As a fan of Soviet jets this perceived bias is a little disappointing

[Luca The Guide]

Hey! I’ve been enjoying WT aviation a lot compared to other games and sims out there, one of the reasons is the sheer amount of aircraft available, especially Soviet combat jets, they just have certain vibes to them that western combat jets don’t have

But as I unlock more and more jets, I noticed that Soviet jets on War Thunder tend to have better cockpit visibility in ways that aren’t accurate to how the real things are, either by inaccurate cockpit modeling, or weird decisions on where to put the pilot’s head / seat within the cockpit

For example, cold war-era MiGs are notorious in having awful cockpit visibility, and you can see this in videos out there showing people fly them from inside the cockpit, but somehow MiGs on War Thunder have better cockpit visibility compared to their American counterparts, which shouldn’t be the case

For example, the real MiG-21 (one of my favorite planes) doesn’t have a better cockpit visibility than its American equivalent the F-5, but in War Thunder it does, here’s some screenshots comparing them on War Thunder

MiG-21:

F-5:

And on below examples, you can see how the MiG-23 somehow has better visibility than the F4 because the F4 pilot is put on a weird position in the cockpit whereas the MiG-23 pilot is put on an ideal position that allows them to see better

MiG-23:

F4:

And finally my last example, some non-Soviet jets such as this Japanese F1 for example, simply has a version with the notch blocking the gunsight chosen as the cockpit model, with the pilot sitting on a position where the notch will block the view, which severely impedes visibility in cockpit view

I would assume and wish these are honest mistakes that happened simply because Gaijin doesn’t have that much access to non-Soviet planes for their model references, Soviet jets are beautiful and good in their own ways and I think being able to use them to overcome adversities despite their shortcomings is one of the pride points of their pilots, and fans c= so I hope Gaijin can take another look at how non-Soviet jet cockpits are modeled and depicted on War Thunder to make them more accurate, cheers

[Cpt_Bel_V]

@Luca_the_dry_hum

For example, cold war-era MiGs are notorious in having awful cockpit visibility,

You think about rear visibility that caused many MiG-21 and MiG-23 pilots to make some rolls in order to see what is directly behind them and slightly over them.

The rest of Cockpit and mostly side and frontal sectors were correct

[Nowel]

@Luca_the_dry_hum

I would assume and wish these are honest mistakes that happened simply because Gaijin doesn’t have that much access to non-Soviet planes for their model references

the cockpits in game of the are pretty acurate, comparing a plane with another is honestly pointless, you should actually search for images of the actual real cockpits and then support your argument…

This is real a mig 23ml cockpit wich is pretty identical to the one in game, the only diference is that the camera, is higher than the focus in game, the person that take that foto probably have a camera at the top of the head, and as you can see its visibility forward is good

And this is a real T2, cockpit , dont know the exact model, but once again it is also pretty cloes to the one in game

[Luca The Guide]

I do wish you’re right but when I look at image and video examples out there it doesn’t seem to be the case, for example the F4 on WT has the cable on the HUD display hanging down even though that’s not the case on many real F4 cockpits out there

If these were indeed intentional then my most optimistic assumption would be that these are intentional competitive balancing by Gaijin to compensate the worse rear-view cockpit visibility of Soviet planes,

[Luca The Guide]

Thanks for the pictures, those certainly make me feel better about the state of cockpit models accuracy on WT, I did look at pictures and videos just to be sure before posting the thread, here’s some that I found:

F4E:

MiG-23

Depending on the camera field of view and position the perceived visibility of the cockpits can differ, so I think even if the cockpit models on WT are more accurate than I suspected, the pilot’s seating position or field of view in the cockpits certainly seems to make the non-Soviet jets to have less visibility than they should

[Nowel]

@Luca_the_dry_hum

Depending on the camera field of view and position the perceived visibility of the cockpits can differ, so I think even if the cockpit models on WT are more accurate than I suspected, the pilot’s seating position or field of view in the cockpits certainly seems to make the non-Soviet jets to have less visibility than they should

if thats your issue, you can actually change in the controls, actually you can move the camera in 3 different axis.

Just select to keep the values of the axis and relative controls on.

[Steelbeast]

@Nowel

if thats your issue, you can actually change in the controls, actually you can move the camera in 3 different axis.

That would be fine if it would not mess up the HUD.

A-10 pilot camera is about 20-30cm lower then it should be completely busting the forward visibility.

[Luca The Guide]

Thanks, I already had them setup to temporarily help look around, but having the values kept with relative control certainly does help, but yeah as Steelbeast said the HUD can get messed up when doing this

[Luca The Guide]

I find it help to have a button assigned to reset the axis value for when we want to do A2A stuff then use the moving camera with relative control method for when we want to do A2G c= but yeah still wish Gaijin would re-evaluate the cockpits, maybe they indeed did it intentionally for balance reason like I mentioned before

[Cpt_Bel_V]

Just for pointing out things, sometimes i go for a Full keyboard control while being in cokpit view, and try to fight mouse users in custom battles.

The mouse is then only use for weapon/flare trigger and to move my head around.

Most of the jets i used, and props fighters are really good considering Field of view, in every sector.

I did not get troubled by frontal sector in most of my jets, MiG-21 is without a doubt hard to see behind it

I do not own MiG-23 to know about those.

—> side note <—
I wish Gaijin add a semi realistic with the full keyboard only/joystick user, based on RB mode.

[sυρεrβυsτεr]

@Cpt_Bel_V

You think about rear visibility that caused many MiG-21 and MiG-23 pilots to make some rolls in order to see what is directly behind them and slightly over them.

There is a video in which the owner of a MiG-23 explains the difference between US and USSR jets. As he said, the MiG23 pilot sits very low in the tight cockpit and does not have much space to look around freely. Unlike American planes (I think he meant the F-16).

[Cpt_Bel_V]

Both Teen-fighters are having great visibility, even century fighters had a good one.