Pony talk
 

Okay, I have avoided this topic until now because I know it’s been overdone, and that it evokes a lot of emotion and pointless “FM is porked!” threads, and that prior to TD coming on the scene there was no one looking at the official FM’s of Il2. I was hoping to have an educated debate, or maybe an official explanation about why the P-51D acts the way it does in Il2. Partly because, in my opinion, and I’m sure the opinion of many others, the P-51D model in Il2 that doesn't reflect its real life counterpart.

The P-51C, P-51B and Mustang III all have a FM that seems to represent the aircraft and its strengths well, and they do well for themselves in combat, I really enjoy these aircraft. They are fast, reasonably manoeuvrable for a heavy fighter, have an abrupt high speed stall as the real P-51 did, yet they are clearly better than most of the other aircraft in the sim at high altitude.
However, the D model is tricky aircraft that is very prone to stalling and spinning. Now the P-51 was created partly to prove that NA could design an aircraft better than the P-40, however the P-40 in Il2 (although slower), is much more stable than the P-51D, and much better in a dogfight, and I bet *most* Il2 pilots would feel more confident in a P-40M than a P-51D in most cases. I know a P-51D is not a superlight dogfighter, but the P-51B’s and C’s are much better at fighting than the D.

There are 2 issues with the P-51D compared to the B and C, that I think cause the majority of problems:

1: Yaw and directional instability: This is very present in the D model, and not so much with B and C models. This means partly that the aircraft is hard to put on target, and will spin more readily than a P-51B or C.
2: Pitch over sensitivity: This means that high speed stalls, spins and black outs occur very suddenly in the P-51D compared to nearly every other aircraft, including the B and C models.

Both of these seem to be related to a CoG that is too far aft, are these problems related to the fuselage fuel tank being the last tank to drain? I don't know if Il2 models CoG changes with fuel, but the B and C drain the same way and their FM appears to not be affected.

When an AI P-51D goes up against nearly any other AI plane of its class, it will usually end up in flames, I know part of this is due to poor AI tactics, but if this was what it was like in real life, it never would have replaced nearly every other USAAF fighter at the end of the war, including the earlier P-51 models, and remained in service long after other WWII types where discontinued. In Il2 I would say it’s one of the trickiest american aircraft to fly, the only aircraft that I find worse for unpredictable handling is the P-63, which was not accepted into USAAF service in wide numbers. In Il2 it seems the P-51D has become a specialist’s aircraft, with special tactics to overcome its problems. In real life it was fairly free of vices and possessed good handling qualities with long range, which was why it was so widely adopted. For myself I’ve had to avoid creating historical missions with the P-51D, because for the most part they all get shot down. These are just my observations and I would be interested if anyone else has noticed the same problems.

Its a fast aircraft and should be flown that way.

The key to being successful is the fuel loading.

You wont need more than 25%, that's 30-40 mins flying iirc.

If you do, take drop tanks and ditch them at first sign of enemy.

Like most aircraft in IL2 1946 you need to learn their particular weaknesses and strengths.

Changing FM and DM wont stop you getting shot down.

As far as mission building goes use the same tactic with fuel and speed.

I have that same problem with FW's getting killed to easily by Russian counterparts :)

Never use drop tanks with the Pony in IL2. They will add some drag even after you release them. 50% fuel is more than plenty for an hour of flight time, and I am not talking cruising speeds. With 25% you can stay airborne over 30 min, and with proper fuel and engine management way longer than that.

Just like you said... To me, it seems P-51 is properly modeled - as if you would drain your center fuel tank last, which was never done and actually prohibited. This tank was custom fitted in the field (correct me if I am wrong) and drastically changed Mustang's center of gravity. Hence the 'Mustang' name, stalling and everything else. IL2 doesn't model COG changes and it is my belief that with this COG the P-51D we have in game is modeled.

I am not sure about the difference between C/B and D models as you say. I found them equally 'difficult' to fly.

May Oleg and others prove me wrong.

---

I had no problems flying this thing online. It did took me a long time to master the 'Stang, but in the end I taught myself discipline that I couldn't achieve with any other plane.

Mustang 3 and P-51D are only the 2 best fighters of the game. To me Fw 190 D-9 is only almost as good as the D5NT/NA. And to do that the 51 doesnt need any modifications...

If you put planes and players into historical situations flown historically, even without putting the worse pilots to German side, you can expect, and you will get, historical results.

If you test Ai vs. Ai I-16 type 24 is the best fighter of WW2 :grin:

Yes, I understand what your saying about the AI, maybe the issue is more with the AI dogfighting tactics than the plane itself, I mean i-16 would have dominated ;) As I don't fly online in historical situations much I haven't tested it out thoroughly. I have had some success on dogfight servers with the P-51D-5, and it seems to be a consensus that here that the AI is not up to handling all the different types of aircraft in Il2. There is no substitute for a real pilot I guess. I still find the D model unstable, but I have never flown a real one, so until that day I'll never know! On a side note, is there any servers that fly historical missions (not just melee dogfights) on a regular basis, or any squads that do this?

Interesting bug

MAby you shoulda try some ultr@ thing. stability issues fixed, new API 0.50 cal and some other things :)

Good documentary over on the BoP board. P51 history.

http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...577#post191577

EDIT : There's a great story of an American Pilot who stole a 109 and used it to escape after his '51 was shot down (Part 2)

While the latter is true, most on-line pilots (me included) that flew all three types againt one another (before mods) will tell you that in terms of speed/firepower/ease of use - they are lined up in the following way: Fw-190D (earlier version) > Tempest > P-51D (NA-20)


It isn't a bug. ;) Added pylons cause you to loose some 20-30 kmph of the top speed. IIRC it was documented.


It didn't bother me nor many on-line P-51 pilots that were good at flying it.

Yes, it should have been fixed, but accurate as they are in un-moded game, one can also find advantages. ;)

Great video Thor, that's some nice flying. Its pretty deadly if flown by an experienced pilot

You just need to spend more time in the P-51 and get to know its strengths.

The AI routines differ for each plane slightly (I believe Oleg had confirmed this sometime) and for some reason, the AI with the P-51 is particularly "stupid" - not attacking when the enemy on my six is right in front or him, for instance.

Using Il-2 Compare, the D is the fastest of the group, but not by much. The "problem" is that it's slow at accelerating so you have to be especially vigilant to not bleed off your speed. Try to fly it less like a Bf-109, and more like a P-38. Having a team-mate is very important in case you get in trouble.

I have been able to outrun almost anything in a P-51 if the trim is good. The only thing to give me a hard time (at low level btw) were La-7s and the dreadful I-185 type 71. I've outrun Spit25s without problem and have caught the "uber" Dora.

To me it seems that because the P-51 was on the winning side of the war, that it was some wonder-machine. People love to cite how Goerring apparently said something along the lines of, we've lost the war, after seeing P-51s over Berlin. I feel he would have said the same thing (if he ever did) if those were P-40s or Spitfires. It didn't matter how good the P-51 was - all that mattered was that the daylight bombers now had an escort for their entire trip to and from Germany, making it just that much harder for German pilots to shoot them down. That's it!

