Re: “the seven o’clock approach”, I think I remember reading the Brits started that due to the poor forward visibility of the Corsair and the USAA incorporated it in their training. (Which was done on land)

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after several years of flying Il-2 at least twice a week, on average, I have yet to work up the nerve to even attempt a carrier landing

Go for it EHood, worst can happen is a re-spawn.

War story. CFS-2, I was a noob member of Aces High and they were having an inter squad carrier based war at their next Sunday meeting. I only had about a week to practice and by the end of the week I could nail it about a quarter of the time. The Sunday night meet arrived and I was one nervous puppy. The rules were air spawn, four planes to a carrier, land and wait for the command to engage.
My Commander being a veteran flyer and sharp guy directed to me land first as I had the least experience and he didn’t want me to wipe out anyone else already down. The approach seemed to take an hour, I was sweating and shaking, the house could have burned down around me and I wouldn’t have known. I caught a cable and realized it wasn’t over, now I had to taxi out of the way without going overboard, more sweating and shaking, ringing in my ears, tunnel vision, I was tired, but I got forward and to the edge of the deck, number 2 landed, number 3 landed, number 4 took us out, whew, it was over. I felt bad for 4 but I had made the one that counted no matter what. It may be “just a stupid game” but it’s how I choose to spend some of my time and I have many many exciting flight sim memories.

It is just a video game though. Tbh, the Il-2 community has some of the worst examples of people who take what is essentially a trivial hobby far too seriously and personally. I actually consider about 10-15% of Il-2 players to be pretty much insane.

That said, I'm sorry to hear that someone couldn't just enjoy your video, or leave it without having to issue a brain-fart.

I bet he was expecting a real-life video of a real airplane and was just really disappointed to see that "it's only just a ... video game." I can see how one might be really disappointed but it's not necessary to make a rude comment like that.

I think it is a new category but there is a Gaming category for the videos at YouTube now. To me it is a better fit for the video than Film and Animation.


Wheels

You can't win them all. For every guy like that there are hundreds who appreciated your work. And that guy might be 12 years old too. He may even be jealous because he can't fly! A "game" - well technically yes. Is it "stupid"? Only to those who don't have the patience to learn to fly. Isn't Angry Birds "stupid" too? And, come to think of it, chess and golf? You wonder what a guy like that thinks is a "smart video non-game". Even youtube is, in a very real sense, a "game" -- even "stupid". Life itself is a "game" too - though I wouldn't consider it "stupid".

JG26_EZ wrote:

If you respond, you lose. If you don't respond, you win. I TRY to remember this.

Amen!

All a "troll" wants is to try to draw your attention in a negative way.
If you reply, you give him what he wants...

Nice landings btw!

@ DarkFall - You know bud, they say any landing you can walk away from is a good one.

the guy who said that is complete moron

The Corsairs are actually easy to land, easier than Zeros, because Corsairs have longer tail hooks. Just make sure you don't have a 100% fuel load. And all landings become that much more difficult if you have holes in wings or if there's crosswind.

As for the youtube troll, it may indeed be best to ignore him. But you could always tell him that Il-2 is actually a very good game, one of the best ww2 simulators with an active online scene, blah blah blah and the kitchen sink. Perhaps the guy will one day be your grateful wingman!

Just checking back here and wow man, this is a large number of responses with a lot of opinions. Good stuff! I feel like I let the dawgs out.
This may only a game but I sure have spent a lot of time on it over the years, and I have noticed several real pilots who fly it so it can't be all-that sophomoric in the eyes of everyone. It's too damned hard to learn.

Hey Morris, the guy is just someone who has to put other people down to feel good about himself. Ignore him as he isn't worth your time.

I've had worse comments from people on this forum. I once made the comment that I thought it would be nice if people post comments for any mission, campaign or skin they had enjoyed. I was told by one guy that he never posted comments as it wasn't worth his time. He implied I was a jerk for asking. I should have been thankful he "bothrered" to download my work.

Nice landing although I was expecting your left undercarriage to get ripped off!
As for that guys comment, I suspect he either just doesn't "get" it or he was trying to flame that other poster. On that note I personally never read the comments on any of the historical Youtube vids as they nearly always degenerate into a jingoistic bun fight

EHood wrote:

Not incidentally, after several years of flying Il-2 at least twice a week, on average, I have yet to work up the nerve to even attempt a carrier landing.

Give it a go ma4e, like anything in IL2 it has a steep learning curve but it's worth it in the end. The training missions (under Single Missions) are somewhat tricky so for some extra help I'd recommend building a training mission of your own in the FMB seeing as wind strength and direction can be set in the weather conditions. Having your carrier steaming into the wind makes a noticeable difference... last night I was experimenting with landing a Hurricane MkI and Spitfire MkVb (so no arrestor hook) on a RN carrier and with practice I could do it fairly regularly even in bad weather.

HB

Zeus-cat wrote:

Hey Morris, the guy is just someone who has to put other people down to feel good about himself. Ignore him as he isn't worth your time.

By not spouting back at the guy I guess I did ignore him, but I decided to show his post here to get some opinions and I guess I hit some nerves. You tube is a troll-cesspool no matter what is posted.
@HBPencil, I was new to carrier landings back then in 07, I was lucky on that one. as far as the 7 o'clock approach I was in a curved-in approach like skunk said. I trained myself from the old footage of landings, so I could see the deck around the nose. Can't believe that crappy quality old vid got so many hits.
I will put that in the youtube 'gaming' category then to avoid confusion.

I was away too long, sorry for not responding to all the posts here.

I work some long hours and we just moved into a new house and are getting things arranged too, and with two single-digit kids to look after. Sortof sitting here in a daze right now. But I have managed to train myself, finally, in the P38J to go against any AI ace(s)in the game, and win. That to me is amazing because before I had always given up and I thought that was impossible, but the Lightning is turning out to be one hell of a killer bird. What a plane. I think I will venture to try it online before long. I guess if I can take-on KI43 Ace AIs s and kill them, and AI109s too, I should have it figured out good enough to go get destryed by some humans and start learning that. Just gotta keep up that speed and never ever yank and bank with anything. Speed speed speed.

Just saw the vid. GREAT LANDING! It may be "just a game" but it takes excellent eye/hand coordination to play with even a modicum of success.

The commenter should be required to fill out a One-D-Ten-T (1D10T) form before posting anywhere.

You are the better man for ignoring his stupid comment and not lowering yourself to his level. :smt023.

Glad to hear you are enjoying the P-38. It takes a bit of skill to handle her well.

"Who cares?" Funny how he cares so little, he watches the video, logs in to his Youtube account, then types his response and posts it. Does anyone else who's not a complete idiot do that about something they don't care about???

But I suppose that's the beauty of the internet; everyone is free to be an idiot on it.