The Camel is a ridiculous airplane to fly. It is almost always near stall, has lousy visibility and constantly tumbles into a spin, usually just as I'm lining up a shot of some kind (which is rare against a Dr1). Even with my IR I would usually have no idea where the enemy was if it wasn't for the little radar cheat you can toggle into the upper left.

The Dr1 climbs better, so the enemy is always hovering over head where I can't see him. And after circling around each other like 28 times, even when I finally have him out in front of me, when I pull the nose up for a shot... tumble.

What's the trick?

Yes, yes, I've seen that 28 minute documentary. And I can't find any threads about flying this outhouse. Is it that it provides a tactical advantage when getting the drop on the enemy before he can spot you? I'm just flying QC stuff and we always start nose to nose since I feel like it would be cheating to start from behind and above.

Here's one of my Camel missions:
Rother Camel

In general, I think the WOFF Camel is easier to fly than most of the other iterations out there. Check your auto mixture in the workshop. If it is off and you are not accounting for it, that can make your plane sluggish. Also, make sure nothing is conflicting with your throttle. I never use my stick throttle, but since I haven't disabled it, sometimes my throttle will surprisingly drop and I have to reset it. Other than that, try to keep your speed up, nose on the horizon and you will turn better to the right than left. Also, check out some of the other forum members videos for inspiration and tips!

Hope that helps!

Hmmm, blipping the engine. I read a bit about that yesterday but haven't tried it. Technically, what is it? Cutting the fuel without decreasing throttle?

Thanks for the help!

I believe it just stops the cylinders from firing while depressed. I prefer it to inline throttle control, I seem to do much better.

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jmatt, the WOFF Camel, much like it's RL counterpart, if flown properly will beat any other plane in a turn fight hands down, including the DR1. However, you have to finesse it. Try flying it ham-fisted and it will slap you down in a heartbeat, but find its 'feel' and you will be unbeatable. The blip switch was the only way in RL to regulate the speed of the rotary, apart from minor RPM adjustments you could make with the mixture control. Rotary engines had no throttle per se and ran full open all the time, unless you cut ignition to all or some of the cylinders. On the Camel it was a simple on-off blip switch right on the JS that did this. So, in order to regulate your speed in a dog fight you have to constantly be playing with the blip switch. The Camel requires a lot of practice to get good with it because things like the blip switch operation have to become second nature to you. Many folks have tried the Camel for a few QCs and proclaimed it a POS, or a brick, or an outhouse, or any other number of derogatory terms, but nothing could be further from the truth. You simply need to commit the time to learn its intricacies and you will be an ace with it, which is exactly how it was for our RL Camel pilot counterparts.

Oh, and by the way, insult my beloved Camel again and it will be powdered wigs and large fish at dawn on the green.

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What I'm still wondering about is the turn rate - I don't notice any difference in that whether I go left or right, but shouldn't it be a lot faster to the right? I notice the nose going up or down, but I'm expecting more of a snap to the right than there is.

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loftyc, there is a difference, but not as much as there should be based on historic evidence. I imagine this is due to the difficulties in bringing gyroscopic precession into the CFS3 FM, though I am only guessing on that. In any event, once you have a feel for the WOFF Camel you can do a 180-degree turn to the right in just under three seconds and gain a bit of alt in the process, while going 180 degrees to the left take four seconds or slightly more.

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And speaking of "feel", for me a force feedback sitck makes all the difference in the world. It will give you a tactile warning even before the on-screen ones, giving you time to correct. I flew without one for a while and stalled almost every plane I flew. Once I got a new one I've rarely had any problems in any plane.

Yeah, FF is great for the feel. The winds, when aiming and shooting, landing, rolling, buffeting etc. Adds a lot of feel.

One thing you have to remember is that the joystick is made like a real flightstick in WOFF. With a real flightstick you wouldn't move it around from one edge to the other, but much more gentle and sensible with hardly ever reaching the edges, until necessary for manouvres or when hamfisted. With joysticks one tends to move the stick quickly to the edges. Want to go right, you often move the stick to the right until it can't go more right no more. Want to go up, you pull the stick until it reaches the edge and the stick can't go any further. Simply because people are used to do that with gamepads and joysticks, and because the stick is much shorter than a real flight stick, and therefore it happens easier.
Think of it as a real flightstick. Make gentle moves with only hitting the edge if necessary or if the AC allows it to keep control. Reaching the edges is always the extreme movement of a flightstick, so the behaviour is also the most extreme (falling into a spin etc.).

