As K5054 and others have mentioned, there will be plenty of nuances to discover in "Knights", much of which depends on whether GT can successfully adapt the IL-2 engine to reflect the peculiar characteristics of the WWI era. I will be happy if they can capture the most salient differences between piloting modern day aircraft from those of this early aviation period. I also think modern accounts from pilots who have flown original and exacting WWI replicas can be very useful in helping to contrast the state of aeronautical refinement that has occurred over the past century. Yes it is true that the world's aerodynamic realities haven't changed in these intervening years, but man's understanding of them has, and aircraft design has reflected this fact. I think it would be helpful to remind ourselves that our understanding of flying has benefitted from endless aeronautical research over time, and that much of what we assume to know about it today was the grist of hard-won discovery, and this continual research, and there were many unknowns. To a degree even the language of "then and now" reflects these differences...........they were "aeroplanes" back then.

Allow me to quote one of my favorite stories, that helps to illustrate just this contrast between the "then and now", and it comes from a conversation I had with member Bald Eagle on the Aerodrome forum, who is an accomplished pilot deeply familiar with flying WWI aeroplanes (and replicas), and also modern day aircraft. To set the stage for the story, the place is Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, and the occasion is an episode filming for a PBS documentary:

"FlyX,
I just got back today from the Monocoupe fly-in at Creve Coeur Airport in St. Louis. Wish I'd thought to time the rate of turn of the Monocoupe to see how it compared.

One of the biggest differences between flying modern aircraft and flying vintage aircraft is the importance of the proper use of the rudder in the older types. If you don't believe it ask "Heater" Heatly, the F-14 pilot who crashed the Triplane I used to fly at Rhinebeck. He discovered, too late, that rudder pedals were used for more than steering the machine around the carrier deck. He let the Dr.1 yaw so much, first one way, then the other, right after take-off, that it finally stalled and spun in. If he had not hit the telephone wires at the South end of the Aerodrome he would've been killed, as it was they broke his fall and he walked away from it. Nothing was left worth saving but the rudder, one side of the rudder fabric from it is on the wall of my old bedroom at my parent's house.

Good question about the flat turn, the Triplane does indeed want to bank into the turn, even though it doesn't have dihedral. You do have to hold opposite aileron to keep it from banking, which doesn't seem like something you'd do in combat. The ailerons are important in turning, more so than in an SE-5 or other aircraft with dihedral (Fokker D.VII), which tends to convert yaw into bank. If I remember right, the SPAD that is now flying at Rhinebeck would yaw sloppily without banking unless aileron was put in, again no dihedral.

Pretty much all of the WW1 aircraft have a lot of adverse yaw when you put in aileron, so the rudder is important to take care of this, most modern aircraft have friese type aileron hinges to do away with adverse yaw, a lot of them can be flown through turns with your feet on the floor. Not so the old stuff."

- continued -

"I wasn't there at the time, but my father was. He said that they first had Heatly fly a Cub and then a Great Lakes to prepare for the Triplane, in hindsight not enough transition. My dad said to him that there must be quite a difference between flying an F-14 and the old planes, and he said that Heatly replied, "Yeah, it's kind of boring." I believe that the Triplane was within hearing distance, and thought, "What? We'll see about that..."

I think that the jet pilot equated simplicity with being easy, and thought that because the stuff he flew was so complicated that it must be much harder to fly. Not true when it comes to stick and rudder.

They said that as soon as he broke ground he started to yaw to the right, eventually heading almost 90 degrees to the runway, then yawed back to the left almost 180 degrees, all with the nose level, before the airplane finally stalled, and being in wildly uncoordinated flight, snapped into the beginnings of a spin, interrupted by the ground. He disappeared behind the small trees at the south end of the Aerodrome going straight down and crashed. Nobody wanted to go down there and see what was left, but of course they did, and "Heater" was pulling himself out of the wreckage. The left wings, I believe, had caught the telephone wires, turned the airplane sideways, and the right wings absorbed the impact, saving his life. He landed right on the road, last time I was there you could still see the splices in the telephone wires. "Heater" of course cried, "Wind shear!"

Stories are common in the vintage aircraft world of jet pilots taking the controls of old airplanes and being notoriously unaware of what the rudder pedals are for, since the jets apparently will fly fine with your feet on the floor, until you need to steer around on the ground. The Triplane is of course more critical than most in this regard because it will yaw so easily, with no fin, and that small but sensitive rudder.

They wanted somebody who could talk first hand about the differences between an F-14 and a Fokker Triplane for a PBS documentary called "Top Gun and Beyond", I've always said that they should have let me fly the F-14..."

Now allow me to offer my own "philosphical" take on motivation and consequences (this none of you need pay any mind to), but I differed with AK above about his "ego" imperative, in that in my opinion it's not ego but arrogance that makes it so difficult learning from those "hard-won" experiences of others.

Some people (as illustrated in the story above) have nothing but luck to thank for the difference between the "then" and the "now".