109 Immelmann, looping

[erzwodezwo]

Hi,
first of all sorry for my english, no native speaker...
second im not an experienced pilot, just started to get in this sim.

im flying the 109 exclusivly because its the only plane i manage to start and fly with full realism. the problem is when im in a dogfight and want to perform an immelmann turn or a simple looping the plane stalls immediately and it gets out of control. im pretty sure the good old 109 can do a looping/immelmann, just not with me on the controls. i tried it with different airspeed 200-450km/h. the result is always the same-stall. is this some kind of bug or am i the one?

thanks

[Varrattu]

Please have a look here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0-AfX-Ngfc

Regards

Varrattu

[drewpee]

Hi Varratt .
The 109 tends to stall quickly and easily. The wing doesn't have the lift of a Spit. You must learn to be gentle with the controls. The best thing to do is to turn down the sensitivity on your joystick settings. Also try cutting back on the throttle as prop torque tends to push you into a stall. Like wise applying some throttle can twist the plane out of a stall. If you are low on speed at the top of a zoom use lots of rudder and let the planes nose drop down and pick up speed by it's self. Any sudden moves of the controls at low speed and a wing will drop.:grin:
Main thing is to practice practice practise.
Having said that I still stall when I get over excited on line, I tell myself to calm down and breath. Don't try to match his turn.

[TomcatViP]

Hi Erzwo

109 is great and realistic. No shame to hve.

When you need to go in the vertical:

_ make sure the ball is centered when you pull that stick ;) - hve a quick glance at your front pannel

_ Pull only gently.

_ with a bit of practice you 'll learn quickly how to avoid dynamic stall

[NedLynch]

Agree with everything said.
Entering vertical at low speed just stalls you out since you are unlikely to maintain airflow over your wings for very long. At high speed you might pull the stick back a little too hard and exeed the angle of attack for the wing/wings to maintain airflow. The same thing can happen if you turn too hard at high speed. Just got to find the right/maximum amount you can pull back at high speed (I'd say 450 - 500 kph) while still having good airflow over your wings, so as not to put the wing into to steep of an angle into the airflow/the forward motion of the plane, i.e. exeeding the AOA.
I still have to practice that a lot too when trying to do a half loop up to gain some altitude quickly while reversing direction in a 109.
But by all means try the Spit and Hurricane, if you need help starting them up there are some nice turorial videos here. http://airwarfare.com/sow/index.php
Go to the forum and then to guides.

[NedLynch]

Sorry forgot, it might also help to trim the aircraft tail heavy, i.e. it wants to pull up all by itself so you don't have to fight the plan to get that upward momentum going and sustaining it.
Just tried to do some half loops up and the lowest entry speed I managed to complete the maneuvre with was at around 350 kph, trim up by 2.0, prop at 10:00..ish (didn't want the revs to be too low), throttle at 100%.
As I pulled up I put the prop pitch lever up/towards fine and left it there until I came out of the half loop and rolled over to level flight, then put the prop pitch lever towards coarse again until I had a 10:00 setting.
I am curious if anyone is doing this particular maneuvre in a different way with more success, i.e. entering at a lower speed and with different settings, since I do not really consider myself a very seasoned flyer.

[SNAFU]

I would additionally recomment to learn the plane at slowest possible speeds near stall. It takes some time I think (in 1946 it was a lot easier to fly a 109 at 120kmph and still have good controls), but if you can comfortably control the 109 near stall speeds, you will have no problems at high speeds either. At the moment I see many players struggling with their planes, be it Hurricane, Spit or 109 at the low speed regime, so everyone is facing the new behavior of CloD compared to 1946. It is really fun to scissor in a 109 with a Hurricane and watching the Hurri having the same problems as you have. The most pilots never tried or needed to manouver their planes at these near stall speeds, so I often find myself stalling out simutanously with my opponent at lower than 100m. ;) It`s fun, you can almost see the surpised faces of the Hurricane and Spit Pilots, when they meet a 109 not running like hell, but trying to fly slower than them - and it`s good a good exercise. I am slowly staring to get the hang of the 109, but there are still some suprises left. ;)

[TomcatViP]

Seems you've got some pretty good and useful answers. Just want to add and comment the following :

- I agree with you SnaF, slow speed fight (280 to 200- kph) is really enjoyable in CoD especially with Oscar golden stars in the FM category that are the 109 and the Hurri.

- Regarding Trim, if you want to avoid Stalling it's much better to trim you plane nose heavy as it improve you flying precision in the vertical plane (you need amplitude when it comes to raise the nose but fine tuning when it comes to let the nose drop using there only the gravity) and E management (trimming down prevent the wing from getting AoA hence generating drag).

~S!

[lion737]

The 109 tends to stall quickly and easily. The wing doesn't have the lift of a Spit.

That is far from reality. A friend of mine who flew more than 800 sorties in a 109 told me:

"i was NEVER being outturned by a Spit !"

"it didn´t stall easily. I never stalled it in a fight."

And he never heard anything about this "BnZ" characteristics of his 109 :grin:

[Crumpp]

The 109 tends to stall quickly and easily. The wing doesn't have the lift of a Spit.

The Spitfire has a plain airfoil. The Bf-109 has LE slats.

It is complete fiction that the plain airfoil will be harder to stall and gentler than the one equipped with LE slats.

[Bpdslayer]

That is far from reality. A friend of mine who flew more than 800 sorties in a 109 told me:

"i was NEVER being outturned by a Spit !"

"it didn´t stall easily. I never stalled it in a fight."

And he never heard anything about this "BnZ" characteristics of his 109 :grin:

I totally agree with you, i have a feeling this BNZ religion/myth about the german planes is something created by IL2 simulation pilots. I've read so many accounts of german pilots about their experiences in combat and i never heard them talk about the 109 as being such a difficult plane to fly. The descriptions mostly refer to the plane as nimble...