Hey TD can you look again at the Corsair..

[Bearcat]

I made a similar post before.. but guys.. Please take a serious look again at this plane when you get the chance.. Thee is something wrong there .. The plane is way too slow and it overheats way too fast.. I don't have any charts or facts.. but please .. just take a look at it. Fly it yourself and you will see what I mean. I know it was not a turn and burn plane but it's performance is lacking.

F4U-1C: The prototype F4U-1C, BuNo50277, appeared in August 1943 and was based on an F4U-1. A total of 200 of this variant were built July–November 1944; all were based on the F4U-1D and were built in parallel with that variant. Intended for ground-attack as well as fighter missions, the F4U-1C was similar to the F4U-1D but its six machine guns were replaced by four 20 millimetre (0.79 in) AN/M2 cannons with 231 rounds of ammunition per gun. The F4U-1C was introduced to combat during 1945, most notably in the Okinawa campaign. Aviators preferred the standard armament of six .50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns since they were already more than powerful enough to destroy most Japanese aircraft, and had more ammunition and a higher rate of fire. The weight of the Hispano cannon and their ammunition affected the flight performance, especially its agility, but the aircraft was found to be especially potent in the ground attack role.
A Goodyear-built FG-1D, with the later style "Malcolm hood" canopy used by the F4U-1D.

F4U-1D (Corsair Mk IV): Built in parallel with the F4U-1C, but was introduced in April 1944. It had the new -8W water-injection engine. This change gave the aircraft up to 250 hp (190 kW) more power, which, in turn, increased performance. Speed was increased from 417 mph (671 km/h) to 425 mph (684 km/h). Due to the U.S. Navy's need for fighter-bombers, it had a payload of rockets double the -1A's, as well as twin-rack plumbing for an additional belly drop tank. However, these modifications necessitated the need for rocket tabs (attached to fully metal-plated underwing surfaces) and bomb pylons to be bolted on the fighter, causing extra drag. Additionally, the role of fighter-bombing was a new task for the Corsair and the wing fuel cells proved too vulnerable and were removed. The extra fuel carried by the two drop tanks would still allow the aircraft to fly relatively long missions despite the heavy, un-aerodynamic load. The regular armament of six machine guns were implemented as well. The canopies of most -1Ds had their struts removed along with their metal caps, which were used — at one point — as a measure to prevent the canopies' glass from cracking as they moved along the fuselage spines of the fighters. Also, the clear-view style "Malcolm Hood" canopy used initially on Supermarine Spitfire and P-51C Mustang aircraft was adopted as standard equipment for the -1D model, and all later F4U production aircraft. Additional production was carried out by Goodyear (FG-1D) and Brewster (F3A-1D). In Fleet Air Arm service, the latter was known as the Corsair III, and both had their wingtips clipped - 8 inches (203 mm) per wing - to allow storage in the lower hangars of British carriers.

The Corsairs in IL2 do not even come close. Can you at least at some point take a look at it.. Maybe prop size is modeled wrong .. but something is not right .. That bird in this sim is now a terrible plane to fly.. It is worse than it has ever been. Just look at it when you have the time.. Please.

[Fenice_1965]

I agree, it is embarassing to build late war missions now, with this fighter against late war japanese fighters (like ki84). It hasn't a chance.

[Bearcat]

None whatsoever.. You can't even run in it. Zeros catch up to you in a dive.. This plane was called "Whistling Death" ... in this sim it is "Whimpering Death" and that death is usually the pilot of the Corsair..

F4U Performance (http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/f4u/f4u.html)

[JtD]

So the Ki-84 is the reference for the correct flight model of all other planes? I don't think so. It appears from you link that the fastest speed tested with a service condition F4U-1 was 400 mph, doesn't it?

[Luno13]

The Ki-84 was not around in huge numbers or with enough good-quality fuel to sustain its performance like in Il-2. The top speed of ~400mph is TAS. Il-2 Compare states this is about ~418mph in the game at 6000 meters. At sea level, top speed is only 356.

I really don't think there is anything wrong with the Corsair. Choose your fights wisely.

However, I do agree that the Zero dives far too well, and probably has a too good roll-rate at the top end of the envelope.

[Fenice_1965]

I wasn't using KI84 as a reference but as an example, not the best as you correctly argued.

[Black_Sage29]

I learned quickly that altitude was paramount. Whoever had altitude dictated the terms of the battle, and there was nothing a Zero pilot could do to change that — we had him. The F4U could outperform a Zero in every aspect except slow speed maneuverability and slow speed rate of climb. Therefore you avoided getting slow when combating a Zero. It took time but eventually we developed tactics and deployed them very effectively... There were times, however, that I tangled with a Zero at slow speed, one on one. In these instances I considered myself fortunate to survive a battle. Of my 21 victories, 17 were against Zeros, and I lost five aircraft in combat. I was shot down three times and I crashed one that ploughed into the line back at base and wiped out another F4U


the corsair is far from maneuverable in il2 even at high speeds....even worse in hsfx

[JtD]

I wasn't using KI84 as a reference but as an example, not the best as you correctly argued.Good reply, in particular looking at my tone of voice. Sorry. :oops:

the corsair is far from maneuverable in il2 even at high speeds....even worse in hsfxThe F4U is very manoeuvrable at speeds around 500-600km/h TAS. No A6M comes anywhere close at these speeds.

[Fenice_1965]

Good reply, in particular looking at my tone of voice. Sorry.

Np mate :).
Effectively my post wasn't the best to express what I was meaning....

he corsair is far from maneuverable in il2 even at high speeds....even worse in hsfx

What I noticed is that F4U speed performances in HSFX expert mode are way more better. Do not know if they are more accurate or in excess on the other side...

[majorfailure]

IL2compare4.11 gives ~650kph at wep for the F4u-1d.
Tried it myself, fully loaded F4u1-d, WEP, ~672kph at ~7000m.
Compare that with data given by Bearcat that states 416/421 mph at ~20000 ft(669/677 kph) (F4U-1 No. 17930 and No's 55937, 50030) for a late Corsair with WaterInjection.
I'd say thats really close to real world data isn't it?

[Black_Sage29]

The corsair doesn't go past 220mph-230mph tops in low alt flight..its not supposed to be that slow and thats with 30% fuel

Why do American planes not get any love in this game..I mean come on

[Luno13]

1) Not true. The corsair can achieve well over 350mph at sea level.

2) This is not a valid question or point.

[Bearcat]

As I said.. You can come up with all the info you want.. even what I posted is moot.. Fly the plane pls TD.. Fly and fight with that plane in 4.11.1 against it's contemporaries in various scenarios.... and come back and tell me there is nothing wrong with it.. It is too slow.. it bleeds speed too fast.. it accelerates too slow.. it has no power.. or little power.. That is not the Corsair.. Just fly it. Fight in it. You will see,

[JtD]

The only "modern" Japanese plane I frequently fly the F4U-1D against, online, is the N1K. I don't recall if I've ever been shot down in that setup. I know that it's not a walk in the park against these, but A6M's are just falling out of the sky burning.

In my opinion there are two Japanese models that are superior, the J2M and the Ki-84. Both of them are imho clown wagons, with performances a lot better than they historically were. There's one more model that is competitive, that's the N1K. And the Ki-100 can be considered simply inferior. All other contemporaries are hopelessly outclassed (Ki-43, Ki-61, A6M).

The worst thing about it is that it is hard to control, spins pretty easily and is not very stable. But then, it's possible to adapt to this and it's a pretty decent fighter.

[IceFire]

The corsair doesn't go past 220mph-230mph tops in low alt flight..its not supposed to be that slow and thats with 30% fuel

Why do American planes not get any love in this game..I mean come on
Look up the differences between indicated air speed and true air speed and you'll find out why you "can't get above" 220mph. Different scale. IAS is the air flowing past regardless of altitude/density while TAS accounts for that discrepancy and gives you the actual ground distance travelled.

American planes have some of the best features, the greatest ranges (typically), and are usually amongst the toughest of the aircraft in-game relative to their opponents and even contemporaries. They are bigger, heavier, more powerful, and carry more rockets and bomb loads.

While German and Soviet aircraft were designed to support the armies (and are typically short ranged, small, light and fast), American fighters were designed to operate in a variety of theatres and conditions and I like to call them "war winning" with the range and munitions to really devastate a target on their own. No army support specifically required. This is extremely valuable when you fight in a theatre like the Pacific where air power enables you to conduct those island hopping campaigns.

The Corsair can carry 4000lbs of bombs in extreme conditions. More than most nations medium bombers.

The only issue I have with the Corsair is I wonder about is it's acceleration. The top speed in testing has been spot on to stated documents, the handling appears to match historical description (especially for a plane known as the Ensign Eliminator), but it does take a while to get to top speed. It may be spot on... that's the only area where I kind of feel like the Corsair is very difficult.

[Bearcat]

Hmmm I guess that's why a P-47 can be taken out with one shot. So can the Corsair which I believe has the same engine. Because it is so tough...... I do not see what you see in the Corsair in particular..I hope that someone in a position to do something at least gives the aircraft a serious look. I am not alone in my assessment of the Corsair and even if there are also over modeling issues with other aircraft the corsair deserves another look. like the previous poster said it's acceleration is suspect and it bleeds speed so fast that it is almost impossible to regain it once you loose it. I hope someone gives it a serious look.

[majorfailure]

Hmmm I guess that's why a P-47 can be taken out with one shot. So can the Corsair which I believe has the same engine. Because it is so tough......
Any plane can be destroyed by a single round in the right spot - and how often does this happen in this game? Most of the times Corsairs can take quite some punishment and stay afloat.

I do not see what you see in the Corsair in particular..I hope that someone in a position to do something at least gives the aircraft a serious look. I am not alone in my assessment of the Corsair and even if there are also over modeling issues with other aircraft the corsair deserves another look. like the previous poster said it's acceleration is suspect and it bleeds speed so fast that it is almost impossible to regain it once you loose it. I hope someone gives it a serious look.
I think you expect too much from the Corsair. Just flight performance wise it is not at the top of the list. Its just too heavy for that. But it can carry up to 4000 pounds of bombs or a mix of bombs/rockets, has a range of 1000 miles+, can absorb some damage and make it home, and can start and land at a carrier. And I'd bet much of its reputation came from pilot quality, most US pilots were very well trained by the time Corsairs arrived in numbers, while the quality of Japanese pilots was decreasing.

[Bearcat]

The former is quite possible.. the latter is quite true.. I have been playing around with stick settings to try to find a better profile.. The engine in the Corsair is the same one in the P-47 .. and P-47s have been known to keep running with a blown cylinder.. Sometimes it seems as if the DM of the radials is the same as the inline engines.. From all accounts it should be more robust.

[Black_Sage29]

We're talking about performance. Corsair is supposed to be maneuverable and it's not even when in top speed low alt flight ( 220-230mph ). Also bleeds off speed way to fast






http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/f4u/f4u.html

Note that report above says the corsair should reach 300mph Indicated air speed. IN game it doesn't reach this..not even close to that ( 220-230mph is way off )..but ok...


The corsair's top speed is supposed to be about 20mph slower than the P-51 also according to wikipedia..and it's not. P-51 reaches a top speed of roughly around 300-310mph IAS in game level flight


Here's another report: http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mustang/mustangtest.html

^^^ P-51 reaches 363mph true airspeed low-alt flight

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:TusZl34lsmgJ:www.wwiiaircraftperformance.o rg/f4u/f4u-1-02155-b.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjyPIO6qyMTXNYr7qr4NXlXxW4K9GYccq-xMyynVcWg2cvUfD7jd0FMBrhiqd13o8WChxfS1Wx02JPInwXFP XUUmkYz_E4NKhv8BYCMUTCH26L-jNMh9HM-CDGfDZTzOLpEIaOI&sig=AHIEtbTuRHp7OyGqo1gkZSEmP7iWljqfGg

^^ here you can see corsair has maximum speed of 343ph true airspeed in low-alt flight. That's about 20mph behind p51


Based on all of this the corsair should at least reach 260mph-280mph in level flight in game instead of 220-230mph

[majorfailure]

The former is quite possible.. the latter is quite true.. I have been playing around with stick settings to try to find a better profile.. The engine in the Corsair is the same one in the P-47 .. and P-47s have been known to keep running with a blown cylinder.. Sometimes it seems as if the DM of the radials is the same as the inline engines.. From all accounts it should be more robust.
I've always assumed the "golden bullet" engine seizure was not a blown cylinder but something like main fuel line destroyed?

[Kittle]

'Maneuverable' is something one needs to take with a grain of salt. Absolutely no aircraft the US fielded in WWII could win a turning fight with a Zero unless both aircraft were at high speed. The Corsair is very maneuverable......at high speed. In a low/slow fight it's hopeless and should be shot down in short order. Over the Solomon's the Corsair was zeke bait just like everything else until the pilots learned how to fight it against Oscars and Zekes. If you keep your speed up, and make every effort to start the fight from an altitude advantage, you shouldn't have any problems.

[majorfailure]

We're talking about performance. Corsair is supposed to be maneuverable and it's not even when in top speed low alt flight ( 220-230mph ). Also bleeds off speed way to fast
It is maneuverable. Rolls like no tomorrow. And is okay in a turn. Bleeding off spped too fast - thats very difficult to test and verify aginst real world data.






http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/f4u/f4u.html

Note that report above says the corsair should reach 300mph Indicated air speed. IN game it doesn't reach this..not even close to that ( 220-230mph is way off )..but ok...
The one you are reffering to is a specially cleaned up plane - and exceeds factory specs.


The corsair's top speed is supposed to be about 20mph slower than the P-51 also according to wikipedia..and it's not. P-51 reaches a top speed of roughly around 300-310mph IAS in game level flight
Here's another report: http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/mustang/mustangtest.html
^^^ P-51 reaches 363mph true airspeed low-alt flight
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:TusZl34lsmgJ:www.wwiiaircraftperformance.o rg/f4u/f4u-1-02155-b.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjyPIO6qyMTXNYr7qr4NXlXxW4K9GYccq-xMyynVcWg2cvUfD7jd0FMBrhiqd13o8WChxfS1Wx02JPInwXFP XUUmkYz_E4NKhv8BYCMUTCH26L-jNMh9HM-CDGfDZTzOLpEIaOI&sig=AHIEtbTuRHp7OyGqo1gkZSEmP7iWljqfGg
^^ here you can see corsair has maximum speed of 343ph true airspeed in low-alt flight. That's about 20mph behind p51
Based on all of this the corsair should at least reach 260mph-280mph in level flight in game instead of 220-230mph
Just tried it: F4U1-D 100% fuel, with WEP engaged, 569 kph (true) at~ 2300m.
Compared to following test, thats fine -though a little faster could do:
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/f4u/50030-level-final.jpg
Maybe the engine curve of the Corsair ingame is a little off - does anyone know how to extract that data without extensive testing?

EDIT:
On a totally unrelated sidenote, how do you get to the conclusion that the Corsair does reach a speed of 320-330 MPH -speedbar or speed indicator? If speed indicator: its in KNOTS

[IceFire]

Hmmm I guess that's why a P-47 can be taken out with one shot. So can the Corsair which I believe has the same engine. Because it is so tough...... I do not see what you see in the Corsair in particular..I hope that someone in a position to do something at least gives the aircraft a serious look. I am not alone in my assessment of the Corsair and even if there are also over modeling issues with other aircraft the corsair deserves another look. like the previous poster said it's acceleration is suspect and it bleeds speed so fast that it is almost impossible to regain it once you loose it. I hope someone gives it a serious look.

Any plane can be taken out with one shot. The difference is you can sit behind a P-47 or Corsair and pump round after round into them without bringing them down more often than other types. It's not something you want to be on the receiving end of because it won't be a very flyable plane at the end of it... but it's better than insta-PK or a fairly wing loss when flying your typical Japanese type for example.

Different acceleration to top speed is the only thing I think is worth a serious discussion over and it may be the hardest to have one about. A lot of people have said it's slow and then I go and test the numbers (and others have) and it comes out to what the test reports say the real one should do. But when you're in a fight, the real thing you're worried about isn't how fast you can go but how quickly you can get/regain speed/energy and in this area the Corsair and Hellcat can sometimes feel a bit rough.

It's worth a look over by the FM crew.

[IceFire]

We are quickly guided to a debate about the Ki-84 ...wtf!!??!! ..and the the fact that the F4U is very maneuverable at speeds around 500-600km/h TAS ... again ...wtf!!!!???!!! ... this wasn't the original question!.

Other aircraft are a reasonable part of the discussion as one type is usually compared by most people against another. If the Corsairs speed is fine then maybe some of the aircraft it faces are wrong...

[Luno13]

The former is quite possible.. the latter is quite true.. I have been playing around with stick settings to try to find a better profile.. The engine in the Corsair is the same one in the P-47 .. and P-47s have been known to keep running with a blown cylinder.. Sometimes it seems as if the DM of the radials is the same as the inline engines.. From all accounts it should be more robust.

It is more robust. I've had hits in the engine on a P-47 and made it hundreds of miles back to base on reduced RPM. Don't expect to be able to fight like that though. Also, be aware of confirmation bias. How many stories are there of a P-47 surviving with a missing cylinder? Bear in mind that you will never read the stories about the ones that didn't make it.

It starts with a perfectly reasonable request to review the attributes of an aircraft that seems to be different in-game versus the documented facts.

Bear in mind that the original question was about the speed of the F4U.


That question has been answered at least three times with actual documentation. Are you stuffing your fingers in your ears and going "La la la" until you can find something that matches your preference? The rest of your post is invalid hooplah so I won't bother commenting on it.

Note that report above says the corsair should reach 300mph Indicated air speed. IN game it doesn't reach this..not even close to that ( 220-230mph is way off )..but ok...

This is your own problem, not the game's. It is easy to achieve 300 mph in game. I just got 340 mph at 1000m and 417mph at 7000 meters.

[Bearcat]

How long did that take to achieve?

[Luno13]

I didn't time it, but I would guess within a few minutes, which seems perfectly reasonable. You don't just hit your top speed like a brick wall. You have to work to get to it, and you have to be vigilant to keep it. Note that the combat report quoted earlier advises pilots not to get slow. This doesn't mean you can get slow for a bit to tease your Zero opponent and then turn on afterburners to whizz up into low earth orbit again.

I learned quickly that altitude was paramount. Whoever had altitude dictated the terms of the battle, and there was nothing a Zero pilot could do to change that — we had him. The F4U could outperform a Zero in every aspect except slow speed manoeuvrability and slow speed rate of climb. Therefore you avoided getting slow when combating a Zero. It took time but eventually we developed tactics and deployed them very effectively... There were times, however, that I tangled with a Zero at slow speed, one on one. In these instances I considered myself fortunate to survive a battle. Of my 21 victories, 17 were against Zeros, and I lost five aircraft in combat. I was shot down three times and I crashed one that ploughed into the line back at base and wiped out another F4U.

The A6M2-21 has a loaded power to weight ratio of .29 kW/kg while the Corsair has one of .23kW/kg which is a 26% advantage in favor of the Zero. The A6M3 hamp has even better power to weight ratio at .31kW/kg, loaded. Don't expect miracles.

[Treetop64]

I've flown the Corsair quite a few times in the game, and I have to say that the only thing I don't like about it is that it tends to be a bit of a "wobbly goblin" in the yaw axis. Other than that, I like it.

The machine is more in its element the faster it goes. The faster the better. It rolls better than most at speed, but you have to take it easy in the turns, even at high speed!

