What is the average range that a crew could spot an Airplane in RL?

[Rubini]

I'm working on the blind crew for airplanes issue
Someone have this info?

What is the average range that a crew could spot an Airplane (an Hurricane) in RL, WWII era, good conditions?

Will the crew listen its sound first?:hmm:


Thanks for any advice!

Rubini.

[Paajtor]

I'm working on the blind crew for airplanes issue
Someone have this info?
Will the crew listen its sound first?:hmm:
In most situations, yes I think.
It's that hey, wait a second...thought I heard something...there it is again, it's a plane guys! thing.:D
You then listen to pinpoint the general sound-direction, and raise your binoculars in the middle.
And bingo?
And from that moment on, it should take maybe roughly 30secs (?), for the plane to come into attack-range, suppose it travels at 110m/s (approx 400kmh), don't you think?;)
This means, that at flugzeuggesichted!=5km, you have about 20secs to crashdive and evade, before he can start to attack you from long range...just to keep the fun up, haha.

But I'm not sure if this is actually reliable info...just guessing as to how I would probably experience it in RL (not that I would want to lol).

Some exceptions, as to when the crew would see the plane earlier than hearing it:

- plane travels against the wind, or angled, towards you.
- Uboat engines make to much noise (flank speed etc)
- thunderstorm (no rain)
- heavy overcast clouds
- seen from the plane, the uboat has a low sun in the back

[Rubini]

Thanks Paajtor,

I tried my entire afternoon yesterday on the net to find something more concrete. Only sparce references saying that a big plane on a clear day could be detected more than 10 km away without binoculars!

With these few infos I made the airplane fix (B24 at 8km using binoculars on a clear day). Let's now await for the feedbacks after the release.

Thanks again.;)

[Sailor Steve]

8 km is what, 5 miles? I live in a very large valley, and I can see planes heading into the airport from a lot further than that. That said, where I can see them from is a hillside, so I'm probably 500 feet above the valley floor. From sea level, 8 km sounds about right.

The problem is, the eye detects movement before it sees real objects, so while you might detect a plane moving across your line of sight quickly, one moving directly toward you doesn't seem to be moving at all, so you might not recognize what you're seeing until it's far too late.

[Letum]

It depends on hundreds of factors. On a clear day, looking away from the sun you can see the reflections on a planes wing at over 20km.
On a clear night you can see the exhaust sparks from a plane at very long range.

However, these conditions are very rare. If the conditions are poor the plane could literally be on top of you before you know about it.

There is not real answer to the question, it is totally dependant on the conditions and crew alertness/skill.

[cyclop_si]

I do not have any idea about visual range for different airplanes, however I would like to make a note that is it big difference spoting jet aircraft due to contrail versus when you can hear it and there is no cntrail... and WWII aircraft did not produce any contrail... so be carefull not to set visual range to distant....

[von Zelda]

Rubini,

When will this increased airplane sighting be released? And will it be separate or an update to your Visual Hydrophone workaround Mod?

[Bill Nichols]

Visual detection range is highly variable and depends on so many different things that giving a single number would be meaningless. Nonetheless, I did find this nugget:

"For the maximum detection range ground-to-air values between 9 and 16 km ... were obtained." (Note that this is under idealized conditions)

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1975srth.rept.....H

[Rubini]

Many thanks to all you guys!

Even knowing that a "magic" value is probably not so realistic we need one "number" to start the work on this issue!.

I guess that the below settings are far better than the stock or others mods as an average distance to your crew start to see the planes on a clear unfogged day:

Hurricane (small plane) 4km. (others mods1.3km average)
B24 (big plane) 8.5km (others mods 5km average)
(I will not push this yet more because the main intention is to have a good gameplay balance. I guess that this could solve the blind crew problem but yet have a challenge gameplay!)

As this is also a ideal condition it's very rare also on the game. Normally, in game, you will have far lesser distances (80% of the time or more you will have fog). Even with fog, this means that when in TC you will not more be hit by a bomb from a plane that your blind crew did not saw some seconds before (average 20-30 sec before now);)

I will release a updated "Stay Alert crew mod" with this fix inside probably tomorrow.

[bigboywooly]

Nice one mate
Look forward to it

:up:

[Sailor Steve]

YOW! Rubini rides to the rescue again!

Looking forward to it.

