

I think the point is that there is no "commonly used" variation, only the standard factory issue, and then modifications to it.

The Sopwith Triplane with the single gun was produced with the patented padded windscreen, and this is how the aircraft was issued to combat squadrons. The standard version was therefore the starting point for anything that followed.

Now, to do a little photo-analysis of our own, it should be noted that the first picture here of Collishaw seated in a cockpit is not of a Sopwith Triplane anyway, but of a twin-gun Camel:



If we next explore the modified version of the Triplane cockpit pictured, we can see that the actual aiming point is off-set, and requires the pilot to tilt his head to the left to be able to use the bead and rectangle sight arrangement (because there's now a leather pad and windshield support in the way of the muzzle sight):



So aiming the above configuration also requires an additonal view perspective different from the standard dead-ahead position.

Wasn't it Friday13 who said early in this thread that an offset forward view could be chosen to compensate for any obstruction caused by the padded windscreen:


I'd like to see GT's modeling time go into enabling the Aldis sight to be added to the Sopwith Triplane in-game somehow (or eventually in the Knight's series), and then *Buzzsaw*, that sounds like the time when that awkward padded windshield will have to be eliminated (afterall, the mounting of the Aldis and the lack of the windshield appear closely associated).

Excellent discourse. Thanks to both of you - Buzzsaw and FlyRetired. Apoligies offered.

Well, just give us some time, we need to make it to release first

btw: interesting which sinhronisation system installed on tripe 2nd photo? Ive shosed sopwith-kauper for ours, since havent good photos of its cockpits with sinhronisation sistem visible.
And why bead sight installed to the left - isnt it better to aim by right eye?:)

PS: something tells me that with optic gunsight on/off option available, most of ppl gonna choose an off option, cause its really grabs alot of FOV, we have some ideas about this problem, but again - we need to complete an major parts of project first, and only add futures after.

At least lookin' forward to trying the Aldis optic sight out on the Triplane later then (is it problematic on the SE5a now)?


Oh heck no, the right one is our winking eye!

Btw VikS, the choice of the Sopwith-Kauper synchronizing gear for the Sopwith Triplane sounds dead-on:

The Sopwith-Kauper gear was used in conjunction with Vickers guns in most Clerget-engined Sopwith machines, including the Triplane, having been devised by Harry Kauper and patented in his company's name.

(Sopwith Aircraft, by Mick Davis)

Nope, i mean the problems are with viewing thru it, as example - try Ki43 in IL2 - you will got what i mean.