I am still having alot of difficulty identifying the aircraft while flying. I can see a furball going on but have to get way to close to figure out who is who..lol..maybe that's how it was then. Is there anythingn to the color of the tracers to help id them?

Do you have plane ID's set on? You can assign a key to toggle it in the control settings, I forget what it is called though.

It will list what the AI plane is, its distance from you and it will be blue for Axis planes or red for Allies planes, it's very useful.

Apparently in real life you can identify and focus on far-off planes a lot easier than if you are playing in a 3D artificial environment like Il-2.

I have that switched off to make it more realistic, but i guess i am wondering how realistic it is?

I think that most people would agree that you should be able to identify an aircraft in real life more easily than in IL-2, given the same conditions. Having said that, look at this for an example of how to get it wrong.

Best bet is to use the tracers from their guns as a hint.
Blue = German
Red = Western Allied
Green = Russian
White = Italian

Learn these for starters, then learn aircraft silhouettes to id quickly once the plane takes shape.

There are a few exceptions to the above (I can think of a few examples in the pacific), but as long as you know the current plane-set, you should be able to use tracers to ID friend of foe.

I knew many second war aircraft by sight long before playing IL2, and I have to say, learning to ID IL2 planes is a separate skill.... We just don't have enough pixels or processing power yet.

Finally, many LCD monitors' pixels take a while to fade or brighten, despite their claimed 2 or 5 mS refresh times. This makes identifying fast moving planes harder.

quote:

I am still having alot of difficulty identifying the aircraft while flying.

Well clearly it's because you have the plane ID tags off.

Read the game manual, it has a note somewhere stating that the tags are an option because your vision looking at a computer game on a 2D screen is very limited compared to your vision when looking at planes in real life.

Well, maybe he just wants to learn, like everybody else. There are a lot of people out there who have become pretty good at virtual a/c recognition after all. So turning on ID tags might not be the answer he is looking for.

Are you playing off- or online? If playing full real settings on online dogfight servers, always look around in both camps before settling for a side to fly for. Check out all available aircraft, so that you know beforehand what you are up against. Note that you can view the displayed a/c in the loadout screen from different angles. Do that. There is also the object viewer in the game menu for some offline browsing of a/c if you play mainly offline.

Once you know what to expect up in the skies and you know what they look like up close it still doesn't help you all that much in recognizing an a/c from a few hundred yards away. The trick is to do the same as they did in reality, although a little bit differently. You don't take it all in, instead you look for distinguishing features. Only on the screen these features would be somewhat different ones than if flying for real.

As an example, let's say you are flying some English Channel scenario and you are red. It's RAF against LW. What are the distinguishing features to look for? Well, chances are any twin engine a/c is blue, although that would depend on available a/c on red side. Stukas look like... Stukas. Wings look a bit triangular and pointy from a distance. And you can also tell they are Stukas because of their sluggish maneuvers. Any elliptical pair of wings would be a Spit. Spits also have a unique sleek look even when viewed from the side. It's hard to explain but once you have noticed you know the profile from then on. Hurricanes, if any, don't look too dissimilar from a Spit. At any rate they don't have a German look, so hold your fire.

Now, German fighters tend to look like they have squared wing tips from a distance, regardless of whether they actually have it or not. FW's do, 109's don't but they still look squared on a computer screen for some odd reason.

As for Jerries, the insignia is a big tell too. It tends to flicker and twinkle a little from, say, a distant six o'clock high because of screen contrast and pixelation in the black and white cross. The topside RAF blob, on the other hand, is hard to see at all until up really close. It's the same with Russian crates too for the simple reason that they rarely had any topside insignias. With that red star they might as well have painted a crosshair on the wings instead. Actually the Jap insignia is just such a crosshair and it is used topside too. You can spot it from quite far away, if that almost forward-pointing Zero wings with round tips weren't clue enough for you.

And then you go on like that. You try to notice and remember just one or maybe a few distinguishing features that set one a/c apart from others. Bear in mind that you might look for different features depending on aspect. This takes time and dedication for anyone. If you stumble on someone online who seems to be able to ID any a/c from a thousand feet, it might well be a nolifer who has been glued to the joystick since the IL2 beta in 2001. You have some catching up to do if you want to compete with them. Just give it time. The ID frustration is the first and maybe most important step on that journey and you have already taken it.

Nooble-Savage,
Thanks thats exactly what i was looking for. Yes i purposely turned off the tags to get better at id'ing the planes and for realism. I fly online in HL under 'Hammock'. Thank you for your detailed answer!!