Dev blog #186

Hello everybody,

The end of January draws near and we're finishing the BoK development. The new functionality of the coming version 3.001 is being actively tested and debugged, our volunteer beta tester team helps us in this task greatly. This development stage is hard, but it consists of routine work mostly, not very exciting to tell about. However, there is a development which might be interesting for you to know. Andrey =AnPetrovich= Solomykin finished the Yak-7b series 36 flight model but, being the lead engineer, he couldn't just 'make a new plane'. During this work, he implemented many new features which in time may be applied to other aircraft. In addition, while we have a common flight modeling accuracy standard, this time some characteristics were modeled with higher fidelity. Here's the list of Yak-7b FM features:

1. Maximum horizontal speed matches the reference data at all altitudes with 1% difference margin (less than 5 km/h).

2. Climb time matches the reference data with 4% difference margin (less than 8 seconds difference lower than 6000 m and less than 34 seconds at higher altitudes).

3. Turn time matches the reference data with 0.5 seconds difference margin.

4. Takeoff and landing speeds with or without flaps match the reference data with 2-3 km/h difference margin (takeoff run accuracy is 10-20 m).

5. Inertial model is congruent with the reference data for all load variants including fuel and ammo mass.

6. Shock absorbers and tire load are congruent with the reference data in all drop tests.

7. New canopy functionality:

7.1 Canopy opening or closing delay after the player input has been corrected.

7.2 It is impossible to open or close the canopy at speeds higher than 600 km/h.

7.3 Canopy damage model and wind sound corrected.

7.4 Moving canopy recoils when it hits the limit.

7.5 Player can repeat the canopy move command if canopy releases from the lock on its own and didn't lock at the opposite lock.

7.6 If a pilot finds himself in an unlucky flip over situation on the ground, it may be impossible to open the canopy.

8. New flaps functionality:

8.1 Flaps pneumatic valve can be set to the neutral position instead of retracting position, making the flaps retract by air flow pressure instead of a sharp retracement.

8.2 An incorrect flaps behavior, while pushed back by the air flow pressure, has been addressed.

9. Pneumatic valves in the cockpit are being turned in an anthropomorphically realistic way since a human hand can't turn something 360 degrees without pauses.

10. Constant speed governor wheel has been slowed down realistically (synchronized with a virtual axis while controlling it from keyboard).

11. Propeller pitch automatically lowers during landing if the automatic pitch control is selected in difficulty settings.

12. Oil overpressure results in an oil leak.

13. Oil and water radiator scoops can be lost due to combat damage.

14. The airframe structural fatigue and combat damage dependencies on the G load have been adjusted.

15. Fuel pressure indicator shows realistic data while the engine cylinders are being primed with fuel during the engine start.

16. Force Feedback effects were adjusted for higher flight speeds.

17. Oil injector functions correctly during engine warm up (if you start a mission from parking).

18. Instruments and switches function correctly with all interdependencies.

19. Correct Venturi tube modeling in UP-1 gyro, KI-10 gyro modeling.

20. Engine start and turning off procedures fully correspond to the pilot's manual.

21. Landing gear bays and flaps affect flight dynamics correctly in all possible landing gear and flaps combinations (including flaps being lost).

22. Neutral virtual flight stick position corresponds to the real joystick flight stick position for FFB and regular joysticks (taking into account the elevator trim and fixed trim tabs).

23. Aircraft balance changes correctly in an event of fins or fins control rods loss for FFB and regular joysticks (taking into account the fixed trim tab position on the left aileron and both elevator trim tabs).

24. Fins with broken control rods correctly re-orient themselves when the air flow speed drops, affecting the FFB neutral position.

While working on Yak-7b, Andrey was also able to add these features and corrections to other aircraft:

1. Radio compasses on all planes work only when powered and show correct readings when switched on or off and when the beacon signal is lost or acquired.

2. An aircraft can no longer explode when 'Unbreakable' difficulty option is selected.

3. These aircraft can't be damaged anymore with 'Unbreakable' difficulty option selected:

- Bf 110 E-2

- Bf 110 G-2

- He 111 H-6

- He 111 H-16

- Ju 88 A-4

- Ju 52 3mg4e

- IL-2 mod. 41

- IL-2 mod. 42

- Pe-2 series 35

- Pe-2 series 87

4. 'Unbreakable' difficulty option: flipped over MiG-3 and Hs-129 B2 turn back to a normal position.

5. 'Unbreakable' difficulty option: turning back a flipped over aircraft happens correctly and there are no artificial oscillations that could happen when an aircraft lies on its belly.

6. When a plane or its fragment hit a concrete, ice or packed snow surface, dust or snow cloud effects won't be shown.

7. Loss of smaller aircraft fragments won't be accompanied by a dust cloud visual effect.

8. Damage modeling artifacts have been fixed (i.e. sudden breakage of damaged aircraft parts in a resting state).

9. Lost canopies fall off from a correct place on an aircraft.

10. Lost canopy and other parts of Bf-109 Е7 correctly affect its aerodynamic characteristics.

11. Oil viscosity changes correctly with temperature, resulting in faster engine failures when the oil is overheated.

12. Constant propeller speed governor R-7 control wheels were made slower according to reference data. These governors were installed on the following aircraft:

- IL-2 mod. 41

- IL-2 mod. 42

- IL-2 mod. 43

- MiG-3 series 24

- Pe-2 series 87

- Yak-1 series 69

- Yak-7b series 36

In addition, for all these planes (if 'Engine auto control' difficulty option is selected) the propeller pitch is automatically lowered when instrument speed drops and the landing gear is released (to help in a situation when an urgent go around procedure might be needed).

As usual, here are some visual pics to compensate that wall of text above. Here are P-39 official painting schemes: