Aircraft Updates in 1.32.5.6

For as long as we can remember in WWIIOL, there has existed a schism between certain aircraft that for many pilots came down to "Allies good, Axis bad”. During a recent audit,  we researched control input fidelity in all the fighters and we found a variation that we could better manage this with. While it did affect the Bf109 series most it also affected the Bell Mle.14a. Since the Bf109 series is 5 of the 7 available German fighters and the Bell is only a single aircraft type, it unintentionally gave the appearance of an "Axis versus Allied" issue.

Due to the fact that players control all our aircraft with digital fly by wire joysticks which do not share the actual physical limitations of the real airframes (they actually do the opposite, making all aircraft control systems identical), this meant those aircraft which realistically had short control stick travel available to the pilot but a large actual control surface deflection available, made WWIIOL players vulnerable to over control their aircraft to the point of abrupt departure very easily. It turns out this affects the Bf109 series worst of all, and the Bell Mle.14a to a similar degree.

In the end, this difference in aircraft but uniformity in control stick input conspired to force those looking to have better handling feel/control in the difficult Bf109s (and Bell) to "short stick" their .cfml files, thus ridding them of the ability to over-control the aircraft so easily but decreasing the stick "fidelity" at the same time. Each point further that they moved their joystick covered a greater percentage of available control surface movement, making fine control much more difficult to achieve.

The answer was to adjust the fidelity of the elevator control stick input before it reaches the user, allowing those aircraft suffering this issue to employ the same amount of joystick control movement as those not affected by this issue. This returns greater feel and fidelity, which in turn translates into a better sense of stability when they near the edge of the flight envelope; most exaggerated by slow tight turning near stall, where closeness to departure requires the most fine control to avoid that departure.

One of the things that will probably cause experienced pilots issues with this update is that those who have over the years learned to "short stick" their joysticks to avoid the “flop” will need to start over again at DEFAULT settings in order to appreciate the change. If they do not do this, not only will the change seem like it didn't work, it may have made their planes worse! This is largely due to the amount of stick travel they have eliminated as useless, forcing all stick control input into a narrower spectrum, making ham-fisting easier to cross into and fine control harder to explore. If you don't set your joysticks back to default input scaling you lose 25->40% of control fidelity the program now offers you. This is to a great degree why those "better turning planes" are easier to throw around.

Finally, don't assume that this eliminates the "flop", the slang term for "departure from controlled flight". It just allows you to feel it out better and to control the degree to which you can ride along next to that line and not cross it. The aircraft will still depart if you cross that line, and it varies from aircraft to aircraft. Bf109s are not suddenly Spitfires, but they should now be able to fly at the edge with much more confidence.

All aircraft were wind tunnel tested after these changes and performance profiles have not changed, ie: the flight model is the same. We simply re-calibrated control stick inputs to better match some of the aircraft than was done previously, and returned some lost fidelity to the joysticks of those that suffered this the most.

REMEMBER TO RESET YOUR JOYSTICKS TO DEFAULT ELEVATOR SCALING (pitch only) FOR THIS CHANGE TO TAKE FULL EFFECT

Aircraft changed:

Bf.109E-1
Bf.109E-4
Bf.109F-2
Bf.109F-4
Bf.109G-6/U4
Bell Mle.14a
Fw.190
Blenheim Mk.I/f

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