If you use top rudder (left) in a right hand turn and get the bank angles right, and balance it there on a knife edge - you can wizz the Camel round very fast in WOFF. Practice it.

Also as Creaghorn says, you must not yank and bank in a WW1 craft, delicate and gently ease into more severe movements will bring you best control.

And you have to remember that in real life the Camel killed nearly 50% of its WWI student pilots. Just getting to a front-line squadron was a real chore. So it's not just you who finds the Camel difficult.

There are cheap "FF" joysticks available. I use a Speedlink Black Widow, which comes with a separate stick and throttle. It isn't true force feedback, rather a vibration, but it gives that little bit of advance warning when you're near the edge. You can't be as bad a pilot as me, so something like this should be even more beneficial for you.

BTW Skyhigh slightly off topic but when I installed a Blackwidow the FF never worked, what drivers do you use?

Polovski, I use the 2008 version sl-6640 drivers. There are others, but they don't work. Strangely, FF wouldn't work properly for me until about patch 1.14 and caused greatly reduced frame-rates, but since then and into the expansion it has worked fine. The drivers I mention are available at this site:

http://www.speedlink.com/?p=2&cat=313&pid=1533&

Get back to me if there are any hitches.

Of course it's me and not the plane. Just venting a bit.

I have been babying it in turns and working the rudder when I bank. But I have not been able to regulate the throttle and now I know why. Thanks.

Let's see how it goes tonight...

Theeeere it is. Switched to my Force Feedback and started blipping the engine. Like night and day. Thanks everyone.

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No worries jmatt, I was only giving you a bit of a wind up. The Camel, once you are familiar with it, may well become your favorite Allied kite to fly as it has so much agility, climbs like a scalded monkey, carries two guns, and has several tricks in its bag that are hard for an enemy to beat.

For instance, here's one to try: Pull up fairly hard while giving about half rudder to port, (left), and allow her to just begin to fall into a spin. As soon as she starts, center the controls and, if you've done it all with the proper timing, she will do half a revolution as she settles back into level flight going the same direction as you started but with about a hundred feet of additional altitude. Now imagine you've just done that trick with an enemy scout close on your six trying to get a bead on you. They will likely fly right under you at which point you will come out above and behind them, or they will try to follow your maneuver and overfly you as you fall out of what they thought was going to be a half-loop or an Immelmann. Either way you will have the advantage at that point.

You can do a similar trick to starboard, (right), when you have an enemy on your tail. With that one you go into your starboard turn and as you do so you pull back on the stick about two-thirds or so and give a strong amount of starboard rudder. If you again have your timing spot-on, you will snap into a clockwise spin with your nose pointed downwards. As quickly as possible center your rudder and push forward on the stick and you will snap out of the spin, and with more speed than you entered it. Immediately pull back on the stick with authority and you will quite likely go zooming right up over your would-be attacker.


Pol wrote:
Yes indeed, that does work Pol. However, the issue I have with that maneuver in combat is that is can leave you hanging as a rather large, nearly stationary target as you balance on the edge. Also, get it wrong and you can fall into that nasty, unrecoverable spin the Camel is infamous for.

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Great thank you SkyHigh.

Yeah Lou for sure you can only do it when it's to your advantage. Great tips for the other manoeuvres. I think it's a rewarding aircraft for those that practice, and it's tricky and deadly hence I like it .

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No contest, the Camel is my most favorite WWI mount. It's like dancing with a sophisticated lady: treat her properly and with respect and she'll let you do nearly anything; handle her roughly and she'll slap you down PDQ.

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That, I can't seem to find. Those Dr1s are always over head. I see a key binding for extending flaps, how do I retract them?

There's no flaps on the Camel. To my knowledge, very few WWI birds had flaps or flap like structures and I'm not sure if they are even modeled... It's mostly just a legacy key from CFS3, I think...

Yeah, flaps seem overly complicated for WW1 planes, but what do I know? But there is a key binding for it in the game...

I have a big favor to ask any kind soul on the board: Could someone post a video of themselves flying the Camel, kind of a tutorial with voice over explaining what he's doing and why he's doing it? You live on in infamy on You Tube!

