Well, we're getting excited since the renewed stream of updates and if flight sim people don't have anything concrete to talk about they will speculate
I pretty much agree with the previous posters, i do find it very rewarding and exciting to learn how and why the aircraft i'm flying works the way it does.
However, my desire for advanced systems modelling and a closer to real pilot workload doesn't only come from that. There's another can of worms that's somehow interconnected with it.
It's generally accepted knowledge in our community that in order for a mission or campaign to work, wether it's offline, DF or coop, it's not enough to have a talented mission maker. The players need to play along and cooperate with the stated goals, otherwise no matter how talented the mission maker is things don't go exactly as planned. We've all been in online servers where the mission is realistically and carefully crafted, yet one day it's a mission and the next it's an endless furball between Dover and Calais on the channel maps. Why is that? Well, for starters it's not bad to like furballs, everyone does. However, when joining a mission oriented server you are probably not there to fly furballs but to complete objectives.
Furballs are very much fun but the way they happen in flight sims is much different than they did in reality. The causes for this are the fact that we obviously don't risk our real lives and can thus afford to get careless or take unwise risks, we have years of experience under our belt and we have the chance to learn by making the same mistakes over and over again, mistakes that were most of the times fatal in reality. So, how are we going to raise the bar and force ourselves to cooperate with the mission maker in creating a more realistic environment?
There's one more reason for our "all out, careless, gung-ho" flying, it's too easy to do compared to reality. Our workload is probably less than 50% of a real pilot in a similar situation. Some may argue that the clunkiness of a PC interface compared to a real cockpit will make things harder than real life if we go 100% real on the workload, or simply too expensive if it's mandatory to have a custom built simpit on top of TrackIR and fancy Hotas sets. It could also separate the community between the ones who can afford all of these peripherals and dominate online and those who can afford just one or two items and be constantly on the losing side.
That's not entirely false and i agree up to a point, but it's not as hard to circumvent as it looks, because we are looking at aircraft with significantly simpler systems than most of todays civilian general aviation aircraft, plus they are used in an age and situation where there are simpler rules and capabilities. There are a good deal more switches, dials, operating limits and procedures to monitor and adhere to in a modern turboprop touring aircraft than in a WWII warbird. You don't have to maintain precise altitudes and headings to keep the IFR ground controller happy (heck, you can't because you don't even have the necessary equipment on your place) and you don't have all the complicated air traffic regulations to think of.
All you need to do is have a rough idea of where you're heading and how long it will take you to get within 10 miles of your intented target to visually pick it up. That's why we see so many servers who try to be realistic but they still use enemy bases too close to each other. In case you're still wondering, it's because navigation consists of " firewall throttle, open rads, lower pitch to prevent overheat,set trim, climb at the edge of the map and go have a cup of cofee while my ride climbs to 30000ft". Navigation simply put is boring because you have nothing to do.
If however manifold pressure on sea level could exceed the engine's tolerance if you applied full throttle, you would have to set throttle to 50% and you'd still be getting the power required for takeoff, but as you climb and the air gets thinner MP and power would drop. You would have to advance the throttle a bit every few thousand feet, check to make sure that your carburators aren't freezing as you climb into colder air and adjust your intercoolers to keep them at the right temps, etc.
You would simply have something fun to do, long before you start searching for targets. You would also have to complete your climb early enough, so that you are at a safe altitude and cruise speed with a nicely cooled and healthy engine a good deal
before you ever need to look for hostiles. You would simply have to
plan ahead a little bit more.
Ever wonder why so many of the short ranged early P-47Ds were based so far back to the west of the southern UK compared to other units? Maybe it was because they climb like bricks down low, so they had to be up high and cruising fast by the time they meet up with the bombers and definitely before crossing the north sea, on a "just in case basis". What does a Jug at 3000ft do when it's loaded to the brim with fuel and happens to get jumped by a 190 that's on an intruder sortie?
In short, the amount of things that you (and the enemy as well) can screw up increase if you model such things and that can only be fun. Don't call masochism on me because it won't work, we're all flight simmers here so we already know we suffer from it
So, how hard does it actually get when you get to the fight? Well, i guess not much as long as you know what you're doing,
but the way your battles play out would be closer to what you read in pilot biographies, because the realistic workload would force you to be a slight touch more conservative.
