Hello Pilots,

Today we are pleased to share with you the news about our work on the IL-2 BoS/BoM/BoK physics model. Usually the 1C Game Studios engineering department conducts parallel developments on several fronts. This past week has been no exception.

The first thing we would like to tell you is that we have completed work on the development of the physics model for the Yak-1b 127 series, and now the aircraft is under internal 'factory' testing. We plan to pass it to our beta testers in about a week. Historically, the Yak-1b ser.127 was the result of systematic refinement and improvement of the Yak-1 during its serial production. The main external difference between 127th and the early series is the lack of fairing and a new teardrop-shaped canopy that provides a good view to the rear:

  

A bulletproof visor was installed to the front of the cockpit canopy. The pilot's back was covered by armored plate and a block of armored glass.

This aircraft got a new propeller - the VISh-105 instead of the VISh-61, which allowed the engine to develop full RPM at low airspeed. It slightly reduced the takeoff distance of the aircraft. Simultaneously, the propeller control changed; instead of a separate wheel it became a handle located next to the throttle handle so that both handles could be moved together with one hand.

To simplify the airframe and speed production, it was decided to abandon the rudder trim and aileron trim. Instead of the trims, adjustment plates were installed. The aircraft became a little lighter and its pressurization was improved. The shape of intake collector was changed. The exhaust pipes were covered by additional plates and the tail landing gear could now be raised in flight. All these changes reduced the aerodynamic drag of the aircraft and increased its top speed by 15-20 kmh. However, the climb rate and the turn time remained almost the same.

Also, the engine cooling system was modified. Now the radiator shutters were able to open wider than the previous Yaks shutters could. The downside of this refinement was an increase of the drag when the radiator shutters are fully open.

In addition, a new scheme of the tail wheel locking was implemented. The manual lock control was removed, and the wheel automatically became free when pushing the pedals more than three-quarter deflection. It simplified taxiing, but the plane became 'stricter' on the takeoff and landing.

The aircraft’s armament was also improved: instead of two small ShKAS guns, a large-caliber UBS gun with 220 rounds of ammunition was installed. However, installing rockets into the plane was refused, and only aircraft ordered by the Air Defense Forces were equipped with the landing light.

Lots of minor improvements which appeared in the Yak-1 serial production all together significantly improved its fighting qualities. We hope that as soon as our beta-testing is finished, all the pilots who have already pre-ordered it will come to see that.

 

Coming back to the most important results last week’s work on the aircraft physics model in IL-2 BoS/BoM/BoK, I would like to emphasize the fact that we finally managed to complete an important research carried out under a physics model further development task, announced back in 120th developer’s diary. We were able to establish the root cause of some excessive roll reactions of our aircrafts on the rudder. Oddly enough, we reached the proper behavior of the aircraft through more detailed modeling of the fuselage aerodynamics. By the way, we never cease to be surprised at how bizarre and sometimes non-trivial relationships of aerodynamics and flight dynamics are woven together, when the solution of the problem in the end is not quite where you expected it to be. Nevertheless, we have conducted a number of internal experiments with one of the airplanes, and they showed very good results: the ailerons deviation for slip compensation significantly reduced, the aircraft has acquired the ability to perform deep coordinated sideslip, including at low airspeeds, which is useful on final approach. And when pushing the pedal with the fixed stick the aircraft instead of performing a roll begin to fall into a bank putting the nose down.

The successful completion of this research will enable us to further refine the behavior of our aircrafts on these flight regimes. However, the implementation of this research results for all aircrafts in IL-2 BoS/BoM/BoK requires a lot of time. We hope to have this opportunity during 2017.

Another interesting subject we touched during last week was an additional investigation of the MiG-3 behavior on its landing gear. The work has been initiated after a heated debate in the Russian-speaking community about the safe landing complexity of the MiG-3, especially in the crosswind conditions. As you remember, in the previous diary Daniel gave a very detailed instruction on how to perform an aerodrome circuit-circling flight in the MiG-3, and he even recorded a training video. However, many of our pilots continue to experience difficulties learning this aircraft, and we certainly cannot ignore it.

It should be recognized that average level virtual pilots can land MiG-3 in calm conditions with no problems. However, the series of landings in the crosswind conditions may indeed not always be carried out with guaranteed safe outcome, even when piloted by experienced virtual pilots. I was contemplating whether the real MiG-3 was that difficult on takeoff and landing or the reason lies in the malfunctioning of our physics model? And frankly, I do not have a solid belief in any of these versions. I guess that using MiG-3 at the Air Forces could lead to fairly frequent incidents on takeoffs and landings, and there really is such historical evidence.

Nevertheless, we decided to double-check the landing gear model of MiG-3 again and try to tune the settings (outside of those unknown to us) that could improve stability and control of the aircraft when moving on the ground. In particular, as an experiment, we changed the settings of the tail gear damper. Also, according to the newly found photographs we adjusted the angle of the tail landing gear which determines the angle of the tail wheel turning axis. In addition, we increased the tire pressure of the main landing gears from 3.2 atm to 3.5 atm which provided the parking tires compression of 44 mm while the reference range is 40 to 50 mm. This set of tunings lead to reducing the MiG-3 turning radius when taxiing on the ground, at the same time making "softer" the response of turning tail wheel on pedals deviation. Will it simplify takeoff and landing on MiG-3? We will get the answer to this question after doing some special tests, which we intend to carry out in the nearest future, not excluding the help of our beta-testers.

During the past week we also continued to work on optimizing simplification of the AI operated aircrafts physics model. At the moment, in a test version of the game we have one and a half times more AI aircrafts in the mission. We are not satisfied with the result yet, so the work continues.

In addition, we are most actively working now on the Ju-52 physics model. This aircraft is scheduled to be released in December.

In connection with the completion of work on the Yak-1b ser.127 we have already started to work on the physics model of Bf-109 G4. This is a very convenient moment to respond to the community requests about additional characteristics verification of the propellers used on the various series of Messerschmitt Bf-109. In particular, the Bf-109’s ability to 'hang on the prop' causes our concern and we would like to double-check everything attentively.

Therefore, as a part of this task we have a counter-favor to ask our community to help us to find the original German (or any other) sources with the aerodynamic characteristics of DVL series propellers, or VDM propeller particularly. In our work we have been forced to use the DVL propeller data taken from Soviet sources as we did not find anything better. We fully admit that the recalculating of propeller characteristics using our current curves could give incorrect results. Therefore, we very much hope for your help in finding the original DVL (VDM) diagrams like this:

 
 
  

This is, probably, all news for today from 1CGS Aviation Engineer Group. I hope it was interesting for you to have a look into our shop. As for us, we will continue to do everything possible to make you excited about raising digital historical reconstructions of the legendary fighter planes into a virtual sky, and enjoying the flight, just as if it was real.

November has set in and we have the first snow on the ground here in Moscow last week. The smell of winter is clearly felt in the cold air, but it is hot as usual in the flaming skies over Stalingrad and Moscow in IL-2. And to throw some firewood into the bonfire to make sure our pilots are not getting bored waiting for the arrival of a new war machine to the front, I would like to conclude by sharing with you the official set of Yak-1b 127 series color schemes.

See you in the sky of IL-2!