Yeah, I really do hope they add this back in.

Flight sims have come a long way, but I don't think they're going to 'push through' to the new generation without a leap forward in the one element that they've continually neglected: the human element.

Animated pilots for 1st person view, animated pilots bailing out realistically. Base personnel moving about and running around during an attack, etc.

Rise of Flight started to get it with the whole arm and hand signals thing, so pilot animation is certainly doable.

I honestly wouldn't even care too much if the animation didn't tie properly to the free falling pilot (pilot bails out using animation and then 'teleports' to the position where he's falling away from the plane if the animation can't be linked to the actual free fall start position). I'd just love to see that bail out motion.

There is also some moral issue. Imagine seeing that scene trough an Me110 visor with the the point of view of the shooter. And then hold you breath and press the trigger... I understand that they removed it from the game. It's an aviation sim not a Gore movie :rolleyes:

Regarding the truth of the image (thx for posting). It looks credible for me. The pilot might have fly back over England in formation with a bomber to get some help in his navigation and jumped once over safe territory. I won't be surprised that the photo was taken during a rhubarb with that Hurri I hit while doing some grd attack/flack suppression.

Note that the black smoke is IMOHO, certainly the result of the push over (neg G) induced by the elevator position, not by a damaged engine

For the animations, I expect part of the problem is that it's contextual. It's all well and good to have that animation if you're bailing out from perfectly straight and level, but if you're at an angle of even upside-down it'd look stupid to have him climbing out over the wing the wrong way up and defying gravity - even worse than not having it at all. To make it look right you'd need to have a few different animations and a system of working out which way up the plane was as to which animation to play etc. All of that, plus playing the animation, uses up processing power, which isn't something most of us have to spare in this game.

Movie shot in 1945 for pilots training. About emergency bailout.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-pbXyO4lC8