It doesn't have to be un-breakable, pull fancy maneuvers, tear wings off by lobbing huge cannon rounds - it just has to be fast and keep the interceptors at bay so the bombers can do their work.

Also, keep in mind by the time the P-51 was around, the Axis forces had already lost many of their best pilots and new recruits were being pressed into service with very abbreviated training. Allied pilots, especially American, had the luxury of a full-blown training cycle, and so were better off from the start.

There's this sort of "cult of personality" about the P-51 that I wish didn't have to be. I feel that it's causing this disappointment when people first fly it, and realize it's not a La-7.

All that said, I feel it's great online if flown carefully. (Thor's video is proof of that!)

I've not flown a real Mustang myself, but someone who did has said that while it's fast as it should be, some aspects of the handling are not quite the same.

It would be interesting to note that a particular Brewster Buffalo has more kills attributed to it than any other airframe used in WWII :grin:

Thanks. I do miss the good old days.

SoW better come out soon. :)

EDIT:

^^ This, is what it is all about.

@TEMPEST123

You are correct that the fuselage tank historically caused directional stability problems and as a result was really more of a ferry tank, acrobatic style maneuvers were forbidden when it still contained fuel and that tank was meant to be emptied first.

HOWEVER I am pretty certain that fuselage tank was first fitted on the P51B and C so any in-game stability issues resulting from the fuselage tank should show up on those models as well.

From Wikipedia ...

The B and C have the rear fuel tanks in game as well. To me they handle just like the D, but are not quite as fast (according to Il-2 compare). I really prefer the lines of the B over any other though. :D

I really like flying the P-51 although I have noticed the D for a long time has been particularly prone to stalling where the other two weren't quite as much. The thing that I do get bothered by is the "history channel" mentality... I was there too and one point and considered the Mustang to be the real wonder fighter of the war. That's all that I had ever read about...

Reality is one of those things and it turns out the Mustang is an exceptional aircraft but it's not a physics defying wonder. It has it's advantages and it's disadvantages...

The thing that I always consider to be the most important with the Mustang is the simple notion that the P-51B/C/D Mustang has similar power to the Spitfire IX (roughly 1500hp) but it's top speed and general performance is closer to that of the Spitfire XIV (at roughly 2000hp). Generally speaking...

So when I think about it that way it affects how I fly the Mustang - the Mustang is a streamlined aircraft and I should do everything to maintain that streamlining. Any drag, extra weight, or battle damage will affect that overall top speed more than in a fighter that has more power at it's disposal. The Mustang favours being flown smoothly than roughly... You don't toss one around like a Yak-3. Fly it right and in many cases you will be close to untouchable... It's that good.

The Mustang in IL-2 always gave me the impression of a half finished job..
The ground handling (and the non steering tailwheel in particular) is too stiff, the landing gear doors should come down as soon as the engine go off..
As for the handling, the thing that is mostly wrong is the roll rate: the Mustang has a surprising fast roll rate from low altitude.
I have to admit I haven't played with it for some time (I'm mostly a 109 guy), so I don't remember how it performs in terms of stall characteristics (remember that the laminar flow wing meant no buffeting before stall), but I have just this memory of a quite chunky ride..

SJ

as for stability and fuselage tank, the Mustangs we fly with have both their central tanks removed to accommodate a jump seat, but aerobatics are still possible without issues. The real problem was probably the fact that fuel would wash around, causing longitudinal instability.

@ Galway: pilots' comments like the one you posted are what have probably negatively influenced the thoughts and ideas of people who are not into aviation but are passionate about it.
The Spitfire is one of the most over-rated aeroplanes in history, not for its characteristics per se, but mainly for the propaganda fame that it gained.
As of today, I have never met a pilot who has flown both the Spit and Mustang and thinks the former is better (apart for turns that is): under a piloting point of view everything is so functional and well arranged (controls, systems, visibility), and performance wise the experience is breath taking.
The Spitfire might handle better in turns because it's a light machine with a beautiful wing, but the Mustang is superior in pretty much every other aspect.
The idea of "the best plane is the one that can turn tighter" is unfortunately a die hard myth..
The reality is that most of the aeroplanes that flew with the Spitfire were equal if not superior in terms of overall performance..

The P-51 delivered all that it was needed for, and then some. Its performance, range, punch, manoeuverability and versatility made it the most cost effective fighter of WW2, anyone who says the contrary is just plain wrong.

This is the truth, like it or not the P-51 is a generation ahead of 1930's designs like the spitfire and 109 aerodynamically. Like has been mentioned it had so many advantages, steerable tailwheel by pulling the control stick, advanced aerodynamics, high quality construction and excellent cockpit and visibility. I know it's hard to admit sometimes for people because the mustang gets overhyped (and I am not american), but the mustang is really probably the best overall fighter design when each aspect of the aircraft and its operation is looked at. Unfortunately Il2 doesn't really show these advantages. Though as Thor has shown, it's still good enough to be a killer in the right hands.

The whole story of the P-51 is what makes it special in my mind. NA saw an opportunity with the British government who really wanted them to produce the P-40 (even though they knew it to be an inferior design).

It was produced in record time and performed well at low level with the Allison engine. They saw it as a ground attack and recon aircraft. But here, again, the Brits stepped in and said, "What if we put a Merlin into a Mustang?" (though it wasn't a Mustang to them).

So while the airframe was amazing, it didn't become a plane to be reckoned with until they put the Merlin under the hood. What we know as the Mustang was really a joint development between the Americans and Brits.

I think it's success reflected the American basic theory on dogifghting. The US was all about speed and punch. Swoop in on the prey and keep going. In looking at all of the American designs, you don't really find aircraft that can turn and fight. The 51 is probably about the closest they came to it. What the P51 lacked that most American fighters enjoyed was toughness...it really didn't absorb a lot of punishment compared to other designs.

But, used as a speed fighter, it was about the best thing around. High altitude, dive in, blast away, get out fast. Add to that it's long legs and it truly was unique.

I dunno, if I could stay higher and move faster than my opponent he could never touch me unless I made a mistake. I might not get him but he couldn't touch me.

I have exactly one ride in a P-51 and it was an awesome feeling of speed. I've never had more of a sense of speed than that day....too bad rides now cost $2200 for 30 minutes....

Splitter

Yeah, the legend says that the first drawing of the Mustang/A-36 was sketched on a restaurant napkin and from that sketched it was developed in just over 100 days :cool:

[quote]
So while the airframe was amazing, it didn't become a plane to be reckoned with until they put the Merlin under the hood. What we know as the Mustang was really a joint development between the Americans and Brits.

The P-40 is not actually a bad turner itself, it just lacked the high altitude performance. The P-51 was an energy fighter that could go pretty much everywhere and mix up with the best that the Germans and Japanese had.
It was quite delicate compared to the rugged P-47, but it could outperform it pretty much everywhere (except maybe for diving?).
Regarding the ruggedness, I always wondered why the Americans insisted on using the F-51 in Korea when they could have delivered a better payload on a more robust plane with the P-47.. the development of the Skyrider should be quite significant on this aspect..

