High Speed Shaking
 

Ok, I am an old boom and zoomer back from the IL2 days. Nothing more satisfying to get rewarded for all that patience in climbing and restraining oneself to go into the furball, specially in aircraft that could be considered bricks otherwise.

However, there are a couple problems with this tactic lately. Preferring the BF110 currently, imho the aircraft with most character in CoD, boom and zooming is an absolute must as direct dogfighting is pure suicide. However, once crossing 500 kph (which actually is close to the max speed of some AC) the aircraft not just shakes, but changes directions and twist around like being caught in a Tornado. Forget about having the time or stability to actually take aim. This also means that 500 kph is the max you can take into zooming again, not a lot really and gone in no time.

The 109 encounters this at around 600 kph.

Was this really this way? If it was, I will shut up, but I have a couple doubts about the nature of shaking encountered. Would be very nice if a more knowledgeable person could shed some light on that.

How high were you?

Since the latest patch doesn't fix the high altitude engine problems (which seem to be related to mixture strength), it's possible that you've got engine trouble; obviously this will be worse for a twin than a single. You might also have engine rpm problems. Obviously, anything engine related will cause yaw and roll in a twin.

I don't honestly know what VNE for the 109 and 110 would have been in 1940. However, in IL2 we've got used to pushing many aeroplanes way beyond their published VNE (e.g. I'd regularly exceed 850 km/h IAS+ in the Fw190, when the redline on the ASI in the cockpit was at 750 km/h), just as we also got used to being very casual about airframe g limits or indeed engine handling. So it's possible that VNE is now being enforced more strictly than before.

Doubtless Kurfurst knows the answer to the VNE question.

Hey Viper, I think you misunderstood my post. This shaking is not really engine dependent, even with idle thrust and prop pitch to idle this occurs when crossing the 500 kph mark in the 110. You may want to try it yourself to see what it is about. Push your nose down at, let's say, 3000 meters, if you are going full speed even 2000 meter and see what happens once crossing that speed mark. You lose direction control, making it near impossible to line up for shooting. The same happens to other planes long before reaching their maximum speed limit.

I tested it.

It's classic directional snaking behaviour. I don't know whether the 110 suffered from it at this speed, but it's not an unreasonable generic high speed (mis)behaviour; lots of aeroplanes from this period suffered it if pushed too fast.

PS - the 110 is a real killer! I got 4 Spitfires in the low level dogfight quick mission. Couldn't find the engine oil temperature though, which was annoying, and the engines died just as I got back to France...

Yeah, try that against 4 Spits in Multiplayer ;)
Against everything else she is a killer par excellance. My fav bird here so far, shredders everything appearing in front of her nose, hehe.

Directional snaking, hm? Gotta see what google comes up with here.

Btw, you may want to check the engine nacelles next time you look for instruments in the 110

It's certainly no Fw190, but lots of relatively big guns in the nose and reasonable top speed should make it pretty effective against opponents with poor SA (who should be more plentiful now that there's a lot more systems management for people to worry about...).

As for snaking & other aspects of stability & control, try this:

http://history.nasa.gov/monograph12/ch4.htm

Mm, sorry dude not trying to be rude here but this has nothing to do with accuracy of the 110C4 in game, that's a 'want'. The 110 was not known as a 'good' fighter plane and was chewed up in real life BoB buy the RAF fighters. I think it's better if we just stick to the facts and try to prove the accuracy. Now having said that, I have some documents here that may help define the VNE, but they are in German.

I'll see what I can translate.

Then why are you? I consider "want" a perfectly legit motivation to check up on an observation that neither appeared in anything I read yet not experienced in another simulator. That does not mean it was not to there but it warrants enough reason to ask a question when personal flying style relies on it, don't you think? And it certainly does not justify to imply here I was actively seeking to change FM against realism for personal gain.

That said, I am curious what you come up with

I haven't tried the game yet, but it sounds like good old flutter to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroelasticity#Flutter

750 kph IAS for 109 (as on all models up to 109K, which increased it to 850), 650 kph IAS on 110.

Different limits were not specified for higher altitudes, ie. it did not decrease with altitude, at least not in the manual (nor did it in 1940 British manuals - although it was only due limited knowledge of Mach effects at the time in both cases, so in reality it was certainly less at altitude). When flutter problems were started to be encountered and people on both sides of the Channel become more aware of it, they tended to decrease VNE at altitude, but left max. VNE near SL the same..

The thing that is odd about the 110 snaking is though that it occurs at low altitudes just as well, at near VNE speeds. If it would be high altitude, I'd understand that its some Mach-related effect.. but its like as if the rudder would be living a life on its own.

Which kinda makes me thing that there are two possibilities:

1. COD has a new hard coded VNE structural dive failure - I have seen similiar on the 109, albeit in much more hairy dives during intentional 'dumb flying', and it sets in earlier because the 110 is limited to 650

2. Engines (props) of the 110 run wildly asyncronized in dive, and this tears the plane apart.

3. Some game controller induced bug with new patch. Curiously, I did have similiar problem with the 2nd beta patch installed, for some reason, my view kept jumping off in the cocpit from time to time without using the HAT switch on the jstick..


What I found annoying though if 1, is the reason, that while no amount of dumb flying (pulling waaay too many Gs with the stick) seem to be able to break the plane, so stupid pilots would not suffer, we may have a rather odd limitation built in by the possible 1. case, which prevents you from even approaching the limits the manufacturers deemed safe yet..!