It is a bit difficult and yes, i agree that the "look at the instruments" view should be probably modified a bit to allow viewing the compass. I have that view mapped to a button on the base of my sidewinder precision pro stick and it works only as long as you keep pressing it, while also disabling head tracking for the duration, so you get a pretty stable picture on all instruments. This was a big help to me when i first started flying the sim, because i wasn't accustomed to CEM yet and i wanted a way to do brief checks on temps, RPM and what-not without bending my neck too much and without losing a lot of time during the fight.
If that view could be moved slightly up and forward and angled downward a bit more for the RAF fighters, it would probably manage to "clear" the top of the stick and display a clear view of the compass.
In the meantime however i have found a suitable workaround. I temporarily disable my head tracking and use the mouse to move the view down, as it so happens the compass is somewhat visible, extending behind the left side of the stick if you do this. You can do this via head-tracking too, but it's harder because you have to move your head sufficiently down and roll your eyes upwards to keep it in sight, plus the tracking LEDs get a bit harder to track at such a position, so i prefer pressing F9 and paning the camera with the mouse.
Sure, you can't follow this method mid-combat but i doubt anyone is calibrating their gyro compass during that time anyway. I just do this routine when cruising every 10-15 minutes and you don't even have to keep the entire compass visible. As long as the left side of it is visible you can work with it, since you just need to make the course setter lines parallel to the main compass line and read the resulting heading value from the info window.
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04-26-2011, 05:49 PM
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