Fixed Wing Flight Model (dev branch)

[dragon01 902]

That's what I'm talking about. At least in SP, you don't have to worry about damage accumulated between multiple flights. Or even the fact that it's very possible to completely junk a plane by overstressing it too much, despite being able to land it safety.

[gatordev 219]

1 hour ago, dragon01 said:

They generally prevent you from having the plane break up in mid air (though hitting them without a good reason is a good way of getting to have a long, unpleasant talk with your CO...).

 

Please, tell me more about this?  How does this go down?  You say you know more, but really, how does this conversation go down?

 

1 hour ago, dragon01 said:

All modern fighters have them, this tech has been around for a long time. However, they tend to be set at either 9 (for Western fighters)

 

Nope.

 

20 hours ago, dragon01 said:

Which ArmA3 also doesn't simulate. Not only that, if you're fighting an actual war, this sort of thing typically goes out of window.

 

Not really...  Keep in mind, EVERYTHING is logged and then reported, without pilot's, or squadron's, consent.

 

20 hours ago, dragon01 said:

Planes would either get rotated out if the conflict doesn't involve the whole air force, or end up pushed to the limits (and occasionally past, with unpleasant results) if it does.

 

So where do these extra airframes come from?  The nation spending the largest on defense spending is running out of airframes in a pseudo-war effort.

 

dragon01, you've got lots of good feedback, much of which is on target with aero and other issues.  But your logic is circular.  I'll be honest, I've lost track of what your g-argument actually is, as you jump back and forth between "it's a game" and "it should be simulated like..." 

 

I'm not saying either argument is wrong, or even germane given the engine limitations, but settle on what you want, rather than arguing for EVERYTHING you want in a non-sim, while then quoting DCS sim-isms.

[martin_lee 33]

If you are talking about planes in service around the 80s (think F-15, F-14), then yeah, you can pull over the G-'limit'. It's not a hard limit, as there is no flight control computer. If it is aerodynamically feasible, you can pull it. It may or may not disintegrate, but the damage is there.

 

I think back in WWII there were accounts of aircraft having main wing or tail section failure due to pulling to hard. Flying too fast during a dive also destroyed, or at least badly damaged a number of aircrafts

 

Pilots were trained to respect the flight envelop, both in civilian and military aviation. Reasons are spoken of and elaborated by various poster above: cost, airframe downtime and safety. There isn't much to gain departing the envelop, not even for missile evasion. You can't really (safely) pull more G's in any meaningful way. Pulling 9.0G vs 9.5G doesn't make much of a difference. There is a reason why there isn't any way to override the G-limit on the flight control computer.

 

p.s. Well, F-16 do have a pitch override switch. It is used to recover from deep stall. There is a limit to about -4.5G in regular flight envelop (can't remember why, but most likely because human can't survive too much negative G). But in deep stall, you have to rock the nose up and DOWN, HARD, to recover. That override will allow you to push the nose down without hinter. It doesn't change the positive G-limit one bit, though.

 

_________________________________edit:

 

Just wanted to elaborate a bit more on what I meant by 'meaningful way'.

 

A missile is much more manoeuvrable than your jet. Older ones can pull already pull at least 12-13G. Even if you can pull 10G it wouldn't really make you have much more chance of evading a missile, you are better off focusing putting yourself in a better orientation and using ECM (or better, having realised the missile shot much earlier). Pulling 10G during a dogfight may give you a chance to fire a burst, but you bleed off too much energy. You are better off waiting him to junk first or closing in a bit more. Or in the case where it's your tail being chased, you are better off retaining more energy to junk around (him matching your manoeuvre will bleed of much more energy than you), than to lose most of your energy in a few 10G turn.

 

You see, there are many ways to overcome those life-or-death situation. Granted, over-G is one of them, there are better ones around. Missile are defeated not by manoeuvrability, but by situational awareness. Noticing a missile one second earlier is better than being able to pull 10G. One-on-one dogfights are won by energy management and exploiting your enemy's airframe's weakness. Keeping some energy for when it counts, steer the fight to a case where your plane excels (eg, right turn against Me-109, or going vertical in an F-16, which have very good climb). Team-vs-team dogfight is won by team work and coordination (eg. early in WWII Pacific against Zero)

Edited July 5, 2017 by martin_lee
elaboration

[dragon01 902]

18 hours ago, gatordev said:

Not really...  Keep in mind, EVERYTHING is logged and then reported, without pilot's, or squadron's, consent.

Of course it is. The difference is what they do with the logs. Airframe life due to metal fatigue is a lot bigger concern when planes aren't in much danger of getting shot down. I'm not saying it's gonna get ignored, but you're not gonna lose your career over it during a war (in peacetime you probably won't lose it either, but it's not gonna look good on the record).