I suspect a lot of the complaints stem from how some fly the Corsair, in that they rely too much on applying engine power to give them the speed they need, when in fact you have to fly the plane in a manner that will give you the most speed with the least amount of effort from the plane or pilot. In part, that means long, gentle high speed turns, and not aggressive fighting turns to stay in a fight. If you dive down on a target but the trigonometry of the situation isn't looking good, oh well... Continue on your way while maintaining your high speed (and don't squander it with a hard turn!), use your speed to regain altitude, be patient, and set yourself up for another pass. If someone else snags him in the meantime, tough. Get over it and move on.

Yes, it's a conservative, time-consuming, and - to some - a boring way to fight, but it's efficient and effective. At least it has been for me.

Also, you don't want the props to be at fine pitch during all this. Ideally, 2500 RPM, give or take a hundred or so while gyrating round, is what you want. Higher RPMs does not equal higher speed when you're already moving fast. At high speed, you want a more coarse propeller pitch to bite more air out from front of you to move quickly. The engine generates enough power to provide the torque necessary to do this at the selected RPMs. Also, you lower operating temps with a lower RPM, even with closed cowl flaps.

Again, I'm just speaking from personal experience with flying the Corsairs in the game, and I'm sure some will disagree, but that's fine.

[Bearcat]

I didn't time it, but I would guess within a few minutes, which seems perfectly reasonable. You don't just hit your top speed like a brick wall. You have to work to get to it, and you have to be vigilant to keep it. Note that the combat report quoted earlier advises pilots not to get slow. This doesn't mean you can get slow for a bit to tease your Zero opponent and then turn on afterburners to whizz up into low earth orbit again.



The A6M2-21 has a loaded power to weight ratio of .29 kW/kg while the Corsair has one of .23kW/kg which is a 26% advantage in favor of the Zero. The A6M3 hamp has even better power to weight ratio at .31kW/kg, loaded. Don't expect miracles.

I wouldn't expect it to accelerate like a car... Maybe I am doing something wrong but even with using throttle and pitch it is difficult for me to get any real speed out of the AC and it seems to overheat unless I keep the throttle below 80% or so .. Maybe it is me but a revisit wouldn't hurt by TD even if it was just to spend some time flying it just as a sim pilot to see if theynseenwhat I see.

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

Maybe it is me but a revisit wouldn't hurt by TD even if it was just to spend some time flying it just as a sim pilot to see if theynseenwhat I see.

Who sais, we don't do?
Climb performance and acceleration are directly linked. Is something off with climb performance on the F4U? I don't think so.

Anyway, it would be an interesting test to let a P-47 and F4U doing same maneuvers side by side.

[Kittle]

Luno's quote pretty much says it all about fighting the F4U. Note this man had been shot down THREE times. That speaks volumes about the amount of punishment an F4U could take and still keep the pilot alive to fight another day. A Zero pilot would be lucky to survive one shoot down, let alone three.

I took the F4U up last night in game to check all this out for myself. In level flight at 5000m I was able to attain and hold 300 mph. My controls are old and not well centered these days to keeping the slip ball in the middle was difficult at best, I could have gone faster. It does take a little while to attain this speed, but nothing out of what I would call realistic.

After this I took her on a power dive to just above sea level (Solomons 43 map) and screamed along at 430mph until speed bled off, keeping high 300s for a long time. Reminded me of how much of a performing fool the F4U can be when handled with love and care :D

[Luno13]

After some more testing, I did find something funny. It appears that the speed gauge in the cockpit is under-reporting but a very large margin. So, actual indicated airspeed is 350 or so, but it looks like 290 on the gauge.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong though.

If you can, test with the speed-bar on and convert to TAS. :-P

[majorfailure]

After some more testing, I did find something funny. It appears that the speed gauge in the cockpit is under-reporting but a very large margin. So, actual indicated airspeed is 350 or so, but it looks like 290 on the gauge.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong though.

If you can, test with the speed-bar on and convert to TAS. :-P

The speed gauge in the F4U is in KNOTS
When flying 350 mph it should read around 300 knots.

[Luno13]

The speed gauge in the F4U is in KNOTS
When flying 350 mph it should read around 300 knots.

Lol, that's a head slapper. Thanks.

[Furio]

Who sais, we don't do?
Climb performance and acceleration are directly linked. Is something off with climb performance on the F4U? I don't think so.

Anyway, it would be an interesting test to let a P-47 and F4U doing same maneuvers side by side.

A similar test was made during WWII, flying side by side a Corsair and a Hellcat.
According to Corky Meyer, who was Grumman test pilot in WWII and participated in the test, they showed identical performances. The slower F6F wasn’t slower at all, but have a badly placed static port, that caused lower airspeed readings.

The whole story can be read in the book “Corky Meyer’s Flight Journal”, written by Meyer himself and published by Specialty Press.

[majorfailure]

A similar test was made during WWII, flying side by side a Corsair and a Hellcat.
According to Corky Meyer, who was Grumman test pilot in WWII and participated in the test, they showed identical performances. The slower F6F wasn’t slower at all, but have a badly placed static port, that caused lower airspeed readings.

The whole story can be read in the book “Corky Meyer’s Flight Journal”, written by Meyer himself and published by Specialty Press.

A F6F-5 vs. an earlier model F4U would be very close according to
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/f6f/f6f.html
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/f4u/f4u.html

[Furio]

A F6F-5 vs. an earlier model F4U would be very close according to
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/f6f/f6f.html
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/f4u/f4u.html

If Corky Meyer’s memory is to be trusted, Grumman tested an F4U and Vought an F6F in the autumn of 1943, apparently later than the Boscombe Down’s report. The Hellcat’s ASI indicated 18 mph less than Corsair’s one, a difference that disappeared after relocation of static ports.

Flying side-by-side, the two fighters showed identical performances at all altitudes, with just a slight advantage for the Corsair on main blower, because of some ram air effect from the forward facing air duct in Corsair’s wing roots.

And the difference, or lack of, didn’t stop there. NACA developed spring tab assisted ailerons for the Hellcat, much improving rolling performance while reducing stick forces. With these ailerons, “Hellcat finally approached Corsair’s rolling performances”, as Meyer wrote. They were standard for the F6F-5, and were retrofitted to over 3,000 early models F6F-3. Indirectly this confirms the excellence of Corsair’s roll.

Conclusion: a side-by-side test of Il2’s Corsair and Hellcat should be very interesting, and for both types.

[Woke Up Dead]

The speed gauge in the F4U is in KNOTS
When flying 350 mph it should read around 300 knots.

I was going to ask the people complaining about the F4U's speed if they're flying with the airbrakes on, but this looks like the more likely (and less sarcastic) reason for their low readings.

I remember thinking "oooo, nice!" the first time I did a high speed turn while tracking a target in the F4U; so smooth. It's the best high-speed turner in the game in my opinion, all the other fast planes are more jumpy and nervous above 350mph.

The low-speed handling is not that bad either; I can definitely out-turn the 190 and even the less experienced 109 pilots, as long as they're in a G6 or later 109. You need to drop down to very low, landing-flap speed quickly and be very careful about detecting the stall; an FFB joystick probably helps here.

Japanese planes are another story, the N1K1 is a monster down low, and the Ki84 and J2M are tough anywhere. The Ki61 is slower and very delicate, and the tactics against the Zero are obvious.

Don't climb at speeds slower than 175mph, it makes a big difference in the climb rate. It does take long to get to its max level speed, but it you climb a bit and then dive to your desired altitude it will retain its speed for a long time.

If there is one similar plane to look at before looking at the F4U, it's definitely the F6F; now there's a slug. For every plane in the game I can think of at least a couple pilots who do well in it (including quite a few in the F4U), except for the Hellcat.

[Black_Sage29]

I retested the corsair ok..in level flight I got to about 270mph. Might have gotten higher but didn't keep flying. Seems like the acceleration to get to that 270mph is really ..really slow


In F4U Corsair..as well as P-51, and P-47, I always grab energy by flying fast and high alts and just fight in the vertical.

[horseback]

A quick impression that one gets from 'flying' late war US fighters in this game/sim is that they are all overweight buses; they may 'hit their numbers' eventually (well, except for the P-38 and the F6F), but they are uniformly sluggish and very hard to trim to level flight. And for Heaven's sake, don't ever change directions or it will take you several minutes to regain even a fraction of the speed you had. Compared to the late-war IJN and IJAAF fighters (the flight data for which is almost invariably 70 years old, and always reflect the factory fresh ideal that the historical record indicates was rarer than an honest military recruiter), they are at HUGE disadvantages.

We cannot know what the stick forces were on the Ki-84, we cannot find an appraisal of how much or how often you needed to trim the rudder of the N1K2 as speed varied, whether you needed to constantly fiddle with your radiator or mixture in the Ki 100 to keep from overheating or if the optimum prop pitch for all of these aircraft was always 3000rpm--all of which we do know and have in grossly exaggerated form with the late war US fighters.

Every time I hear that the Corsair was called the 'Ensign Eliminator' and uses that for justification for making it hard to fly and control, I want to puke. Isn't anyone else mystified that the Messerschmitt 109 is so much easier to take off and land in the game when it had a well-deserved reputation for being difficult to land or takeoff in any but the most ideal conditions? What about the P-40, another aircraft notorious for ground-looping if the pilot's attention wandered for a moment? Again, pretty easy to land and control compared to the US late-war fighters. These aircraft were never intended to land on a carrier in even a calm sea; that's a task a couple of orders of magnitude more difficult to accomplish, but US and British Naval aviators did it routinely in the Corsair in all kinds of sea states short of a typhoon.

The US Navy rejected the Mustang as a carrier aircraft because it was not sufficiently controllable at carrier landing speeds, and as for the Seafire...well, the RN lost many, many times more Seafires to landing accidents than to enemy action. Some of us would take that data as a clue that the Corsair was quite a bit more tractable than those aircraft, particularly at slower speeds (what? compared to the legendary Spitfire--which is what the wartime Seafire models were, with some modifications for hooks and so on). One should expect that the Corsair was overall, a more forgiving and less demanding aircraft than the Spitfire in most if not all regimes.

The issue is context; compared to their contemporaries, late war US fighters are depicted with painfully accuracy while their less documented contemporaries appear to be given the benefit of the doubt, even when the historical record shows the exact opposite.

cheers

horseback

[Black_Sage29]

I wouldn't expect it to accelerate like a car... Maybe I am doing something wrong but even with using throttle and pitch it is difficult for me to get any real speed out of the AC and it seems to overheat unless I keep the throttle below 80% or so .. Maybe it is me but a revisit wouldn't hurt by TD even if it was just to spend some time flying it just as a sim pilot to see if theynseenwhat I see.

Maximize power to 110% with water injection and 100% prop pitch. After flying in level flight for about 1 to 2 minutes it will accelerate to around 260-270mph

I usually only use water injection in level flight just to make it accelerate faster to top speed.

I wish TD would speed up the acceleration a bit though because corsair has the same engine as P-47 and P-47 is heavier and accelerates faster

If nothing else TD could you increase the acceleration of the corsair a bit..at least to match the p-47's if not more

[IceFire]

Maximize power to 110% with water injection and 100% prop pitch. After flying in level flight for about 1 to 2 minutes it will accelerate to around 260-270mph

I usually only use water injection in level flight just to make it accelerate faster to top speed.

I wish TD would speed up the acceleration a bit though because corsair has the same engine as P-47 and P-47 is heavier and accelerates faster

If nothing else TD could you increase the acceleration of the corsair a bit..at least to match the p-47's if not more

Are you sure the P-40 accelerates faster? Get out a stop watch, hold altitude, and see what numbers each hits as they fly along.

[Luno13]

...and as for the Seafire...well, the RN lost many, many times more Seafires to landing accidents than to enemy action. Some of us would take that data as a clue that the Corsair was quite a bit more tractable than those aircraft, particularly at slower speeds (what? compared to the legendary Spitfire--which is what the wartime Seafire models were, with some modifications for hooks and so on). One should expect that the Corsair was overall, a more forgiving and less demanding aircraft than the Spitfire in most if not all regimes.


The Seafire? I've hardly landed one intact. Landing the Corsair is cake in comparison. They had similar vices though - long nose, tricky handling at low speeds. Even then, Corsairs have crashed even on Terra-firma due to that sudden stall they're notorious for. They handle as I would expect them too. I thought the P-38s were well-modeled, so that's the first time I've heard about them being slow, and they climb like rockets.

I do agree about the Japanese aircraft though, as well as the Me-109 and P-40.

[Bearcat]

The P-40s are a dream to fight in.. it just isn't a speed demon.. My gunnery in a P-40 is so much better than in a P-51. It's a much more stable platform.

[Black_Sage29]

Are you sure the P-40 accelerates faster? Get out a stop watch, hold altitude, and see what numbers each hits as they fly along.

I fly mostly American planes and I feel the difference. P-47 accelerates faster than corsair. You can test it out yourself if you want

Nice Bearcat, I like fighting in the P-51 more. It's just so damn fast

[Bearcat]

Yeah me too.. but the P-40 is a better gun platform.. it is more stable.. I get less wobblies in the P-40 than the P-51 hece the better gunnery. I am working on trying to tune up my stick settings..

[Snake]

After tuning your stick settings please share with us! I also have MSFFB joystick and I'm still looking for the best settings for it!

[IceFire]

I fly mostly American planes and I feel the difference. P-47 accelerates faster than corsair. You can test it out yourself if you want

Nice Bearcat, I like fighting in the P-51 more. It's just so damn fast

Well you made the assertion so I figured you were volunteering to test :)

[JtD]

Some P-47 have considerably more power than the F4U, they should be climbing and accelerating faster.

I too usually feel that the P-40 is a better gun platform than the P-51, but looking looking at some stats I tend to hit equally well with both.

[horseback]

P-47 had that GE turbosupercharger weighing it down at lower altitudes, especially the non-paddlebladed models; it was my understanding that Corsair squadrons training on the East Coast handled USAAF Jugs pretty easily below 20,000 ft, but not nearly as well at higher alts. Above that line, the turbosupercharger made the Jug's R-2800 much more efficient than the ones in F4Us and F6Fs; Jug pilots, after losing a round at medium heights were known to fly alongside the victors in the blue painted planes, shake their oxygen masks and point up.

Naval Aviators, being smarter than the average bear, would usually refuse the offer.

cheers

horseback

[Jumoschwanz]

I am sure this conversation would not have happened in WWII. The pilots flying the Corsair in Combat would be trained to work together and stay fast and fly smart.

When they screwed up and ended up below Jap fighters then they got shot down like Pappy Boyington and others.

The gamers fly around in the last version of the P47, which is a powerhouse and did have more power than the Corsair in real life, then they fly the late Corsair and cry about it. I am sure that no pilot in WWII ever wanted to do anything to a Jap fighter except to hit it with superior energy and then get away, from the early flying tigers to the end of the war.

So set yourself up in you QMB in any corsair with several thousand feet advantage and see how it goes for you then. If you get into a situation where you are low and slow enough that a zero shoots you up while you are in a dive then you deserve it.

[horseback]

I am sure this conversation would not have happened in WWII. The pilots flying the Corsair in Combat would be trained to work together and stay fast and fly smart.

When they screwed up and ended up below Jap fighters then they got shot down like Pappy Boyington and others.

The gamers fly around in the last version of the P47, which is a powerhouse and did have more power than the Corsair in real life, then they fly the late Corsair and cry about it. I am sure that no pilot in WWII ever wanted to do anything to a Jap fighter except to hit it with superior energy and then get away, from the early flying tigers to the end of the war.

So set yourself up in you QMB in any corsair with several thousand feet advantage and see how it goes for you then. If you get into a situation where you are low and slow enough that a zero shoots you up while you are in a dive then you deserve it.I'm pretty sure that Bearcat is not guilty of the sort of naivete you are talking about; the fact is that the Corsair is awfully sluggish and seems to bleed speed very easily, even compared to early-to-midwar models of the P-47, which from comparison reports from wartime pilots who 'bounced' each other as part of their Stateside training/interservice rivalry, just doesn't make sense even if one believes (as I do) that WWII Naval Aviators were better trained and prepared than USAAF pilots of the same period.

The clear consensus was that the Corsair held practically all the cards over the Thunderbolt at altitudes below about 20k ft; quicker (which means acceleration), better climbing and more maneuverable, even after the paddleblades were added to the Thunderbolts. The only real-life advantage the Jug had below 20k was apparently dive acceleration, and as we all know, only a cartoon anvil could dive faster than a Thunderbolt (and cartoon anvils have cr@p zoom climb).

In game, the only obvious advantage the Corsair has over the P-47 is that the cockpit looks better at any altitude, and that just doesn't make sense., since everyone knows that the Army has always been superior to the Navy and Marines when it comes to things like interior design.

cheers

horseback

[JtD]

At WEP, what time does it take an F4U-1A to accelerate from 275 to 550 km/h TAS at 10k feet in game? How long does it take a P-47D22? Both standard loadout, 100% fuel. Just curious, if there's any substance to the claims.

[IceFire]

At WEP, what time does it take an F4U-1A to accelerate from 275 to 550 km/h TAS at 10k feet in game? How long does it take a P-47D22? Both standard loadout, 100% fuel. Just curious, if there's any substance to the claims.

A few have said they feel a big difference but haven't actually tested. I'm probably just going to do the test to satisfy my own curiosity...

[JtD]

I find this (http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-47/fighter-comp-chart.jpg) to be a good chart, as far as F4U and P-47 comparison are concerned.

[horseback]

I ran a comparison of both the P-47D razorback and the F4U-1A Corsair at 10,000 ft attempting to measure acceleration from 270/280 kph indicated to top speed reached in a reasonable time. Neither aircraft likes to go under 320 or so kph; trimming for level flight requires a couple of extra hands, and once you manage a couple of consecutive seconds at that height/speed, slamming the throttle and prop pitch forward usually results in a two or three hundred foot climb in a couple of seconds, which can effectively halve your speed increase (which I doubt is the RL response of these birds). You have to shove the stick forward at the same time you throttle up and then desperately try to catch up on the trim while fighting your stick and pedals. The Corsair does this much better than the P-47D-10 or D-22, but even it is a lot of work to keep trimmed. Ultimately I just counted the best three runs because at least half of the runs ended up 10 to 15 degrees in another direction or varied by 500 ft of altitude or more, both of which I thought should be disqualifiers (and those runs usually had much higher or lower times at different stages).

I made a total of six runs per aircraft, at first just trying to time with a stopwatch, which was a total waste of time. I finally just recorded the runs over the Crimea map, and then paused and noted the times when the aircraft reached a predetermined indicated airspeed: from 270/280 to 350, from 350 to 400, from 400 to 450, 450 to 470, then at every 10kph of increase thereafter. I also noted the point after start at which the engine overheated; generally, this was pretty consistent, as I made a point of running back to the starting point with the cowl flaps open and prop pitch at 80% or less so the engine would be completely cooled before beginning the next run.

Overall, the Corsair accelerates quite a bit faster than the P-47D at this altitude, but part of the advantage lies in the fact that the P-47 tries to go straight up the moment you increase the power (and at 280 kph indicated, we're talking about 40-45% throttle and a bit of a high AOA); I was simply unable to get it to fly straight and level initially, and usually was 3-400 ft higher than where I started by the time I could (sort of) level off. Elevator trim especially has to be applied in microunits for both aircraft, but to me, the Corsair is more tractable and predictable, and after the first series of runs, I could keep it almost on the straight and narrow.

At 10,000 ft the Corsair at stage 2 supercharger, slamming the throttle forward from 40% to 110% and prop pitch from 80 to 100% goes from 270 kph to 350 indicated on average around 12 to 14 seconds (remember, this is the wrestling stage).