I agree Splitter, the feeling of speed, stability and readiness is incredible.. no sloppiness, delay, slow reactions.. just 1650HP of energy packed in the 10ft between you and the propeller! :cool:

Are Mustang rides really that expensive now?! Jeeez! That would cost me quite a lot of money! ;)
Who did you fly with, the Crazy Horse guys?

SJ

And Romanator21 has just pointed out a major flaw in the B/C models. The early razor backed P 51s were the fastest versions to fly in combat. Typically about 20mph faster than a bubble top D model.

Also much is said about how much better the Merlin engine Mustangs are, because of their performance at altitude. It should be noted that the Mustang 1s that saw service with the RAF were the fastest aircraft in Europe below 15,000 ft. when they were put in service. The Allison P51s were not dogs.

Actually Romanator doesn't quite have it right. The P-51D is faster at low altitudes but the P-51B/C are the fastest (except the Mustang Mark III in game) Mustang available and peak at a higher top speed at a higher altitude than the P-51D. All according to IL-2 Compare.

However, if you're down lower then the P-51D is the faster plane. As far as I know this does represent reality with a reasonable level of accuracy (the B/C were tuned in one way and the D recieved a different supercharger tuning).

[QUOTE=Sternjaeger;191649]Yeah, the legend says that the first drawing of the Mustang/A-36 was sketched on a restaurant napkin and from that sketched it was developed in just over 100 days :cool:

Yeah, the rides are that expensive now. I got a report from a friend that went to a hanger dance at the local airport recently. The plane he pictured was "Betty Jane" which looked like a B model to me. I really cannot be sure if that was the two seater offering rides at $2200 for 30 minutes, but I think it was.

You can also take rides in WWII bombers for something like $400 but I never have. Maybe some day.

I flew in a P-51 about 17 years ago in Kissime Florida. I think I actually paid by the pound! It cost me...$600? It's been a long time and it was a spur of the moment thing so I can't be sure. I have also taken a ride in a local (Winchester, WV) AT-6 Texan where I was allowed to take the stick....that was fun lol. We didn't do aerobatics in the P-51 but we did a lot in the AT-6. Totally different experience in the trainer with the big radial. We did a simulated dive bombing on a bridge in Harper's Ferry, Chandelles, and 8 point rolls plus some other fun stuff. That pilot liked to try to make "sim jockeys" queasy :).

I used to hang out at my local airport when I was a teen and gave rides or ran errands for private pilots who flew in. I got to ride in and sometimes got to "fly" some pretty cool planes. The best at the time was a two seat Pitts Special...that thing was scary nimble but I didn't get any "stick time". The amazing thing about that plane is that the pilot rolled us several times in one direction and my head was spinning...one quick roll in the other direction and I was perfectly fine.

Flying used to be fairly "cheap" and I was an idiot not to follow through with my license back then. If you saved a pilot $100 in rental car services he was more than happy to show off his bird for an hour or so.

I don't know why we chose to go with the 51 inline engine in Korea instead of a P-47. The big radial would have made much more sense in the ground attack role. It's interesting that the radial lasted all the way into Vietnam in the SkyRaider. Of course, the Cosair was used in Korea also so I guess they were using what they had on hand given that the US was not prepared for Korea (all that de-militarization that works so well....).

In WWII, there were some clear differences in air combat theory between different countries. The Japanese preferred lightly armored and very nimble aircraft. The Americans liked heavier, faster, more durable aircraft. Each country had their own preferences. I have always thought it made sense to be faster than the opponent so a pilot could break off a fight any time he wanted to...maybe that's just an American prejudice :).

The really bad argument is the age old Spit vs. Mustang debate. To me, they are planes made for different roles and each performed their role very well in their time. The 190 and 109 performed their roles well too. It's just that to me....the Mustang filled a number of roles well enough to make it unique amongst its' contemporaries. The Mustang could do a credible job in the Spit or 109/190 role, but it had the legs to fly from London to Berlin and back too.

We are VERY lucky in my area, BTW. Many air shows with vintage aircraft are within driving distance every year.

Splitter

Oh... about the Mustang in Korea. I'm over simplifying what happened but after the war the P-51's were put into mothballs for the most part while the P-47N's continued on in National Guard units. I think they were phased out sometime in the late 40s just before the US got involved in Korea. The Mustangs were cheap and still plentiful while the P-47s were phased out or scrapped.

The P-47 would have been a much better CAS aircraft but the Mustangs were available in quantity and they needed to procure large numbers of aircraft in a very short period of time.

That is as best I understand that particular situation.

Maybe - I don't ever use boost except in extreme situations, so I wouldn't know what performance it can attain under those settings. At low altitude, boost does nothing but cook the engine, so it's best to leave it off no matter what.

The reason why the Mustang doesn't shine in IL-2 is because 99% if the time it's being flown in turning dogfights down in the mud. No matter how good the P-51 was in reality, it just couldn't do what some pilots demand of it.

This is very true. It weighs 7,640 lbs empty, while Spit Mk.9 weighs 5610 lbs empty. The engines have the same output of 1690 Hp. Yet the Mustang can go 30 mph faster than the Spitfire.

This shows just how aerodynamically refined the Mustang is, but it should be abundantly clear that with its weight it cannot accelerate like the Spitfire, cannot climb like one, and cannot be subjected to the same maneuvers - it will lose all its speed and become a sitting duck if you try. It's not a "do anything" plane in this sense, but it doesn't matter. Strategically, it was enough. Be miserly with her airspeed, and the Pony will treat you well. :)

The Fw-190 is another design which has these features and is very clean aerodynamically. I don't think the P-51 was "a generation" ahead of this and similar planes.

I suggest everyone who believes the Mustang is badly porked in IL-2 to play CFS-1 and Aces High II like I have. You may be surprised to find that it shares many characteristics with the Il-2 one:

1) Fast but slow to accelerate to top speed
2) Can't climb quickly and maintain high speed
3) Can't turn sharply and maintain high speed
4) "Glass jaw" engine that can be stopped with small-caliber rounds.
5) .50 cals take time to do work on a target - effective at convergence - causes opponents to bleed out rather than blow up.
6) Very unpopular with the majority of players who prefer turning fights and has been subject to claims of porking, etc.

The FM issues with the Mustang are minor, relatively speaking, comparable to the quirks in the FM of other planes. It would be great if fixed, but I don't think it will turn it into an uber online dog-fighter just like that.

Looking forward to the pony in the installment of storm of war Korea. Twin mustang too

S!

Had the privilege to meet Günther Rall in an event arranged at Finnish Air force museum some years ago.As we all know he flew the Bf109 all his career and was pretty succesfull in it too shooting down some 275 aircraft, actually 276 as the P47D he damaged ditched later in France. But that is another story.

So of course we kept asking him politely about tactics and performances. As of best tactic against planes he said with a laugh: Shoot it down! Can imagine it as Rall was one of the marksmen in Luftwaffe, shooting down fighter planes from 400m which is really far for the time.

Ok, about the Mustang. We asked which plane he regarded the best of allied fighters. He said without hesitation: Mustang. His points were clear on the plane: speed, range, cockpit ergonomy, controls, visibility. He did not say it was a turn fighter or anything, but as a pilot he valued the characteristics above. B109 lacked some of that but he said he could fly it to the limits as he "had been living inside it for 5 years".

