I've run into this spin a few times, can't seem to figure out how to reproduce it and certainly can't seem to figure out how to get out of it:

I usually hit it in the Airco, but in the Camel it seems to be worse! Is such a thing even possible? It seems like you would eventually nose over and be able to recover, but that was a 12000 foot drop. I tried a variety of neutralizing tricks and nothing worked. Even the AI pilot seemed stymied...

So can a front loaded airplane like that fall in such a way? Or do I have grounds for a restore on my hands?

Press "A" for Autopilot. Then once you've recovered, press "A" again to turn it off. :P

I did! The auto pilot came up as empty as I did!

Rick,

I had the same thing when I was just starting out with WOFF, again in a DH2. You can do absolutely nothing to get the nose down. I fell far enough to try every spin recovery technique known to man without a hint of success. Personally, it's grounds for a do-over.

That looks familiar Rick, I've seen me do it! Can't help you though. When it happens I hit " control Q", say a few choice words an make another pilot.

Sorry, Rick, but that's how Vzwbl. Wiener Dog got roasted in his Dr.1 in challenge 5. Interesting that it happens in more than one type, so I guess it's more than just a tweak to a single FM?

Common factor seems to be rotary engines with the attached gyroscopic issues in the above mentioned AC.
Personally I would do a "Restore".
I am not afraid to bring back the dead if I think it's something out of my hands or a dumb occurrence.
And, dare I say it, could it be a FM issue? I have limited experience with rotary engines plus I am not above dialing back the FM if I am getting annoyed. It's a game damnit!

Is there really a spin you can't get out of in real life with 10,000+ feet of altitude in WW1 AC?
I am not a real pilot.

Yeah, I am mostly curious if any real pilots could tell us if this is a real type of spin. The weird oscillation in space (it's spinning around in space, not around it's own center) seems unlikely from a physics standpoint. Maybe some real pilots will chime in!

That's not even a flat spin. It doesn't look like any real life spin that I've seen. I would think a do-over is perfectly justified in this case.

Well, the expert on the Camel is Louvert, I love flying the Camel and have had some success recovering from this kind of spin, but have to admit there is a certain amount of luck to it. Cut your engine to stop feeding the Gyro effect. Neutralize your stick and observe if the spin slows down. apply slight counter rudder to direction of spin and see if that helps. If not, you kiss your bottom goodbye. I have a forcefeedback stick so I get physical indication of an impending stall and I always make an effort to get the nose down from vertical before this kind of spin can happen. Avoidance is the best solution. I also feel that this happens less often if you stall out nose up while in a right hand turn. Left hand turn stalls with nose up are deadly and result in what you experienced.

If Lou is listening, please chime in mate!

I am pretty sure the laws of physics are being violated in the spin shown in the video, and such a thing would not happen in real life. A plane is like a dart and seems it would fall to a nose-down attitude eventually. Also, what force could spin a plane around and around like that when the wings are pushing through the air like vertical paddles? I suspect it is a CSF3 thing, but what the heck do I know?

Well, we have a few clues.

You go into a sharp left bank and I can hear the wind/stall warning at about 0:06.

Then the enemy opens fire, and at 0:10 I hear tearing fabric. That's when you look down, and by the time you look up again you've lost control.

The only thing I can think of, is you were stalling out, and the lost fabric (wing? wingtip?) really threw you over the edge.

I've looked around and couldn't find anything concerning a tail-first spin. I did find a few useful tidbits from Wiki though:

The characteristics of an airplane with respect to spinning are significantly influenced by the position of the center of gravity. In general terms, the further forward the center of gravity the less readily the airplane will spin, and the more readily it will recover from a spin. Conversely, the further aft the center of gravity the more readily the airplane will spin, and the less readily it will recover from a spin. In any airplane, the forward and aft limits on center of gravity are carefully defined...

If the center of gravity of the airplane is behind the aft limit approved for spinning, any spin may prove to be unrecoverable...

In the past, some airplanes displayed an unrecoverable spin in which the nose was higher, relative to the horizon, than in conventional spins. This is sometimes called a flat spin, although whether a flat spin is indeed unrecoverable depends on aircraft type and loading. The plane spins on its belly around the normal axis. The empennage will feel very light and loose. Depending on the aircraft, changing the rudder and aileron inputs or engine power settings may have little effect. There are a small number of accounts where pilots recovered from flat spins by loosening their restraint harnesses and leaning forward in an attempt to alter the position of the center of gravity.