First of all, it wouldn't be possible to dive, climb or cruise at whatever power settings you wanted. Even in a furball, most pilots would set the desired power before entering the fray and leave it there, because you can't look at the gauges all the time to fine-tune things when you're getting shot at. This might not be fun for some and that's why it should be optional, but it's definitely closer to what happened in reality and that makes it really fun for others. So, what is that magic setting?
I guess it's the power setting used for climbs, as it's high enough to climb in a full-laden plane that flies through warm air directly after take-off, while at the same time keeping the engine within its limits. You'll say "but i don't want to climb!" and that's why you have trim. Plus, having burned some fuel and being a good deal higher in colder air, your engine will also be very effective.
You'll just be unable to cruise at your top speed all day long and will instead have to settle for 20-30mph lower speeds (military power and not top power), keeping your engine cool enough so that you can firewall it if you really need to (ie to escape).
Others might prefer an even lower power setting in combination with a careful approach to combat, because using max sustained power will bring the engine closer to overheat even if it doesn't actually cross the redline. That means one pilot could get 2 minutes at full emergency power before having to throttle back, while another pilot in the same type or aircraft could get 4 minutes. So what do you do? Decisions, decisions...
Of course, the other guy will be bound by the same constraints. What does that mean? That he will probably not want to give up his advantage because it's a slightly more complicated process to climb back up. He will have to score a quick kill or let you go, or risk climbing back to altitude and having to monitor his engine with a bunch of bandits around. In short, he will be reluctant to keep chasing if you dive.
And there you have it, the recreation of the typical accounts we've all read in pilot memoirs that go "i scored good hits on him but he dove out of the fight". How many of them said "i followed him down to the deck despite the presence of other hostiles and having bombers to escort"? Not many i think, at least not many that survived.
As you can see this adds a whole new layer of tactical variables and considerations that to me are not limitations, but extra tools for each virtual pilot to carve his own personal flying style. The more things we have to play with, the more we can distinguish ourselves from each other.
Nowadays we see a plane silhouette and say "this is definitely a G6/AS, the others can't get that speed and climb at this altitude band", we distinguish types.
Imagine the fun of seeing a Jug thundering along at 30000ft, contrails and all, at speeds unattainable by most of the server population in a similar plane and saying on voice comms "yes, that must be Mr.Awesome, nobody else on the full switch servers knows how to push a Jug that hard and not break the turbocharger in the process".
We would be able to distinguish individual allies and opponents by their style of flying and fighting, just like we read in the stories about the great aces. Talent with getting the most out of your systems while keeping them in good working order at the same time would be another factor in making an ace, in addition to a talent in maneuvering and shooting.
Of course, being who we are as a community i bet my right arm that the first thing to be said on voice comms would probably not be what i said above, but something closer to the lines of "Whoah, look at that #$&*@# cheater!"
In any case, increasing our workload is an easy way to keep our inflated and unrealistic kill scores in check and to create more indecisive encounters, just like in all the books we've read. Things mentioned by others before, like modelling the effects of a lack of oxygen and a fatigue model (i think the latter one was being discussed at some point), will make it all fall into place nicely.
The end of combat should leave you gasping for air with enough force to draw a couple of pints of beer in a single breath through your oxygen mask, glad that you survived to carefully nurse your stricken bird back home instead of sitting there and thinking "bah, i could have scored a kill if i had pushed it a little longer".
And then the simulator is talking to you "No you couldn't, you would have died the mother of all deaths or at the very least suffered the embarassment of having to dead-stick in the middle of the north sea if you had pushed it a bit more!"
That's what we need, we need the new sim to strike awe and terror into our smug, know-it-all, flight-simming hearts the first time we happen to see combat in SoW, to makes us jump out of the seat and run like a little girl the first time a flak shell bursts close (i still remember the first flak barrage i had to go through in B17 II:The mighty 8th). Frankly, what we really need is to be scared sh*tless with this one
And as long as it's not done by artificially imposed limits but by a move closer to what actually happened in reality, i personally find it a very desirable feature and a downright necessity to be included as an option