Combine that with pilots that have a full training behind and results are good. This is what happened in Europe as well. USAAF had the air supremacy and according to Rall there was not much they could do but sit and watch the P51's, P38's and P47's prowl the skies. The odds were too much and new young pilots died in their first or second flight.

Yes romanator, there are other planes that I should have included in the "next gen" of piston planes, like the fw-190 (which I think was way ahead of it's time), bearcat, tempest etc. Interesting to see a trend towards speed and larger size (except the bearcat).

That's pretty much it. My father was a subscriber to a quartertly aviation magazine that also runs some history columns and i've read pieces about both the Mustang and the Corsair in Korea.

What happened was that the types of prop-driven close support aircraft were chosen based on what was available or easiest to restore to flying condition in order to quickly close the gaps and start flying CAS sorties as soon as possible. It was a case of "i need an extra 1000 airframes and i need them yesterday", instead of "i need the best aiframes for the job".
This meant that Mustangs with their sensitive liquid cooled merlins had to run the gauntlet of low level AA and small arms fire.

It's also interesting that Corsairs suffered higher losses than what was expected of an aircraft with a radial engine. The reason was that Corsairs were stripped of certain equipment post-WWII to improve handling and performance. When the first ones were shipped to Korea there was no time to re-install everything, so a lot if not the majority of them entered combat while missing some pieces of equipment.

Among those missing pieces was an armoured ring running around the engine cowling. Radials are powerful, reliable, durable and all that jazz, but still need oil to work. Well, the main oil lines in the Corsairs were running around the cowling and the lack of the armoured cowling ring made them one of the most vulnerable parts of the airframe. A big WWII-era radial could still function with entire cylinders blown off as long as it had lubrication, but if there's no oil everything grinds to a halt through friction sooner or later.

In practical terms what his means is that as the Corsair is diving towards the target and going head-on through the flak, all it would take was a few bits of lucky shrapnel that might not even scratch the engine block, but they could certainly puncture the oil line and force a mission abort.

I think it is a little unstable.. but like most aircraft in the sim.. it is what it is and you have to learn to fly that.. not what the historic accounts say.. but I do think it is just a little too twitchy.. Sometimes it is like trying to balance a ruler on a pencil.. The P-40 is much more stable and the MKIII IMO is more accurate than any of them.

Didn't one of the MOD folks mention that there is a small mistake in the P-51D's FM values (something about length) and that may be causing the issues with the D that the other versions don't have?

Firs I've heard. Do tell... :)

It was posted at "the site that shall not be named" at one point :cool:

I don't know much more about it but I filed it away in my brain with all of the other useless bits of information that I have stored away up there :)

Than we shall not speak a word of it again. :)

Yeah, my general point was why is the mk iii stable and decent to fly while the D is more unstable and tricky. The D should be an improvement (btw i know thé mk III has more boost but thats not the issue)

The D airframe's length is too short in the FM numbers. By around a foot as I recall.

Historically the early D production blocks were indeed more unstable owing to the loss of fuselage area that was cut down to make it a bubble top. The later blocks had the new tail fillet that attempted to cure the problem. The early blocks had the fillet applied in the field.

You can see the length error in the Object viewer, the razorback mustangs are all 9.83m (the correct length), whereas the D is listed as 9.38m. Not sure if this translates into the FM though, anyone know?

Same there, this is what gives a D a _slightly_ smaller stability. It's a known bug.

If it really affects the FM shouldn't the D model then turn better and be more agile? I don't think it's that simple to say "this is a bug which makes the plane worse". In fact, if it would really affect the FM it might be a bug that compensates the plane only real weakness, no? :P

Apply full rudder and check if you can measure a difference between the B and the D. This is where the slightly reduced length would show. It has no effect on turning.

Wouldn't it also apply in banking turns?

If the plane is banked and the stick pulled, the elevators are "working" on the same plane of motion that the rudder affects when the wings are level (the plane that's parallel to the horizon), so wouldn't it exhibit a similar effect?

This ***could*** explain why total blackouts occur very suddenly in the D model, too much elevator for a shorter fuselage. This is only if the length bug is present in the FM though.

I think the blackout happens suddenly because the Mustang (and Tempest) can pull very hard very quickly and cause a blackout. Most other fighter types have an ineffective elevator at those speeds so the ability to suddenly pull isn't there.

In some ways it's easier to hold back on the stick in the Bf109K-4 as it sails towards the ground not doing much of anything than it is in a Tempest to pull back hard and both blackout the pilot and rip the wings off :D

This is true, and I'd rather have the second option than the first one, at least the screen would be black for 20 seconds in the air, instead of forever as I plowed into the ground :)

Just flew some very successful A to A combats in the P-51D, def. a great ship, so if there is a length bug in the FM it's not holding the plane back too much. As for a concrete way of testing between models I can't think of one that isn't affected by many other factors other than around 1 foot of fuselage. If it is a simple matter of correcting a clearly wrong number in a FM file than I hope it is addressed, but I have no idea how the FM's are made for Il2.

I think Oleg said years ago in response to a FM debate that the problem was between the guy's computer and his chair :) So I'll stop beating this dead horse (pony).

It's also possible the fuselage data was deliberately "tweaked" to eliminate some other issue with the p51d. No way of knowing.

I would be inclined to pass the evidence about the incorrect fuselage length on to TD and leave it to them to fiddle with.

Indeed there is nothing that seriously impedes the Mustangs ability to fight in-game. Sure there are a few people who expect too much but once you get past that and focus on the strengths... it's an incredible fighter. When flown as a team the Mustang turns much more powerful as it's speed, dive, and visibility are great attributes.

How many of you make regular use of the K-14 gyro gun sight?

You're too late. :)

I tried, but it's effectively useless in game. In servers which allow outside view, everyone knows where you are, and simply pulls tight turns when you get close, and the sight can't track the target (F6th-sense? :grin:)

In closed pit as well as open pit, pilots yank their airplanes around too quickly compared to what an average pilot would be able to do. It goes back to the joystick debate - we practically are in control of massless, fly-by-wire aircraft. Inexperienced pilots often just made shallow-banked turns, unable and unwilling to push their planes to the limit, and hardly made an ACM maneuver. In the BoB, experienced Bf-109 pilots were out-turning rookie Spitfire pilots who were afraid to do anything more than make a shallow turn. This is what the K-14 was good for, and made it that much easier for allied pilots to put shots on target the first time they ever pulled the trigger.

I suggest to download the Il-2 Demo which is still on the net and use Eric Brown's input settings. Remember, he tested and flew numerous aircraft during and after WWII, including Spits, P-51s, FW-190s, and so on. He flew IL-2 when it still had the old FM, and so his settings work better in that game, than in 1946.

Use his settings and get a feel for how maneuverable the aircraft now are, and consider that this would probably be the best you could hope to wring-out of the plane in an actual dogfight (or modern-day air show :grin:).

