homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Rise of Flight - The First Great Air War Rear view in the Dolphin or lack thereof

Just flew the Dolphin and I'll be damned if I can see behind me at all. Anyone else having this problem? I use TrackIR but only with simple pitch and yaw axes. Is the view better when using all 6 axes available with TrackIR??

6 DoF helps, but headrest thingy (nice technical term, huh?) still gets in the way. Some suggest changing the defauly center location of your Track IR so that your head is above the horizontal wing struts. Check out the Not Sure What to Make of the Dolphin topic a few below this topic for ideas.

I have 6dof and it's no problem. Either just lean and look around it, or over it.

I should clarify. The view is still obstructed, but you can lean to look aft. You are correct, Blue Raven. I find it cumbersome, but it works.

Or you can lean down, then hit f12, and when you sit back up, your view will be above the wing and headrest, then you can use the top of the sight mount for the sight. That works pretty good too.

You can just raise the default pilot view point. Photographs show the pilots sitting quite high in the "frame", so it's realistic. Once the viewpoint is above the rear bar then the rearward view are not bad.

Cheers,

RD.

You only need to look forward to land this thing.

Landing it and running away from it (preferably screaming), is the only maneuver you should attempt with it, unless you'd like to try Masaq's wingless lawndarting competition.

I posted this on the other dolphin thread, but I'll repost it here...

The thing behind you in the Dolphin pit is the padding for the pilots neck. Many Dolphins had it but many did not.

The real problem with the dolphin is the positioning of the pilots head. In a real Dolphin the pilot sat with his head and eyes above the wing with excellent vision in all directions except under the wing. To use his Aldis sight (I've never yet seen a picture of a Dolphin with a ring and bead sight), he had to lean forwards. Seeing around the neck padding was not an issue as the pilots line of sight was well above it. New Dolphin pilots noted it was hard to get used to flying it as there was nothing directly in front of the pilot eyes for the pilot to reference with the horizon and assess his attitude.

Notice in this pic how the pilots line of sight is well above the wing box, not in it.


The solution for the Track-IR user is simply to lean forwards when you hit F12 to centre the Track-IR. When you straighten up, you line of sight is now above the wing and just like the real Dolphin pilot, you'll need to lean forwards to sight your guns. I've spent the afternoon flying like this and it does take a little getting used as you have no reference and it takes a bit of time to get used to flying it straight and level.

If you don't have Track-IR, well sorry but I think your boned (although it wouldn't hurt Neoqb to remove the neck padding so non Track-IR players can see behind them too)

Totalspoon, you can do it that way, but it's not necessary. You can just turn off TIR, use the INSERT - PAGE-DOWN key cluster to adjust pilot head position, save it with F10 and you are good to go. Can do the same wether you use TIR or not.

Cheers,

RD.

Just to add. Pressing F9 suspends TIR so you can raise the standard view using the Pgup key. You getthe view with your eyes above the cockpit frame then.

It feels a bit weird but I like it, and the instruments seem to be abgled for the pilots head in this position.

As others have said, PageUp (or whatever the default 'raise virtual head up' key is) is your friend.

WWB: Could you please post a picture of your VC view and maybe an outside view of the pilots position above the wing?

Cheers.

The external view of the pilot doesn't change....

...but you see well over the bar when F1-viewing...

Just in process.

Thanks Mog'

You do have to TIR crouch to see the gunsight correctly but it is very do-able. It feels quite authentic, how the real pilots must have moved in the cockpit. For a bi-plane the view of the sky upwards is inredible.

I'm liking the Dolphin more and more, it feels fast and aggressive. The Se5's nice but it feels a bit like an advanced trainer, no vices wereas the Dolphins ready to bite

Roll on the Camel and Brisfit

I completely agree. This plane is worthless. I'm sticking with the SPAD and SE5a. They're the only two planes worth flying into combat in this game, honestly. The others are marginally fun for free-flight.

Outrage! My money is on my trusty, "obsolete" Nieuport 17 as the best fighter of the war.

It's the one that has gotten me there and back again more than any other aircraft! With the bonus of bagging some of the Hun!

Wait until we get the Camel. If it's done right, we'll all be running and screaming from it. Darn thing was a widow maker right at the aerodrome!

I don't think I would mind a lot of gyroscopic effect from a large rotary -- actually I think it would be fun. So I'm not worried about the Camel. The things that suck about the Dolphin are:

1) The inside wing stalls very easily and abruptly in a turn.

2) Spins are unrecoverable.

3) Once in a spin, you are guaranteed to lose at least one wing.

Honestly, the Dolphin feels broken to me. And I can fly the overly-sensitive SE5a quite well. :-/

If you have trackir. 6DOF is very useful in Dolphin. if you want to check your six. just move forward and a litter high then look back. you will got a very clear view.
For me, Dolphin is the best plane in ROF. You can use it against any kinds of plane in ROF. But you should now how the control it and don't let it fall into spin.
BTW, If you try the P51D in IL2. you will know what is sucker is....