From 350 to 400 kph takes a consistent 14 seconds.

From 400 to 450 takes between 23 and 28 seconds.

From 450 to 470 took an average of 18 seconds (there was one 12 second run, but I couldn't duplicate it)

From 470 to 480, around 14-17 seconds.

From 480 to 490, around 11 seconds.

From 490 to 500, around 15 seconds.

Overheat started about the same time the speed reached 470 kph or a bit after, or at 1:25 into the run.

Under the same general conditions (excepting the automatic turbo supercharger setting), the P-47D-22 goes from 280 (I just couldn't get it to fly straight at 270 indicated; it just wallows like a pig) to 350 kph indicated in 19-22 seconds.

From 350 to 400 takes about 18 to 22 seconds.

From 400 to 450 takes between 30 and 33 seconds.

From 450 to 470 takes about 9 to 12 seconds.

From 470 to 480 takes about 40 to 42 seconds.

After this point, the aircraft seemed to reach its limit; I downshifted to about 90% prop pitch to get more speed, and ultimately was able to reach 490 only two out of three of my last attempts.

Time to 480 to 490 kph was between 22 and 26 seconds.

The Jug consistently overheated at near the same time as 450 kph indicated, or between 1:09 and 1:16.

Now I'll have to try the same measurements at around 18000 ft and then do it all over again with the A6M3/5, the Oscar and the FW 190A-5.

cheers

horseback

[IceFire]

Bang on horseback. Thank you for doing the hard testing.

So it seems that despite some feelings floating around, the Corsair is faster to accelerate. At least at this altitude. And not just by a second or two which is the most fascinating part.

If I get some time tomorrow I might replicate the test at another altitude. Not sure if 1,000 feet or 20,000 feet would be more valuable.

[JtD]

Thanks from me as well.

I did expect the F4U to clearly be better at that altitude, but the margin still is a surprise. 10k is the sweet spot for the F4U. I'd expect a different story at 18k, though.

[horseback]

Okay, just did the A6M5 Zero and FW 190A-5 1.65 ata at 10,000 ft, and the results are to me, at least-shocking. More shocking than the fact that there was gambling going on at Rick's Cafe' American. Bear in mind that I have rarely flown any of these Pacific theater aircraft in campaigns, and I haven't been in a 190A model for a good year or so, so I probably didn't get the best out of any of them. I think that I flew them all equally badly, but your results may differ.

The Zero in Il-2 is painfully slow; there is no way to put it diplomatically. Top speed (with WEP) is 410kph indicated at 10,000 ft, and it takes a while to get there. I found myself marking times from 275 to 300, 300 to 350, and then after 370, to every 10 kph. It takes longer to reach every speed than any of the other aircraft tested so far, which doesn't seem right, even at just 250 meters below the altitude for switching to the next supercharger stage.

Same conditions. 10,000 ft, Crimea map over the ocean heading due west. Start speed 270-280 kph indicated, in trim at starting speed, throttle to 110%, Prop Pitch to 100%, WEP. Trimming is somewhat easier than the Corsair, but it does take a while to catch up; altitude varied as much as 500m, centered on 3050m. Course was much easier to maintain; that varied no more than 4 degrees. After the P-47, the A6M5 seemed positively docile.

From 275 to 300 kph indicated, it took 8 seconds.

From 300 to 350 kph, it took another 17 seconds, or 25 seconds to go from 275 to 350. The Corsair took 13 seconds.

From 350 to 370, it took an average of 8 seconds.

From 370 to 380, it took 6 seconds.

From 380 to 390, it took another 10 seconds.

From 390 to 400, it averaged 10 seconds.

From 400 to 410, it averaged 26 seconds.

From start to top speed(!) of 410 kph indicated, the A6M5 took 1:25. Overheat consistently occurred at 1:00.

I don't have a time for the Corsair to 410 IAS, but at 400 kph indicated, it is 31 seconds ahead of the Zero-sen Model 52, or 50 kph faster at the same point in time.

SHOCKING.

The FW 190A-5 was also a bit of a shock; by far the most easily trimmed and controlled at all speeds, it still would tend to rather suddenly nose down or nose up when a certain speed was reached if I wasn't alert. It is also a bit sluggish compared to the US birds, although quicker than the Zero. Again, trimmed at 270-280 kph, 3050m, Crimea over the sea, due west, full throttle and WEP applied almost simultaneously.

Start to 300 took 6 seconds.

300 to 350 took 17 seconds (same as Zero, but with a 2 second lead).

350 to 370 took 8 seconds.

370 to 380 took 4 seconds.

380 to 390 took 4 seconds.

390 to 400 took 6 seconds. that is 45 seconds from start to 400 kph indicated. By comparison, the F4U-1A took 28 seconds and the P-47 took 41 seconds!:confused:

From 400 to 450, the FW 190A-5 (with 1.65ata) takes 38 seconds.

From 450 to 470, another 16 seconds.

From 470 to 480, another 13 seconds.

From 480 to 490, which was the top speed achieved, it took another 46 seconds. From start to top speed, the FW 190A-5 (1.65ata) takes 2:38, and overheated like clockwork at 2:14. The Corsair reaches that speed a full one minute earlier, and achieves another 10 kph indicated. The P-47D-22 gets there at 2:27.

As a local 'crusading' television journalist likes to say, that ain't right. At least, it doesn't seem right to me.

I'm so confused. Somebody please show me I'm wrong!:cry:

cheers

horseback

[IceFire]

Again horseback... you have my thanks for doing the testing and getting some hard numbers. Had zero time to test but I'd like to try and replicate some of what you've done just to add to the data points... hopefully in for a quieter week (ha!). But lets get to the bottom line here... the Zero is painfully slow to accelerate? Right? The Corsair is king of the castle here. And yet people feel quite the opposite about it. This is why testable numbers get really interesting.

You know, something we can do here is get a couple of people to line up their aircraft and use a dogfight or COOP mission to test and see. If someone wants to host, I'd join in.

[ElAurens]

Wow.

This explains why F4Fs will leave the A6M in level flight like it was tied to the ground. Also explains my preference for flying IJA aircraft in the sim over the Zeke.

[horseback]

As I said, the results from the 190 and the Zero don't make sense to me; I wonder if these aircraft flown by AI would get better numbers, because they sure seem faster when I'm flying against them in a QMB or a campaign. Maybe having Insta-Trim confers more Mojo than even I thought it does.

I'll want to try the F4F-3 and -4, the P-40E, the Ki-43 and maybe the Ki-27 (which was active over the Philippines as well as China during the early war). We might want to check the IJN/IJA fighters vs the USN/early USAAF fighters at 5000 ft as well; the early contests of 1942 often took place at lower alts. If the Japanese birds perform better there, it might start to give us a better picture.

The FW results are the ones that make least sense to me; the tests I recall reading seem to indicate that it was both quicker & faster than the Corsair and Hellcat, and initially quicker than the P-47D, if not quite as fast over all, particularly at higher alts. I would like to think that I'm either running it at its worst altitude for comparison or that I'm doing something wrong.

I'd really like to get some numbers from people who really know these birds well; maybe a track or two from the pros demonstrating three 'runs' in the QMB Crimea Map at noon starting at 3050m and 270/280 kph Indicated, properly trimmed and at the appropriate supercharger stage and mixture heading west over the sea. Just slam everything forward and do your best to keep it straight & level until it reaches top speed or has been in overheat without getting any more speed for a minute or two. Then open your radiator or cowl gills, drop your Prop pitch and throttle setting and go back to where you started; usually your engine is completely cooled and happy to take another sprint. I've noticed that overall, the time to top speed, like the overheat, is fairly consistent--it's the times in the middle that can vary by a bit.

I'm also wondering if we couldn't test and compare dive acceleration in a similar way...

cheers

horseback

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

Very interesting! Not sure, what it means for Fw190, but Zero isn't surprising me. Its not known as a fast plane. However, this shows clearly, how much a 'feeling' can fail.

But I have a theory, what could cause this: E-bleeding
I suppose, planes are much different here. If you don't trim properly, then you bleed E all the time and this may be much more worse for a F4U than for a Zero or even Fw190. And in dogfight this is more important than max speed and pure positive acceleration.

I think, you can leave out the Ki-27 - it will not show any surprising numbers, being the weakest and slowest with its fixed gear and fixed propellar. But Ki-43 vs. A6M or Ki-84 vs. Corsair could contain some interesting results.

[majorfailure]

As I said, the results from the 190 and the Zero don't make sense to me; I wonder if these aircraft flown by AI would get better numbers, because they sure seem faster when I'm flying against them in a QMB or a campaign. Maybe having Insta-Trim confers more Mojo than even I thought it does.
While the Zero makes perfect sense to me, it is out of its ideal performance envelope almost into the beginning of the test, the Fw190 is a bit astonishing - maybe not its best altitude though. Or maybe it is the way it is -similar power/weight, but more power at the Corsair - if it has a comparable front area that would then give it an edge.

I'll want to try the F4F-3 and -4, the P-40E, the Ki-43 and maybe the Ki-27 (which was active over the Philippines as well as China during the early war). We might want to check the IJN/IJA fighters vs the USN/early USAAF fighters at 5000 ft as well; the early contests of 1942 often took place at lower alts. If the Japanese birds perform better there, it might start to give us a better picture.
I'd be interested in P-39s, I somehow have the feeling the later ones accelerate pretty good. Maybe I get to testing some this week -I'm intrigued by what's been done.

I'm also wondering if we couldn't test and compare dive acceleration in a similar way...
I don't see how - the problem beeing the dive angle - would have to test parallel or flying pursuit.

cheers

horseback
Thanks for getting all the data - especially as it didn't back up your original claim -other people wouldn't have had the balls to post it.

[gaunt1]

Interesting tests!

Maybe something is indeed wrong with the 190. On eastern front, its very easy to catch it with anything, except the I-153, Rata, and maybe the LaGG-3 S4. Or maybe russian planes are accelerating too well, who knows :)

Anyway, I'd be also interested in P-39 tests, especially the D-1/D-2. Would be interesting to compare it to P-40. Never understood why americans didnt like the Cobra, it was a really good plane.

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

Never understood why americans didnt like the Cobra, it was a really good plane.

Not at the altitudes, where they fought (high up with the bombers). Not suited for carriers use and not having the necessary range for default PTO operations, it was best used in ground attack and low alt fight - as especially the russians use to do it.

If it had got the turbocharger, that prototypes had, then the picture would have been different maybe.

Later in the war, after D-Day, when ground attacks in Europe became more important, there were already better types available, like P-47 and P-51 (which could as well fly all the way with the buffs too).

[majorfailure]

Not at the altitudes, where they fought (high up with the bombers). Not suited for carriers use and not having the necessary range for default PTO operations, it was best used in ground attack and low alt fight - as especially the russians use to do it.
And there was the Issue of the reacquired P-400s that did have British oxygen supply - and couldn't go higher than the pilot could endure the thin air. Add pilots not well versed with the type and its temperamental low speed handling - at a time when fighter doctrine was still to dogfight. And to some there was too much innovation in it, car doors, engine behind the pilot, sitting on the prop shaft, tricycle landing gear -bah that has to be bad. The 37mm cannon was not liked in the beginning, too - as its trajectory needed well trained marksmen. And then add psychology, a pilot not confident with his plane will not perform as well as one convinced of its superiority.


If it had got the turbocharger, that prototypes had, then the picture would have been different maybe.
That would have been a hell of an interceptor. But the rather short range was still there.

Later in the war, after D-Day, when ground attacks in Europe became more important, there were already better types available, like P-47 and P-51 (which could as well fly all the way with the buffs too).
Don't forget Northern Africa and Italy. There were some P-39s present.
And the Cobra could not have been that bad even in US service -of the ~10000 produced, only half went to the VVS. Okay some were used as trainers, but that still leaves a few thousand used in combat.

[Luno13]

That's certainly a surprising result. The AI is consistently very fast though, which might be creating the feeling that things are not right.

Another trick can be good timing for "merging" with the opponent. A slower plane can catch a must faster one by turning around at the right time, spraying some ammo, and getting a lucky hit on an engine. You can't really do this trick with a "fast" airplane because it will lose all of its speed, and get swooped, or you will G-lock. In such cases, playing like a coward is the best way (but generally boring, when your life isn't really at risk).

If I may say so, you could use Il-2 compare to find the "peaks" in true air speed for each aircraft. The Corsair has a very efficient supercharger, but is somewhat limited in altitude. The P-47 has a supercharger without stages, and can take it much higher.

[horseback]

Not at the altitudes, where they fought (high up with the bombers). Not suited for carriers use and not having the necessary range for default PTO operations, it was best used in ground attack and low alt fight - as especially the russians use to do it.

If it had got the turbocharger, that prototypes had, then the picture would have been different maybe.

Later in the war, after D-Day, when ground attacks in Europe became more important, there were already better types available, like P-47 and P-51 (which could as well fly all the way with the buffs too).The campaigns the RAF and the USAAF (and very quickly for the USN, after the first carrier battles) fought more or less required ever increasing altitudes; an attacking force would be forced (by radar) to come in as high as possible to make interception both more difficult and hopefully in lesser force. P-39s were found next to useless at Guadalcanal as most attacks air attacks came from over 20,000 ft, which they simply could not reach and be effective at (regardless of the official maximum altitude figure; a lot of early war US fighters were plagued with quality issues in the first 18 months of the war).

In the Soviet campaigns, the Soviets and the Germans were largely unable to strike at each others' strategic assets from the air, and had to attack them as they approached the battlefield, or on the battlefield itself. Striking from high altitudes in this sort of situation made any useful accuracy almost impossible, so everyone was forced to fight at lower altitudes, even though the German fighters were able to use their better high alt performance to patrol and strike from on high. Had the Soviets been able to develop a similarly capable fighter for medium/high alt combat that was still capable (by their definition) at lower alts, they probably would have put it to wide use.

Instead, they mostly kept their fighters operating at their best altitudes and made the Germans come to them. They may have figured they were sitting ducks either way, and their chances of surviving and inflicting damage to the enemy were better at their best altitudes rather than at Fritz's.

Part of the reason that the P-39 couldn't get the turbochargers was that the USAAF preferred to put them in their bombers or in the more promising P-38 and P-47 designs. Remember that the decision was made before we entered the war, and that the company that made them had other priorities (odd as that sounds, it was just more profitable to make other stuff to sell to the public rather than to make very difficult high tech/high cost products for the rather parsimonious (cheap) US military of the 1930s). It was late 1942 before the turbocharger production even began to sort itself out; production and development of the P-38 and P-47 was affected, and it was a bottleneck for the B-17 and B-24 as well at times.

Putting the turbocharger on the Airacobra would also have made it heavier, meaning less fuel tankage and less range, plus there would be poorer performance at low and medium altitudes, limiting its usefulness in support of the Army's ground forces.

cheers

horseback

[horseback]

Comparison Number Two: P-39N, P-40M and the Ki-43-II. I'm going to stay with 1943 fighters for the time being. These were the aircraft flown at the time the tide turned in most respects IMHO. As before, Crimea over the sea, noon, 3050m, 270kph IAS, course due East.

I'm just going to go with a listing of times to each speed this time; from start time to each speed gives a clearer picture of where each plane stands. There are more surprises in this one.

270 to 350 kph: Ki-43-II, 24 seconds / P-40M, 21 seconds / P-39N, 18 seconds

370 kph: Ki-43-II, 35 seconds / P-40M, 30 seconds / P-39N, 23 seconds

380 kph: Ki-43-II, 42 seconds / P-40M, 38 seconds / P-39N, 26 seconds

390 kph: Ki-43-II, 58 seconds / P-40M, 44 seconds / P-39N, 29 seconds

400 kph: Ki-43-II, 1:17 / P-40M, 51 seconds / P-39N, 33 seconds

410 kph: Ki-43-II, 2:11 (top speed) / P-40M, 1:05 / P-39N, 37 seconds

420 kph: P-40M, 1:25 / P-39N, 43 seconds

430 kph: P-40M, 1:34 (top speed) / P-39N, 49 seconds

440 kph: P-39N, 54 seconds

450 kph: P-39N, 1:01

460 kph: P-39N, 1:08

470 kph: P-39N, 1:23

480 kph: P-39N, 1:34

490 kph: P-39N, 1:54

Bottom line, when the Oscar tops out at 2:11 and 410 kph, the P-40M has been at its top speed of 430 for 37 seconds, and the P-39N has been at its top speed of 490 kph for 17 seconds. It hardly seems fair.

Both American fighters should build up a big lead over the Ki-43 fairly quickly; if they drop their noses a fraction, they should have an extra margin of safety. The Oscar is easier to trim and keep level & on course and doesn't overheat nearly as quickly--one of the advantages of a radial engine over an inline type.

The P-40 is the next most manageable, but both it and the P-39 are much easier to trim and hold level than the Corsair or the P-47D. This contradicts comparisons made in America's Hundred Thousand sections on trimming, which I consider the best authority on the relative merits of these aircraft. However, I've been carping about this since 2006 or so, and I don't expect Il-2 '46 to address it during my lifetime.

The Airacobra does NOT like a sudden application of prop pitch and throttle. The nose will twist from the sudden torque and put you at least 5 degrees left of your intended course. It is MUCH faster than I expected--nearly in the Corsair's class in both acceleration and top speed. Maybe it was just the Russian paint job, but I expected it to be just a bit quicker than the P-40 and maybe not quite as fast at the top end. WOW.

Both US fighters tend to climb or dive at a shallow angle if you aren't paying close attention; the climb indicator is kind of slow to respond to changes and divided into unrealistic units, so a tiny deflection can result in a hundred and fifty foot change in a few seconds. That's kind of frustrating.

Next, I'm thinking the F4F-4, Spitfire Mks V and IX, and the Bf 109G-2 and -6 before moving to the Russians and an Italian or two.

cheers

horseback

[The_WOZ]

A comparison between the Spit V and the A6M3 at 15000 ft would be interesting.
The spit is faster, but the A6M3 should have better acceleration. I don't think it's that way in game.

http://www.darwinspitfires.com/articles/spitfire-vc-versus-the-zero.html

[majorfailure]

It is MUCH faster than I expected--nearly in the Corsair's class in both acceleration and top speed. Maybe it was just the Russian paint job, but I expected it to be just a bit quicker than the P-40 and maybe not quite as fast at the top end. WOW.

3050m should be very close to full throttle height of the P-39 -if the test were at 7000m results would be very different. The P-39 at 3k is able to run with the German fighters of 1943 in this sim. And if you can get Zeros to fight at your altitude its like driving a Ferrari vs. Fiats.

[IceFire]

P-39 is not at all surprising. It has one of the lowest drag ratios for US fighters. In the same neighborhood as the P-51 and P-47.

[horseback]

I simply expected the P-40 to perform a bit closer to the P-39 at these alts; it is much more -respected- in the US, so one just thinks that the iconic early war fighter would do better than the 'ugly duckling' we so eagerly shunted off to the steppes. My education continues...

cheers

horseback

[Woke Up Dead]

Interesting tests, thanks Horseback.

I'm a bit surprised at all the expressions of surprise here. Horseback's results are fairly consistent with the impressions I have of the planes he tested:

- The 1943 F4Us fly better than the 1943 190s. Faster, better acceleration, better low-speed turn, less twitchy and less nervous at high speeds. The 190 can "fool" you into thinking it should be a better plane because its firepower ends the fight as soon as its opponent makes one mistake, while the F4U needs to peck and peck and peck with its mg's, and also because the 190's quick roll and quick initial turn may leave you with the impression that it has quickness in acceleration too. Things get a bit better for the 190 with the A9, and a lot better with the Doras.