Quote

Nope.

What are they set to, then? The latest Viper does 9G by default, for example. If you're referring to "it's been around a long time" part, then it's on the F-16, which isn't exactly a new design. You have to go back to the 80s to find fighters without it. 

Quote

settle on what you want, rather than arguing for EVERYTHING you want in a non-sim, while then quoting DCS sim-isms.

I know what I want, namely, an FM that "checks all the boxes", while not being bogged down in minute details. There's a lot ArmA could take from DCS, especially since it has a low-detail FM with simplified controls (for example, the Su-25 that comes with DCS World has it). G-limiter, for example, is a fundamental element of modern air combat tactics, so it should be in. Airframe fatigue from repeated hard pulls, on the other hand, doesn't actually come into play very often (you either have to abuse the plane a lot, which is rare, or abuse it a little over a lot of flights, which isn't simulated).

12 hours ago, martin_lee said:

p.s. Well, F-16 do have a pitch override switch. It is used to recover from deep stall. There is a limit to about -4.5G in regular flight envelop (can't remember why, but most likely because human can't survive too much negative G). But in deep stall, you have to rock the nose up and DOWN, HARD, to recover. That override will allow you to push the nose down without hinter. It doesn't change the positive G-limit one bit, though.

Isn't the switch in the Viper an AoA limiter? It's been a while since I played Freefalcon, but I don't seem to recall redout-level negative Gs during deep stall recovery (at -4G, it sets in really qucikly and can easily kill you). In fact, the F-16 really can't pull or push much Gs in such a situation, because stalled control surfaces aren't that effective. "Pitch limiter" usually refers to an AoA limiter, which can be disengaged in many planes in order to perform stall recovery and some of the crazier aerobatics (notably, anything involving supermaneuverability). However, it's quite possible it disengages the G limiter as well.

Quote

You see, there are many ways to overcome those life-or-death situation. Granted, over-G is one of them, there are better ones around. Missile are defeated not by manoeuvrability, but by situational awareness. Noticing a missile one second earlier is better than being able to pull 10G. One-on-one dogfights are won by energy management and exploiting your enemy's airframe's weakness. Keeping some energy for when it counts, steer the fight to a case where your plane excels (eg, right turn against Me-109, or going vertical in an F-16, which have very good climb). Team-vs-team dogfight is won by team work and coordination (eg. early in WWII Pacific against Zero)

This is true, but pulling high Gs can get you out of a pinch when other methods have failed. It's preferable to notice the missile early, but if you fail to do that, you're not going to sit by and let it hit you. Likewise, if you end up in scissors, being able to pull more Gs than the opponent can very much save your backside. Sure, it's better not to end up in them in first place, but you do get an advantage if you got the limit set at 10G and not 9. 

[jone_kone 158]

Could we get a separate G:s thread? Although an interesting topic. Wall of texts posts with very little to do with Arma 3 fixed wing flight model is getting tiresome to read. :) 

[dragon01 902]

What else is there to say about the FM? It's pretty much perfect now, aside from not factoring software G limits into maneuverability curves.

[jone_kone 158]

16 hours ago, dragon01 said:

What else is there to say about the FM? It's pretty much perfect now, aside from not factoring software G limits into maneuverability curves.

 

I do agree that the FM is pretty good now (for being Arma). Just realized that I haven´t tested if the wind influences airplanes at all. Probably not as I haven´t noticed an effect yet.

[xxgetbuck123 945]

2 hours ago, jone_kone said:

 

I do agree that the FM is pretty good now (for being Arma). Just realized that I haven´t tested if the wind influences airplanes at all. Probably not as I haven´t noticed an effect yet.

 

Now theres an idea ;) 

 

@oukej Would that even be possible in Arma, then again doesnt the Adv Heli take the wind into account? Could possibly see if its viable to add it to fixed wing? 

[dragon01 902]

I don't think that ArmA does anything with the wind, besides having it blow smoke around. It doesn't affect ballistics and I think that AFM isn't affected, either (it was in TOH, but not all features have been implemented, I think).

 

TBH, I don't see much point in wind affecting planes. It'd be nice, but you'd barely notice it in the jets. The only plane that would be significantly affected would be Caesar BTT. Landings in strong crosswinds could be interesting, but that's about the extent of it. With helos and VTOLs it's a big deal and with parachutes it can mean life or death, but planes, especially fighters, aren't gonna be too bothered.

[slowrider8 41]

3 hours ago, dragon01 said:

I don't think that ArmA does anything with the wind, besides having it blow smoke around. It doesn't affect ballistics and I think that AFM isn't affected, either (it was in TOH, but not all features have been implemented, I think).

 

Wind affects helicopters in both AFM and BFM.

