Me 262 vs. early postwar jets

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Remotely close - as stated you could never simulate the environmental stimulus that will affect each pilot differently, thus affecting the final outcome. You will never fully model "sight lines, blind spots and simulated red out and black outs." Throw mentioned factors in there while you and a buddy are flying your simulated dogfight and then have someone, without warning, come up behind you, light off a cherry bomb, sound off a bull horn or hit the back of your chair with a bat and you might start getting "pretty close."
 
Of course, the German pilot would also have to worry about how the underfed, brutalized slaves who built major chunks of his plane sabotaged the parts.
 
A friend of mine had the MS flightsims with all the bells and whistles, where you could run anything from a 747 to a Cub.
So I ran his 172 and while it was comparable in many respects, it was nothing like the hours I had flying an actual 172.

swampyankee said:
Of course, the German pilot would also have to worry about how the underfed, brutalized slaves who built major chunks of his plane sabotaged the parts.
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That was later in the war, but you can also factor in aircraft damaged at the factory during bombing raids, repaired and final assembled then shipped to the front.
Add to that, cobbled together aircraft kept flying with parts cannibalize from other aircraft (which often already had cannibalized parts from other aircraft).
Plus lack of proper and timely maintenance on airframes and engines and the maintenance that was done, was performed by overworked, sleep deprived ground crew who had little or no supplies to do their job with.

Typically sim's flight models are based on flight-perfomance figures from new or capture-tested airframe data sheets. This means that virtually all the aircraft types in the air during a game will have identical values - for example: if a group of MiG-3s take off on a sweep, they will ALL have the same perfomance algorithms. No one will drop out and return to base because of mechanical issues or bad fuel, etc.
 

Years ago, when I played Il-2 airsim endlessly, my cat did almost that. She could not lift a bat, but her claws were pretty sharp and her meow, when annoyed, was more frightening than the Stuka's siren.
 

Those are also going to be primarily steady-state performance numbers; departure performance is likely to be qualitative, not qualitative, as is much of the dynamic performance and handling qualities.
 
swampyankee said:
Those are also going to be primarily steady-state performance numbers; departure performance is likely to be qualitative, not qualitative, as is much of the dynamic performance and handling qualities.
Click to expand...
When I was active with the Jane's WW2 Fighters community, we had a member who was an actual P-47 pilot (ETO) and I recall him stating one time, that he "sure as hell wished his Jug was this nice during the war."
His guns didn't jam, his engine never fouled and not once did he accidently jettison his bombs when checking the arming switch!
 
I think DCS has done the best job of programming flight parameters into a flight sim imho (the US Air Force Academy introduces flight dynamics to cadets using DCS, though admittedly, DCS is also free), and I know a few current and ex fighter jocks who tinker with the game, going so far as to recreate the seat, use VR, rudder pedals, throttle, etc. But really, for my part, g-forces and to a lesser extent disorientation, are what separate the simulator from the real thing. I don't know how many of you know of the US Navy's Kraken at NAMRU-Dayton (on Wright-Patterson AFB).

Introduction and good overview:
Releasing the Kraken

And here's an example run:
Kraken Disorientation Research Device (or simply, "The Kraken")
From about 1:40 to 4 minutes or so is the typical flight simulator (for sake of argument, more or less) but at 4:05 is when the fun begins! Oh man I love this thing. There is a brief segment of a simulation of the simulator - you'll know what I mean when you see it.

Oh and there's one more thing simulators like DCS and Il-2 can't simulate that has been known to happen during flight, and that is hypoxia (which is thankfully rare!). The Kraken can induce hypoxia as well for extra fun.
 
I'd give the Me 262 good odds against every Soviet fighter until the MiG-15.

EDIT - in fact the best pre-MiG-15 Soviet fighters to face the Me 262 may not be jets at all, but instead are the superlative Yakovlev Yak-3 and Lavochkin La-9.
 
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wrenchedmyspanner said:
for my part, g-forces and to a lesser extent disorientation, are what separate the simulator from the real thing.
Click to expand...

Have you ever flown or flown in a high performance aircraft and been subjected to high Gs while attempting to perform specific maneuvers? I have and although I am no way an authority on flying high performance jet aircraft (we have a few real fighter jocks on here) while doing combat maneuvers (although I have been through a few simulated dogfights in L29s and L39s), I could tell you I definitely beg to differ with your opinion.
 
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