Hi guys,

first of all, I am sorry for the following rant, but I need to get this out of me somehow and when I tried telling my wife, well, I didn't get the desired pity, I needed :-D.

My last two pilots, one French (Spad VII) and another German (Alb DII) both got shot down under the same circumstances. They both received a short burst to left wing (roughly 10 rounds). The damage manifested itself by a few holes in the tip of the lower wing. The aircraft got uncontrollable after that, falling down in a spin. At first, I thought, this is due to control wires being cut, but the second time, it happened, I actually checked (I had enough time falling from 4000 m) and all control surfaces were responding correctly. When I compare this with other times, when I have landed an Albatross with a seriously damaged wing after a collision (the damage showing struts and braces uncovered and bent), it seems unreasonable. Maybe I am missing something, but I would expect a warped and chewed wing to hamper the controls much more seriously than a few holes do.

Did something similar happen to any of you guys?

BTW. this rant is not intended to developers, I am grateful for the beautiful work, you did and are doing for us all with this marvel.

I would be grateful for your experiences or even words of pity, since I rather liked my Ludovic Maria Beaumarchais character - sadly dying after a very promising start in Esc. no 3.

S!

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Hi Dryjo,

Sometimes even apparent minimal battle damage can result in some fairly unpredictable behaviour, and once your plane goes into a spin, in particular a flat spin, it can be very tricky to get back out of it due to the airflow disruption over the control surfaces. In the two cases you mention, did you immediately throttle back and give control input counter to the spin direction? This, coupled with dropping the nose of your mount at the same time, (provided you can), will usually get you out of a spin. Not always, but usually. Sometime though you simply won't be able to recover from the spin no matter what you try, and this is not unlike what far too many RL pilots have died from over the decades. A spin can be a real killer. HTH.

Cheers,

Lou

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I have probably written this in a wrong way. While the motion of the plane going down was spin-like in its form, it wasn't a spin (or stall), it was actually just side-heavy downward fall, where I couldn't correct it, working the controls did weird things, like accelerating and slowing the rotation. But maybe I misinterpreted it and maybe it was a kind of high-speed spin. Next time, I will try the spin-recovery maneuver - good tip :-), thank you!

Hey, Dryjo!

I'll send some sympathy your way! I have had pilots fall the same way you are describing. I think that the bullet holes are symbolic of a wide range of damage, from very mild to complete loss of control. Maybe in the new version of WOFF, there will be a few more levels of graphical damage to convey what is going on underneath. Until that time, raise a toast to the dead and keep flying! And give Lou's idea a try, who knows, it may help. I actually extinguished my plane from being on fire once, so there is a lot possible in the sim that doesn't always show up on a regular basis.

I also wouldn't put TOO much stock in the location of bullet holes, particularly in the wings. Many, many times I've had holes on one side of a wing and no corresponding holes...or none whatsoever...on the other side. They probably mostly show the general area you've been hit, but I'm not sure they should be used to try to ascertain any structural damage.

Thank you guys, all interesting points.

@Rick - I believe I saw your extinguisher video on Youtube