Tomorrow, Sunday, 8 August I'll be running the VM server with an early war mission scenario. Time: 8pm (GMT, London).

Location: Arras
Aircraft: DH.2, Nieuport 11, 17, Fokker Eindecker, Albatros D.II (+ AI DWF).
Date: Fall 1916.

Be a little patient with the early types: It does take some time to get to the patrol area!

http://sites.google.com/site/vintagemissions/home

Nice one Bob.

Jason

I do enjoy your VM series Vander'...

I hope those D.IIs will be in very limited numbers! The FM on that Alb. D.II just feels so over-modled.

...and I say "feel" and not *is*l simply because I have no hard-data to make that claim.

I don't think the "Fokker Scourage" would have ended so soon if the real planes flew like what we have in ROF. (Or is it just that our virtual pilots of today know so much more than the R/L pilots of that era??)

Anyway, I look forward to adding your new mission to my lineup!

S!!

I wasn't gonna say anything, but those were pretty much my exact thoughts the first time I went up in the E.III.

Don't get me wrong... I'm glad they added the plane, and enjoy having it in my livery. But I expected it to be hard to fly; a chore to get airborne and keep airborne. But it's actually quite easy, stable, and not at all twitchy or 'floppy' like I imagined.

Play on a server with turbulence and a fair amount of wind

The EIII is the definition of a kite in that atmosphere. The problem is our joysticks IE-all controls stay centered if we are not moving them and therefore the planes controls also keep them centered. In RL the control surfaces were moving (wings warping around etc.) and having to fight the stick all the time. They don't exactly make a HOTAS that fights with you, YET

I think the EIII flies fantastic, and it's FM is spot on. It's a very good fight with a seasoned DH2 pilot. Throw some early noops in the mix and the EIII can get in trouble in a hurry. Also, with it's slow roll rate, you can easily avoid getting shot and getting an edge on the EIII in the DH2. The hardest part is the blind spot behind you, the DH2 gives, trying to know which way to turn from that pesky EIII behind you.

I had an absolute blast flying both early kites today and I felt confident that I could shoot down an EIII in a DH2 and vice versa. Good stuff!

Hi SYN_Bliss,

Yes, I have turbulance set to 2 but not too much wind or it would take forever to reach the front! It really makes the Eindecker fly the way I read about it: Very unstable!

If this mission works out okay, I'll post it on the website for others to use.

Hi Vander

More servers have started using turbulance which is a big +. It adds a whole new dimension to the game as far as trying to simulate the feeling of flight. And those pesky sniper long range shots magically go away!

I made a mission with turbulance on 3 for the EIII and it flew like you were in a tornado, so I turned it down to 2, which IMO, is about perfect for realism.


Wish I could make it to fly your mission on your server today, but im about to get on a real plane, lol, heading across the country.

Let me know how it turns out.

I'm not saying this out of any sort of expertise on the subject, and certainly not trying to start a debate. Just commenting on expectations vs. observations.

As I first took off in the E.III, I thought, "this is among the first airplanes ever made, literally the advent of manned flight. The internal combustion engine is still a relatively new innovation. Now, here they've just strapped a couple of wings to it and I'm supposed to not only fly it, but also fight other planes with it! Are they crazy? This is suicide!"

(Maybe I was a little bit too 'into' the role-playing aspect that day...)

But the rotary engine ran like a dream! I expected it to be more like my gas-powered weed whacker... It takes me 10 minutes to get that thing running, it runs like crap, and it won't stay running long enough to complete the whole yard. Maybe the Oberursel rotary engine really was that sweet in 1916... I don't know. I just expected it to choke and sputter, and maybe even crap out once in a while in flight.

I appreciate the idea that the plane will be harder to fly in turbulence. My F4U Corsair is also harder to fly and land on the carrier in turbulence, but I don't necessarily attribute that to the early design of the plane. I attribute that to turbulence. A few weeks ago I had to go around at FLL (Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International) in a Southwest Airlines 737 due to turbulence. It wasn't so much because the pilot had to fight the stick to warp the wings and blip the engines on final. Again, it was more about the inconsistent air density and wind direction in the area than the design and construction of the aircraft and engines.

Well, there's turbulence and turbulence. Total lack of turbulence is something that almost never ever happens. Night time it may, and on a snowy cold winter day, providing there's no wind. A sunny summer day, there's plenty of it, even if there's no wind. Thermals causes a mix of rising and falling sections of air, and the boundaries between them is not smooth.

How much a plane is affected by turbulence depends mostly on its wing load, and its size. A plane that's both very light, small and has a low wing load will be tossed around by turbulence that a heavier aircraft wouldn't even notice. Turbulence that forces a 737 to go around is probably heavy enough to break an EIII up when parked on the ground.