[dragon01 902]

Nice. I guess I never paid much attention to it. If it affects BFM, then maybe implementing this on planes would be possible. Still not sure how often this would come up, but it'd be good for consistency. 

[jone_kone 158]

Strong winds with AFM can make flying helso almost impossible. I´m not saying that having the FWFM account for wind is something that i require or really miss. Just realized that I had completley overlooked it while testing the new FM. :) As someone said. It´s only gameplay effect would be when flying low and slow or making landings more interesting. So wind can for my part stay low on the priority list and have something else added instead. (like a working CCRP or GPS zoom etc.).

[martin_lee 33]

1 hour ago, jone_kone said:

... and have something else added instead. (like a working CCRP or GPS zoom etc.).

 

Or ballistic being affected by wind (just saying ;p ) Yeah, quite a bit of other things are of higher priority.

 

Having wind is an icing on the cake. Think about crosswind landing, or strafing run in an A-10 (bonus point if bullets, rockets and bombs are affected by wind as well ;) ). It will make things very interesting, but gameplay-wise the improvement is relatively few. All depends on time and resources needed. I don't know how hard it is to incorporate wind into the FM.

[dragon01 902]

Weapons aren't affected by the wind and I don't think they're ever going to be in ArmA3. TBH, this would actually be a bigger deal for infantry than for aircraft, if you needed to take windage into account, sniping would become much more difficult. Low speed strafing runs can be done into/against the wind, which is easy to compensate for with the rate of fire CAS cannons offer, and even in a crosswind this would not be a big issue (dumb bombs are already not too accurate, anyway). Crosswind landing is the only real situation where it would be an issue, mostly for new players.

On 7/9/2017 at 10:59 AM, jone_kone said:

Strong winds with AFM can make flying helso almost impossible. 

Which is par the course. Helicopters are very sensitive to winds. If it's strong enough, you're pretty much reduced to flying like an airplane, if at all. That said, no mission I played actually used wind that strong (I guess I could try it in the editor).

[Grumpy Old Man 3545]

On 7.7.2017 at 7:12 PM, slowrider8 said:

Wind affects helicopters in both AFM and BFM.

Same for parachutes last time I tried.

Too bad the wind is very barebones, same force and direction on the entire map and changes both force/direction every n seconds.

Seems like someone made his first random number and direction script and left it like that.

Lot of improvement possible here.

 

Use this to display current wind speed and direction:

onEachFrame {

hintSilent format ["Windspeed: %1km/h\nWind Direction: %2°",vectorMagnitude wind * 3.6,winddir];

};

 

Cheers

[jone_kone 158]

On 10.7.2017 at 2:24 PM, Grumpy Old Man said:

Same for parachutes last time I tried.

Too bad the wind is very barebones, same force and direction on the entire map and changes both force/direction every n seconds.

Seems like someone made his first random number and direction script and left it like that.

Lot of improvement possible here.

 

Use this to display current wind speed and direction:

onEachFrame {

hintSilent format ["Windspeed: %1km/h\nWind Direction: %2°",vectorMagnitude wind * 3.6,winddir];

};

 

Cheers

 

 

Carrier landing in the dark with rain and gusting crosswinds would be a mini-game in itself. :D

 

 

[xxgetbuck123 945]

23 hours ago, jone_kone said:

 

 

Carrier landing in the dark with rain and gusting crosswinds would be a mini-game in itself. :D

 

 

 

Put some hairs on ya chest haha. Make a few boys into men :P 

[dragon01 902]

Nah, that's not so bad. Try it in a proper sim like the old F/A-18 Super Hornet, with the carrier underway and rocking from side to side, to boot. :) That will make you feel badass.

[hcpookie 3770]

On 7/10/2017 at 5:24 AM, Grumpy Old Man said:

Seems like someone made his first random number and direction script and left it like that.

 

I have to LOL at that :)

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

Happy Holidays @oukej and the team!

 

Will there ever be an update to the Neophron and Wipeout 'flight models' that will bring them into line with all the other updated aircraft?

[oukej 2910]

They are now ;) Try it out. And pls post know whatcha think.

[Strike_NOR 898]

Bamboozled! Will try!

[x3kj 1247]

Flying Tanks DLC confirmed

[Strike_NOR 898]

1 hour ago, x3kj said:

Flying Tanks DLC confirmed

PhysX boosted

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

On 3/12/2018 at 8:49 PM, oukej said:

They are now ;) Try it out. And pls post know whatcha think.

 

Both are now a joy to fly and firing the 30mm cannon on the Wipeout is just a treat as it forces the nose up and slows the plane down.  Such a nice little detail that really makes it feel like you're firing something powerful.

 

Landing the To-199 isn't a pain anymore either, it just feels a lot more intuitive.  Nice work!