Demo P-51 and Spitfire Top Speed
 

Hey, excellent demo, extremely impressive visuals, sound and flight characteristics on Simulation mode.

That said, does anyone else find the top speed on Simulation mode a bit odd? I'm going 100% throttle, even with WEP (which seems to make no difference on Simulation), and the Spitfire and P-51 both struggle to go faster than 250 mph on the level, accelerating extremely slowly if at all.

Does anyone else have this problem? Is there something I'm missing with the throttle controls?

Also, does anyone know how the trim works? I know "A" controls trim in Sim mode, but I can't tell which way it is actually changing the trim.

Does anyone use the Saitek flight stick on the 360? How is it? I'm thinking about purchasing one (Ace Edge is too expensive and not available in stores in my area), but I'm not sure how the controls would be mapped.

If someone who has it could explain how the controls are mapped to it, that would be excellent.

Based on this information it seems pretty close to reality.

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.o...tical-inc2.pdf

Here is the tactical trial that links to the above page

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.o...al-trials.html

whoaa...now that solid :rolleyes:

The saitek stick is worth the money, at least in the few days I've had it. Some of the buttons are in inconvenient places so it's best for sim mode where there is no target zoom anyway. It's WAY better then just using the Xbox controller if you can find a comfortable way to support it.

The trim button fixes the trim based on your current attitude. Try to get the plane as level as you can with whatever nose position you want and hit the Trim button. It will lock in the trim based on that. It usually takes me a few trys to lock it in closer and closer to level flight.

Thanks much for the tips guys.

That said, has anyone been able to exceed 300 mph in level flight in either the P-51 or the Spitfire?

Considering that late model P-51s could easily exceed 400 mph in level flight, it seems somewhat unrealistic that the in-game model can't seem to break 250 mph.

I was told that the later model P51's had an entirely different engine (A Rolls Royce if I remember correctly) than the first few models. The upgraded engine greatly improved their speed and ceiling in the later stages of the war.

But, I'm neither an airplane nut or a history buff so I wouldn't be surprised to be corrected in a later post.

You are right. The first Mustang, the P51A, was fitted with an Allison engine, which was good enough at low altitude but lacked supercharging and therefore had poor performance at high altitude. The plane in the demo is the later P51D Mustang which had an American built version of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine.

A Merlin equipped P51D could easily exceed 400 mph in level flight, right?

I can't even get past 250 in the game, though. Am I missing something with the throttle controls? WEP seems to make no different from 100% thrust with acceleration.

Easily go past 400mph is probably overstating performance, since the Mustang D had a top speed of around 390mph at low level. The weight of the rockets will also be slowing you down.

However 250mph does seem rather low, so here is a little experiment to try. Get up to a decent altitude, and then dive until you do reach 400mph. Then see if you can hold this speed in level flight. If not, see what speed you can maintain.

ive come close to 375 Mph level flight.

At what altitude? Was this with speed from a dive, or just gaining speed by going level?

I tried bringing the P-51 to 20 000 feet and diving, it reached 492 mph in the dive but the speed dropped off quickly after levelling.

The highest I could reach at very low altitude was 280 mph.

Does anyone know if the speed indicator is showing true airspeed or indicated airspeed?

If they fly at the same speed no matter what the altitude then they must be using true air speed. If it they were using IAS then you would probably see the speed closer to 400-500 mph when flying under 10,000 ft.

I haven't finished the download yet but if BoP is doing things right then the speed you're seeing listed is called Indicated Air Speed (IAS). The top speed of aircraft that you see published in books and so forth is listed in True Air Speed (TAS). The Mustang will top out at 437mph TAS (D model) or 439mph TAS (B/C models) in the 25,000 feet range where the difference between IAS and TAS will be quite high. At sea level IAS and TAS are the same.

The difference is that air at higher altitudes is thinner thus the measurement will be different for speed. TAS corrects for that difference and measures your actual speed across the ground.

Yeah I know what IAS and TAS are, I just didn't know which one IL-2 BOP is using because it doesn't specify.

Since the maximum speed is so much lower at sea level, how fast was a P-51D supposed to be able to go at sea level or very close to it?

Also, do you know what the "WEP" throttle setting is? I'd never heard of such a thing before.

War Emergency Power. Pilots referred to it as pushing the throttle "through the gate." It would burn up fuel pretty quickly, but since we have unlimited we can push the throttle through the gate forever in the game.

Try this: http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.o...stangtest.html

According to the top test a standard P-51B Mustang operating at 60.5" Manifold Pressure reaches 363 MPH TAS at 5000 feet. Thats the lowest altitude they test for on that one. There are a variety of other tests available but they use higher pressures in the engine and better grades of fuel. Have a look...but be warned there's lots of information :)

WEP is war emergency power. On the Mustang it'll include a bump up in boost pressures as well as water injection to keep the engine from exploding.

Thanks for the info.

After getting the hang of the controls a bit more, I got the P-51D up to 300 mph level flight at very low level (under 2000 ft).

Still slow to accelerate, but very quick to climb.

how about your flaps? (snigger...)

keeping flaps raised and trim sorted with the stang really helped me...got into dogfighting the 190s (quick buggers! )...adjusting the flaps back to raised from combat as soon as you don't need the stability...and the stang is loaded with rockets at the start..
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