SU-27 pitch down, instant blackout (death?)

[PepperBelly]

So this has been annoying me, and I can't determine whether this is intended or not. I'd imagine no, since I doubt pitching the aircraft down would instantly kill the pilot but it happens consistently.

Everytime I load into the su-27, and pitch down hard, or even moderately, my screen will instantly blackout, and my aircraft will be completely unresponsive, similar to when your pilot dies which leads me to believe he is dead.

Anyone have any insight into this?

[kazereal]

Don't do that. Negative G are bad for you and fuel systems don't handle that well so you can stall/flameout engines as well.

Roll upside down and pull (pitch up) instead, you can handle higher G-forces that way.

[PepperBelly]

Oh believe me, I understand that. I just thought it was odd that moving my pitch down 15 degrees killed me (supposedly).

[Tom S]

Generally pilots avoid pitching forward like you describe for diving. Standard practice is to roll inverted then dive. Positive Gs are more managable than negative Gs. Trained combat pilots can withstand up to 9 positive G sustained (perhaps more, though not sustained w/o blackout) but only a few negative Gs can cause red out, 3 or 4 sustatined negative G can be fatal.

[Green Death]

2nd Edit: Yeah, I just needed to realign my idea of what a pilot can endure to the maneuverability of the SU-27. Had it happen most often when coming out of a steep climb, so I guess I was simply thinking of it as 'levelling out' and not appreciating how much stress I was putting the pilot under.

[PepperBelly]

toms781 a écrit :

Generally pilots avoid pitching forward like you describe for diving. Standard practice is to roll inverted then dive.

As I said before, I understand that. I've been playing flight sims for over a decade now.

What I was explaining wasn't really a dive, merely just adjusting altitude by lowering my pitch, doing so though, would cause an immediate blackout, with an unrecoverable aircraft. Acid_Penguin explained it perfectly.

It seems to only happen with this specific aircraft.

[Green Death]

PepperBelly01 a écrit :

toms781 a écrit :

Generally pilots avoid pitching forward like you describe for diving. Standard practice is to roll inverted then dive.

As I said before, I understand that. I've been playing flight sims for over a decade now.

What I was explaining wasn't really a dive, merely just adjusting altitude by lowering my pitch, doing so though, would cause an immediate blackout, with an unrecoverable aircraft. Acid_Penguin explained it perfectly.

It seems to only happen with this specific aircraft.

See my edit above :) Just went and messed around with pulling climing turns at about 5g then pushing forward hard to level out. If you watch the g-load dial you can see just how harsh that maneuver is in an SU-27 as compared to the SU-25T. At times I could see the dial shot from +5g to -3g( or more since the dial stops there) in a couple of seconds... makes sense that wouldn't do your head much good :)

Solution to that is to roll out of a steep climb in order to attainlevel flight? Seems to work anyway.

[PepperBelly]

Acid_Penguin a écrit :

See my edit above :) Just went and messed around with pulling climing turns at about 5g then pushing foraward hard to level out. If you watch the g-load dial you can see just how harsh that maneuver is in an SU-27 as compared to the SU-25T. At times I could see the dial shot from +5g to -3g( or more since the dial stops there) in a couple of seconds... makes sense that wouldn't do your head much good :)

Solution to that is to roll out of a steep climb in order to attainlevel flight? Seems to work anyway.

I suppose that makes sense. But for the sake of comparison, when I load up the instant action su-27 intercept mission, spawn in, and test the controls by moving the joystick around in perfectly level flight, pitching the aircraft down causes the immediate blackout.

I technically shouldn't be exposed to so many G's when simply lowering pitch in level flight, right? I guess maybe I'm doing it a little harder than I should be, but I find it interesting that you seem so fragile to the simplest downward pitch.

[Green Death]

Yeah, that has caught me a number of times as well and what I meant about readjusting to the SU-27, the thing is a beast! Guess one has to be very careful with adjustments even in level flight. Again, it's hard to appreciate how severe and fast the g-loading is when the scale only goes to -3g.

Also, good explanations of why negative g-loading kills your engines in this thread from the ED forum and explanations of how to recover from teh inverted stall. A couple of inspirational tracks/vids on how maneuverable the Flanker is as well. Love this plane, so much fun to fly... even if it kills me now and again!
http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=135280

[PepperBelly]

I just did some further testing. It seems that it happens whenever I pitch down on purpose. Whenever I stall, or lose control of the aircraft, and it pulls negative G's, my pilot is fine, but if I manually input the stick, he just.. dies. No buildup of redout or anything, just instant, head popping death.

Thanks for the link too, interesting read.

[Green Death]

If you pull a gentle negative g turn you'll get gradual redout around -2g and over but you have to take it pretty easy. From that I'm guessing that it's just hard to appreciate how quickly one is loading g forces in the Flanker without all the real world feedback you'd get as an actual pilot. As pointed out in that thread though it is still in beta so there might be fine tuning to be done on this.

[PepperBelly]

Acid_Penguin a écrit :

If you pull a gentle negative g turn you'll get gradual redout around -2g and over but you have to take it pretty easy. From that I'm guessing that it's just hard to appreciate how quickly one is loading g forces in the Flanker without all the real world feedback you'd get as an actual pilot. As pointed out in that thread though it is still in beta so there might be fine tuning to be done on this.

Yeah, after flying around and dogfighting for a bit, I am realising it isn't too difficult to avoid the immediate blackout. It seems the su-27 just requires a little more finesse compared to the other aircraft which in and of itself it insanely fun and satisfying.

[=AiR FORCE=]

Take a look at a video I made practicing the Su-27 maneuvers.
Notice how I roll and use positive G's instead of pushing the nose down.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=362357874

[Tatsue]

Acid_Penguin a écrit :

At times I could see the dial shot from +5g to -3g( or more since the dial stops there) in a couple of seconds... makes sense that wouldn't do your head much good :)

Yeah, there are reasons why it wouldn't go much further in the negative - would be no point, since no pilot will be reading the instrument at those loads. :P

As always though, whenever you are confused about what happened: click Save Track after the flight and look at it. You'll be able to see what happened then in detail and - even better - be able to give the track file to others if you don't understand what went on.

In general, remember that in a fastmover you can reach very high g loads very very quickly. An angle of attack that is perfectly fine at slow speeds can be instant blackout/redout or even pseud-spontaneous aircraft disassembly at higher speeds. ;)

[Green Death]

Fair point on the dial ;) Yesterday was my first full evening with the Flanker (and only about 9 hours total in DCS, mostly on the SU-25T) so I'd barely even registered where the dial was until I started trying to figure out what was going on.

The point about speed is very good, it's easy to forget you're bombing along faster than the speed of sound after getting used to the Su-25T!