I'm flying the camel much better the last few days (if not crashing all the time is 'better'), but I'd really like to see and learn how an old hand goes about it. Even against a Rookie, I can't seem to get behind and stay on his six. We keep doing head on passes.

I reckon "yank and Bank" in a Camel is an excellent evade.

Providing you can avoid a spin.

EA tend to stay the hell out of the way as the poor old Camel stands on its nose, tail, wingtips
in approx. 2.5 seconds.

Too much finesse may kill your pilot.

Remember that the 130hp Clerget could run on (I think)4, 7 and 9 cylinders so you don't have
to entirely rely on blipping/mixture for engine control.

RS

Yikes, I finally took the plunge and tried QC against veteran pilots and I'm having my arse handed to me. I gotta find some video on combat turns with the Camel. Any pointers?

Hellshade is the king of combat videos and posts them on YouTube.
Check his sig or just go there and search.
Don't know if he had ever done one with the Camel but he has several with the Dr.1 - the Camel's German soulmate in that their flight characteristics are probably similar.

RAF_Louvert is an exception flyer of the Camel and it is his professed love.
I dont know where it is but he has a very good instructional vid on it's capabilities. You could PM him.

Jmatt;

I don't know if you have seen this but just in case you haven't here is a link to my dropbox location:

Flight instructional for Sopwith Camel

Finally! Detailed instructions on how to do a "snap roll" in s Camel.
Thanks to Lou and Robert for posting.

Thanks for reposting the link, as well as the encouragement to check out video from the other posters, fellas.

My limited experience with the plane is that I can't climb nearly as fast as my DR1 opponent. At 10,000 feet, the thing constantly wants to stall and spin, as well as when I'm under 1,000 ft. The sweet spot, for me, seems around 3k to 5k ft.

I dunno, all I can seem to do is yank and bank (gingerly, of course). I can't seem to loop over top, nor throw it into a 45 degree banking dive and turn. And a turning fight against a DR1 veteran just gets me killed.

I am set for QC (nose to nose at 1 mile) against DR1, easy flight model, and auto mixture. Everything else as normal or realistic.

Is this a crazy way to learn the plane? Am I biting off more than I can expect myself to chew as a noob?

jmatt;

I don't know what you have set in workshop but I recommend you set "auto mixture" as "on", and then let us know how things go. If you are on manual mixture that may be your problem with power at various altitudes if you are not making the necessary adjustments.

Auto mixture is on. I don't see a setting for auto trim. Is that the same as auto rudder? I have it off.

Does the Auto Trim (Ctrl + A) work?
Some one said here it does not but I have never seen official word from the Dev's.
Wish it would - if it doesn't already.

I doubt Dev's will allow "auto-trim" back into the game because you would then lose some of the major characteristics of WW1 aircraft which normally were either nose heavy or tail heavy.

They did have a basic form of "trim" and that was set on the ground before take off by the ground crew so the plane would fly level at a certain altitude (normally the cruising altitude), but even that changed as the fuel was used up and the CG moved due to this.

jmatt:
Auto-mixture = air-fuel mixture for the engine
Auto-trim = neutral flight characteristics controlled through the aircraft control surfaces at different altitudes
Auto-rudder = AI controlled rudder when turning or fighting

As far as I can tell, the only one still working in WOFF is "auto-mixture" all others have been disabled by the Dev's.

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jmatt, I had some time this AM before heading out to work to shoot some raw footage of a QC of me flying the Camel against LvR in his Tripe. Here it is:



Watch it and feel free to ask any questions you might have.

Happy Flights!

Lou

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jmatt;

here is a vid I made of some basic camel manouvers (loop, vertical spin recovery, flat spin recovery). There is no dialogue in it so here is a clue on how it was done.

Loop: dive to gain speed and gently pull back on stick and you should climb and go over the top.
vertical spin recovery: once in the spin, centre the stick and drop back throttle to minimum. she will centre and then gently pull up and go to full throttle.
flat spin recovery: This one is tricky and if you don't have enough height you can kiss your ass goodbye! cut throttle back to minimum. centre the stick watch your spin to detect it slowing down. gently push stick slightly forward and a very little pressure in opposite direction of spin. It will take practice for this one. I lost a lot of pilots before I learned to practice it in QC.
Tail Down spin resulting from stall in vertical climb: Don't let it happen! watch your speed in vertical. This spin I have not mastered and it is nigh unto impossible to get out of. I have managed to recover from it only a few times and I have no recovery advice to offer.


