The random midair aircraft explosion bug

[madbadvlad]

This is a new one to me. I was flying the Historic-Attack on Portsmouth quick mission as RAF, default settings.cfg, default mission parameters.
I crossed the east coast of the Isle of Wight and just caught sight of some ju88s ahead and moved in for the attack - then BOOM - my Hurri exploded in midair for no reason. Fortunately I had recorded the track and replayed it to see if AA, enemy fire or a collision had caused the explosion, but there was no hint of any of these. I played through frame by frame to check - nothing. I got some before/after screenies to show what happened. I noticed on the screenies that the air explosion was mirrored down below in the sea by a ground explosion crater and the upward exloded debris does appear to be the same effect you get when you hit the ground - weird! I tried the mission again and could not repeat the explosion second time around.

A split second before the random explosion


Explosion starts


Explosion starts - note ghost cockpit to rear of Hurri


Exploded Hurri turns a right angle


More bits fly off


Land impact type explosion - note the corresponding impact crater in the sea below


The land impact type explosion from horizontal viewpoint

[Scott - A2A]

That I have never seen, but appears to be just a spoof or a one-time glitch. Nice explosion though.

Scott.

[Tally-Ho]

Never smoke in the cockpit.


The only mid air explosions I've encountered are ones where I've been hit by other aircraft or falling bombs.

Hopefully this is a rare occurance..... and the problem you encountered.

[madbadvlad]

Never smoke in the cockpit.

You cannot imagine the loudness of that explosion in my headphones - almost a brown trouser moment.