Masters of the Air

    Sure, I'll watch it. I'll tip my hat to them for building a couple of accurate replicas of parts of B-17s like cockpits on a gimbal setup for the cockpit action shots.


    Their CGI of B-17F formations in flight suck. Shit, they should have got in touch with HT. He could have done better than what they did.


    In 2020s, there just weren't very damn many B-17Fs around. Period.


    In 1949's 12 O'Clock high otoh, they used the real thing.


    "In the opening of Twelve O’Clock High, a B-17G Flying Fortress crash-lands, representing the losses the 918th Bomb Group had been suffering. The footage shown in the film wasn’t a model being controlled by wires, nor was it archival footage from WWII. The B-17G was real, and it was purposely crashed during production. The only change made to the bomber before the stunt was the removal of its bottom turret, which was done to reduce the risk of structural damage.


    Stunt pilot Paul Mantz was paid $4,500 (worth over $53,000 today) to fly and crash-land the aircraft on-film. This was, up until the 1970s, the largest sum paid to a stuntman to perform a single stunt."


    So, I'll cut them some slack.


    BTW, I'm sure a lot of us have read Masters of the Air by Donald Miller. If you haven't read it, Harry Crosby's "A Wing and a Prayer" is good too.

    Quote from Toad

    Their CGI of B-17F formations in flight suck. Shit, they should have got in touch with HT. He could have done better than what they did.

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    Having been a cartoon pile it for a few years... Unrealistic flight characteristics really bug the shit out of me. And you can't tell me that the "experts" that these film productions employ don't tell them "that ain't how a B17 flies". My only conclusion is... "Fuck the experts, fuck realism. I'll make it fly how I want."

    Yeah, some of the most jaw dropping unbelievable moments are the heavily damaged forts hanging in formation.


    I think there was a shot of a fort with no wing at all outside the #4 engine. Just a torn up engine cowl and then....nothing, entire outboard wing section just gone. Fort chugs along with the rest of the formation. Ummm.....nooooooo, I don't think so. They needed a little help there, somebody to review the flying shot-by-shot and telling them....nope.

    Quote from Toad

    DCS beats heck out of what MotA did.

    I put that raid together in the mission editor. I can't let all of those bombers drop their loads of 12 bombs at the same time because it crashes the mission.


    I took the eggs from all but the first 12 birds and things went ok but I think I could give each bomber 1 or 2 eggs and it might go ok.


    I also tried putting 5 flights of German fighters in, 2 FW-190D-9, 2 FW-190A-8 and 1 flight of Bf-109K-4's. They killed the lead bomber (the one everyone else follows) and the entire mission went to hell in a hand basket, bombers fleeing in a "every man for himself" kind of way. It was pretty funny but I can probably fix that by making the lead bomber invulnerable.


    I did finally learn to get the 109 off the ground once I got rudder pedals again. One of my biggest mistakes I was making was letting the 109 fly off the ground before I'd built up enough speed and it would roll hard left into the ground every time.

    Hey here's a question for you guys...


    So let's say HTC shut down, and for some crazy reason, a bunch of us got all nostalgic and decided to fly some WWII AH-style action once again... where would we go ?


    How good is DCS when it comes to WWII stuff, and hosting private free servers for a group of your pals ?

    Quote from El Sluggo Loco

    I don't want to have to read a manual to get a cartoon plane in the air. AH was the perfect balance of arcade/simulator.

    Yep that's a good point.


    I played DCS for many hours on my own during the lockdown BS - I managed to get good with the russian trainer, then started leaning the Freedom Fighter - then life got in the way and I don't have room for my flight controls currently - but that may change as I'm mulling a big re-org of my life.


    It's not insurmountable by any stretch, but you have to put in the time and study it pretty seriously.


    The closest thing I found to the stand alone AH experience was IL2-1946. Was it as good as AH ? Flight model wise no, but it wasn't half bad. Push comes to shove, it was an acceptable replacement. Just acceptable though - like if there was nothing else.

    I always thought it would be cool to have an AH type experience, but also have arenas for very early 50s stuff, and also an alternate universe WWII where the bomb was never developed, and you have a theoretical 1946 theater of war - full of all those advanced prototypes and models that didn't quite make it to the war but were in development.

    Quote from slamfire

    Hey here's a question for you guys...


    So let's say HTC shut down, and for some crazy reason, a bunch of us got all nostalgic and decided to fly some WWII AH-style action once again... where would we go ?


    How good is DCS when it comes to WWII stuff, and hosting private free servers for a group of your pals ?


    War Thunder is free. And some people put on spectacular custom missions. But you have to grind for any vehicle you don't have.

    Quote from El Sluggo Loco

    I don't want to have to read a manual to get a cartoon plane in the air. AH was the perfect balance of arcade/simulator.

    There isn't much of a manual to the planes you want to fly and starting them is easy enough. You could watch a couple of YouTube videos and learn what you need to know fairly quickly.

    Quote from Elf Man

    There isn't much of a manual to the planes you want to fly and starting them is easy enough. You could watch a couple of YouTube videos and learn what you need to know fairly quickly.

    If it's not "E" for engine, the learning curve is too high. Click for wep, no engine seizures. Fucking auto-trim. HTC was the only one to nail the balance between arcade and sim. Everything else either felt like a rinse & repeat action game (war thunder) or some shit made for an arcade game to take your money at dave & busters (blazing eagles), or it's an over the top sim that expects you to crank your own gear down in VR.

    Quote from definitely-not-indy

    If it's not "E" for engine, the learning curve is too high. Click for wep, no engine seizures. Fucking auto-trim. HTC was the only one to nail the balance between arcade and sim. Everything else either felt like a rinse & repeat action game (war thunder) or some shit made for an arcade game to take your money at dave & busters (blazing eagles), or it's an over the top sim that expects you to crank your own gear down in VR.

    :whatevs