- The P39 is a monster between the deck and 4000m. Its softball lobbing cannon and its infamous stall discourages many players, and it's a lot harder to learn and fly to its limits unlike the Spit, or Zero, or 109. But if you fly with or against a rare P-39 expert, you can definitely see what a great plane it is at low altitudes. The P-40s, especially the M, do a lot better above 5000m.

- The Ki-43 is painfully slow, but only in a straight line. As soon as the US planes start turning, the Ki starts to catch up very quickly, it's almost like it loses no energy in turns at all. It also climbs better at any altitude; as soon as a US pilot starts pulling away the Ki pilot should start climbing steeply. If the US plane comes back, the Ki will be slower but will have an altitude advantage to trade for speed.

[Pursuivant]

The Ki-43 is painfully slow, but only in a straight line. As soon as the US planes start turning, the Ki starts to catch up very quickly, it's almost like it loses no energy in turns at all. It also climbs better at any altitude

Of course, the Ki-43 is made of tinfoil and is armed with pop-guns, which puts it at a serious disadvantage against the better armed and armored U.S. planes. I can see why it was meat on the table for skilled P-38 pilots like Richard Bong and Thomas McGuire.

That said, it's one of my favorite aerobatic aircraft. I have to wonder why more online aerobatics squadrons don't use it.

[IceFire]

Of course, the Ki-43 is made of tinfoil and is armed with pop-guns, which puts it at a serious disadvantage against the better armed and armored U.S. planes. I can see why it was meat on the table for skilled P-38 pilots like Richard Bong and Thomas McGuire.

That said, it's one of my favorite aerobatic aircraft. I have to wonder why more online aerobatics squadrons don't use it.

This is a good point. The Ki-43-II is more difficult to handle but the Ki-43-I is very easy to whip into some amazing aerobatics and I am curious why I don't see it used more often. The thing it lacks is power... which might explain it.

You can get into trouble very fast if you're being too fancy :)

[Notorious M.i.G.]

Maybe it was just the Russian paint job, but I expected it to be just a bit quicker than the P-40 and maybe not quite as fast at the top end. WOW.

And that's with the N, which isn't nearly as hot as the D-2 (which also has the Hispano to boot). Once I'd gotten a knack for flying the P-39 it soon became one of my top favourites - pleasure to fly yet still very capable. Only thing I really don't like about them is the 37mm gun, so I stick to the early models where possible.

I learned my respect for it a few years back when one of the RAF662 guys stomped me with a P-400. I was pretty careful around P-39s after that :-P

[IceFire]

Thing about the P-39 was that it was more experimental than something like the P-40 design.

The P-40 was based on the Hawk 75/P-36 which traces its lineage back to the early 1930s. The landing gear is not stored in the cleanest arrangement, the radiator systems are draggy (partly for looks apparently), the whole design is traditional.

The P-39 has a number of advanced features including a low drag coefficient, tricycle landing gear, car-door style canopy opening, and it was designed initially to have but never allowed to use the turbo supercharging gear.

I'm sure when the P-39 showed up at Port Moresby the USAAF personnel there... who were having difficulty with the traditional P-40 would have seen these as some sort of aberration. I've read something to that effect before anyways. So the poor frontline conditions, the need to fight high over the mountains, the much more difficult handling of the P-39 with the center of gravity pushed much further back... no wonder it was called the "Iron Dog" and disregarded as a poor fighter. Everything was working against it in early US service and that reputation killed it I think. But the plane itself, in the right hands and performing the kinds of tasks that its best suited for, is actually quite a good performer.

Especially if you have a hot rodded version like the D-2 that we have in-game with 1500hp on tap. Thats an incredible amount of power. Still don't understand why the D-2 has 1500hp and everything else has between 1100 and 1300hp.

[Pursuivant]

Everything was working against it in early US service and that reputation killed it I think. But the plane itself, in the right hands and performing the kinds of tasks that its best suited for, is actually quite a good performer.

One American fighter pilot who served in NG said that the main strike against the P-39 was lack of range, since the Allies had to cross the Owen Stanley Mountains in order to strike at the Japanese.

Additionally, by the time the P-39 got to NG, better fighters, such as the P-38 and P-47, were starting to become available. But, Army policy was that fighter squadrons didn't get newer fighters until the P-39s they had were unserviceable. Not surprisingly, U.S. pilots did everything they could to help that process along - such as bailing out of potentially salvageable aircraft.

I could also imagine that taking care of a relatively advanced plane like the P-39 in some of the most unforgiving terrain on earth was a nightmare for ground crews. Armchair historians tend to forget about boring logistical issues like maintenance intervals and serviceability rates.

Finally, the American pilots in NG in 1942/43 were still figuring out how to beat the Japanese, who were masters of the conventional turning dogfight. Part of the reason that they didn't have confidence in their planes is because they were blaming the planes for their own lack of tactical skill. It's telling that non-U.S. forces were able to take the same planes that the U.S. considered to be "dogs" and use them successfully. (Finns with the Buffalo, Soviets with the P-39, Australians with the Vengeance).

[IceFire]

One American fighter pilot who served in NG said that the main strike against the P-39 was lack of range, since the Allies had to cross the Owen Stanley Mountains in order to strike at the Japanese.

Additionally, by the time the P-39 got to NG, better fighters, such as the P-38 and P-47, were starting to become available. But, Army policy was that fighter squadrons didn't get newer fighters until the P-39s they had were unserviceable. Not surprisingly, U.S. pilots did everything they could to help that process along - such as bailing out of potentially salvageable aircraft.

I could also imagine that taking care of a relatively advanced plane like the P-39 in some of the most unforgiving terrain on earth was a nightmare for ground crews. Armchair historians tend to forget about boring logistical issues like maintenance intervals and serviceability rates.

Finally, the American pilots in NG in 1942/43 were still figuring out how to beat the Japanese, who were masters of the conventional turning dogfight. Part of the reason that they didn't have confidence in their planes is because they were blaming the planes for their own lack of tactical skill. It's telling that non-U.S. forces were able to take the same planes that the U.S. considered to be "dogs" and use them successfully. (Finns with the Buffalo, Soviets with the P-39, Australians with the Vengeance).
Agreed completely! All of these factors shaped the American experience with the P-39 and that reputation has stuck with it in Western circles of aviation many decades later. I don't think it was until I started learning more about the Eastern Front did I reconsider the P-39... and then when I did some reading on the technical details things started to pop out that didn't fit the conventional historical narrative.

[RPS69]

The funny thing about the P39, is that when you look at it from the sides, it looks very well on the front half, and with an older concept in the rear. Also the wings seem inapropriate too.
And that's what was actually changed on the P63.
Nice plane to talk about, but aren't we gettting a bit out off topic here?

[IceFire]

The funny thing about the P39, is that when you look at it from the sides, it looks very well on the front half, and with an older concept in the rear. Also the wings seem inapropriate too.
And that's what was actually changed on the P63.
Nice plane to talk about, but aren't we gettting a bit out off topic here?

Probably :)

I think the Corsair thing may have been at least partially put to bed. The acceleration tests show the Corsair to be anything but the dog that some say it is.

On the other hand... the tests show a lot of fascinating acceleration information for a whole variety of aircraft.

[horseback]

One American fighter pilot who served in NG said that the main strike against the P-39 was lack of range, since the Allies had to cross the Owen Stanley Mountains in order to strike at the Japanese.

Additionally, by the time the P-39 got to NG, better fighters, such as the P-38 and P-47, were starting to become available. But, Army policy was that fighter squadrons didn't get newer fighters until the P-39s they had were unserviceable. Not surprisingly, U.S. pilots did everything they could to help that process along - such as bailing out of potentially salvageable aircraft.

I could also imagine that taking care of a relatively advanced plane like the P-39 in some of the most unforgiving terrain on earth was a nightmare for ground crews. Armchair historians tend to forget about boring logistical issues like maintenance intervals and serviceability rates.

Finally, the American pilots in NG in 1942/43 were still figuring out how to beat the Japanese, who were masters of the conventional turning dogfight. Part of the reason that they didn't have confidence in their planes is because they were blaming the planes for their own lack of tactical skill. It's telling that non-U.S. forces were able to take the same planes that the U.S. considered to be "dogs" and use them successfully. (Finns with the Buffalo, Soviets with the P-39, Australians with the Vengeance). The P-39 in the early war period had a number of problems; poor serviceability, uneven quality, and the fact that when it was sent to the Pacific, there were often several different models of the aircraft going to the same squadron or group, often without the necessary jigs, special tools and maintenance manuals. The pilots themselves in that early period were often fresh out of training, and had no previous experience with the Airacobra beyond seeing pictures of it in Life magazine. I doubt that any aircraft put together in that sort of conditions is likely to perform to factory specs.

Add in the fact that no one in the Pacific in 1942-43 seems to have had the slightest idea of what Japanese fighters looked like, much less what they could do, and that the US fighters like the Warhawk and the P-39 were considered better dogfighters than their European counterparts at their best altitudes (and that the British and German fighters were supposed to be the best in the world at the time), and you have the makings of a dog's dinner or in the US military vernacular, a word that starts with "cluster."

I doubt that there was a P-39 anywhere in the Pacific before mid-1943 that performed as well as the game depicts every model of the Airacobra; it is possible that the ones in New York or the Kuban actually were that nifty, but not in New Guinea and certainly not at Guadalcanal, which is where they established their reputation with American combat pilots.

As for the Buffalo, the US Navy's problem with it was that normal carrier landings tended to literally shave portions off the landing gear struts; over a period of months, this led to aircraft becoming unserviceable when the US Navy desperately needed carrier fighters. The Grumman F4F was simply much more reliable and not all that different in capability.

As for the Vengeance, again, not that good as a carrier divebomber; the SBD was a better and more reliable weapon and it was what the Navy and Marines stuck with. Some manufacturers' products were primarily dedicated to Lend-Lease, not because they made lesser products necessarily, but because their products duplicated but did not exceed the products our military was already using.

cheers

horseback

[horseback]

Okay, time for the results of the 10K flyoff between the F4F-4, the F6F-3, the Spitfire Mk Vb (CW), and the Bf 109G-2. As before, Crimea map at noon, 10,000 ft, 270kph IAS, trimmed for level flight over the sea heading west before pushing throttle and prop pitch forward and hitting WEP if available (in this group, only the Spitfire has WEP). In the case of the 109G-2, I left the radiators in auto; I believe that they were used that way. I list the indicated speed and the time for each aircraft to reach it.

From 270 to 350 kph: F4F-4, 36 seconds; F6F-3, 23 seconds; Bf 109G-2, 15 seconds; Spitfire Mk Vb, 13 seconds

To 370kph: F4F-4, 52 seconds; F6F-3, 30 seconds; Bf 109G-2, 19 seconds; Spitfire Mk Vb, 17 seconds.

To 380kph: F4F-4, 1 minute 3 seconds; F6F-3, 34 seconds; Bf 109G-2, 22 seconds; Spitfire Mk Vb, 19 seconds.

To 390kph: F4F-4, 1 minute 18 seconds; F6F-3, 40 seconds; Bf 109G-2, 24 seconds; Spitfire Mk Vb, 21 seconds.

To 400kph: F4F-4, 2 minutes 1 second; F6F-3, 47 seconds; Bf 109G-2, 27 seconds; Spitfire Mk Vb, 23 seconds.

To 410kph: F4F-4, 2 minutes 31 seconds (Top Speed); F6F-3, 54 seconds; Bf 109G-2, 30 seconds; Spitfire Mk Vb, 26 seconds.

To 420kph: F6F-3, 1 minute 2 seconds; Bf 109G-2, 34 seconds; Spitfire Mk Vb, 29 seconds.

To 430kph: F6F-3, 1 minute 16 seconds; Bf 109G-2, 39 seconds; Spitfire Mk Vb, 33 seconds.

To 440kph: F6F-3, 1 minute 28 seconds; Bf 109G-2, 44 seconds; Spitfire Mk Vb, 36 seconds.

To 450kph: F6F-3, 1 minute 44 seconds (Top Speed); Bf 109G-2, 52 seconds; Spitfire Mk Vb, 41 seconds.

To 460kph: Bf 109G-2,1 minute 4 seconds; Spitfire Mk Vb, 48 seconds.

To 470kph:Bf 109G-2, 1 minute 14 seconds; Spitfire Mk Vb, 1 minute 1 second.

To 480kph: Bf 109G-2, 1 minute 20 seconds; Spitfire Mk Vb, 1 minute 19 seconds. This is where both aircraft topped out.

Time to overheat: F4F-4, 1:44, F6F-3, 1:48, Spitfire Mk Vb, 1:55, and the Bf 109G-2, 4:04.

Notes:

Bf 109 and Spitfire were extremely sensitive to shallow climbs and dives; variations of as little as 40m became critical at higher speeds, adding or subtracting between 2 and 6 six seconds to a 10kph interval. Being a 'good stick' improves your performance greatly, and this was made easier by the turn and bank indicators on both aircraft being exceptionally accurate and quick to respond. I'm a bit skeptical about the Spit V; it seems much faster than the so-called 'fighter' version of the FW 190, which is not what my history books tell me...

Note that both these light-weight hod rods exhibited a 'twist' when the throttle & prop pitch was shoved to the stops, just like the Airacobra earlier.

The F6F-3 is extremely trim sensitive; trim sometimes seemed to have an extra delay, which could have the effects of three or four trim button pushes showing up at once, rather than in succession. It took me FIVE sessions with the Hellcat before I could make three consecutive runs that were reasonably straight and level. Trimming this aircraft at any speed is in no way intuitive; it can choose to nose down slightly at some speeds and nose up at others. The problem is compounded by the depiction of the climb and turn & bank indicators as slow and sometimes just plain wrong, compared to the vector ball in Wonder Woman view. This is a contradiction of the aircraft's reputation; the Hellcat is regarded as one of the easiest fighters of any era to master, and the Hellcat's trim section of America's Hundred Thousand says that it's handling characteristics were notably benign and it was easily trimmed. In addition, the Hellcat was not quite in the Corsair's class for acceleration, but it should be a lot closer than it is here, and a good bit faster at this altitude as well. This thing in the game is a slug. It's hard not to take this personally.

By contrast, the Wildcat was supposed to be an aircraft that required its pilot to pay attention all the time, and the in-game F4F-4 is tractable and comparably easy to trim. It was indeed considered to be slow for a fighter, but like the Zero and the P-40, I'm having a tough time believing that it was quite this slow.

Yaks, Lags, 'standard' FW 190s and La-5s next time.

cheers

horseback

[gaunt1]

Please, can you test the Yak-9 (1942) first? It has the most realistic FM amongst russian aircraft.

[horseback]

I notice that several people want specific aircraft tested at various altitudes; I should mention that every test of three to four runs for a given aircraft can take 45 minutes for the actual test, another 45 minutes to get the raw data from the track and then another hour to reduce the information to a usable form.

If I weren't currently unemployed, I couldn't have accomplished what I have in the time I did it. In a sense, this sort of 'keeps my hand in' my professional calling; I spent several years writing technical test procedures aimed at proving whether an electronic or RF system or specific subunit met its required specs.

Anyone should be able to closely or nearly reproduce my results using the same methods with a little patience. Here's how I do it:

Acceleration testing is simple if you are consistent. Every test has to meet certain basic standards, and those standards have to be applied to every aircraft tested. 'Fairness' doesn't come into it; at altitude X, aircraft Y will fly in a straight and level course from starting speed Z until it can no longer accelerate (or the engine bursts into flames). Aircraft either reach a certain speed at a certain rate or they won't. Make sure that you record a track for every run, or series of runs--I have found that a maximum of four 'runs' will give you a consistent (and easily reproduced) result in a single track; after that, you have burned off a fair amount of fuel or exhausted the WEP additive's reservoir. The overheat light may also start coming on a bit sooner.

The Crimea map is assumed to be the ideal for testing conditions, and it has the added advantage of having a convenient large body of water for a consistent surface (none of those annoying 'bumps' as you cross rivers and lakes); by default, we set the time as noon, and in the QMB, you can select the nearest height to the desired test altitude, divert a bit south to get over the water, and then head due west, or 270°, obtain the desired test alt and speed. Trim for level flight at that speed and altitude; it can take time, but the idea is that every aircraft tested will start at the same speed and in the same flight condition. Make sure that your cooling flaps are in closed/auto position, your temps are in the normal range, and that your track is running. Then slam the throttle and prop pitch all the way forward and if available, add WEP.

Do your very best to maintain your altitude and course with stick and rudder until you can trim out and even then, some aircraft simply will NOT trim out in a dynamic (changing speeds) situation, so you must keep a close eye on your climb and turn & bank indicators and do your best to stay on the straight and level with the stick and rudder and try to keep as close as possible with your trim inputs. Keep going until the aircraft simply will not reach a greater indicated speed and/or the overheat gets critical (some aircraft are more sensitive to overheat than others, but the best indicator is the aircraft slowing down a bit instead of maintaining or gaining speed in level flight). End your run, reduce throttle and prop pitch (except LW fighters with their automatic controls), turn off WEP and open your radiator or cowl flaps all the way, and return to near your starting point at no more than 55% throttle; in all but the most extreme cases, this will cool your engine off to a reasonable level for the next run.

Rinse and repeat two or three more times. Make sure that you close your cowl or radiator flaps; these are very easy to forget, and they will reduce your acceleration by quite a bit in most cases.

Here comes the hard (and tedious) part: Reducing the Data.

You have flown your runs and recorded them, and you are satisfied that the 'runs' are as straight and level as you can get them (and I have found that this standard will evolve as you become more practiced in the test process). You have obtained the 'raw' data, which means that you've invested about 45 minutes to an hour and a half so far for each aircraft you test. Now you must extract the data by running the track and noting the times you reach each speed, along with relevant information.

Running the track immediately afterward you have recorded them should reproduce the results accurately, and you will be able to pause at every speed increase and note altitude and course as well as time: in many cases, seemingly slight variations of altitude or direction can raise or lower the time between 10kph intervals quite a bit. I also recommend watching the track in Wonder Woman view, but flying the tests in cockpit view; this will give you a clear indication of how accurate the instruments are--the needle and ball can be graded/compared against the vector ball, and the altitude and true speed are indicated in single digits, versus the basic 10 unit increments in the speedbar. This means that you must de-select Loop, select Manual Time Compression (this is a sanity preservation measure--you don't want to spend 10-15 minutes waiting for your aircraft to return to the start point after every run), Manual View Control and In-Flight Messages before starting the track.

DO NOT START WITH A BLANK SHEET OF PAPER. I recommend using a notebook of lined paper, with your start speed and target speeds listed from top to bottom in descending order on the left, with room for at least six columns: alt/course and time for each run, with space at the bottom for rows noting the overheat and end run times. Record the 'raw' time as each speed is reached, along with the alt/course; the best way to do this is to Pause the track immediately. Some aircraft transition across 10kph points in 2 seconds or less, so most of us will be unable to keep up with the data without pausing. It is a good idea to note the aircraft type on the top of the page, just in case you can't get around to reducing the raw data until later.

By 'raw' time, I mean the track time noted in the lower right hand corner; you can convert the start time to 0:00 and measure from that point for each run later.

