Senior Member
Hey, just a friendly advice: get yourself a joystick (HOTAS)as soon as possible! you won't go far with the keyboard.
Seriously
Don't try to understand all these maneuvers right now, keep your questions for later. Now get yourself a stick, set it properly then learn how to take off and land, strafe ground target or large drones. Get yourself used to the effects (torque gyroscopic stall etc) of a powerful prop fighter.
It's a good way to start.
Senior Member
Ha that was me in the FWOriginally posted by PhantomKira:
I was online, had lost my wingman, and was cruising home alone when I discovered I was being followed. Hoping to outrun him, and having altitude to burn, I pushed the throttles forward, and dove in a long shallowish dive for the deck to get extra speed. He was still gaining, very slowly, and I had to do something before he simply cruised up and shot me down. So I did the last thing you when trying to get away from someone, I looped up, and turned back toward him, just slightly higher than he was. We passed, head to head, and, since I now had intentionally closed the distance, I ended up doing the only thing I could think of to keep him off my tail, a scissors, which is a low speed series of turns in which each aircraft is trying to get on the others tail. The victory usually goes to the aircraft that can turn the tightest. And I made another mistake. In the pass, I discovered that he was a Focke-Wulf 190D, late model. I knew right away that I was in trouble, since not only can a P-38 not outrun a late model 190, the 190 is generally is better at turning. My response was to attempt to get head to head with him again. This took a few turns, during which our speeds decreased, and he used his better turning ability to get a few shots in, hitting me a few times, but not seriously. I managed, by using everything I knew about what my aircraft was capable of, to get back to a head to head situation, at which time we passed each other going opposite directions. Instead of continuing my turn, I straightened out and ran. He was at low speed, and continued to go around the turn, expecting me to be there, and then I wasn't. He had to do a complete 360 degree turn, at which point he was slow, I was faster and my speed increasing, at a considerable distance, and moving away, using the very good climb capability of the P-38 to increase that distance vertically. He chose to break off and go home, and I was very, very lucky to still have an airplane to fly.
I never should have decided to attempt the scissors maneuver. It was a mistake I could have, and should have lost my airplane for. This example is not one of what to do right, but how handling your airplane on the edge can help you pull your chestnuts out of the fire when you make a mistake.
from my point of view, it took me longer to chase you down than i was really prepared for, as i was fairly low on fuel and also had not much ammo left, and after the encounter decided that you weren't going to be a quick easy kill (and thats the key part really), so I went home. If i'd of had more fuel and less points in the bag, would of probably pursued.
it was good defensive flying on your part, on another day though, those 20mm's would of hurt more (tbh i didn't know i'd actually hit you, as i'd shot blind under the nose where i guessed you would be)
Banned
Yoyo is a path that goes up and down mostly, crossing the path of the target behind him time after time. You fly along the path and keep rolling your plane so you don't lose sight of the target. You get a chance to fire with every pass.Originally posted by skyhigh2011:
"Here's a move for you, vertical turns. Do a half loop except on the way up, roll the plane so you come out on a new course. Do a half roll at the top and dive to regain speed. With a FW or P-47 this can be done insanely fast like while running a barrel roll, suddenly off 60 degrees in another direction. But don't try that when slow!
Learn to fly yoyo's. You can stay behind another even though you have higher airspeed if your path is longer. That's what yoyo's and _big_ barrel rolls do, they lengthen your path. And if every so often your path happens to point across the nose of the other might be other than coincidental.
Your path can be shorter than your target's like say you cross the circle the other is turning. You can be the slow one and still get the shot."
Can you explain in simple words please? I don't get it. I haven't got a joystick so I'm on keyboard. How do I do vertical turns, Half loop, half roll, gain speed and all that?? and How do I do yo yo's?
Your yoyo flight path is longer than the more straight path of the target, you have to be flying faster than him just to keep up. That means your plane has more energy that you can use to maneuver with. And if he's trying shake you by being slow, he will only limit the G's he can use or the height he may zoom, he doesn't limit what your speed allows. The only way to blow it is by slowing down and playing his game, otherwise you can dance all over him.
You really need a stick and pedals or a twisty-stick that gives your rudder by twisting. Without rudder control you can't keep the flight coordinated enough to pull any near-stall-edge maneuvers. You are a pilot then I expect you to know what near-stall-edge means, you are or have been an airplane pilot for real?
Even this stick would work, at all, but SHOP AROUND.
A half-loop starts out like flying a loop but ends halfway through on the top. A loop being where you fly in a vertical circle to come out going the same direction that you went in. Maybe you don't get that and maybe if I knew another language better it would help, or do you have no problem about the loop and half-loop? I don't know, maybe 'vertical circle' is not doing it for you? You see, I don't know which parts give you trouble, it makes explanations difficult.
