Spinning in circles....

A

AROTH

Guest
Hi, I recently received and downloaded OFF P2 and am learning the ropes every day (my pilots are lasting 3 days now instead of 1 - haha).

Question - when flying the R.E.8 or Hannover, and switching to the gunner's position (F8) and allowing the system to take over the pilot's duties, I have noticed that the plane flies around in a continuous, very tight circle, almost vertical, slowly spiraling to the ground. This makes it very difficult, if not impossible for me as the gunner to shoot at anything. Is this normal, or am I neglecting to take any other steps?
 
Try hitting auto-trim, which I think is "Ctrl-A" on your keyboard. Usually, but not always, this will fly your bird in a straight line while you take care of the shooting duties.
 
That didn't do it either.......aircraft still goes in a constant spiral.
 
CTRL+SHFT+A (toggle) engages autopilot. Can sometimes take a while to settle into level flight. Best to engage when climbing slightly.

Of course the aircraft cannot fly evasively when in this mode so you'd better ensure you shoot well :mixedsmi:
 
I don't fly two seaters but...
I have found that if my airspeed is 98 or 100 when I ctrl+alt+del I have almost no swinging or circling and settle into my track quickly.
I thought at first it was altitude but now I think it has to do with speed.

sometimes more than once but mostly just once.
 
Hello,
it is a speed problem, or better a CFS3 autopilot speed problem - the underlying original CFS3 only allows for autopilot when there is a speed that is faster than the stall speed of a WW2 aircraft - unfortunately WW1 aircraft fly at a max speed which would be beyond stall for a WW2 airplane.
When the autopilot is forced to "on" beyond a speed of, say, 100 mph or 160 km/h in SI units respectively, it will try to stabilize the plane in a wrong way, and the plane will sometimes not only circle and go down, but sometimes just fall from the sky, or make crazy moves, stalling the plane, falling to one side etc..

There are two possibilities to switch on AP - while flying yourself in the pilot's seat and switching dirctly to AP, or changing stations to the observer' seat, thus automatically engaging AP.

So if you switch to the gunner's/observer's seat, the AP snaps in and you will have no chance to shoot at enemy planes from the observer's seat due to wild manoeuvering.

Until the AP stabilizes (if it ever will - sometimes it just does not) you are either near the ground, flying in a completely wrong direction, or you are already dead because an enemy followed your crazy movements and just shot you down.

I would like to fly a mission in the gunner's seat, if not all the time, but this takes away the fun ...

Something that sometimes works is drop the nose to acquire speed, and switch to AP when you are well above 100 mph - unfortunately some of the planes will lose their wings at that speed, and even then it may not always work ...

It would be a good idea to look into that problem, i think it is hard-coded, but then there are some hard-coded settings that have already been adjusted to OFF'S needs.

Greetings,
Catfish
 
Thanks all for everyone's input - speed does indeed appear to be the culprit. Actually, I had to approach about 120 mph before it would engage and maintain a level flight. All in all, I still couldn't hit squat from the gunner's position and after running out of ammo, switched backed to the pilot's position and proceeded to down a few that way.
Guess I would have been dead meat as a gunner/observer in real life - haha. :ernae:
 
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