I have been recording data from 270/280 to 350 kph, 350 to 370, and then in 10kph increments thereafter. I use Indicated Air Speed, because in-cockpit that is all you will have, even with the Speedbar. You can get the True Air Speed from Wonder Woman view if you like, but the conversion at a given altitude is the same for all aircraft. The starting speed is more or less arbitrary, the fact is that some of the faster and heavier American types are hard to get stable at that speed; you might prefer to start at the aircraft's economy cruise speed or at the speed that you believe that WWII squadrons flying that aircraft would get to before entering the combat area (pilots flying slower accelerating types like the P-40 often made sure to be already 'fast', or over 350kph indicated, as they entered the area of likely enemy contact--units that did this usually suffered fewer casualties as a result).

Simply put, if you aren't quick, you had better already be fast when the feces starts.

So far, I have limited testing to 10,000 ft/3050m, but anyone can choose to test at any altitude as long as he compares all of the aircraft he tests at the same altitude--no apples to oranges comparisons allowed.
Okay, we have the raw data for three or four runs written down--now we reduce it to basic units.

I prefer to simply subtract the start time from the next measuring point, which gives us the time from 'zero' to the first marker. If your run's start time is 1:17 and you reach 350 kph at 1:33, the interval time would be 0:16, or 16 seconds. For the sake of simplicity, I measure the times between markers, so the next interval is from 350 to 370. If you reach 370 at a raw time of 1:39, you record a time of 0:06, or six seconds. Continue in this manner for each of your runs. Each interval is recorded in terms of the time between designated speeds, and your times between those speeds should be fairly similar for each run. If they are very different, we will want to refer back to the alt/course columns for that interval; if you climbed 40-60 meters during a given interval on one run, that time will likely be a bit slower than the others, and if you were in a steady shallow climb or shallow diving condition the effect can be cumulative. If run #1 and run #3 are fairly straight & level and have a near identical time for a given interval while run #2 is in a bit of a climb and is clearly slower, or in a bit of a dive and a lot shorter, you may choose not to use run #2 for that interval.

What I try to do is get a reasonable average time for each interval, and then add them up for an 'ideal' average for the whole range of start to finish speeds. You can then add the times to get a clear idea of how long it takes most pilots to reach a given speed from the starting speed in that aircraft at that altitude. This allows you to see that by the time an FW 190A-5(1.65 ata) reaches 400kph at 3050m (45 seconds from start at 270kph), a Spitfire Mk Vb (CW) is between 450 and 460 kph and has been doing over 400kph for almost 20 seconds, which would confer an almost insurmountable lead and the initiative to the pilot of the Spitfire at that altitude.

You may notice that the accuracy with which you can fly straight and level is at least partly dependent on the cockpit instruments' clarity and honesty (for lack of a better word); this is very much a factor in how much you can squeeze out of a given aircraft. A steady slight climb or dive can result in the addition or loss of two or three hundred meters in a matter of seconds at high speeds and a change of vital seconds in an interval time. If it is a factor, make sure to note it; that is partly why I suggest switching back and forth from Wonder Woman view while viewing the track.

I have created a series of Word documents with tables listing the results and notes, but they are too big right now to attach; I'll see if I can just copy the data from the tables to get under the 19.5 kb limit. I also plan to create a chart in Excel in a week or so (again, because it helps keep my hand in).

In any case, I believe that using my methods, anyone can create a fairly accurate picture of what plane A can do versus plane B in terms of level acceleration. I welcome others to try it and report their results.

cheers

horseback

[Notorious M.i.G.]

Out of curiosity, do you stay at 100% pitch the whole time for manual pitch aircraft? I'd think that at higher speeds you wouldn't get as much out of the engine with pitch at 100%.

Maybe a few runs in a 109 or 190 to compare auto pitch vs manually having it on 100% could result in some different numbers. I'd be interested to know how efficient the auto pitch on the German fighters are - maybe smart manual management would be preferable in some instances.

Either way, thanks for putting the effort into this in-depth testing. Turning out some interesting results and it's good to see some solid numbers from ingame.

[horseback]

Out of curiosity, do you stay at 100% pitch the whole time for manual pitch aircraft? I'd think that at higher speeds you wouldn't get as much out of the engine with pitch at 100%.

Maybe a few runs in a 109 or 190 to compare auto pitch vs manually having it on 100% could result in some different numbers. I'd be interested to know how efficient the auto pitch on the German fighters are - maybe smart manual management would be preferable in some instances.

Either way, thanks for putting the effort into this in-depth testing. Turning out some interesting results and it's good to see some solid numbers from ingame.So far, I'm staying in 100% prop pitch for the speed runs. I have experimented a little at the point where the aircraft no longer seem to be accelerating, dropping PP to 95, then 90 and down to around 80%, but there seemed to be no improvement in the short term (15-20 seconds) once you 'top out'. I haven't found any material in pilot's notes, manuals or on these or the Ubi boards that indicated that a lowered prop pitch improved top speeds in anything except the Mustang, where the 'throttle' setting determined the manifold pressure rather than how much fuel was being supplied to the engine, at least when you want to get to the top end in a hurry.

I have the impression that in most cases, setting prop pitch at 100% is similar to going to a lower gear in a car or bicycle; when you want to get as much of your power directly to the tires as quickly as possible with as much torque as possible, you gear down and push up the RPM. The way that the Spit Vb and 109G-2 reacted to very minor increases above level flight once they reached the last 40 kph or so of their acceleration leads me to think that once you are at the upper reaches of what the aircraft will do, the 'higher' gearing of 90% prop pitch may just load down the engine...

As time consuming as the process is, I haven't tried to experiment much though. Some aircraft in the game may respond better to that technique.

cheers

horseback

[RPS69]

Changing the 190 into manual used to do lots off a diference.
You go as low as 30% to have a better accel, and higher final speed.

Still this changed a lot on 4.10 and later. Right now, the PP on the 190 may be doing nothing.

[horseback]

Test Group #4: Yak-9, La-5F, and the Spitfire LF Mk IX at 80% and 100% prop pitch (2700 rpm and 3000 rpm, respectively).

Crimea map, noon, 3050m, 270 kph IAS, due west over the Black Sea.

From 270 to 350 kph: La-5F, 23 seconds; Yak-9, 17 seconds, Spit IX @80%, 14 seconds; Spit IX @100%, 12 seconds.

To 370 kph: La-5F, 30 seconds; Yak-9, 24 seconds, Spit IX @80%, 18 seconds; Spit IX @100%, 16 seconds.

To 380 kph: La-5F, 34 seconds; Yak-9, 28 seconds, Spit IX @80%, 21 seconds; Spit IX @100%, 18 seconds.

To 390 kph: La-5F, 40 seconds; Yak-9, 31 seconds, Spit IX @80%, 24 seconds; Spit IX @100%, 21 seconds.

To 400 kph: La-5F, 48 seconds; Yak-9, 35 seconds, Spit IX @80%, 28 seconds; Spit IX @100%, 23 seconds.

To 410 kph: La-5F, 58 seconds; Yak-9, 39 seconds, Spit IX @80%, 32 seconds; Spit IX @100%, 26 seconds.

To 420 kph: La-5F, 1 minute 8 seconds; Yak-9, 43 seconds, Spit IX @80%, 36 seconds; Spit IX @100%, 29 seconds.

To 430 kph: La-5F, 1 minute 17 seconds; Yak-9, 49 seconds, Spit IX @80%, 42 seconds; Spit IX @100%, 32 seconds.

To 440 kph: La-5F, 1 minute 47 seconds; Yak-9, 56 seconds, Spit IX @80%, 48 seconds; Spit IX @100%, 35 seconds.

To 450 kph: Yak-9, 1 minute 7 seconds; Spit IX @80%, 54 seconds; Spit IX @100%, 39 seconds.

To 460 kph: Yak-9, 1 minute 35 seconds; Spit IX @80%, 1 minute 4 seconds; Spit IX @100%, 43 seconds.

To 470 kph: Yak-9, 2 minutes 5 seconds; Spit IX @80%, 1 minute 20 seconds; Spit IX @100%, 48 seconds.

To 480 kph: Spit IX @80%, 1 minute 40 seconds; Spit IX @100%, 56 seconds.

To 490 kph: Spit IX @100%, 1 minute 5 seconds

Yak-9 overheats fairly consistently at 1 minute 40 seconds and La-5F overheats like clockwork right before reaching 440 kph, at a minute forty as well. I had expected the La-5F to be a bit faster, but the Yak is a beast by comparison; too bad it shoots BBs (and only carries about 10 of them). Things may be different at 1500-2000m.

All three aircraft twist & shake like a wet dog when full throttle is applied, usually resulting in a short climb and turn before I (over)compensate with stick & rudder; I can't help but think that I lose a couple of seconds of initial acceleration as a result, but it's harder to avoid than having to kiss that aunt with the big hairy mole at family reunions...

At 80% Prop Pitch Spit IX is still superior to most aircraft of the time, and not prone to overheat; however, if someone is shooting at me, I will take the (minor) chance of overheat and the much greater acceleration that comes with it.

The Spitfire IX wants to roll slightly right all the time, regardless of speed or power setting; since I calibrated my CH Combatstick before starting, I have to think it isn't me (although I also tend to roll right). It can't be trimmed out with rudder, and there apparently is no aileron trim. This results in little jerks of the stick as you catch the wings starting to come out of level. I have to mention that the climb indicator and the turn & bank thingie seem a good bit less accurate than on the Spit Mk Vb.

None of these aircraft want to trim out with button trim, particularly at their top ends; you have to be alert for little climbs and dives all the time, and at the very ragged edge, where the engine is straining to get to the next 10 kph of speed, a tiny variation in angle of attack can make a big difference in how long it takes. If you need to get outa Dodge in a hurry, put the nose down a fraction and fool the guy behind you into thinking you're still flying straight and level for that critical first couple of seconds.

cheers

horseback

[IceFire]

Again, completely fascinating. Many thanks!

[majorfailure]

The Spitfire IX wants to roll slightly right all the time, regardless of speed or power setting; since I calibrated my CH Combatstick before starting, I have to think it isn't me (although I also tend to roll right). It can't be trimmed out with rudder, and there apparently is no aileron trim. This results in little jerks of the stick as you catch the wings starting to come out of level. I have to mention that the climb indicator and the turn & bank thingie seem a good bit less accurate than on the Spit Mk Vb.

None of these aircraft want to trim out with button trim, particularly at their top ends; you have to be alert for little climbs and dives all the time, and at the very ragged edge, where the engine is straining to get to the next 10 kph of speed, a tiny variation in angle of attack can make a big difference in how long it takes. If you need to get outa Dodge in a hurry, put the nose down a fraction and fool the guy behind you into thinking you're still flying straight and level for that critical first couple of seconds.

cheers

horseback

It isn't you. I can't keep the Spit IX straight with rudder trim alone, too. At least not at 110% power. And it is difficult to impossible to trim out exactly level, and needs quite a bit of nose down trim at higher speeds.

I wouldn't have thought the Yak to be that good at acceleration, but it makes sense, at least it looks aerodynamically clean. The La-5F is a surprise - it seems the additional drag from radial engines carries quite some penalty in this game. And that it does not get near the Spits and Yaks top speed is strange, too.

[gaunt1]

Thanks Horseback!

The La-5F is a surprise - it seems the additional drag from radial engines carries quite some penalty in this game. And that it does not get near the Spits and Yaks top speed is strange, too.

Im not really surprised about the La-5F. La-5 and La-5FN are both UFOs, but strangely, the F performs worse than the real one up to 4000m*, about 10 km/h too slow @ both 1500 and 2750m.

*above that, its way too fast however

[horseback]

Acceleration Chart #5
P-51C @2700rpm (prop pitch 80%) & 3000rpm (prop pitch 100%), La-5FN, LaGG-3 (66), Seafire LF Mk III, & P-38J

Start 270 to 350kph: LaGG-3, 21 seconds; La-5FN, 20 seconds; P-38J, 16 seconds; Seafire LF III, 16 seconds; P-51C @ 2700rpm, 14 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 14 seconds.

To 370kph: LaGG-3, 28 seconds; La-5FN, 25 seconds; P-38J, 22 seconds; Seafire LF III, 22 seconds; P-51C @ 2700rpm, 19 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 18 seconds.

To 380kph: LaGG-3, 32 seconds; La-5FN, 28 seconds; P-38J, 25 seconds; Seafire LF III, 26 seconds; P-51C @ 2700rpm, 22 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 21 seconds.

To 390kph: LaGG-3, 36 seconds; La-5FN, 33 seconds; P-38J, 28 seconds; Seafire LF III, 26 seconds; P-51C @ 2700rpm, 26 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 24 seconds.

To 400kph: LaGG-3, 41 seconds; La-5FN, 38 seconds; P-38J, 32 seconds; Seafire LF III, 34 seconds; P-51C @ 2700rpm, 30 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 28 seconds.

To 410kph: LaGG-3, 46 seconds; La-5FN, 38 seconds; P-38J, 37 seconds; Seafire LF III, 41 seconds; P-51C @ 2700rpm, 34 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 31 seconds.

To 420kph: LaGG-3, 53 seconds; La-5FN, 51 seconds; P-38J, 43 seconds; Seafire LF III, 47 seconds; P-51C @ 2700rpm, 38 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 34 seconds.

To 430kph: LaGG-3, 1 minute 3 seconds; La-5FN, 1 minute flat; P-38J, 48 seconds; Seafire LF III, 57 seconds; P-51C @ 2700rpm, 42 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 37 seconds.

To 440kph: LaGG-3, 1 minute 10 seconds; La-5FN, 1 minute 13 seconds; P-38J, 54 seconds; Seafire LF III, 1 minute 7 seconds; P-51C @ 2700rpm, 47 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 41 seconds.

To 450kph: LaGG-3, 1 minute 20 seconds; La-5FN, 1 minute 27 seconds; P-38J, 1 minute 3 seconds; Seafire LF III, 1 minute 29 seconds; P-51C @ 2700rpm, 52 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 46 seconds.

To 460kph: LaGG-3, 1 minute 37 seconds; La-5FN, 1 minute 57 seconds; P-38J, 1 minute 15 seconds; P-51C @ 2700rpm, 59 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 52 seconds.

To 470kph: LaGG-3, 2 minutes 2 seconds; P-38J, 1 minute 33 seconds; P-51C @ 2700rpm, 1 minute 5 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 57 seconds.

To 480kph: P-38J, 1 minute 54 seconds; P-51C @ 2700rpm, 1 minute 12 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 1 minute 2 seconds.

To 490kph: P-38J, 2 minutes 34 seconds; P-51C @ 2700rpm, 1 minute 20 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 1 minute 11 seconds.

To 500kph: P-51C @ 2700rpm, 1 minute 31 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 1 minute 22 seconds.

To 510kph: P-51C @ 2700rpm, 1 minute 42 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 1 minute 43 seconds.

To 520kph: P-51C @ 2700rpm, 1 minute 53 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 2 minutes 3 seconds.

To 530kph: P-51C @ 2700rpm, 2 minutes 15 seconds; P-51C @ 3000rpm, 3 minutes 3 seconds.

NOTES:
1. LaGG-3 and La -5FN were both in supercharger stage 2, 100% Mixture, radiators closed; both exhibited a 'twist' from the torque as the engine had full power applied, causing an abrupt nose up and left motion; compensating with stick & rudder until trim could catch up (sort of) usually resulted in overcompensation and loss of altitude on the order of 20-30 meters. LaGG was faster than I would have expected, La-5FN somewhat slower. Positions may be reversed below 2000m.
2. Both Mustangs were tested at 70% fuel (to simulate non overload condition), as the fuselage tank was not supposed to be over 30 US Gal. when entering the combat zone. Every historical source states that the fuselage tank was added for the sake of extended range, and compromised safety when the aircraft was flown with the tank full. 70% fuel simulates a fuselage tank at the 'safe' level.
3. The Mustang accelerated somewhat faster at 3000rpm between 350 and 500 kph, but couldn't reach 530 kph in level flight and it was much more difficult to trim for semi-level flight; it seemed to porpoise (go up and down by 10-15m in very short periods) unpredictably at the higher speeds.
4. The Lightning was the USAAF's acknowledged champion in climb and straight line acceleration; Il-2 '46's version is extremely stable and easy to keep level, but it should NOT be slower to accelerate than the Mustang at any altitude, even one without a fuselage tank installed.
5. P-38J was the only aircraft in this group that did NOT exhibit a 'twist' when the throttles were slammed forward; the Lightning did, however, try to go straight up. It was exceptionally easy to keep trimmed and straight and level, once you learned to anticipate the tendency to (rapidly) climb as speed increased.
6. Seafire LF III is apparently at the high end of its combat envelope at 3050m; after doing the regular test runs, I took it down to 1500m and throttled up from 350kph--every interval was blazing fast from 350 to around 450 IAS, at which point it slowed to more mortal intervals until it reached 490 kph (540 kph true), or 40 kph faster indicated than it did at 3050m (and about 2 kph faster in TAS at 3050m). At either altitude, it is the twitchy-est Spit version tested so far.

cheers

horseback

[ElAurens]

The P38s have never met their historic performance figures in '46.

[Notorious M.i.G.]

If you don't mind, I'd be interested to see the CW-21 vs the A6M2 and/or Ki-43 - been flying it a bit lately and absolutely fell in love, it's incredibly easy to fly and alarmingly sporty. I have a feeling it'll walk all over the Japanese fighters in every area bar the Zero's cannons, but I could very well be wrong. It's very sluggish to pick up speed on the ground (which strikes me as very odd), but in the air it's an entirely different story.

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

I don't wonder about LaGG-3 - the series 66 is a beast in game. I don't know, if it is modelled realistically or optimistically, but I rather supect later.

I wonder about P-38. I aways thought it was a quite good plane in game (I love to fly it) and found speed and climb good as I expected it (never expected it to be nimble). Reading, that it should accelerate and climb faster, is well... surprising.

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

been flying it a bit lately and absolutely fell in love, it's incredibly easy to fly and alarmingly sporty. I have a feeling it'll walk all over the Japanese fighters in every area bar the Zero's cannons, but I could very well be wrong.

From performance alone, it is a very dangerous plane to the Zero. But back then, the Japanese were just outnumbering the Dutch (and Chinese), and also had probably a better training. Which then lead to the fast destruction of the little CW-21 force, especially as they cought fire easily with their vulnerable fuel tanks.

Now in game and 1vs1 it should be a very even match.

[horseback]

I don't wonder about LaGG-3 - the series 66 is a beast in game. I don't know, if it is modelled realistically or optimistically, but I rather supect later.

I wonder about P-38. I aways thought it was a quite good plane in game (I love to fly it) and found speed and climb good as I expected it (never expected it to be nimble). Reading, that it should accelerate and climb faster, is well... surprising.The P-38 had a lot of power, even with that big airframe, and the turbosuperchargers let you use all of those two Allison engines' power at any altitude. It was designed and built to the pre-radar era's definition of an interceptor, so it needed excellent (not merely good) climb to height capability, and as we all know, the better an aircraft climbs, the faster it can usually accelerate. If you consider that the prototype was an eyelash short of 400mph in August of 1939, you will begin to better appreciate what a technical achievement it was; in many senses, if the United States Army had gotten it directly into production immediately, it would have been superior to the Bf 109E and the Spitfire Mk I in many important ways.