Pitch 0, 1, 3, 7, 9, 14, 18, 23, 27, 33
Roll 0, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 10, 12, 17
Yaw 0, 0, 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 11, 14, 16

I don't think Eric Brown ever got the chance to enjoy Il-2 after it received an updated FM system, but if he did, it would be interesting to see what inputs he would propose then.

The K-14 works well for bombers I find, but for fighters it's usually too difficult to setup the sight before your opponent evades you.
For example against a Fw-190, you first slide the notch to "fw-190" on the sight, then adjust the reticle to match his wingspan, but since he's likely all over the sky, I find this isn't worth the extra hassle. One small thing I wish we could to was to map "adjust sight distance" or whatever one adjusts the wingspan to an axis like joystick twist, so that you don't have to keep pressing keys. But I think the fixed sight is probably just as effective anyways.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeqzMXtqcss

Yes they are undermodelled. :)

Lol, I have no idea why people ever thought .50 cals are undermodelled in the game, you can saw the wings off a 109 at 200 yards with these things. A P-47 will literally explode some japanese aircraft.

The loadout is wrong and the spread is wrong. But they still can be and are powerful enough.

Yes, they do 'pawn' Japanese planes - especially when you're in the mustang.

erm, I'm sorry, but what with all the K-14 adjusting that you mention??
Once you get the correct plane wingspan selection all you need to do is put the reticle over the enemy, and when its wingspan is corresponding to the diameter of your gyro reticle that's where the bullet it's gonna go.. I always found it very easy to deal with..

I setup the sight once and I only adjust between 109 and 190 actually. Why are you fiddling with the settings? :)

I increase the range slightly... select the plane (tap of a key on my HOTAS) and then I bracket the guy and really let loose. I still use my own "in my head" calculations as well so I'm not totally reliant on the gyro but I find it's helpful in confirming my angles.

Spinning 190s are a problem for any plane... except maybe something with a thousand MK108s :)

I played with it some more and yeah, Sternjaeger you're right, I just set it up with the right aircraft and then the closest range and it works good, no fiddling required. It's a pretty neat piece of equipment, I'll have to look up how the real one works.

I have several brit and american gyro gunsights (both the war and postwar models), and the range adjustment could only be done on the postwar ones AFAIK.
In the end of the day the gunsight range had to be adjusted to match with the converging point of the machineguns, and that's something you can't adjust in flight. I am not sure whether it changes with the converging adjustments you can do before the mission, but it's worth a test methinks.

As for anything else I think they did an impressive job with it, the only side note being that they didn't simulate gyroscopic precession (which could happen at times).

And now for a shameless plug: if anyone's interested I have a couple of GGS gunsights to sell, they're postwar but just like the wartime ones. PM me if you're interested!

Yes, of course, I didn't think about that, the convergence can't change (slaps forehead), so set the wingspan and go. It would be neat to see this sight on the Spit or P-47, not sure if Hellcats or F4u's had them. There was a German model too but I remember something about a lack of information, so it didn't make it into Il2. Do you know what aircraft your sights came from?

Do you have the documentation to go along with them? It might be useful if a Spitfire XIV or late model XVI gets modeled as those should both have the Mark II GGS. If you do... hold on to that stuff :D

I don't think the Navy used them for their prop fighters, the gyro components on these early gunsights were quite susceptible to elements and excessive vibrations, maybe that's why..

My gunsights were originally MkIID installed on Spits, converted afterwards to MkVIII to use on planes like the Vampire and ultimately the Hawker Hunter. They're lovely pieces of kit, and could be converted to their original ww2 spec at a fraction of the cost of a wartime model.

SJ

got it all: manual, tags, airworthiness certificates..
The technology on the late GGS gunsights it's exactly the same as in the old ones, the only difference is the range adjustment (which was radar controlled) and on some models the radar lock light.

Gunsights are good stuff :-)

Read this link and get the experience of flying the P-51 form somebody who has actually flown one in real life as well as flies the game actively. Miss Strega is active on HL so ask her if you need more information:

http://deltachevron.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=85

Everything and anything about flying the P-51 is on this thread. The mustang doesnt have the acceleration of a FW or 109 and you have to earn the speed and keep her fast. Also most people qouting that she is manueverable only does it above 320kph and never lower and you should engage the combat flaps anyway everytime you go below 280kph in the Mustang.

I use an all 100 INPUT for the mustang ans she flies like a dream specially in WarClouds fighting FW' and 109s. As Erkki's youtube post shows the .50 cals is far from porked and you just need to have SUSTAINED deflection shots and have the proper convergence. I use 300 yards (USAAF recommendation) or 274 meters.

interesting stuff, there's some of us here who have some experience on the real deal as well ;) it's always interesting to compare different experiences!

SJ

Wow, that is an excellent read, ill have to try those tips, thnks! Its good to hear from someone who has experience in a real one.

Hold onto that stuff :) Could be useful in the future!

yeah, it really is, although it's kinda hard to compare a "modern" Mustang with a wartime model.
Engine and structural exhaustion wasn't a concern back then, but nowadays we need to preserve these machines in the best possible way.

Unfortunately there isn't an universally recognised "school of warbirds" (or if there is, I've never heard of it), so often the pilots of these machines tend to fly them without much care or pro-active attitude.

Because of the solid engineering background of my friends, they tend to approach and fly their machines in an "intelligent" way: they do not overstress their engines or airframes beyond necessity (I think I mentioned before that we normally take off with just 75% throttle), nor put them through potentially dangerous or high stress envelopes (this doesn't mean they're not trained for it of course ;) )

Engine management is quite straightforward and disciplined: WEP is available but never used (if you respect all the procedures there's really no need for it); we tend to set our engines to specific values according to the phases of flight(take-off; cruise; aerobatics etc..), but being an extremely energetic fighter, it's easy to use its aerodynamic features to make it a very efficient flyer.

weight distribution is the same, but the planes are a bit lighter than the originals: armour plating is not present unless structural, and the old battery and radios + central tank have been replaced with a jump seat. Wing armament is there, but obviously the ammunition belts are slightly lighter because they're inert.

Unfortunately there are several owners/operators that don't really pay much care to the engine managing (although there's an ever growing awareness in the field), and often these 60+ years old components get abused..

the only thing that bothers me about these 'conversations' about aircraft its:

when I chat with WWII pilots about their aircraft in combat (I have talked with P40, Cosair, B24, and several other pilots that actually flew combat in WWII and Korea..) and they never once told me the History channel and military channels lie about anything. I specially asked them, just because people here always throw that argument oput saying they do. When I chatted with these WWII pilots, the chats were for a few hours and sometimes with fighter and bomber pilots together.. in very small groups of about 5 people..

yet when I come here every who never flew anything always lays down the law on how these aicraft flew..

I respect those who actually flew aicraft,, or at least builds them..

myself, I worked on aicraft, and flew on a few as I was in the USAF a few years. But I never flew in combat, only flew a piper cub, only sat in a Spitfire, F4, F15, B52's, and may, many others. I flew in tankers, C5's, military version of a lear jet (forgot the model..) and many, many other modern aircraft.. including helos.