So, turbulence is pretty much always there. Sometimes more, sometimes less. How much an aircraft is affected by it, is indeed an attribute of the aircraft design.

Other than that I mostly agree regarding the EIII. It's a very docile aircraft, and fairly sturdy. More or less ideal as a trainer. The big deal is how exceptionally forgiving it is. I would expect such an early design, where aerodynamics was a new science, and much was unknown and subject to trial and horror, to have a few nasty surprices to throw at you, but it doesn't seem to have any vices.

My first flying lesson was in a Diesel Cessna 172 and 50 feet above the runway on take off my instructor gave me control and told me to keep the runway heading and not climb above a 1000 feet.
My palms were sweaty and my top lip was sticking to my top gum as I fought the yoke trying to compensate for the turbulence buffeting the Cessna ! The best way to describe the buffeting would be that if you were driving along the road in a small car and a huge truck hurtles past and you feel the car shake.The buffeting would come from any direction though,left or right or below but strangely dissapeared when we had clearance to climb through 1000feet.
My instructor explained that below 1000 feet on a hot sunny day the warm air moves around a lot very similar to a river flowing where you can catch an eddy or a ripple.
If they could some how model this buffeting into the FM wouldn`t that be awesome ?

Paul

This wasn't really supposed to be a discussion about turbulence... we all know what it is and what it does to any and all aircraft, past and present.

It was really about observations of one of the earliest aircraft ever flown.

Was the E.III engine really the smooth-running, reliable, power-plant I am enjoying in the sim? Or was it rather a finicky piece of not-yet-perfected machinery that should make you question your own sanity each time you trust it to take you up into the unforgiving sky?

I read a quote a while back (on this forum, I think) about the Gnome rotary engine wherein the pilot described the engine as 'constantly trying to disassemble itself' when running. Was the E.III's engine a much better machine than that? If it would sputter and cough once in a while, it would be a more convincing experience, I think.

And were the E.III aerodynamics, even in calm air*, the near-perfect mastery of flight physics it 'feels' like in the sim? I sort of expected it to keep attempting every trick it could to return to the earth, relying on the constant application of my expert pilot skills (hah!) just to keep it airborne. Like the first kite or balsa wood glider you built as a kid... on paper the plan looked good, but in the air, it turns out flight probably required more precision than you were capable of at the time. But the E.III flies like a dream! Probably more stable than a Cessna 172... All I'm saying is that it's not what I expected.


*Please see first sentence.

It's not a discussion on turbulance you're right, but it isn't a thread on the performance of the EIII either. It is a thread about an online event featuring an early war planeset.
An event I'm rather interested in joining or if I can't make it, at least see how it went.

There are other threads where the FM of the EIII can be discussed.

Thanks for sharing! If you'll join the server you will see for yourself that turbulance like you describe is already modeled in the game. It changes at altitude and location too. Like you describe, it's worse below 1000 ft. Although it's already in the game it is somehow not often used in missions...

Can't join in unfortunately, no connection to the master server or something.

Same as Bullpup, is there a plan to re schedule?
Looks an interesting concept.

I've been trying too, was looking forward to it and mentioned it on the ROF site....what is happening?

Hmph. I bought the N11 a few hours ago for it, so could have replicated the 'few flight hours' thing and got smoked by the F-16 err Clowndekker lol. . I like the Bebe, it has character. Falls apart a bit easily but its fun.

Nah, being too harsh since I have yet to fly it myself. Its just that many are saying it is remarkably easy to fly, and 'characterless', a common theme amongst Hun planes with little to no vices, which fly as if they are on rails. This does not sit well with what I have heard about it IRL, and I fear I would just virtually mothball it, like every other Hun crate other than the PfalzDXII and occasionally DR1 which are at least interesting. Maybe weather settings and realistic load out etc would change that. I'll probably get it tomorrow to find out myself, best way.

As someone (moggie I think?) pointed out, its probably moot anyway. Don't like the pitch sensitivity? That yaw don't fill ya with awe? No problem, just try our newly patented 'Magi-curve' *TM* solution, and all your FM blues will simply fly away! .

I don't like curves lol, I'm just saying....but each to their own and fair dinkum I suppose.

Sorry guys. The Master Server has been unreachable for over an hour now, so I'm calling this off. Can't be helped, better luck next time!

I'll try again next weekend.

Sadly, the master server appeared to have come back about 10 minutes after scheduled mission time.

Cheers Vander and thanks for trying, hopefully see you next week then.

I just wanted to reiterate that particular point again for multi.
If it can provide a temporary solution to the long range sniper issue until the developers fix the issue, it should be considered a standard setting on realism servers.

S!