I suspect that the Lightning's reputation was 'colored' in the same way the P-40's maneuverability was; it was most effectively used in the Pacific, where the Gold Standard for maneuverability was the Oscar or the Zero--by comparison to these aircraft, a P-40 or a Lightning was 'not' very maneuverable. They were, however, faster, more heavily armed and better armored, so in that theater Warhawk and Lightning pilots traded on those strengths. In North Africa, the Lightning's sustained turn and ability to instantly turn its speed and kinetic energy into a steep zoom climb shocked the LW pilots who initially encountered it. It took a while to notice that its instant roll rate was lacking, or that it could not safely dive from 30,000 ft/10km and successfully pursue a 109 or 190 the way the P-47 or the Mustang could.

The big reason that the Lightning was not more widely used was that it needed the same turbosuperchargers required for the B-17 and B-24, it required a lot of 'hand building', one special 'handed' Allison engine that rotated in the opposite direction for each aircraft and it was simply not designed for mass production in any case; as a result, it was not available in the desired numbers during 1942-43 and the USAAF instead developed the P-47 and (grudgingly) the P-51 to the point that these aircraft approached or exceeded the Lighting's performance and range. At the same time, the design appears to have been 'frozen' in some respects in a misguided attempt to keep the production lines moving. The P-38's control layout was an ergonomic disaster for a pilot wearing the cold weather gear necessary for its poorly heated cockpit; even in moderate conditions, it was less than ideal and just plain inferior to its contemporaries/competitors.

On top of this, these types both were safer and better performing at extreme high altitudes and could (easily) counter the LW's preferred escape method at high alts: rolling and diving at a steep angle. Even so, any model of the P-38 was well-known to be able to easily out-climb and out accelerate the Thunderbolt and the Mustang even after they had been 'improved' with the paddle-blade props & water injection or the Merlin engine and an overload fuselage tank.

In any case, had the P-38 been available in close to the desired numbers early in the war, the P-47 would have remained a short ranged point defense fighter and the Mustang might never have gotten a Merlin power plant; the improvements that created these aircraft as we remember them wouldn't have been needed in 1943.

The Lightning in Il-2, like the Hellcat, does not perform to data well-known and published here in the States; I suspect that looking at these aircraft and their weights, someone in Moscow decided that those numbers just couldn't be right, and used numbers from God knows where but more to their liking. Even the 'enhanced' Lightning version is short of the published performance of the type, and the 'compressibility' model it is subject to being extended below 6500m is simply not right, in both the factual and the ethical senses of the word.

If the LaGG-3 (66) was modeled 'optimistically', then the P-38 was modeled pessimistically.

cheers

horseback

[gaunt1]

Thanks again horseback!

If you dont mind, I made a little primitive chart in Excel using your data, it is much easier to compare planes this way... :)

[fruitbat]

If you dont mind, I made a little primitive chart in Excel using your data, it is much easier to compare planes this way... :)

Thanks, and thanks Horseback for doing this.

[Woke Up Dead]

Thanks again Horseback, this continues to be very interesting.

The results that surprise me and some other people are likely a result of us being unfamiliar with specific planes at specific altitudes.

For example, at first glance it is very surprising that the Yak 9 and the LaGG3-66 do better than the La-5FN, but in-game the 5-FN is a scary monster only below 2000m, and that's where most La pilots fly it; the experienced ones because they know it's good there, the novice ones because they don't have the patience to climb.

I suspect it's a similar situation with the P-38J vs the Mustang; without doing the kind of testing Horseback has done, I always felt the P-38J does really well on deck (that's where I go to if I need to run away from a 190), while the Mustang's worst altitudes are in the 3000m - 5000m range.

I also always thought the 109G2 can outrun and outclimb the MkV Spit anywhere so I was surprised that he Spit did a bit better in this test, but then again I believe 3000m is the sweet-spot for the Spit's performance.

[Treetop64]

A shame about the performance of the F6F. The thing is a pig in the game, nothing at all like it was historically. Believe it or not, it was actually worse in previous versions of the game!

[horseback]

Thanks again Horseback, this continues to be very interesting.

The results that surprise me and some other people are likely a result of us being unfamiliar with specific planes at specific altitudes.

For example, at first glance it is very surprising that the Yak 9 and the LaGG3-66 do better than the La-5FN, but in-game the 5-FN is a scary monster only below 2000m, and that's where most La pilots fly it; the experienced ones because they know it's good there, the novice ones because they don't have the patience to climb.

I suspect it's a similar situation with the P-38J vs the Mustang; without doing the kind of testing Horseback has done, I always felt the P-38J does really well on deck (that's where I go to if I need to run away from a 190), while the Mustang's worst altitudes are in the 3000m - 5000m range.

I also always thought the 109G2 can outrun and outclimb the MkV Spit anywhere so I was surprised that he Spit did a bit better in this test, but then again I believe 3000m is the sweet-spot for the Spit's performance.
Well, this was the '43 Spit V, not the '41 version that got butchered when it crossed the Channel. The Mk V was continually being improved until production ceased in (I believe) early 1943 in favor of later Marques. The later Mk Vs were still quite competitive below 17kft/5300m. Chances are that if we ran this test with an early Vb that its performance would be much less impressive, even compared with the 109F.

Regarding the P-38, it was faster accelerating than the Mustang (at least, any of the wartime versions) or the Thunderbolt at all altitudes, according to every reliable source I've found (and most of the unreliable ones as well; I'm tempted to make a clean sweep and hold a seance to get Martin Caiden's opinion). It makes sense; as I pointed out, it was designed for an exceptional rate of climb by the standards of the late 1930s, and after the advent of radar, climb rate became less important to the Allies than endurance/payload, speed and firepower. Nightfighters became the most important interceptors in the inventory after the Battle of Britain, and they didn't need to get to 20,000 ft in less than seven minutes.

We tend to conflate acceleration with speed to some degree, but I like to call acceleration being quick in the way that NFL Hall of Famer Michael Irvin defines it: "Fast is fast. Quick is being able get fast right away."

The Lightning and the Spitfire are quicker than the Mustang, but the Mustang is faster.

cheers

horseback

[gaunt1]

Made another chart in Excel.

The P-40 and the FW-190 accelerates very poorly, is this realistic? Even more interesting, that the F4U-1A and the 109G2 have almost exactly the same acceleration!

I added some missing data from the earliest tests, like 350-400 or 400-450, its just guesswork, but it fits nicely. You can see the added numbers if you drag the chart away, I highlighted them in red.

[horseback]

Made another chart in Excel.

The P-40 and the FW-190 accelerates very poorly, is this realistic? Even more interesting, that the F4U-1A and the 109G2 have almost exactly the same acceleration!

I added some missing data from the earliest tests, like 350-400 or 400-450, its just guesswork, but it fits nicely. You can see the added numbers if you drag the chart away, I highlighted them in red.
The Focke-Wulf's acceleration is a problem for me too, but it may just be the altitude being too near the supercharger's shift point; the first one I tested was the A-5 (1.62 ata) version, and it's supposed to be optimized for fighter use (probably at a higher altitude band). I just finished testing a 'plain vanilla' A-5 without WEP, and the numbers for it were somewhat better, to the point that it achieved between 480 and 490 kph IAS in level flight, or not quite 600 kph TAS at 3050-3130m.

I've started to notice that most of these aircraft have a range of speeds where they accelerate best, where the engine has overcome the initial weight and inertia to the point that a climb of 30 meters (that's over 60 feet, or the height of a four or five story building) seems not to affect the pace of acceleration much, if at all. Of course these are generally periods of six seconds or less, but if you or I were sitting in the cockpit of the real thing, we're going to feel that, and it's going to be like a really good roller coaster (or a really bad one, if your harness isn't snug). In any case, it's kind of hard to extrapolate or predict those bands. Some are at lower speeds and some are a good bit higher. I will try to highlight these later.

With the exception of the water-injected Corsair, though, radial powered aircraft are usually more sluggish in the initial lower ranges.

As they reach the upper ends of the acceleration tests where the drag has built up and the engine is starting to overheat, the slightest incline or decline is critical. Here the test is to see if it can maintain a speed in level flight for several seconds; if it can't, I will not count it.

The P-40 is a big, heavy and relatively draggy airplane; if you build scale models, it becomes readily apparent when you place the US fighters of WWII next to German, Soviet or early Japanese fighters of the same scale. The P-40 is gigantic next to a FW 190A, and it just looks lumpy. Next to a P-51A, it's the same size, but it seems even more lumpy and crude, and the P-51A outperformed it at every height and measurement, from climb to acceleration to top speed; everyone agrees that the P-40 could turn a tighter circle, but any version of the real life P-51 was much less work for the pilot and easier to keep under control. Therefore if the pilot of the P-51 is as skilled as the P-40's pilot there would be no doubt about the outcome of a dogfight. It took a supremely skilled pilot to beat a merely good pilot in a P-51 or P-51A, and it took a supremely good and lucky P-40 pilot to beat an experienced Merlin P-51 driver.

Which brings me to something that has become a critical factor in these tests: trim response and the accuracy/clarity of the instrument panel. Some aircraft I have tested are like driving a very well made car on a smooth road; you push the throttle and Prop Pitch forward and just go. There may be a little twist as the increased torque kicks in, but this is easily corrected, and you can compensate with rudder and hold the stick forward while you add trim, but it's all very smooth. The wings don't wobble back and forth like you're balancing on the head of a pin, the climb indicator doesn't bounce back and forth, the needle and ball are quick and accurate, the artificial horizon is easily interpreted for maintaining level flight, and they are all easy to see.

The Ki-61 is an excellent example of what I'm describing here; the panel is well-laid out and the instruments are clear at my preferred Wide View setting and they are accurate. At the same time, the aircraft's FM itself is very predictable and smooth--it's not blazingly fast, but it is easier to keep straight and level at all speeds than the Macchi C.202 or the Bf 109E, and it gives better test results in part because of this quality. I never varied more than 12m from one interval from the next, which is vastly better than even much slower aircraft I have tested. It just responds beautifully to your commands, and I would expect it to be easier to keep on target because you're not fighting your stick and rudder all the time. The Ki-43 is similar, as is the P-38 (although the Lightning's instruments are on the tiny & fuzzy side in Wide View--you have to go with Normal View to see what's going on there).

By contrast, the much faster FW is a pain to test because the instruments are literally out of focus in Wide View, they are still hard to read in Normal view, and the climb indicator is simply deceptive; a tiny (one division, which should mean something like 100m per minute) deflection up or down can result in a climb of 150m in less than 5 seconds. The combination Turn & bank/Artificial Horizon is next to useless because the little 'airplane' disappears into the horizon line, unless you're in Gunsight view, the needle barely moves (ever!) and the ball is again, out of focus in Wide View, and really not much better in Normal View. Add to that the tendency for the FW to outrun its elevator trim, which has you shoving the stick three quarters of the way forward, while you simultaneously struggle with the head-of-a-pin wing leveling exercise...and finally, once you do get trimmed for almost level flight, the aircraft will consistently swoop upwards or downwards without warning as it reaches certain specific speeds.

When you're watching the track in Wonder Woman view, trying to concentrate on the speed changes, it looks like you are constantly jerking up and down, left and then right; a real-life pilot would be bruised and sore everywhere his harness touched him after only a couple of runs.

To be fair, the FW's cockpit animation dates back to the original Il-2 Sturmovik game that I bought in March of 2002, so it is quite dated, and the original equipment may actually have been that vague, because the pilot had a full range of vision, his inner ear and the pressure on the seat of his pants to augment what the instruments told him. This was the heyday of Visual Flight Rules, the era when IFR usually meant "I Follow Railroads", so yeah, I get that reasoning. However, in a flight simulation that doesn't provide 180 degree fields of vision or attitude changes to the virtual pilot's chair, uniform clarity and accuracy for all aircraft's instruments would seem a desirable thing.

Still distilling the data from my last series of tests. CW-21B, A6M2, Ki-61, Macchi C.202, plain FW 190A-5 and reruns of the 1A Corsair and the F6F-3 to my current data standards.

cheers

horseback

[horseback]

Test Group #6: CW-21B, A6M2, F6F-3, F4U-1A, Ki-61 ('43), Macchi C.202 ('43), FW 190A-5 (Std) and FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata).

From 270 to 350 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 25 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 24 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 21 seconds; CW-21B, 20 seconds; A6M2, 20 seconds; F6F-3, 20 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 18 seconds; F4U-1A, 16 seconds.

To 370 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 30 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 30 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 29 seconds; CW-21B, 30 seconds; A6M2, 30 seconds; F6F-3, 27 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 24 seconds; F4U-1A, 21 seconds.

To 380 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 34 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 34 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 34 seconds; CW-21B, 37 seconds; A6M2, 37 seconds; F6F-3, 33 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 27 seconds; F4U-1A, 24 seconds.

To 390 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 39 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 38 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 39 seconds; CW-21B, 37 seconds; A6M2, 47 seconds; F6F-3, 38 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 30 seconds; F4U-1A, 28 seconds.

To 400 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 43 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 43 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 45 seconds; CW-21B, 59 seconds; A6M2, 59 seconds (top speed achieved/487 TAS); F6F-3, 45 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 34 seconds; F4U-1A, 31 seconds.

To 410 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 46 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 47 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 52 seconds; CW-21B, 1 minute 49 seconds (top speed achieved/501 TAS); F6F-3, 51 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 40 seconds; F4U-1A, 35 seconds.

To 420 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 51 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 53 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 1 minute 2 seconds; F6F-3, 1 minute; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 45 seconds; F4U-1A, 39 seconds.

To 430 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 58 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 57 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 1 minute 16 seconds; F6F-3, 1 minute 12 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 52 seconds; F4U-1A, 44 seconds.

To 440 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 1 minute 3 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 1 minute 3 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 1 minute 41 seconds (top speed achieved/531 TAS); F6F-3, 1 minute 27 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 59 seconds; F4U-1A, 49 seconds.

To 450 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 1 minute 10 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 1 minute 10 seconds; F6F-3, 1 minute 51 seconds (top speed achieved/549 TAS); Macchi C. 202 ('43), 1 minute 13 seconds seconds; F4U-1A, 54 seconds.

To 460 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 1 minute 20 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 1 minute 18 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 1 minute 29 seconds (top speed achieved/556 TAS); F4U-1A, 1 minute 1 second.

To 470 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 1 minute 29 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 1 minute 25 seconds; F4U-1A, 1 minute 9 seconds.

To 480 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 2 minute 1 second; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 1 minute 35 seconds (top speed achieved/590 TAS); F4U-1A, 1 minute 17 seconds.

To 490 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 2 minutes 36 seconds (top speed achieved/593 TAS); F4U-1A, 1 minute 29 seconds.

To 500 kph IAS: F4U-1A, 1 minute 54 seconds (top speed achieved/608 TAS).

NOTES:
1. CW-21B ran faster and much cooler at 120% Mixture; this is consistent with Navy and Marine pilot's accounts of high power settings when flying Wildcats and Buffalos which used a different model of the same engine, even though it doesn't appear to apply to those aircraft's FMs; while not actually quicker than the A6M2, it is modeled just a hair faster at 10,000 ft, and a lot easier to fly straight and level.
2. A6M2 Zero Type 21 is hamstrung by its very poor cockpit layout and the difficulty of tracking its instruments' readings; this is made more difficult by the inconsistent trim response. Actual performance might be better for someone who has gotten used to it and can keep it on the straight and level. I couldn't get out of it soon enough.
3. The early F6F-3 Hellcat is fairly sluggish without the water injection that the F4U in this test boasts; it is further limited by its tendency to go straight up the microsecond the pilot's attention shifts from the climb indicator which is at best very deceptive; a single division up or down results in a couple of hundred meters' difference in three to five seconds. Like the Focke-Wulf, the elevator trim is either miles behind or suddenly catches up and in either case, you are fighting your stick's springs. Rudder trim is almost as bad, but the rudder response is not so sensitive as the FW or the Corsair's.
4. Corsair is still the hot ship in this bunch; the water injection really makes up for minor errors in trim and rudder application; it just bangs through every interval from 350 to 450 kph indicated in 5 seconds or less, and just goes at a steadily decreasing rate until it hits the 'wall' at around 605 kph true airspeed.
5. Ki-61 is just a sweet ride; the cockpit is attractive, the instruments are clear and accurate and it responds beautifully. It is not as quick as it feels, but it is so easy to fly accurately that it will be superior to many aircraft with higher performance FMs, especially if you can sucker them into a low speed contest where their controls are not going to be as cooperative.
6. Macchi MC 202 is sneaky quick, but the cockpit feels a bit cramped, with your virtual face mashed up against the upper instruments. It's pretty, but it seems much too close, even in Wide View. Like the Hellcat, the Zero and the Focke-Wulf, the ailerons are constantly slipping off to one side or the other and you find yourself making constant microcorrections--it's like when you are half asleep, nodding off in your chair and fighting to keep your head upright. Still, after the initial 'twist' from pushing the throttle and prop pitch forward, it holds course and altitude better than most, and instruments are accurate, if poorly located IMHO.
7. There is very little difference between the plain 'vanilla' 190A-5 and the 'souped up' 1.62 ata version with its WEP. For all intents and purposes, they are identical in acceleration up to 460 kph indicated at this altitude, with the same faults. On the other hand, the 1.62 ata version sounds faster. The poorly animated and out of focus instruments (in Wide and Normal FOVs) are hard to read and inaccurate, if not dishonest. The climb and dive indicator has 100m per minute divisions up to 500m per minute, but if that needle rises or falls slightly higher or lower than one division, you can expect an increase or loss of 100m in 5 seconds or so. As mentioned above, the trim is inconsistent and is either not felt or will suddenly seem to show up all at once, driving your nose sharply up or down as you reach the low to middle 400 kph range; this doesn't match Western Allied test reports and evaluations that I am familiar with, which report the elevator trim as predictable and consistent. The rudder is touchy as well; very minor changes can drive the vector ball across the screen (well, at least across the sight circle), and you often find yourself with a three degree course change in a 5 second/10 kph interval. This may be partly the fault of the older cockpit paint, which makes it harder to keep up with the aircraft as it accelerates, but it is an enormous pain in the neck.

cheers

horseback

[DuxCorvan]

Good reply, in particular looking at my tone of voice. Sorry.

Don't worry, I'm pretty sure he didn't hear anything at all... :)

[zipper]

Interesting work, horseback. Is your feeling that acceleration is tied directly to, and only, drag? The reason I ask is because blade pitch was another major factor, in that as it increased more thrust was diverted from forward propulsion to resisting rotation. The result would then be a much faster drop off of acceleration at the top of the scale than the simple increase of drag. Curiosity only.

As for the 190, you're right, the trim in the real plane wasn't anywhere near twitchy and, bizarrely, the faster the plane went the less adjustment it needed for speed's sake. Above 260mph no adjustments in trim were needed at all if the only variable was speed. Sounds like you could use that characteristic - lol. As to its in game takeoff acceleration I've done standing start drag races between an absolutely empty (no ammo, 10% fuel) A8 closed cowl flaps (and auto prop) and an overloaded (1600lb, fully fueled) SBD with canopy and cowl flaps open and to 100mph it's practically a draw! lol. Fun times.

--- Trivia: Lowest drag D9 cowl flap setting was 23% open. ---

[horseback]

Interesting work, horseback. Is your feeling that acceleration is tied directly to, and only, drag? The reason I ask is because blade pitch was another major factor, in that as it increased more thrust was diverted from forward propulsion to resisting rotation. The result would then be a much faster drop off of acceleration at the top of the scale than the simple increase of drag. Curiosity only.

As for the 190, you're right, the trim in the real plane wasn't anywhere near twitchy and, bizarrely, the faster the plane went the less adjustment it needed for speed's sake. Above 260mph no adjustments in trim were needed at all if the only variable was speed. Sounds like you could use that characteristic - lol. As to its in game takeoff acceleration I've done standing start drag races between an absolutely empty (no ammo, 10% fuel) A8 closed cowl flaps (and auto prop) and an overloaded (1600lb, fully fueled) SBD with canopy and cowl flaps open and to 100mph it's practically a draw! lol. Fun times.