I have worked in aerospace, but my only aicraft builds were the small scale flyable models that you fly by wires with a handle. I built combat and acrobatic models. That was when I was very young and you could build aicrat with 4 foot wingspans for $10 and the engine was $15.

oh well, I wish these conversations would help get the porked planes fixed.. I think the modders have the tools, they just don't have the knowledge or the will to fix the wrongs..

I give much credit for all the work done, as without the people that build these aicraft we would be playing some other game or sim..

10 years of IL-2 and it's going strong and there is always some war that hasn't been fought yet.. or some plane unexplored.

You've jumped in on Mustang conversations before with a very closed mind so I'm not sure how this will go... but I'll bite (and I apologise in advance for my lead in but this has been my prior experience - I look forward to being pleasantly surprised :)).

History Channel and Military Channel don't lie so much as they provide a vague generalization with a dash of patriotism and not a lot of real historical content. I sometimes turn off the sound and just watch the brilliant video work as they fly around some great warbirds. Normally when I listen to what their saying it's overly dramatic (typical for TV anywhere :)) and the end result is that the Mustang, in particular, is glorified far beyond reality. It's not lies... it's just gross oversimplification beyond even what is really necessary.

That is to say that the Mustang is amongst the top 5 fighters of World War II with innumerable positive attributes. The problem from a flight simulator perspective is that the Mustang has both positive and negative attributes. Anyone who comes into these simulators/games with this very one sided view of the aircraft will immediately complain about the performance of the Mustang in-game.

This has happened in CFS, Janes, IL-2 and the list goes on. There isn't much wrong with the Mustang.. no more than there is with the Tempest or FW190 or any other type present (and with over 200 types that is impressive). It has a few quirks but it's really quite accurate by the numbers. If Team Daidalos can find a problem with the Mustang I'm sure they will fix it.

I've talked to a few wartime pilots and even some fighter pilots too. Most of the ones I've talked to are a surprisingly humble bunch and normally if you ask them about their aircraft (insert Spitfire, Mustang, Thunderbolt, etc.) they will reflect on their former mount with fond memories. And of course they would...

As for being authoritative about the aircraft... In terms of history of it's inception, design, usage, and general performance of most warbirds I'd say many of us have a very solid understanding. It's not the same kind of understanding or authoritative background as a pilot who flew one in combat. It'd be wise to separate out the two.

Also I'll end by saying that much of what's been discussed in this thread walks the line between history and IL-2 sim world. Not the same although close enough to be able to find meaning... nonetheless much of the flying advice in here is about flying the sim Mustang. Some us have far too many thousands of hours on those :D

I think i kind of agree with Icefire. The pony was not the best fighter of WWII. Neither was any other aircraft. There is no hands down best all around fighter, no such thing. What do exist are best planes for a specific job under certain circumstances. The pony was one of that aircraft, coming to light under favorable circumstances.

What the pony was, was a fighter for a specific job that came at the right time to make a significant impact on the war effort, because they just happened to badly need a plane to do that job at that time. People recognized that, history was initially written by the victors, being a very good looking, sleek aircraft didn't hurt publicity-wise and that's how the exaggerated all-around superiority myth was built...a bit of a dramatic, sensationalist voiceover on a newsreel here, a bit of a triumphant flypast sequence there and people will be impressed. As the years go by and the star status of the plane builds upon itself, there are bound to be people who genuinely believe that it single-handedly won the war.

If P47s had the range to fly to Berlin i'm willing to bet that the Jug, no matter if people think it's ugly, would be the plane that held superstar status. Harder hitting, comparable performance, much more durable.
In a similar fashion, it also has a lot to do with the opposition. If Me262s had been produced in numbers and the luftwaffe was able to retain a core of experienced veterans to fly them, things would be different as well.

All in all, if the performance gap is not too big pilots will tend to prefer the aircraft that has better armament, is more reliable and can take more punishment...it's the cold, hard math of survival and nothing more. The only reason to go for a lighter armed and lesser protected airframe is if it makes you totally untouchable by the opposition.

In the pony's case the biggest performance gain was range, which is something that would be mostly appreciated by the planners at HQ than the pilots actually flying a 6-8 hour sortie. In fact, there were some squads in the ETO (i think it was actually an entire group) that fought tooth and nail to keep flying the P47 until the end of the war and not convert to the Mustang. If memory serves me right, that would be the 56th (Zemke's wolfpack) and they actually got their wish granted.

Of course i'm not slagging the plane off but on the other hand its exploits have surely been greatly exaggerated over the years, considering that a single piece of shrapnel could leave you as a pony pilot frantically drawing up a course for neutral Switzerland, when P47s routinely returned with vertical stabs bearing holes half their size, telephone wires snagged on their wingtips and entire cylinders blown off the engine, in some cases by flying through their own bomb's shrapnel.

If you really wanted performance stats you could only reconstruct and benchmark the planes.

Blackdog you mention an important point. For example what if the saturation of certain planes would've been higher. I don't think it's always just about performance. In the end what probably mattered most was having aces to train the rooks, having a good supply chain, quality materials and fuel, pilots that are actually getting some rest and the right numbers.
During the late war Germany wouldn't even have been able to win if they had a couple of Eurofighters or Raptors or whatever. Since the pilots have basically been living zombies, most aces were dead, the material quality was low, fuel was low, training was almost impossible and the planes have been in bad shape.

So in single player missions you could balance things out a bit. But in multiplayer everyone will of course pick the best plane to fight. And the game will supply a perfect plane, the pilot will have slept properly, fed properly, not freezing, sitting comfortably at home and also all the experience he accumulates will add up at some point. Getting shot down is simply an addition to experience - it doesn't mean injury or death at all.

So yeah, sims can only simulate a few things. Most important things can't be simulated however. So it's a rather cumbersome discussion how well certain planes really were in the real war and how they're now in a game. Things are just not comparable at all I believe.

If all 1400 or so me262 produced for the LW were actually operational with pilots, fuel and munitions readily available, all at the same time, the 8th air force would have been obliterated and allied armor flattened.

In reality I do not think they ever had more than 100 or so me262 operational on any given day.

It won't matter because most of the 'expertens' are dead by this time and you have nothing but 'nuggets' (beginners) flying. As you probably can tell in the game, fighting aces and experienced pilots are no walk in the park either.

Remember that Mosquitoes have killed Me-163s and Mustangs have killed Me-262s. The Me-262 however would run out of ammo and probably have engine problems on a sustained fight with a P-51.

I don't see how the 262 would be able to get into protracted fights with the escorts, you're right. That would probably be reserved for prop-driven fighters.

However, if used in its intended role the 262 would not need to get in a sustained fight at all. Bypass the escorts, fly parallel to the bomber stream, turn into them in a pursuit curve, attack the bombers head on...rinse and repeat until you get damaged or run out of fuel/ammo.

Just to put the 1400 into the proper context: In March 1945, the USAAF flew 146000 sorties against Germany. That is 4700 a day. 62000 of these were fighter sorties, that is 2000 a day.
Add to these the VVS and RAF, plus the various smaller air forces, and you'll have to realize that even if all Me 262's produced up to a certain point had been available at that point, it would not have made a significant difference to the outcome.
One can assume one devastating battle against the 8th air force, which would have been a pyrrhic victory for the LW. Nothing left to flatten the Allied armour.