You are flying along -fast- and you pull the nose up smoothly until your plane is going straight up, that is 1/4 loop, you keep on pulling back until you are upside down pointing level. That is 1/2 loop. If you keep pulling then your plane will nose down and you can finish the loop.
if you get to the 1/4 loop stage and you roll your plane 90 degrees then your plane will come out pointing 90 degrees away from where it would have giving you a 90 degree change in direction very quickly.
A 180 degree turn has the start and end away from each other. A flat turn has both ends at the same height
There are maneuvers used to change direction and/or altitude/speed that have different advantages and disadvantages, each compared to each, each best fitting certain tactical cricumstances in the changing combat environment. When you plan your next few seconds tactics to put you in or towards a shooting solution it is the maneuvers you know that you plan with, even if the only things you know are 'fly straight', 'climb', 'dive' and 'flat turn'. Knowing a half-loop you can plan to go from flying straight and fast in one direction to flying slower and higher (and upside down so you roll 180 to be upright) facing the opposite way and ready for the next maneuver, perhaps a shallow dive to regain speed?
If you're not going fast enough to pull a half-loop and you don't want a flat-turn slowing your down then you need the wing-over trick. That's where you climb to lose speed, make the turn so you top out at best turn speed (takes practice) and when the turn is done you keep diving to get the rest of your speed back. The point of the exercise is to store speed that would be lost in a flat turn, make the turn at more efficient speed and regain the stored speed while turning 180.
Maneuvers let you change your path and speed. The more ways you can do that, more different situations you can fit and the less predictable you can be.
Everything comes down to heights, speeds, distances and angles. In general you can trade one for another. When you think of a maneuver in those terms, you can plan combat tactics reasonably. If you can't plan tactics then that's something to work on, a good setup takes more than a direct approach.
You could probably learn a whole lot just doing dives and climbs, especially zoom climbs (losing speed all the way up) and getting a feel for the trades of speed and height and how the thrust-drag-speed thing (thrust is highest where drag is lowest and vice-versa) affects it. It's different from plane to plane too, the top speed for each plane can tell you a lot about how that will be. Just get a feel for your wings but do it with a joystick, the keyboard has no feel and the IL-2 stick interface is based on stick forces.
Senior Member
Senior Member
Welcome to the forum skyhigh2011,
A lot of the members here will recommend you fly this sim with all the realism switches on ("full switch"), from the get-go in order to avoid acquiring bad habits.
This is good advice and is probably the best way to do it, but it can be very frustrating at first.
In my case, I didn't follow this advice. Not as realistic, but still a lot of fun. Because of the limitations of 'flying' on a computer, I still have a few switches set to 'off', mostly map stuff and turbulence.
Anyway, to make a long story even more boring, I won't recommend any maneuvers as such. This is how I started out:
Turn off complex engine management, overheating, wind and turbulence, no external views and cockpit always on. Enable invincibility but not unlimited ammo as this feature will eliminate bullet drop, and you need to deal with that right away.
Go to the QMB and set up a scenario where you go up against 1 enemy aircraft. If your enemy is a fighter, if get on its tail, don't shoot it right away, just try to stay behind it for as long as possible. When you are ready to fire, slow the sim to 1/2 or even 1/4 speed and watch where your rounds go. This sounds easy but is less so than you think, especially in the beginning. Bomber gunners in IL2 are annoyingly accurate, so enabling invincibility will allow you to attack them for a bit longer although you should still try to avoid being hit (you'll hear the hits on your aircraft).
You'll find that the target will often disappear under your nose so select "cockpit off", otherwise known as "Wonder Woman View", and this way you will see where your shots go and hopefully come to grips with deflection shooting s bit quicker.
Start flying some of the stock campaigns using these settings to get a feel for the ebb and flow of combat. When you start getting regular kills, start dialling up the realism settings until you are flying pretty much full switch.
Online flying is a completely different animal from the offline experience so don't worry if you really suck online at first. Keep at it and you'll get better. Your first online "kill" will be a real rush!
Whichever way you do it, remember, its just a game.
Have fun.
Senior Member
If you were still wondering how to fly online, most use Jiri Fojtasek's HyperLobby, http://hyperfighter.sk
There are people to ask questions and help you online 24/7 too.
Junior Member
Junior Member
Junior Member
Senior Member
See above, online play still (probably the best) with HyperLobby, http://hyperfighter.skOriginally posted by skyhigh2011:
where can I get the patches from? I think I'm gonna have to get a new computer for 1946, ace expansion pack then?? I kept steering the plane and got really good at it ! Mine's a p4 1000mb RAM, and a joystick ! what's the best computer??
I shot a plane down and thought that was wicked !
If you have the 1946, you will need for the very minimum 2 updates, 4.08 and 4.09. See: http://hyperfighter.sk/modules...ile=viewtopic&t=7842
EDIT: you dont need the Ace Expansion. 1946 already includes everything.