--- Trivia: Lowest drag D9 cowl flap setting was 23% open. --- No, weight is definitely a factor; re-testing the P-47D-22, now that I have more of a 'feel' for what I need to watch and compensate for, makes it clear that the FM for that bird makes acceleration very dependent on what angle your nose is pointed. If you're just a hair high, you can gain 20m in altitude and lose a second or two in a 3-5 second 10kph interval. Conversely, if your nose is just a skosh (not sure of the spelling) low, you can lose 25 or 30m and decrease your 10 kph interval by a second or three. This applies throughout the P-47's speed range, while for lighter aircraft like the Corsair, it applies mainly at the far end of the acceleration run, where the engine is straining for that last bit of speed.

My understanding is that the Thunderbolt was pretty aerodynamic and that it had surprisingly low drag for its size. It was however, a big heavy sucker with inefficient props (the paddleblades aren't modeled on the razorback Jugs), so I kind of expected that its acceleration would be less than spectacular, especially at these altitudes.

However the Mustang, which is a fairly heavy aircraft when you consider the horsepower of the V-1650 (even with the fuselage tank empty), doesn't seem to suffer for it nearly as much as the Corsair at the far end of its performance curve, so that's where I assume the drag coefficient comes in. I'm going to try to quit complaining about the unrealistic trim demands so much, because the Hellcat, the P-47, the Focke-Wulf and even the Zero have it worse.

The FW 190A, though, was supposed to be much quicker off the mark even than most models of the Spitfire V, so I really don't know where to assign the blame for that.

Someone in an earlier post suggested E-bleed is what is hamstringing these supposedly high-performance aircraft, and that's as good a place as any to start. Most of the victims of this issue appear to have had what was described at the time as 'sensitive' trim tabs or trim controls; the aircraft was described as easy to trim because the trim adjustments were relatively minor as speed or power changed, and the tabs were often described as 'effective'. What I have been finding is that most of the needed adjustments are too small to use button trim--you either go way over or way under with that last click; the happy medium leaves you either pushing your stick forward or pulling it back 5-10 degrees, which is not the best way to squeeze that last 6-8 kph out of your aircraft by keeping her absolutely level.

I've tried switching to trim both on a throttle quadrant and on the Saitek X52 throttle (I just couldn't abide that stick, though, so I either use my CH Combatstick or my son's Thrustmaster T.1600). In either case, the increments you have to apply are teeny-wheeny tiny, especially in the elevator trim. I sometimes think that blowing on the damned things can have a measurable effect on my angle of attack at higher speeds. I have tried a variety of curves, but mostly what happens is that the transition point between 43 and 60 is located just where I needed an extra tiny adjustment.

What confuses me is that if you actually watch your rudder or elevators from outside the cockpit as you apply trim by button while parked on the ground, it takes about 80 clicks from a neutral position to the maximum in each direction (80 clicks up, 80 clicks down; same with rudder left/right trim). The animation shows no visible movement for four or five clicks (depending on where you are in the motion range), but I am taking it on faith that the single click has some effect when we are 'flying'; if you watch the vector ball in Wonder Woman view, a single click of rudder trim always has a visible effect, so I'm assuming that the elevator trim works the same way, even though it's harder to detect or measure via the vector ball method.

You'd think that 160 clicks of range of adjustment on each control surface would confer a little more precision...

cheers

horseback

[sniperton]

... What I have been finding is that most of the needed adjustments are too small to use button trim--you either go way over or way under with that last click; the happy medium leaves you either pushing your stick forward or pulling it back 5-10 degrees ... if you actually watch your rudder or elevators from outside the cockpit as you apply trim by button while parked on the ground, it takes about 80 clicks from a neutral position to the maximum in each direction (80 clicks up, 80 clicks down; same with rudder left/right trim). The animation shows no visible movement for four or five clicks (depending on where you are in the motion range), but I am taking it on faith that the single click has some effect when we are 'flying'

Yes, no visible elevator/rudder/aileron (trim) movement for 5 clicks.

I, too, have the impression that a single click has some effect, but I, too, find that I go way over or way under with the last click.

Nevertheless, I'm a bit perplexed, for Devicelink reports trim settings only with the first decimals via UDPSpeed. So what you see is 0,0,0,0,0;0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0,1;0.2,0.2,0.2,0.2, etc.

In theory, one click should have a value of 0.02, but it's unclear whether only it's display is truncated, or the higher precision value is roughly neglected/rounded up (this latter would explain the 'way over or way under' experience and the precision issues).

Anyway, it would be great if TD could clarify this point.

[majorfailure]

Yes, no visible elevator/rudder/aileron (trim) movement for 5 clicks.

I, too, have the impression that a single click has some effect, but I, too, find that I go way over or way under with the last click.
Anyway, it would be great if TD could clarify this point.

I think the one click too far thing is a combination of the delay between trim command and application and the tendency of some planes to enter an oscillation - while the plane is perfectly trimmed for its speed and altitude it still climbs/falls slightly - if let be it would continue up and down a little but in total neither loose height or climb. If you apply trim then you will have overtrimmed

What would be nice to have for trim would be a coarse and a fine setting combined with a finer gradation, coarse trim could be what we have now and one click of fine trim would be one fifth or one tenth of one click coarse trim.

[sniperton]

I think the one click too far thing is a combination of the delay between trim command and application and the tendency of some planes to enter an oscillation - while the plane is perfectly trimmed for its speed and altitude it still climbs/falls slightly - if let be it would continue up and down a little but in total neither loose height or climb. If you apply trim then you will have overtrimmed

What would be nice to have for trim would be a coarse and a fine setting combined with a finer gradation, coarse trim could be what we have now and one click of fine trim would be one fifth or one tenth of one click coarse trim.

The delay thingy seems to me unlikely. These planes had manual trim wheels, the effect of which should be immediate. (They are not like flaps.) And if you assign e.g. the elevator trim to an axis, you'll see that its effect is immediate indeed.

As to the oscillation thing, I find that many planes are impossible to trim perfectly, what sometimes makes me mad. But I can't say whether it's realistic or not (and to what extent). I simply don't know what 'perfect trimming' means in real life in these planes. Only an r/l pilot who has flown them could give us an idea of that.

We have discussed these trim problems and their possible solution not long ago here (http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=38537&page=46):

[gaunt1]

The acceleration of the 190 is probably too poor ingame. Reports from wwiiaircraftperformance.org confirm this:

Navy test, Fw-190A5 vs. F6F-3 vs. F4U-1

"Relative accelerations, for all speed over 160 knots, showed both the F4U-1 and Fw-190 to be slightly superior to the F6F-3 and showed the F4U-1 to be slightly superior to the Fw-190 up to 15.000 feet, above which altitude, the Fw-190 had a slight advantage. At speeds less than 160 knots the F6F-3 and Fw-190 were equal."

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/fw190/ptr-1107.pdf

Another report, again Fw-190A5

..."The run is short as the aircraft accelarates rapidly"...
..."Airspeed acceleration after take-off is noticeably good"...

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/fw190/Fw_190_Eng-47-1658-D.pdf

According to these, the 190 had good acceleration. Ingame, its mediocre at best.

[fruitbat]

I am also of the opinion that the Fw acceleration is worse than it should be (although much better since 4.11), plus its climb angle at least compared to Spits.

British tests of an A3 vs MkV and MkIX spits.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y290/thefruitbat1/File0026.jpg~original (http://s7.photobucket.com/user/thefruitbat1/media/File0026.jpg.html)

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y290/thefruitbat1/File0027.jpg~original (http://s7.photobucket.com/user/thefruitbat1/media/File0027.jpg.html)

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y290/thefruitbat1/File0028.jpg~original (http://s7.photobucket.com/user/thefruitbat1/media/File0028.jpg.html)

[majorfailure]

The delay thingy seems to me unlikely. These planes had manual trim wheels, the effect of which should be immediate. (They are not like flaps.) And if you assign e.g. the elevator trim to an axis, you'll see that its effect is immediate indeed.
No they are not. It was "fixed" because some nice people abused instant trim by placing it on a slider and using it to make their planes react faster//turn tighter. Now trim is not applied immediately but after a few seconds.

As to the oscillation thing, I find that many planes are impossible to trim perfectly, what sometimes makes me mad. But I can't say whether it's realistic or not (and to what extent). I simply don't know what 'perfect trimming' means in real life in these planes. Only an r/l pilot who has flown them could give us an idea of that.
For a real life fighter pilot I'd think trim would mainly serve the purpose of having an (nearly) unloaded stick and pedals.

Edit:
The problem with those reports is mainly that there is no hard data. "slightly superior" in horizontal acceleration could very well mean "After one minute the Corsair is 20 kph faster than the Fw190" or "After one minute the Corsair is 2 kph faster than the Fw190"

[Pursuivant]

No they are not. It was "fixed" because some nice people abused instant trim by placing it on a slider and using it to make their planes react faster//turn tighter. Now trim is not applied immediately but after a few seconds.

I thought that this was an actual historical tactic used by some Finnish pilots flying the Bf-109G.

It seems to me that there should be some compromise between the "instant trimming" you get from the "trim on a slider" cheat and historical rates of response for using trim to improve turn performance.

[sniperton]

No they are not. It was "fixed" because some nice people abused instant trim by placing it on a slider and using it to make their planes react faster//turn tighter. Now trim is not applied immediately but after a few seconds.

You're right, but the delay is really small and it plays a role only when you make major trim adjustements like neutral to max tail heavy with one sudden slider movement (corresponding to 20 to 40 clicks or so). It works like a value 8 filtering on the throttle: it smooths the change and, therefore, delays its full effect a bit, but it is applied immediately. My point was that in a normal flight situation, where you slowly adjust your trim in small increments, trim changes are effective practically immediately.


For a real life fighter pilot I'd think trim would mainly serve the purpose of having an (nearly) unloaded stick and pedals.

Right, but my question is how much constant stick and pedal correction was needed to keep a 'perfectly trimmed' plane straight and level (horseback's original problem). In Il-2, the needed input varies from plane to plane, as it may have varied in r/l, but the question is how these two relate and correspond.

[horseback]

The problem with the trim delay for me is that you don’t see the effects until you have overdone it; logically, you would expect the pressure on the stick needed to keep the nose down to gradually be relieved as you kept pumping that nose down trim button, but that has not been my experience with most of the aircraft we all agree seem twitchy and trim sensitive. When the trim effects do actually arrive, it usually seems as though all of the cumulative trim inputs are applied at once, instead of being felt as they are being input.

Psychologically, while you’re waiting for the trim to take effect, you are wondering if the game sensed that last input, or that maybe that button has finally given up the ghost after 8-10 years of frantic trimming…to say the least, it is very unsatisfying.

A couple of things come to mind: first, that I have no idea whether the trim delay time is exactly the same for every aircraft or if the trim is input in exactly the same degrees, minutes or seconds of the control surface’s arc every time, or how quickly I can input trim button pushes without the game deciding that I’m just holding the button down. Second, I don’t know if some aircraft’s trim inputs are given special treatment according to some arcane formula involving weight, speed attained and the current phase of the moon.

Aircraft modeled like the Mustang require two or three clicks of elevator and/or rudder trim for every change of 10 kph or greater or any significant throttle increase, so if you're entering a dive or trying to speed up, the delay is constantly in play, and therefore unrealistic.

The obvious answer to me is for the trim inputs to be noted on-screen in the same way changes in prop pitch or throttle are noted, and secondly to allow some means of accurately pre-setting your trim to the anticipated levels as you start your high speed run; a RL pilot obviously had a pretty good idea of how much nose down trim he would need if he was going to add 100-150kph to his IAS over the next 30 seconds or so, but in this sim, although some aircraft have the animated trim knobs and wheels, there seems to be little relationship between what you can see on the screen and the amount of trim you have actually applied.

Since most aircraft do not have the animated trim knob and wheels, it seems to be a purely visual effect, and it would be a tremendous amount of work to provide accurate trim control animations for each aircraft in the directory. Being able to see that I have applied 23% nose down elevator trim or better yet, 3.5° right rudder trim after I punch the trim button or twist my trim rotary would be extremely useful. Currently, people have to spend several hours working with a given aircraft model to develop a feel for how much trim is needed for a given speed/situation, and the high-trim aircraft have a much steeper learning curve because it is not currently obvious in any way how much trim has been applied or in what direction, because when you have to apply a lot of trim at once, the stick never 'unloads'.

It would improve everyone's piloting, I believe, and cut down on the "my ride is porked!" complaints if the players could track their trim and see what the effects of 6.8° of nose down trim does to their aircraft at speed X IAS.

cheers

horseback

[sniperton]

It would improve everyone's piloting, I believe, and cut down on the "my ride is porked!" complaints if the players could track their trim and see what the effects of 6.8° of nose down trim does to their aircraft at speed X IAS.

+++:)

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

I don't understand your problem here - you just mustn't hold the button pushed. The value, the trim changed with one short push is small enough and happens imidiatly to give you a very easy way to see the planes reaction (if you push repeatly).

[Pursuivant]

I don't understand your problem here - you just mustn't hold the button pushed. The value, the trim changed with one short push is small enough and happens imidiatly to give you a very easy way to see the planes reaction (if you push repeatly).

Then, maybe just better documentation on how to use trim is needed. I'll confess to being ignorant about exactly how it works for most planes.

Horseback's idea of allowing players to know exactly how many degrees of trim they've applied is a good idea. It might even be historical if trim wheels were actually marked with degrees of trim. If not, it would be a nice option for the "wonder woman" view.

[Luno13]

I'll echo Caspar here:

Tap the trim key to make fine adjustments. Hold it down for coarse adjustments. There is a slight delay from holding it down, but it's useful to get from one end of the trim range to the other very quickly. Just tap it instead, and you'll have all the control you need.

[Notorious M.i.G.]

I'll echo Caspar here:

Tap the trim key to make fine adjustments. Hold it down for coarse adjustments. There is a slight delay from holding it down, but it's useful to get from one end of the trim range to the other very quickly. Just tap it instead, and you'll have all the control you need.

I'll confess I never knew you could just hold it down. I've been rapid-fire mashing it like the manual gear lower/raise (unless you can hold that too...in which case everything I've known is shattered :-P )

[horseback]

Most aircraft of that era did have some kind of demarcation or marking to tell the pilot how much trim was applied; the FW 190 has its elevation trim setting in a readout on the left side panel, the Mustang's elevator, rudder and aileron trim knobs have their degrees of offset marked off (and some of this is incompletely portrayed in the game). However, most of the aircraft in the game are not given the benefit of an animated (and correctly labeled) trim knobs and wheels--and it's hard to glance down and read the ones that do work the way a pilot in the actual aircraft's cockpit could.

The point is that trim has become critically important in this sim with the improved Flight Model and physics that came with the 4.0x series of patches, and the average pilot has no clearly calibrated and marked set of trim pots on his USB controllers, and button trim is only 'felt' as an effect; you have to take it on faith that your push of that key or button was sensed when there is no clear and obvious indication on the instrument panel (okay, sometimes the rudder trim is indicated on the Turn & Bank indicator, but the state of elevator and aileron trims are for all intents and purposes invisible until you apply too much trim.

Now for people who habitually fly one aircraft type, especially those aircraft that are treated as having little or no need for extensive trim adjustment, this is usually just fine; they know from long practice how much trim to apply for their favorite ride (in most circumstances), and it is to their advantage that others flying a variety of technically superior or faster aircraft cannot get the actual performance that should theoretically be available to them. They are happy to chirp "Learn to fly!" and bask in the assurance of their own superior skills and knowledge. They have the upper hand, so they aren't about to question their good fortune.

And they aren't about to try to fly one of the trim hogs if they can possibly avoid it.

As I believe I noted about the Ki-61, it is so easy to get the best performance out of that fighter that someone facing them in the nominally superior F6F-3 Hellcat will be at a serious disadvantage because in the context of this simulation, it is very difficult to keep the Hellcat in trim, and unless it is kept in trim, the Hellcat constantly hemorrhages its energy, and almost always ends up low and slow, an easy target. I haven't spent a few dozen hours in the F6F, but I have spent about three or four hours taking it through its range of speeds and trim settings. As I've pointed out earlier, they are inconsistent--you need to add nose down trim at one speed range, and at a somewhat higher speed range, the nose abruptly tucks down and you need to apply nose up trim. The FW 190A also exhibits this behavior, as well as the P-47 (of the aircraft I've tested so far).

I doubt that the real aircraft did this--but I also doubt that these aircraft needed this much trim adjustment in proportion to aircraft like the Ki-61, the Ki-43, the La-5 series, or literally unknowable fantasy flight models like the Ki-84 and the J2M.

Letting the pilot know if his trim input was sensed and how much trim he has applied with a momentary message is the easiest way to remedy the problem.

cheers

horseback

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

Somehow I suspect, you are talking about 'perfect trim' (as you needed it for your acceleration tests). I do triming only by 'feel' and the way it is done in Il-2 gives me a 'good trim' without problems. On acceleration, when nose wants to come up and plane wants to shift, I counter it with the stick (forward and rudder), then I apply some tapping of elevator trim down and rudder (if possible) and meanwhile slowly release the stick (watching the reticle keeping the same place at the horizon). Thats somewhat near to what pilots did back then and works very well. Watching the plane (and the ball) is my best indicator. Mostly I don't even need the ball to tell, how I have to trim in turns. Maybe I'm just extraordinary sensitive. :D

I doubt, pilots in WW2 where so eager to find always the correct trim by scale (this only for starts or landings maybe).

In short - I can not re-experience your difficulties.


EDIT: I don't see a problem for wonder woman view though. But for the sim I would rather like to live without even more neon flickering hud messages.

[sniperton]

In short - I can not re-experience your difficulties.

EDIT: I don't see a problem for wonder woman view though. But for the sim I would rather like to live without even more neon flickering hud messages.

I understand your point, but please understand our point. If we can have hud messages for throttle, pitch, mixture, flaps, rads, supercharger, and even magnetos (btw, most of these settings can be quite easily tracked via cockpit instruments as well), then why couldn't we have knowledge of our actual trim settings (other than through Devicelink)??? :confused:

EDIT: Personal preferences and flying habits may differ, but what I put up here is a matter of consistency. IF the way the game's FM simulates flight is heavily affected by a certain parameter (affected by a setting), AND this setting was accessible to the r/l pilot real-time (via cockpit gauges, levers, marked wheels, etc.), THEN it's a bit of inconsistency when one setting is displayed multiple ways in-game (hud and cockpit), while others not at all (no hud, no cockpit).

[Plane-Eater]

Somehow I suspect, you are talking about 'perfect trim' (as you needed it for your acceleration tests). I do triming only by 'feel' and the way it is done in Il-2 gives me a 'good trim' without problems. On acceleration, when nose wants to come up and plane wants to shift, I counter it with the stick (forward and rudder), then I apply some tapping of elevator trim down and rudder (if possible) and meanwhile slowly release the stick (watching the reticle keeping the same place at the horizon). Thats somewhat near to what pilots did back then and works very well. Watching the plane (and the ball) is my best indicator. Mostly I don't even need the ball to tell, how I have to trim in turns. Maybe I'm just extraordinary sensitive. :D

I doubt, pilots in WW2 where so eager to find always the correct trim by scale (this only for starts or landings maybe).