While the 262 was certainly the future, the P-51 had certain advantages also: range and endurance. They could concentrate anywhere they chose in massive numbers. Even by Feb 44, USAAF a/c could swarm in from the UK and the Med to a single area anywhere in Western Europe. The moral impact alone on viewers on the ground -- friendly or enemy -- must have been stupefying.

The 262 lacked endurance and, unlike later jets, absolutely had to keep high and fast when enemy a/c were around. It had neither the acceleration nor the manoeuvrability to tangle with prop planes.

The strangely mixed reviews the likes of the 262, He-162 and Me-163 got are partly the result of impossible conditions. They would have performed much better in allied hands. With numerical superiority, they could have performed many kinds of mission at very low risk. The Me-163 and He-162 were too dangerous for allied training and use, though.

The 262, if produced with high quality materials, was a fairly mature design and would have even made an impact in Normandy if a couple of hundred had been available. The kill ratios are misleading -- success was not possible when the enemy could afford to keep a couple of squadrons camped over the base all day long. Vulchers!

dduff

The point missing about the 262 was that Galland saw these aircraft as a means to kill bombers, Hitler wanted them to be bombers so there is a stark difference in tactical thinking. Obviously Hitler got his way and Germany lost. But if Galland had the 1400 or so aircraft ready and they were all configured for interception as Galland had wanted, the allied bomber squads would have not had the success they did in killing off Germany's production when they did, and I stress when they did. By D-Day I personally don't think Germany would have lasted even if they had best aircraft and pilots at their disposal, the numbers against them were just too great, but the 262 would have certainly either slowed or even stopped the bleeding of Germany's war production and prolonged the war.

But the 262 weren't being used to tangle with the escorts, their primary role was to kill bombers using BnZ tactics. Almost all 262's that were shot down were lost during take-offs or landings.

With regards to endurance, that's one thing that LW didn't need to worry about, as the fight was now over their soil.

There were also enough of them shot down by escorts in engagements with bombers. Yes, too few to count but it did happen. 262's engines were very sensitive (flammable) on sudden throttle changes, and also didn't take bullets very well. ;)

If we're already talking what might have happened if it had happened - Germany might have had the 262 in Heinkel edition as early as '43 if they had the foresight what was to happen to them and who were they fighting with. They could also win the Battle of Atlantic with new XXI Type submarines which to be honest - didn't bring nothing else except different view on how a submarine should operate. It was the very same submarine technology they had at the start of the war. There are many 'ifs' here, the point is - it was all too late, too little. Many high ranked generals knew the war was lost way back in the beginning of '43. This is the very same reason why so many assassination attempts were made on Hitler.

This is what Galland himself had to say in a 1994 interview:

Actually aside from a few key raids the bombing campaigns did little to halt German production. It's almost ironic that the best months of production for Germany were close to the end... in the months leading up to defeat. I don't have the sources readily available but any university library should have the details (that's where I got mine :)). What the bombing campaigns did do was tie up valuable resources in defending against them. So I would speculate that even if the 262 was successful in dealing deadly blows to the 8th Air Force operations the Allies would still have won the long term battle as they were holding up resources that could have been used along the Eastern Front in particular.

I think a Luftwaffe victory in the skies over Germany would only serve to redraw the maps of Europe during the latter half of the 20th Century in favour of the Soviet Union.

Isn't speculation fun?

OK, 262s are operational in some numbers.

The war is prolonged.

The US then deploys P-80s in numbers that the Luftwaffe cannot match.

Game over.

Or...

A a massive night B-29 raid escorted by P-80s, P-51Hs, and P-82 Twin Mustangs, flys to Berlin one night. Only one B-29 has a bomb though...

Game really over.

Any scenario that the pro-facisti can come up with is easily countered.

It still complicated the task of concentrating their forces and of course the 262 was useless at protecting against its own greatest vulnerability: the long landing approach from which it couldn't quickly accelerate away in an emergency.

dduff

Yup, that's pretty much the way i tend to see it when theorizing about it. The difference was that the man with the funny mustache was expecting a sudden rebound and counterattack in his paranoia, while people like Galland were realists and were pushing for a different outcome: a stalemate in the west, maybe going as far as ensuring a separate peace agreement, so that they could concentrate on holding off the Soviets.

The 262 still couldn't win the war, but when the LW almost crippled the 8th AF bomber offensive with prop fighters alone up until the arrival of a long range allied escort, it's obvious that they would have benefitted greatly from having 262s in sufficient numbers.
The reasons the 8th AF loss figures dropped and the disasters of the Regensburg and Schweinfurt raids were not repeated is exactly what you guys are pointing out, long range meant a bunch of mustang groups roaming at will in big wolfpacks, able to cover the bombers all the way to the targets. The 262 was the tool that although unable to directly take the mustangs out, it was perfectly capable of bypassing them entirely and nullifying their impact to a great extent. The real objective was the bombers.
If the LW was able to maintain a 10% atrrition rate against the 8th on most raids, the Normandy landings would have been delayed and German industrial production would have got a very significant respite (as evindeced by data that showed production rising even during the strategic bombing campaign under Speer's guidance).

However, there's an small tid-bit here that sometimes doesn't get enough recognition and it's pretty important, as even if enough 262s and capable pilots were available it would still put a serious dent in LW's plans.

Near the end of the war, allied fighters operated mostly in advance fighter sweeps and not close escort. Some people in the brass fought tooth and nail to convince their peers to "set the fighters free" as they put it. Not easy to convince people about that when it had become clear that unescorted bombers resulted in prohibitive loss figures. However, it proved to be very effective, because it's exactly this strategy that enabled the allies to camp LW bases and deny them a safe haven. Regardless of the range of the pony, if they stuck to operating them in the close and top cover escort roles there wouldn't be mustangs camping over the 262 bases to catch them at their most vulnerable.

In brief, if the hardware is good enough and compares well to contemporary adversaries, the outcome rests mainly on the application of said hardware. It seems to me that it's actually two factors, the flawed application of the 262 that delayed its production and the waste of experienced LW aircrew in the ardennes offensive, coupled with the new doctrine in allied fighter operations favoring advanced roaming squads instead of point defence, that really tipped the scale during the final months. In that sense, it's not the pony that won the war...it's the sound way it was employed in, combined with the faulty way the LW employed their jets.

Even after 'Berlin Week', the bombing campaign probably wasn't worth the vast expense. It did allow the UK and US to fight on at a sustainable rate, however. The aero-naval engagements in the Med, Channel and Pacific were ideal for their industrial power and high standards of training.

It's doubtful if those resources would have been better used if committed to an early land invasion. The western allies would have struggled if involved in prolonged intense land fighting. WWII was much more popular than WWI precisely because the UK was spared horrors such as the Somme.

The bombing campaign really came into its own during the campaign against communications in France & Belgium prior to D-Day. That, and the devastating attack on German the refining and synthetic fuel industries, were the crowning achievements of the air war.

German fuel stocks actually rose during the east-front lull in spring '44, but production collapsed after May '44 and stocks were rapidly depleted thereafter.

dduff

It's not really necessary to be pro-fascist to speculate on such matters. The fact is that the war could have been a lot worse if rationality and common sense had not disappeared from Germany's leadership.

