Control cables severed, if other criticals do not also come into play, should be considered as A/C shot down intact. Do not use the Tumbling out of control. Tumbling is specifically for planes with wings, tail missing or spinning planes.
JD
(https://groups.io/g/FW-Ref-Central/message/1825) 13/05/2012
The crew of an A/C at 6,100 feet gets 3 attempts.
However, this depends on how you are playing the game.
1. If you are keeping the plane in play, and using random flight for an A/C with no control cables, the crew can attempt to bail out every game turn. You do not use the number of attempts per 3,000 feet or less rule.
2. If you have declared the A/C destroyed and out of play and removed it from the game, that is when you go to the no. of allowed attempts per 3,000 feet or less rule.
In case 1, there is a higher likelihood of a successful escape. Consider it a reward for going through the trouble of keeping the plane on the map.
In case 2, you simply get your allowed attempts. We don't subtract 3,000 feet per attempt. The plane is out of play. So the situation Wild Bill describes of the last attempt requiring a no free fall D10 roll is not correct.
The free fall rules and considerations really should only apply to planes still on the map.
If you think the dichotomy between situations 1 and 2 is too great, you can easily create your own rule Limiting Combat scale bail out attempts to once every couple of game turns. I'd suggest maybe using a 3+D5 as your limit for the frequency of attempts.
JD
(https://groups.io/g/FW-Ref-Central/message/1825) 13/05/2012
An A/C is in turn stall at altitude 0.2 and in SHD. The pilot declares a bail-out attempt at the start of the turn and the A/C will impact the ground on its first FP. Will the bail-out be an auto-fail as the A/C is on the ground before the bail-out roll is resolved (at the end of combat phase) or does the low altitude modifier include this haste of abandoning the aircraft and the resolution of all bail-outs at the end of the combat phase just a common point to resolve the rolls?
He's dead... airplane hits ground before the bail out attempt is allowed.
JD
(https://groups.io/g/FW-Ref-Central/message/2302) 12/06/2013
A crew member bails out from a plane at altitude 200 feet.
Is the modifier as follow : +10 (Altitude < 1,000) +40 (altitude < 300)
The altitude mods are not cumulative, it's one or the other. Not enough room on chart for >300 to <1000.
JD
(https://fw-fr-fight-kez2.groups.io/g/main/message/1808) 04/04/2014
A spinning plane that can't recover from the spin because of a destroyed rudder.
Thinking about the rules per se...versus reality...and role play.
As for bail out attempts, I will only allow the lesser of what would be allowed for a shootdown (one try per 3000 feet or less) or a turn by turn attempt at combat scale prior to impact. In this case, the former will set your limit and we will use the altitude at the start of the spin as the basis. So you have 5 more tries and if they all fail - you will be "pinned" inside your plane until the bitter end.
All told, The rules are a bit gray here. You aren't technically "shot down" so the plane is still in play, although it can never recover from the spin. So I'm reverting to role play concepts to decide how to handle this...
I think a pilot in an out of control Spinning aircraft is not normally going to be hanging around to wait until he's lower to start trying to get out. To allow this freely seems like gaming a hole in the rules to deny the other side a "kill" modifier. And, If you are worried about getting strafed in a parachute, free falling is the way to go, not riding an out of control spinner down to a safer altitude that could be coming unglued at any moment.
In any case, since you were away and could not comment until now, if that is what you want to do, I would allow staying in the aircraft only if you pass a 40 or less determination roll each game turn, and once you fail, bail out will be your only goal. Would that be a fair compromise?
J.D.
(https://groups.io/g/FW-Darwin-RAAF/message/805) 09/06/2015
If an aircrew in a very damaged plane decides to bail out above his home base, should there be a post bail out fate roll ?
-I- would. Otherwise, it is 100% sure the aircrew will be survive.
Just because you successfully bail out of an aircraft, it doesn't
mean that you will survive the parachute landing.
An "MIA" result could indicate that the aircrew landed in trees
and/or river and his body wasn't immediately found.
Just my $14.67 (2c in 1967)
Wild Bill
(https://groups.io/g/FW-Ref-Central/message/3217) 03/03/2018
I think you could grant the air-sea rescue assets modifier in this situation, maybe more. Up to Ref. But it is an 8 mile wide dot. You could land and get run over by a car, or shot by friendlies who think you are an enemy pilot, or get lynched...depends. I'd leave any extra modifiers to the ref.
JD
(https://groups.io/g/FW-Ref-Central/message/3218) 03/03/2018