[Would you like to see this in-game?]
(This post is a complete Repost of this thread in the Old Forum)
The Problem: So, the game have been out since 2013 (officially since 2016), with the original intention of making the game focused around aircraft combat. Nine (or six) years later, the game mode that starts it all lacks the fundamental element of instrumentation that defines flight games for generations: the artificial horizon (or attitude indicator as the cool kids say; or gyro indicator) in the third person view. This vital graphic tells you the aircraft’s roll position relation to the horizon and indicate the pitch and is useful for establishing a good angle of attack for a climb or figuring out your orientation in the thickest of clouds. Sure, this exists in that transparent virtual cockpit, but to flick through view just to check your pitch is a quality of life stumble. Also it’s obvious that your plane is the artificial horizon, but that can often just fade away when you are tunnel visioned in a dogfight.
The Solution: Have an option in the graphics menu that you can toggle on to enable the AH and pitch indicator in third person around the cursor (and ideally, colors and opacity too). This would disappear when you zoom in (to avoid cluttering the screen when you need a clearest glimpse of whatever you are looking at. Also emulates the pilot focusing on targeting reticule and not looking at all their instrumentation) and in free camera. Of course this won’t appear in cockpit view since you actually got the instrument in the cockpit, and virtual cockpit already got this feature so it won’t appear there.
The only time this would really be useful is if you’re in the clouds, otherwise all you need to do to is pay attention to your airspeed for the climb. Pilots don’t generally pay specific attention to the attitude indicator unless flying IFR, and they’re not even required to be installed in aircraft for VFR flight.
I find it generally useful to remember what pitch angle is ideal for climbing in my plane after experimenting by watching the airspeed. Like most Zeroes climb pretty well at 20 degrees, so I have to switch the view twice (to get past the cockpit view) to confirm my pitch before switching back to third-person. Having to do that during the initial spawn is a small hurdle but when you are in a dogfight and want to do a shallow dive/climb and all you have to go by in the blur of the moment is your altimeter, it isn’t very ideal for fine-tuning.
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Except that the pitch angle for your optimum climb changes with your altitude. Also you can use the function keys to switch between views without cycling through them. Realistically, it’s a solution looking for a problem.
Just try to find an airplane manual which refers to climb angles - optimal climb it is solely a matter of airspeed at different altitudes (without considering mixture, etc.) based on provided lift vs various forms of drag.
Yeah, but in most instances, I find it easier to remember the climb angle I can just set and largely leave alone up to the 4km range I usually operate at. Any higher and yes, adjustments have to be made. At the end of the day, I just want the pitch to be easily referenced without needlessly changing the view just to get the intel.
Mate, you can just eyeball it and watch your airspeed. You’re way overthinking the amount of work it takes to climb. The pitch angle of the climb is going to vary depending on weight, altitude, temperature, barometric pressure, all of which is modeled in War Thunder. Just climb at your best climb airspeed like every other pilot in existence.