Yours is clearly more severe than even a flat spin. 'If the center of gravity is behind the aft limit' is interesting however. It makes me wonder if damage somehow forces the flight model to recalculate its center of gravity, and suddenly the back is too heavy.

Ah. Very good.
Your aircraft often flies funny" after damage.
Damage to the left wing seems to make the aircraft " pull" to the left.
What easier way to do "funny" flying in a computer aircraft than by off-setting it's COG?

I will have to ce careful with this thread. I intentionally avoid digging into how WOFF works at the nuts & bolts level for fear of ruining the "magic" of the sim....hehe

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Rick and All,

The spin shown in the video looks like a legitimate tail-first spin from what I can gather. If you go to about 0:36 on the video there is a 1-second-long view showing the spin without the CFS3 distortions found in the other views. The plane is clearly gyrating around a vertical axis, which I've shown with a red line in the following screen capture:



Weights appear to be in balance around this axis. The portside wings are low and leading into the spin, (which is clockwise when viewed from above), giving these wings primary control of the spin. Due to the attitude of the plane as it is falling the airflow across the portside wings is helping to spin the craft in the rotation seen, (I've just checked this with a biplane model and a fan I have sitting in my flying room). Taking into account the speed of the spin, the disrupted airflow over the control surfaces, and the apparent damage to one or more of said control surfaces, if this had happened to you in RL you would likely be quite dead. I am not seeing an error in the FM here, just virtual life sucking hard.

Sorry Rick, I would not be calling a do-over on this one if it were me.


OK then, I was only home for last night and this early AM, now it's back on the road until Thursday. Fly smart everyone!

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IMO there is no reason why the nose would be that vertically up in the air with respect to the CG. The nose is where all the weight is. The center of gravity is ahead of the center of lift--that's why there is a tail, to keep the nose up level (shoot the tail off an airplane and it comes down nose-first)--so once the wings stall (wings need to be stalled in a spin) the nose falls. Unless the plane is being held nose high, the weight is going to lead the way to the earth. Sure, aft CG will affect things, but you can only put so much weight in the WOFF Camel and it all goes where it is designed to go without interfering with the CG (fuel, ammo) that drastically, so we can't cause a too-aft condition. We don't load the fuselage behind the cockpit with too much luggage, for instance. It's kind of like checking the controls to be free and correct in flight sims. It's a waste of time because they're always going to be free and correct since our planes are never worked on in such a manner for the mechanics to run the cables backwards.

Anyway, I would say that we not put too much stock in the FM in this situation.

Tail first spin?
On a AC with the engine, pilot, and fuel located up front?
I cannot imagine it....

EDIT: Oops. Posted same time as JFM but obviously I gotta agree with him.

As I had mentioned in another thread, the wind effects on crafts are minimally modeled in WOFF. To simulate this, I used my MSFFB joystick and set it in one position (self centering removed) and fly completely level and straight for 15 minutes or longer (and through heavy clouds) without needing to adjust the stick or touch it at any time. If airflow was accurately modeled, then this wouldn't be possible and I would need to constantly keep my hands busy adjusting for ebbs and flows especially flying through a cloud.

Wow, great info guys! Lou, if you every check back, are you saying that there is such a thing as a legitimate tail first spin? Keep coming with the info guys, I'm learning a lot!

I remember searching this topic after one of us, loftyc , had a pilot die in a Challenge. I couldn't find any documentation on such a spin.

I tried to get into such a spin in QC, but couldn't.

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I've just gotten to my hotel for the evening and as I now have internet I can jump back in here and respond. Rick, there are indeed tail first, (or tail low), spins and in fact an unrecoverable flat spin is exactly that. A flat spin is not actually ‘flat’ in that the nose is high and the tail is low, resulting in the center of gravity ending up significantly behind the center of lift. Once in this type of spin if the pilot cannot reverse the CG/CL situation he will in all likelihood not recover. Usually a combination of control and throttle inputs will correct the situation but there have been far too many times where such was not the case and pilots died as they corkscrewed themselves into unforgiving terra firma. While the tail first spin experienced in WOFF is rather exaggerated from those in RL it is still the same basic unrecoverable ‘flat’ spin. I had a firsthand experience with a RL spin that looked exactly like the one in Rick’s video, though thankfully it was with a radio-controlled Stearmen 75. I had the transmitter go wonky as I was climbing nearly straight up and a split-second later the plane snapped into a tail first spin that equaled Rick’s in both attitude and rotational frequency. It ended with my pretty RC model in a bright blue and yellow heap in the parking lot I had been flying it from.

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