Just when you think you've got the hang of it...

[Janosch]

DGen has always managed to goof up at least one thing per mission, such as bomber escort mission having enemy fighters start behind bombers, while player starts on ground, and having player fly through the worst AAA zones on a patrol flight.

Was the damaged B5N the formation leader? I've noticed that other planes in the formation might follow their leader even if the leader's engines are dead! That way, it appears that the B5N is indeed flying in a formation with no problems.

For F4U landings, it may be a good idea to record tracks when practicing, so once you get a good landing, you can view the track carefully to see what your speed, sink rate and so on were, and on a failed attempt, you can see what went wrong. Avoid taking 100% fuel - took me a while to figure this out when I was practicing.
F4U has a big hook. I find Zero landings much more difficult. When Zero bounces, it easily glides over all the remaining wires.

[MaxGunz]

Raven if you want, try spending time seeing how slow you can fly.

No, really, do it well up in alt and even while climbing. Staying stable right down near the wire, 140-150kph in a P-40 or 109 took me a good bit of practice long ago. It helps train in stick twisting without side movement which does take discipline. Close to stall, aileron is death. The aileron down side (wing you'd be raising) crosses into stall and it's all over from there. Practicing at alt, you recover and review yourself the try again.

It's like slow-drag on a motorcycle only 3D and no one laughing.

With the X52 it is easy to rest your hand and arm on the stick. Too easy by far. I had 2 good flight sim teachers get me off of that and the benefit is very real. The only thing worse than using the stick to hold your arm up is the stick death grip that oh yeah I do find myself doing in tough situations!

I filter my axes not just to eliminate digital flutter but to smooth my own muscle tremors, especially on pitch that I run 50% filter on. The effect is good for me and really only more than slight with fast large stick deflections that will normally cause speed loss anyway.

[Raven Morpheus]

Originally Posted by Janosch

Was the damaged B5N the formation leader?

Dunno. Might explain why it seemed to be flying perfectly fine with a prop that wasn't rotating.

Anyway I went back the other night to IL2 after a week or two away from it, played a 633 Squadron campaign Mosquito mission (twice because it crashed to desktop on me, think it was a memory issue as I use the SAS Mod selector and had the memory usage set to 1024mb which that mission possibly didn't like because it worked fine 2nd time with memory on 512mb), and also a P51 Mustang mission from the Y29 Legend campaign, the 1st one, and I flew both fine, and landed both OK (the odd bounce here and there not withstanding), although I failed to shoot down 3 slow German planes (can't recall what they are, they look like boat-planes) that are spawned on the return leg of that 633 Squadron mission (seems my aim was off/I didn't cause enough damage and I ran out of ammo!!).

I'm wondering if some of the problems I have with regards to landing are related to trimming for level flight, because the other night when I did those two missions I trimmed both planes on approach with a slight lift.

I quite often don't do that, thus the plane I'm flying is usually trimmed for level flight at cruising speed, or as good as I can get it.

Or maybe I just had a good night when it comes to successful missions (with 2 relatively easy missions) and landings...

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Raven Morpheus

I'm wondering if some of the problems I have with regards to landing are related to trimming for level flight, because the other night when I did those two missions I trimmed both planes on approach with a slight lift.

Trimming for approach and landing helps IHMO, and depending on which plane you fly and how your stick is set up may even be crucial. If your stick is set up with decreasing sensitivity the more you are from stick center, then trimming your plane for landing can shift your needed stick movement for a successful flare from the outer less sensitive zone of your stick to the inner zone. I personally trim my planes heavily into nose up before - or more while landing, as speed bleeds off.