[Spytrx]

guys - don't compare modern planes to the old bombers and fighters in noise levels.Modern planes are regulated how much nouse they can generate and use special materials to achieve that - things they didn't care about in the past. If you ever been to a flight show you know what I am saying... ;)

there are simply too many factors (altitude, speed, number of engines, etc) to make an accurate model and I think the stock is a good compromise all around (I am not an expert by no means, but the visibility is more concerning than the noise)

[Pablo]

Hi!

FWIW the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board considers 0.2 degrees the minimum angle for detecting an aircraft coming straight at you. See this article (http://www.aviationnow.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=busav&id=news/bca0107c.xml) from Aviation Week and Space Technology. This corresponds to a distance of about 20 feet at a range of one mile under good seeing conditions, so you could see an on-coming B-24 (wingspan: 110 feet) at a range of about 5.5 miles (8-9 km) in perfect weather.

That being said, the U.S. Army air defense folks list a whole bunch of reasons (in this document (http://%28https://www.bliss.army.mil/Other%20Sites%20at%20Ft%20Bliss/USMCDET/VACR%20WORKBOOK%20IN%20PDF.pdf%29)) why real life detection ranges can be much shorter, including:
Aircraft size
Viewing aspect
Contrast with background
Visibility
Terrain masking (not much over the ocean)
Camouflage
Visual acuity of the observer
Search sector for watch crewmen (smaller sector = better detection chance)IMHO the odds of hearing an aircraft over the sound of your own diesel engine exhaust (remember, the exhaust port is underneath the AA gun platform) are pretty small.

Short answer: "it depends"

Pablo

[Rubini]

Thanks Pablo.

In the Stay Alert crew fix mod I adjusted the distances for this exact scenario:
In perfect conditions (clear unfogged day) the small airplanes will be detected 3km away and the big ones 8km away. But with fog (the majority of the time in game) this distance will be reduced for 2/3 or a half. This is yet far better than stock but not uber!;)

Don't forget that this is for 8km version, using the Stay Alert crew fix.

The 16 km have these values far large: crew detect a Hurricane 5km away in a fogged day!!! I guess that this is a bit uber ,no?

[Henri II]

I'm not sure if this approach is possible or even wanted, but what I'd like to have, is that my watch crew/sonarman can see/hear the ships/planes at about the same distance that I as the player can see/hear them in various conditions. Going with realistic settings seems to be the obvious thing, but I'm not sure how that would work out in game, I wouldn't like contacts to be reported by the crew long before I can see them.

[Rubini]

I'm not sure if this approach is possible or even wanted, but what I'd like to have, is that my watch crew/sonarman can see/hear the ships/planes at about the same distance that I as the player can see/hear them in various conditions. Going with realistic settings seems to be the obvious thing, but I'm not sure how that would work out in game, I wouldn't like contacts to be reported by the crew long before I can see them.

I guess that you need to look here:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=107989
Good Hunting!;)

[GoldenRivet]

I read an account of a bomber pilot who figured that these subs were hearing the planes THEN seeing them.

So he went up above a scattered layer of clouds and would chop the power to idle and glide down to 500 to 1000 feet above the sea. during the glide his men would be looking for anything out of the ordinary.

One day, using this tactic his men spotted a U-boat during the glide. He was coming down at idle power straight down on them. With the crew's eyes scanning the horizon they neglected to see the aircraft almost directly above them until he throttled up to come out of the quiet gliding dive.

VROOOOM!!!!

im sure it scared the hell out of the watch crew as they looked up to see a medium twin engine aircraft larger than life thunder past their heads.

I believe the bombs delivered a direct impact and sank the sub.

had a similar event just about an hour ago in GWX. a small twin engine bomber - sorry didnt have time to get his license plate number - pulled off a nice sneak attack on us at dawn.

Full watch crew on deck. suddenly there are huge splashes straddling the U-boat blasting water skyward... followed by the sound of engines revving up... followed by the sound of my watch officer yelling "AIRCRAFT SPOTTED".

My heart started racing... after a couple of seconds of shock i snapped out of it and ordered a crash dive. the boat suffered only light damage.

[Reece]

Looking forward to giving it a go, there is nothing more annoying to me when playing at high TC & the window pops up when aircraft is spotted, imediately click on dive to periscope depth, about 5 seconds later bombs drop on your deck or so close that your boat is totalled!:nope: these are Hurricanes January 1941, clear sunny day near Scapa Flow. I reloaded game (about 300km earlier) I was prepaired for it this time, I pressed on dive at window selection then "C", the boat just disappeared below the surface when 2 bombs dropped on me and destroyed my boat! Now this is Uber!:cry:
Thanks Rubini.

[Reece]

Hows it shaping up Rubini?:D