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IL-2's Oleg Maddox
By Bob "Groucho" Marks
To use the vernacular used during my previous life as a surf bum; I was stoked. There, on my counter, was a FedEx Letter package containing a copy of Blue Byte Software/1C:Maddox Games IL-2 Sturmovik. A little further in the distance, humming like the black monolith from Kubric's 2001, was my brand spankin' new Athlon TBird 1GHz equipped Alienware Area51: Aurora computer. What looked to be the cutting edge flight sim, and more than enough horsepower to run it. It was like an epic offshore day at Ehukai Pipeline and having a new custom surfboard to ride it on.
I was NOT disappointed. This, people, is nothing less than the new benchmark of how a sim should look and fly. I was extremely impressed at the speed in which Oleg answered my questions. During a time where he was probably task-saturated, he took the time to illuminate some points of IL-2 that I felt were a bit murky in the pre-release evaluation version. In one of the questions, I alluded to the flight model feeling a bit easy. I stand corrected in this point; after a few more hours of flying this sim, I am convinced that the FM of IL-2 Sturmovik is the best flight modeling ever attempted for a home simulator. Really. IL-2 is a LOT more than just a pretty face. On that note, read up on some of the incredible work that has gone into IL-2 Sturmovic.
Groucho: Currently, all demo missions start in the air. Will the final version offer airfield operations, e.g., start-up, taxi, takeoff, landings, etc?
Maddox: Yes. All of these features are already done. All missions in final game will be modeled with take off, taxing, landings, etc. In addition, there is a feature that if you don't like to do it, just switch them OFF in a special menu (difficulty) and all your missions will begin and finish in the air over starting and finish waypoints (airfields).
Groucho: I see that the short manual (included with the pre-release eval copy) notes that the flight modeling will be further adjusted...does that mean some "bad habits" such as spins, torque effects, accelerated stalls will be incorporated? What I mean by that is that the flight characteristics seem to be very benign in this build and I find it hard to push the airplane beyond its envelope.
Yes, every aircraft will be tuned in the final version. VERY CORRECT. Spins, torque effects, accelerated stalls, etc., are already incorporated. All of these effects have been made as a result of consultation with the real pilots and TRIAL DOCS. IL-2 Sturmovik is the first prop sim (in my own and opinion of our "test-bed" real pilots), which uses realistic aerodynamics and physics laws of the flight (we did it more complex than some modern force-based FMs) instead of others, which use table flight model. In most simulators these and some other effects are OVERDONE. Such thing describe many real pilots, who like to play flight sims and who write their opinion on different sim forums.
As one real pilot said about one currently popular sim: "If I play this sim much more, I can forget how to control real planes!"| Next |