When it came down to it, in spite of all the rhetoric about the body national etc Germany was just a vehicle for the personal ambitions of the top Nazis. Even nuclear weapons couldn't have guaranteed their surrender, because they cared more about themselves than anything else and would have dreamt up rationales for fighting on. The actual effects of the 1000-bomber raids on Germany were not less than atomic bombs in any case. Atomic weapons might have even reinforced the millenarian mindset the Nazis encouraged.

Retaliation with chemical weapons, including nerve gas on a large scale, would have been possible. Large regions might have been made uninhabitable, and the fury of the allies would have been much more intense when they finally did break into Germany.

dduff442

I tend to agree. Surprise and concentration are two of the most fundamental principles of war. Germany was surprised by massive concentrations of P-51s on a daily basis from Feb-44 on.

dduff442

Blackdog_kt and ElAurens... you guys both make some great points! The tactics employed on the strategic level enabling the Mustangs to "go free" had a huge impact... It's much bigger than the plane itself. But having fighters marauding over the entire airspace and being encouraged to show initiative and shoot up anything they can find changes things so much.

And it's also true that since Germany was on the front lines they were able to bring to bear more recently developed aircraft in the late days of the war while the U.S. geographic distance from the conflicts prevented the higher performance types from reaching the battle... It's important to remember the much improved P-51H, P-80, P-82 and B-29 that likely would have been deployed had the war continued.

Not to mention the B-36 if things had gone really bad.

Remember, it was initially designed to bomb Germany from bases in the US.

..we went from pony talk to phoney talk ;)

I still think that the stock Mustang in 46 is .. questionable... and from what I understand this was actually proven.. the length was too short I believe.. This was corrected in the HSFX Mustang.. and from my understanding that was all they did, was correct that number and added API to the belting... IMO the stock Mustang had issues.. Your tracks are great Thor.. but yoiu know back in CFS the 99th flew Mustangs there too... and that is to say that we just took what we had and used it.. which is what we do here... when flying D-20NAs .... but there are ussues with the stock P-51s that were never addressed.. even in terms of the 50s... Why is it that in the stock sim you can take a P-40 ... same 6 50s right? And bustem up!! but in the Mustang ... it is harder.. because there were stability issues in the stock Mustang that I have not heard one pilot who flew a Mustang mention... Often flying the stock P-51D was like trying to balance a ruler on a pencil eraser ... Hopefully in 4.10 some of those issues are addressed....

What's the other thing people usually ask for about the Mustang. There was a different engine boost setting for USAAF Mustang's used against Japan correct? Was that a higher setting or a lower one?

Thanks mate.

Yeah, the stock (haven't tried anything else) is a bit twitchy. That is why I always flew with 100% sensitivity on all axes. With minimal rudder input and good trim she can shoot very steady, like I have shown in the video.

But I do agree, it does have some issues. Not a show stopper, but not perfect either.

Much higher. I forget the exact manifold pressure, but P 51s operating in the Pacific had all the 150 Octane Avgas they would ever need.

One of the mods does indeed reflect this with the later Mustangs (D25 D30) that they put in as new slot aircraft. I'd have to look at the MP next time I fly one to see, but it's well over 70".

And a shameless plug for my favorite aircraft here...

I'd still like to see the over boosted P40s that the USAAF and RAF used, both in the Pacific and North Africa. They were field modded to get 70 odd inches of mercury, which yielded something on the order of 1600 bhp at low levels.

Do performance charts exist for either these P-40s or the P-51s? That was always the problem with the Tempest receiving it's 1945 boost levels of +11 (some even had +13lbs of boost). There was serious effort to include an official +11 Tempest (I'm aware of the unofficial one which I think is just an educated guess) but the charts are totally incomplete and I was never able to find any more information. Same problem with the Mustangs or is it better documented?

Actually over-boosted models make a bigger difference in IL2 than they did in reality. That's why i was moaning about systems modelling and improved engine management for SoW:-P

Those 70 inHG of manifold pressure or +11lbs of boost or 1.75 Ata and what not are settings we can run all day long in IL2. In reality power settings like those were used only for take-off and emergencies, usual limits being between 1 and 5 minutes and based on the amount of time it took a freshly started engine's temperature to climb to melting point where things start to break.
Lining up on the tarmac on a hot day and being last for takeoff meant they were almost unattainable to begin with, flying high in cold air with mixture on the rich side and open radiators/cowl flaps could give a few extra seconds.

True, it could make a difference if i'm trying to catch someone or i need that extra little bit of power to evade a bad situation, but by no means does it constitute any kind of permanent advantage in reality. Not only does overheat occur fast, cooling the engine equally fast will not solve the problem...in fact it can also cause damage due to expansion-contraction of the metal parts, but on the other hand i would still need to cool the engine as the longer it stays like that, the higher the risk of something breaking or an oil fire breaking out.

Even if i bring it back within the limits, every second spent above them is damage and risk of malfunction that accumulates and doesn't just evaporate the moment i am back within the normal temperature envelope. Of course, we don't have those things in IL2 and that's why everyone prefers to fly the highest boosted variant of each type. Case in point the Spit +25lbs. In reality, maximum continuous boost for Spitfires was around between +8 and +10 lbs, anything higher than that came with a time limit and a rapidly climbing radiator coolant temperature. If the coolant temp exceeds 100 degrees Celsius or starts to evaporate, you're left with an engine that will either seize completely or is even more restricted by overheat in the amount of power it can produce.

Sorry to be a killjoy, but unless we see some kind of engine paramameters modifications in a future patch i think we have enough high boost planes as it is ;)

IceFire, check your PMs.

:cool:

I agree with Blackdog completely.

I would like to add that I feel it's too difficult to start an overheat in the first place. Another quirk is that the overheat doesn't do any damage to the engine until it's been in the overheat condition for at least a few minutes.

"Feeling" that something is too difficult is not good enough.

Empirical data is the only way to set such parameters.

Frankly most aircraft in the sim overheat far too readily in flight, especially the air cooled birds, FW 190 A excepted.

How do you avoid an overheat? You say you find it difficult to start one, I cant help but start overheat haha...I try to fly on lower power settings till combat then I run 110% and change my throttle throughout the battle as neccesary but I always wind up with an overheat...I just got out of a SP game and my engine died b/c of overheat...it was overheating for quite some time haha....P51 is still not impressing me hahah Although the Ultra mod Pack and HSFX does make it quite alot better then the base Il2...it actually flies now atleast, then to boot the Blue Nosed bastards of bodany skin makes it pretty awesome.

I think IL2 models a lot of things very well. What's missing is that they have no effect whatsoever on engine condition, not unless the engine completes one full "session" of overheat to trigger the seizing effect. If the "session" is reset (by going back to normal temps before damage starts to occur), then the engine is as good as new.

In reality, things would be more gradual. The engine would start exhibiting troublesome behaviour earlier (this doesn't mean it would always be detectable though, it could a background occurence that would take extra abuse to show symptoms) which although not outright fatal, would accumulate over time for every instance the pilot pushed it beyond the normal envelope.