I've been taken down many times from water spouts, ground exposions, and aircraft explosions.

as I understand it, explosions can damage you, but not debris resulting from said explosions. Or at least, not me online. Are you guys saying that 1-2 seconds after the explosion has happened, you can fly through the remaining water still in the air, and that will damage you?

That would be very, very cool, but it is certainly contrary to what I've experienced. I fly through those water spouts (particularly from a bandit crashing in front of me) with impunity.

Individual debris is probably not programmed for fps reasons, so it may be just a radius calculation, with damage dependent on your proximity to the exposion. In the case of IL-2 it seems you have to be very close.

when the whole plane explodes, yes, but planes were brought down by less. Just debris thrown out by damage, not the fuel combusting. You can see those black specs of debris when MGs hit the enemy. That should cause damage, in theory.

Fingers crossed :)

BTW, do you or don't you take damage from water spouts? Not the explosion causing it, mind, but the water itself.

Again I doubt wether the physics of water splashes, explosive shrapnel or debris specs are modeled to cause damage. Its probably more a proximity thing, but I've been wrong before.

It happens and its happened again (you'll be happy to know). ;)

Go into the conf.ini and set:
arcademode = 1

Then drop a few bombs or fire a few cannon rounds into aircraft ("debris/shrapnel" progresses instantaneously along a linear path - but random trajectories and various ranges and number of fragments are modeled depending on the weapon)

Thanks for clearing that up, Avimimus. I should have remembered seeing things like that in the arcade mode.

I've just read that there will be no start up procedure in SoW for simple online play reasons. I think it's a a pity not to have at least a simplified one if switched on in the difficulty selection panel.

I could imagine that it may be limited to three operations like opening tank feed valve, pumping and ignition (magnets will be switched automatically for instance).

No hope that some sort of this may be introduced?

^^ I agree

A simplified start up procedure with magnetos, fuel cocks, fuel pump, and startup button can add a real immersive element to the sim. Especially in scramble situations where you are about to be attacked, and in your hurry(Panic), you haven't hit the fuel pump enough to get the engine to start.