Help with Il-2 1946

So I got and installed this wonderful sim and to my dismay, I need some serious help with flying. I cant seem to even hold the darned thing steady in the air let alone hit anything, can anyone give me any good tips on pretty much any sort of flying shooting manuevers etc in this game?? ANd where I should download a good Third Party DCG from?? I see there is one in game but I heard that third party ones are better. Thanks. Casey

[Dowly]

If you have joystick, then check the buttons for trims and trim the plane. If you don't have joystick, get one, NOW.

Lowengrin's DCG can be downloaded from his site @ http://www.lowengrin.com/news.php

[yubba]

try reconfigure-ing joystick , then go into the game menu, find controls and, set your positive and negative trim, into keyboard up and down arrows good luck

[Schroeder]

One more advice: practice, practise and practise again. This is a sim (or at least close to that) and there is a reason why pilots need several hours of training in double seater trainers before they can fly an aircraft alone.
Start flying with a forgiving aircraft like the Il-2 and be easy on the controls. No abrupt pulling/pushing. Stay away from late war fighters as they are usually difficult to fly (especially the P51 and the FW 190 are awful for beginners).

Okay, I will take all of your's advice As far as Joystick goes, I dont have a working one. By that I mean I have a Saitek St 290 and It wont work anymore, it remember just plugging it into the USB and playing with it before (FSX) but now it doesnt seem to register in any game. I believe its because Im missing the drivers which I cant seem to figure out how to get them so I can get it to work. Even more troubling is I went to wal mart today to get a new joystick and found out they dont carry them anymore -_- so could anyone help me out with this little joystick problem Im having?? Either by letting me know how to get my Saitek St 290 working again or where I can get a decent cheap one??

Casey

[TheGreatHonker]

Obviously you'll want a joystick, and of course each plane has different handling characteristics. The I-16's have the handling of a Mouse on PCP, while Me-109's have the handling of a fish on crack, then there's the Me-262 which is like a cheetah on heroin.


Like Schroeter said, practice x3.
Shooting is harder in this sim then in others, so if you have limited ammo wait til you're at least 30 meters away, or whatever unit of measurment this game uses. Either way wait til around 40 - 30. Some pilots said they waited til the enemy plane filled the gunsight.

Having no life, I'm at the point where I fly Yak-3's under bridges while doing a barrel roll.
Sorry just felt like bragging for second.... back on topic.
Yak-3's have the handling of a falcon on meth, by the way.

A good practice method is to just take a fighter up against 4 Ju-52's or Stukas/Storchs/non fighters in general that have no ammunition.

Okay, I noticed there are alot of controls that are unmapped too, things that seem useful and that I should use, does anyone have a download somewhere of a decent control scheme that maps all these controls?? Oh and I got my joystick working finally, realized I just got to plug it in before I play haha

[Schroeder]

In the beginning you won't need a lot of those controls. Fuel mixture, prop pitch and supercharger settings should only be touched once you can keep your aircraft in the air without difficulties (or you take a German fighter which does all of the above for you automatically).

Oh, and congrats on "repairing" your stick.

Originally Posted by Schroeder

In the beginning you won't need a lot of those controls. Fuel mixture, prop pitch and supercharger settings should only be touched once you can keep your aircraft in the air without difficulties (or you take a German fighter which does all of the above for you automatically).

Oh, and congrats on "repairing" your stick.

well its not those but the ones dealingwith bombsights, opening and closing canopy and etc etc. Actually let me ask this, what are the most important controls to map properly?? I have all of my roll and pitch assigned to the joystick as well as left and right rudder control, I also have all weapons assigned to it are there any other important controls I should map close to eachother to help with extra control in case of emergency?? ie feathering prop or permanent rudder stuck in a position?

[Schroeder]

In addition to the weapons I have the flap control, the wheel brakes and the cockpit position switch (wide angle or directly at the reflector sight) on the stick. Nothing more. What you should map are the trims and perhaps manual lowering/raising of the landing gear as some older aircraft (like the I-16 or the F4 Wildcat) don't feature an automatic retraction system. For flying bombers the level stabilization is paramount.
Oh, and you should now the keys for bailing out.

Originally Posted by Schroeder

In addition to the weapons I have the flap control, the wheel brakes and the cockpit position switch (wide angle or directly at the reflector sight) on the stick. Nothing more. What you should map are the trims and perhaps manual lowering/raising of the landing gear as some older aircraft (like the I-16 or the F4 Wildcat) don't feature an automatic retraction system. For flying bombers the level stabilization is paramount.
Oh, and you should now the keys for bailing out.

What exactly do the trims do may I ask?

[Arclight]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_tab
Basically, it lets you apply some limited aileron, elevator and rudder input without actually applying pressure on the stick or pedals. A trimmed plane will pretty much fly a straight line with minimal input, while a non-trimmed plane would require constant input to keep striaght.

[Raptor1]

Trimming lets you make permanent adjustments to the flight surfaces, so that the aircraft can fly straight without any input. For example, if your aircraft is rolling to one side all the time, you can apply trimming to balance that out and make the plane fly straight without having to keep the stick pushed to the other side.

It's not completely necessary, and I usually never use trimming except for rare cases, but I suppose it can help.

EDIT: Ah, damnit Arclight!

[Dowly]

Can't say I've ever used trim in my whole time of flying IL2.

[Raptor1]

The only time I would regularly use trim is adjusting bombing run approaches, but that's about it.