In short - I can not re-experience your difficulties.


EDIT: I don't see a problem for wonder woman view though. But for the sim I would rather like to live without even more neon flickering hud messages.

Many (probably most, actually) of the American fighters had specific optimum trim settings for various flight configurations spelled out in their flight manuals. Takeoff, landing, best climb, dive, and cruising at bare minimum were standard. For birds like the Mustang, Thunderbolt, and Lightning which were used in very long range escort roles, sometimes you got multiple trim configs as fuel burned off and for different cruising speeds.

I know the Mustang at bare minimum had a table showing different trim compensation as the fuel load decreased.

[Freelansir]

Regarding trim, I found the best first-person description from Bud Anderson's story "He was only trying to kill me".

A lot of this is just instinct now. Things are happening too fast to think everything out. You steer with your right hand and feet. The right hand also triggers the guns. With your left, you work the throttle, and keep the airplane in trim, which is easier to do than describe.

Any airplane with a single propeller produces torque. The more horsepower you have, the more the prop will pull you off to one side. The Mustangs I flew used a 12-cylinder Packard Merlin engine that displaced 1,649 cubic inches. That is 10 times the size of the engine that powers an Indy car. It developed power enough that you never applied full power sitting still on the ground because it would pull the plane's tail up off the runway and the propeller would chew up the concrete. With so much power, you were continually making minor adjustments on the controls to keep the Mustang and its wing-mounted guns pointed straight.

There were three little palm-sized wheels you had to keep fiddling with. They trimmed you up for hands-off level flight. One was for the little trim tab on the tail's rudder, the vertical slab which moves the plane left or right. Another adjusted the tab on the tail's horizontal elevators that raise or lower the nose and help reduce the force you had to apply for hard turning. The third was for aileron trim, to keep your wings level, although you didn't have to fuss much with that one. Your left hand was down there a lot if you were changing speeds, as in combat . . . while at the same time you were making minor adjustments with your feet on the rudder pedals and your hand on the stick. At first it was awkward. But, with experience, it was something you did without thinking, like driving a car and twirling the radio dial.

It's a little unnerving to think about how many things you have to deal with all at once to fly combat.

[Luno13]

Most aircraft of that era did have some kind of demarcation or marking to tell the pilot how much trim was applied; the FW 190 has its elevation trim setting in a readout on the left side panel, the Mustang's elevator, rudder and aileron trim knobs have their degrees of offset marked off (and some of this is incompletely portrayed in the game). However, most of the aircraft in the game are not given the benefit of an animated (and correctly labeled) trim knobs and wheels--and it's hard to glance down and read the ones that do work the way a pilot in the actual aircraft's cockpit could.

I can tell you that it is not all that important to see where that demarcation is. In a real airplane, you use trim by feel alone. It's not even a case of memorizing where the best trim locations are over time; you just don't ever look at the trim wheel, and you can still use it properly from day one. After all, it's not like there are demarcations on the yoke or pedals to study, right?

The only trim location that was ever marked in any way on the planes I've flown is "neutral" for landing and takeoff in normal conditions. Even then, it's more of a guideline and you should trim the aircraft based on feel. This is true for aircraft that use electrical trim with a button or a trim wheel.

That's also just how it works with Il-2: You adjust the trim until it feels right (ie, you don't have to put force into the joystick) and if need be, you just hit the trim reset button to center the trim again automatically for takeoff and landing, and re-trim from there. It's quite simple, and it works very well.

[horseback]

Somehow I suspect, you are talking about 'perfect trim' (as you needed it for your acceleration tests). I do triming only by 'feel' and the way it is done in Il-2 gives me a 'good trim' without problems. On acceleration, when nose wants to come up and plane wants to shift, I counter it with the stick (forward and rudder), then I apply some tapping of elevator trim down and rudder (if possible) and meanwhile slowly release the stick (watching the reticle keeping the same place at the horizon). Thats somewhat near to what pilots did back then and works very well. Watching the plane (and the ball) is my best indicator. Mostly I don't even need the ball to tell, how I have to trim in turns. Maybe I'm just extraordinary sensitive. :D

I doubt, pilots in WW2 where so eager to find always the correct trim by scale (this only for starts or landings maybe).

In short - I can not re-experience your difficulties.


EDIT: I don't see a problem for wonder woman view though. But for the sim I would rather like to live without even more neon flickering hud messages.Most WWII fighter pilots also trimmed by 'feel'; the one on the seat of their pants. If you felt yourself sliding a bit to the left, you added a bit of right rudder trim; if you felt yourself being pressed back into your seat, you rolled the elevator trim wheel forward a bit to achieve level (and efficient) flight and relieve the pressure on your stick. Those feelings are not present in the game, along with the obvious advantages of a clear and (consistently) accurate instrument panel, full peripheral vision and inputs for the inner ear.

Now, for many of the aircraft modeled in Il-2 '46, this is not a great problem; their FMs are derived from 70 year old test reports, a modern physics model applied to ideal airframes and powerplants coupled with the vivid imaginations of the programmers, so an aircraft described as being light on the controls and easily trimmed needs a consistent (and small) set of up, down, left or right clicks of trim to settle the ball and establish flight speed at almost every speed. Even aircraft known to be very demanding of trim inputs (like the P-40 and the P-39 for example) are given a relatively forgiving trim model. And we don't even address stuff like landing behavior, which would lead to conservatively, at least two thirds of the 109 and P-40 landings ending in disaster (among other aircraft--but these two would draw the most complaints).

However, there is another class of aircraft that has a rather extensive modern set of data, which is measured by the modern standard: the late war US fighters, the Spitfire to some degree, and I suspect, the FW 190 series, now that 1:1 scale replicas are on hand and the findings from their flights are being widely published. In my ten plus years' experience with this game, in these aircraft, the trim adjustments do not result in a steadily decreasing pressure on my joystick's springs as I struggle to maintain level flight or even a relatively well trimmed state; instead, the aircraft will suddenly go up or down once the trim level exceeds the ideal (and I do not hold the button down--I tap it just as you and Luno have repeatedly described). While WWII era reports tell us that these aircraft were easy to trim and that their controls were generally light and well balanced (even more so than most of the reports of other WWII era fighters that are given, shall we say, more optimistic trim models), we know that by today's modern standards, they were more demanding than modern jets with boosted controls or the average modern civilian general aviation aircraft with less than a quarter the horsepower and even less proportional payload capacity, packed with every modern convenience and engineering miracle to make the pilot/purchaser's task easier.

What a shock. To think that men who were picked from the cream of their nations' youth for their physical fitness and intelligence in an era when so much more work was done with human muscle power might find the same stick and rudder forces you or I might find objectionable to be 'light', or that more extensive trim inputs would be required from the peak of the aircraft engineering and design in 1942 compared to the modern commercial light aviation standards of the 21st century, or that of supersonic jets that don't have to deal with stuff like propellers and torque, much less p-factor.

However, the trim behaviors of these aircraft are clearly more consistent with somewhat exaggerated modern reports rather than with the reports of the WWII tests and pilots' impressions and the instruments also appear to be judged by more modern standards, if the gross inaccuracies of the late-war Western fighter's instrument panels in the game are compared to the game's depictions of more accurate readings from earlier generation British & American instruments in the Hurricane, Spitfire Mk V, the P-39 and P-40 series fighters. And then the game's advocates claim that they are merely catering to the demand for 'accuracy'.

In-game, this clearly saps a lot of the power and performance of this group of late war aircraft the moment they enter into common combat maneuvers, because even minor imperfections in trim result in extra drag penalties (which to me seem somewhat excessive and would go a long way towards explaining why the Mustang has so much better acceleration than the P-38 and the paddleblade-equipped P-47D-27, when the historical record says that all three were fairly close and that the P-38 had the best level acceleration of the group). Add in the rather odd behaviors in trim response that I found at certain speed ranges (and at the first application of full power with the so-called heavies) and it becomes very difficult to reconcile the in-game behaviors of these fighters to wartime reports. It simply becomes very difficult to trim to rapidly changing conditions because the penalties seem to me to be both out of proportion and hard to make sense of and anticipate.

Rather than completely redoing these aircraft's FMs, I think the quick fix is to at least let the pilot of the high-trim fighters be able to see their current trim state as it changes, and possibly to re-work some of the instruments' depictions to a common standard of readability and accuracy in Wide view.

cheers

horseback

PS: Yes, I know that I'm asking someone else to do extra uncompensated work:cool:

[horseback]

Regarding trim, I found the best first-person description from Bud Anderson's story "He was only trying to kill me".Anderson's account is the first thing that comes up any time complaints about the Mustang's trim behavior in-game arise; what people tend to forget is that Anderson had a co-author--the same fellow who worked on Chuck Yeager's book with Yeager. It gives the customers 'what they want'--which is drama.

Had the pilot of the 109 he was fighting survived the fight, his memoir might have included stuff about how slow the stabilizer trim wheel responded, or how heavy the rudder got as he compensated for the higher or lower speeds as he climbed and dived, how the supercharger became steadily less effective the higher he went, the way the windshield kept frosting up or how sloppy the stick got at 10km (and all of these things can be read about in any number of well known resources like Caldwell's JG 26: Top Guns of the Luftwaffe), and then his thirty something civilian co-author would still ask him to 'punch it up' for the reading audience of the late 1980s.

I've read a number of pilot memoirs that state quite flatly that the Mustang didn't need a lot of trimming in combat because the stick forces were exceptionally light and well balanced by the standards of the time; Anderson's comment simply shocked me when I read it for the first time because it contradicts almost everything else I had read on the subject. You trimmed for level flight on long distance escorts, sudden changes in power and for the depletion of fuel in the wing tanks (otherwise, there would have been no need for aileron trim), and you would add a little nose up trim for landings; everything else was reported as a matter of pilot preference.

I long ago transcribed the trimming sections of America's Hundred Thousand for the old UbiSoft Il-2 forums; I'll be happy to post them here, along with 354th FG ace Richard Turner's description of the flying qualities of the Mustang, or David McCampbell's description of the Hellcat, if you need more proof.

cheers

horseback

[horseback]

These are my first efforts: I find that just attaching the pictures works better than trying to attach the whole Excel Workbook and allows greater access for everyone. The longer and flatter the curve, the better the acceleration over time. Notice how much faster and better accelerating the early P-40E is than the later P-40M.

cheers

horseback

[horseback]

More Charts: RAF vs LW, Spit IX vs Mustang and Japan. Again, the lower and flatter, the better the acceleration. Look for the anomalies in the curves; these may be indicators of the odd behaviors I noted earlier or inconsistencies in the FM.

Enjoy/debate.

cheers

horseback

[majorfailure]

Even aircraft known to be very demanding of trim inputs (like the P-40 and the P-39 for example) are given a relatively forgiving trim model.
The P-39s I fly ingame are rather demanding on the trim.

These are my first efforts: I find that just attaching the pictures works better than trying to attach the whole Excel Workbook and allows greater access for everyone. The longer and flatter the curve, the better the acceleration over time. Notice how much faster and better accelerating the early P-40E is than the later P-40M.

cheers

horseback
Thats how it should be. P40E had a full throttle height of ~3500m and the P40M roughly double - so 3k alt is very nice for the E and the M is still in the proces of warming up.

The 270-350 and the 350/370 interval is the same spacing as the other ones that are only ten kph apart in the graph, may be misleading. And to be nitpicking: These are not a(cceleration) graphs, these are v vs. t diagrams.

[horseback]

The P-39s I fly ingame are rather demanding on the trim.


Thats how it should be. P40E had a full throttle height of ~3500m and the P40M roughly double - so 3k alt is very nice for the E and the M is still in the proces of warming up.

The 270-350 and the 350/370 interval is the same spacing as the other ones that are only ten kph apart in the graph, may be misleading. And to be nitpicking: These are not a(cceleration) graphs, these are v vs. t diagrams.The P-39 series is not as demanding as the Mustang, Corsair, Hellcat or P-47 depictions in this sim; all of these aircraft demand multiple clicks of trim adjustment for rudder and elevator for EVERY 5 to 15 kph of speed increase and any change in power or prop pitch greater than 5%, or you find yourself fighting your stick's springs. In addition, all of these aircraft have speed ranges where after constantly adding nose down trim and stabilizing in level flight, you suddenly need to switch to nose up trim and then a few seconds later you are back to clicking nose down (and a bit of opposite rudder as well).

Please note that all of these aircraft were considered very well behaved and easily trimmed for high performance fighters of the day; the Mustang was not merely a speed and range fighter, the Corsair was considered 'touchy' mainly in the carrier landing regime (and because it was invariably compared to the much more benign Grumman 'cats in that respect), and the Hellcat was, like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way for a carrier fighter in the Pacific (it just wasn't <quite> as fast as the Corsair). All of them were considered to be easily transitioned into (the Mustang particularly--the 8th AF transitioned all but one of its P-47 and P-38 equipped groups into it in the middle of high combat operations during early to late 1944); easily taught and mastered.

By contrast, the Il-2 '46 P-39 needs somewhatmore trim than most aircraft of its era, but it is consistent and therefore much more easily anticipated. The real thing had a reputation for being touchy and for the CG changing critically when the cannon ammo was expended; it was NOT consistent and as easily anticipated as it is depicted in this game. And what's with the instruments being so much more readable and accurate on earlier generation fighters?

Now, about the P-40 comparisons. The E model is (as its reputation suggested) neck and neck with the P-39 in the early acceleration phase from 270 to 370 kph both of them taking 23 seconds to add 100 kph of indicated speed, and then the Warhawk gradually dropping back; by contrast, the M model Warhawk is 7 seconds behind the E, then 10 seconds at 380, 11 seconds at 390, 13 seconds at 400, 20 seconds behind at 410, 33 seconds at 420, and then it poops out at 430, 31 seconds behind the E model, which at that point is midway between 440 and 450 kph.

At a constant speed of 370 kph, a 7 second lead is well over 700m, which we can safely assume to be out of range. It becomes much greater if you are accelerating away, and the E is right at 400 the same time that the M is wheezing and puffing up to 380.

My impression was that the later P-40 models got more powerful engines to match the extra weight of armor, new radios and so on, and that high alt performance improved marginally in the Allison powered models. My (limited) sources on the P-40 say that the M model was a full minute faster to 15,000 ft than the E models, which should result in obtaining level speed more quickly if all other things remain the same (and they mostly do). Those same sources state flatly that performance at lower altitudes remained largely the same, which isn't what is reflected here.

US Naval aviators were an eyelash away from mutiny when the slower, heavier, shorter ranged and lesser firing time F4F-4 Wildcat was introduced just before the battle of Midway. Army Air Force officers would have raised hell if they were handed a pig like the P-40M depicted here, and their objections would be a part of the historical record, but I find no such reports. I'm inclined to call the M model in Il-2 '46 bogus at best.

cheers

horseback

[horseback]

Oops, forgot the Soviet Fighters' Chart. Non nitpickers will appreciate that it compares the ability of these four fighters to increase their speeds at this height and at these speed ranges. Everybody else will have to whip out their scientific calculators and see whose is bigger.

cheers

horseback

[Freelansir]

Regarding trim, I found the best first-person description from Bud Anderson's story "He was only trying to kill me".


Anderson's account is the first thing that comes up any time complaints about the Mustang's trim behavior in-game arise

I wasn't complaining about a darn thing, just pointing out a book that the author takes the time to include details flying a fighter.

[sniperton]

Gens, this discussion is getting out of control. Simply too many aspects of this great game are blurred together. What if this thread were continued as separate threads?

- late-war high-performance aircraft issue (if any);
- relation of FM and flight controls discussion (trim, charts, etc);
- cockpit/hud display of control settings issue (what must/should/could we have, and what we don't need);
- general reality issue ('realistic' cockpit visibility as a handicap).

Just a suggestion. :rolleyes:

[horseback]

I wasn't complaining about a darn thing, just pointing out a book that the author takes the time to include details flying a fighter.No, I was the one who was complaining; I simply pointed out that the Anderson quote is inevitably brought up (usually from multiple posters) if anyone suggests that the current trim model of the Merlin powered P-51s is excessive.

There is a school of thought in the flight sim community that if it is harder, it must be more realistic; they also seem to think that newer, heavier and faster must also mean more complicated because that would mean harder to control (and therefore, more realistic). But the reality is that as technology becomes more advanced, it always becomes simpler and easier to use. Compare your DVD or DVR to the VHS systems I was using (at great expense, I might add) in the 1980s. The DVD/DVR is smaller, lighter, more energy efficient and much, much easier for you to operate.

While Anderson's book is very well written and generally accurate, that one sentence does not make the thousands of paragraphs and sentences written on the subject of trimming the Mustang before and since invalid, and most of the material on the subject says that the Mustang (like most later designs of that era) was better than its predecessors and most of its contemporaries because it was easier to fly and keep under control than the other fighters of its day, not just because it was merely faster and had longer range.

cheers

horseback

[RPS69]

There is a school of thought in the flight sim community that if it is harder, it must be more realistic; they also seem to think that newer, heavier and faster must also mean more complicated because that would mean harder to control (and therefore, more realistic).

BIG LOL!!!

Also keep in mind, that almost all aircraft have been made strange by this particular perception of reality. This is not new to the sim, but it is nice when someone take the whole picture, and not just a biased one.

Still, all these discusions on aircraft performance, being it differential or not, start again every time a new patch appears, maybe with different actors, but it nevertheless starts again.

Tagert got a good tool to analyze this, while he still used that name. It enabled him to process other peoples tracks. With some help you could achieve many more test conditions, and got some in game behaviours faster, with the addition of joy inputs to discard player wrong inputs.

The trim retard was introduced because of some complain of cheating by people that love to play in horizontal furballs on dogfight servers. Nothing to do with reality.

[Pursuivant]

EDIT: I don't see a problem for wonder woman view though. But for the sim I would rather like to live without even more neon flickering hud messages.

Which addresses one of my repeated requests for options in the game:

The Ability to Turn Stuff OFF If You Don't Like It.

If you don't like seeing some message (or all messages) described on the HUD, or if you're a server admin who thinks that they're unrealistic or favor one side unfairly, you just create an option in the GUI or conf.ini that allows you to turn them off.

It's a simple solution, it makes everyone happy, and it can't be that hard to code.

[Asheshouse]

and it can't be that hard to code.

Classic quote :)

[horseback]

Here is the final (and complete) set of charts for 10,000 ft/3000m.
I’ve re-organized and re-formatted the charts, so that the basic data is below the chart. Remember that the longer and flatter the curve, the faster the acceleration.

A few things to remember; weight vs power should govern the curve at the lower speed range and as speed increases, the effect of drag increases exponentially and eventually becomes the primary limiting factor. A heavy aircraft may not accumulate speed as quickly, but I expect that once achieved, it should not shed it quickly and that the greater weight will add momentum in the higher ranges so that minor changes in level flight will have somewhat less effect, and even less effect if the flat plate drag is low. I have the (general) US fighter drag and weight to power data from America’s Hundred Thousand, but I haven’t found the data for the Spitfire or other aircraft, and I would love to get that.

Those desiring specific comparisons may PM me and I’ll be glad to make a chart or send you the data.

I’m taking this program to the main forums; I’ve started doing the sea-level (100m) testing, and plan to take series at 5,000 ft/1525m, 15,000/4600 and 25,000/7600 to satisfy my own curiosity and hopefully encourage some debate about not only the raw speed data, but how the depictions of the cockpit instruments and the trim model affect how you fly issues.

cheers

horseback

[horseback]

AAAAHHH!!!

Only a five document limit!

But wait, there's more!

cheers

horseback