Again, PM Lou who I consider an expert with this craft. He helped me considerably to build my skill set.

Hope this helps some, and feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions. Good Luck!
I just put the vid up so it may not be available right away. Check back later if not up yet.


Best Regards;

Going to watch these myself and take notes.
Can never have too much in your bag of tricks.
Thanks gentlemen.

Alright, I'm starting to think there's something wrong with my joystick. lol You seem to have so much more energy and velocity than I do. Toward the end, you loop over the top at 1,000 feet or less... I could never do that. Of course, I'm a first month noob and the Camel is your forte, but just watching that I got the sense that something's not right.

Oh, and could never fly and look over my shoulder the way you do. I need to get better at that.

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It could be your stick jmatt. However, it could also be that you're giving the Camel too much control input, which is a very common mistake to make with this kite. You seldom need to move the stick or pedals more than about 40% of their full travel to coax the Camel where you want it to go. Too much control input too quickly and you will burn off energy and speed making her sluggish and heavy feeling, and such handling will also cause you to slip into stalls and spins regularly. You have to learn true finesse with this mount or you will never get the most out of her that she's capable of giving.

As to looking round with ease while you're flying, that will come when controlling your kite is so much second nature that you don't even think about it. Several hundred hours of stick time in the Camel should do the trick.

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As a newbie jmatt, try to glance down at your air speed during long hard turns to ensure, as lou said, you don't bleed off too much energy / speed. Back off on aggressive turns if this happens.

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Also, and I cannot stress this enough, you should be taking the fight to the vertical as much as you take it to the horizontal, in fact more so. This applies to any scout plane with a decent rate of climb. So many newcomers to combat flight sims don't realize there is a critical third dimension to air combat and end up chasing their opponent round and round as they slowly descend to the deck.

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+1

I seldom chase my enemy down for a kill unless conditions are right for it in the name of survival of my pilot. I prefer to stay above and look for opportunity.

Lou and Robert,Very informative videos and advice. Thanks for the posts!

Thanks so much for the video. Again, I just keep getting the feeling that something just isn't quite right for me. How in the world do you keep your nose into a 30 degree climb at 40 or 50 knots?

I gotta play around with this some more tonight.

I'm having trouble with this. It just seems like I can't climb fast enough. I started flying QC with a wingman and he doesn't seem to have trouble maintaining the same altitude as the DR1.

But it's not the stick, it's me. I tested if I could climb at 30 degrees or so even at just 50 knots and I can. But until he comes down to my altitude, it just seems like he's always able to hover way over head. That's why I was asking about flaps.

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jmatt, the AI DR1 pilots will often just sit and hover above you and not come down to play until they see an advantage, and even then they may not. Because the DR1 can keep up with the Camel in a climb you will have nothing but frustration trying to reach one above you if they are climbing with you. As to the AI Camel driver maintaining the same alt as the AI DR1 pilot, that is simply because the computer knows exactly how far it can push the planes to get max performance out of them. This is what you will also need to learn. There is a very fine line you have to fly in terms of gaining alt as quickly as possible: too low a climb angle and you keep your speed up but at the sacrifice of climb rate; too high an angle and you start to lose speed to the point of poor climb rate as well. All I can recommend is practice until you find the sweet spot, a spot BTW that changes as you gain altitude.

If you want to try and get a high enemy to come down and engage, pull up so you can get a momentary gun solution on them and let go some rounds. My experience has been that after a few such pepperings they will dive on you, at which point you better be ready and then some.

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Been doing this. Can pop off a few rounds just as I reach stall, then point the nose back at the horizon.

I understand the tradeoff in AOA, speed and climb rate and that it changes with thinner (and even warmer) air, I guess I just have to reconcile myself with the fact that he will always have that advantage. Maybe I'll try goading him down by showing him my six and then right banking into a turning fight.

Once he's at my altitude, I have no trouble downing Rookies. I'll have to work my way up to doing the same with vets.

Thanks again, everyone.

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Aaah, very good then, my apologies if it seemed I was preaching to the choir jmatt. Another trick you can try is to lower your fuel load, though I do recommend learning to fight with a full tank as it only gets easier the less fuel weight you're carrying, (marginally easier mind you).

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