Quote, jameson: "Why does Gaston think the FW190 was used primarily as a fighter in Reich defence, or anywhere else in Western Europe?"
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-Because from being a minority fighter in the West in early 1944, it represented 70% of the Western front-line fighter strenght in late 1944...
If you don't know the facts, why argue the point?
Quote jameson: "Why does Gaston never talk about the FW190's Achilles heel, it's vicious snap stall, regularly mentioned in those 1200 combat reports he claims to have read, where the attacking US pilot reports the FW pulling into a turn, flipping over and nosing in without a shot being fired?"
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-If you don't read my posts about this in THIS very thread, why do you comment on them? In addition to the fact that I ALWAYS said handling of the FW-190A above 250 MPH was very poor, especially from the A-5 forward, and specifically because of this:
http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/3950/pag20pl.jpg
, you might also want to make the terrible effort of perusing this which I wrote two pages back:
"Interesting note: Starting the turn fight at high speed, hoping to decelerate into the better lower speed while turning, is a dangerous idea in a Fw-190A... Maybe especially so for later longer-nose Antons: As the Fw-190A decelerates into its more favorable lower speed turn speed region (around 220 knots-250 MPH IAS) it abruptly changes pitch, which has to be compensated by the pilot instantly by pushing forward on the stick... Or it will stall: This is why the FW-190A Western ace described downthrottling long PRIOR to the merge: Decelerating from faster into lower speed while turning was risky... E. Brown also mentions this abrupt change in pitch, but did not find it dangerous on a short-nose Anton. It may have been worse on later Antons, as a few combat anecdotes seem to indicate..."
Quote, AndyJWest: "He's right about one thing though, the Ubi moderators are 'hostile'. Given his insistance on repeating the same gobbledygook every few weeks, without ever backing it up with anything other than more of the same, their hostility is entirely justified."
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-Yes, and their intellectual honesty is clearly demonstrated when they delete their OWN explanation why Johnny Johnson's "vertical turn" lingo is in fact a horizontal turn, and won't re-iterate what they themselves said about it (you can't make this stuff up!)...:
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/471...sononfw190.jpg
Quote, Ernst: "Reducing power can or not to help increase turn rate. If you are above your corner speed so reducing power ll help."
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-Yes, but if according to the only modern-instrument test of WWII fighters EVER (in 1989), 4 US types had their 6G Corner Speed "Very close to the maximum level speed (METO?: 315 MPH IAS at 10.0 on P-51D)", what room does that leave to your argument about
temporary downthrottling? Not much! Not many 360°s to do between 350 and 315 MPH, trust me... Which is why prolonged flaps-down downthrottling accounts, on the deck(!), show this theoretically correct explanation to be more confusion than help:
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/m...an-24may44.jpg
Quote, Flanker35M: "Bf109 had excellent slow speed handling due the mild stall characteristics, helped by the slats. I think Spitfire and Bf109 were quite close in turning as a lot depends on the pilot. Hans-Joachim Marseille continuously outturned Spits, Hurricanes and P40's in North-Africa, but again he was an extraordinary pilot knowing his plane and a sharpshooter."
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-Yes it could turn quite tightly at low speed, maybe tighter than a FW-190A, but what you guys persistently fail to get it that it lost more speed than most other fighters in doing so: Oseau shoot-down witness (G6AS vs P-51D): "Each turn became tighter, and Oseau's aircraft lost speed, more so than his adversaries" (Peculiar aerodynamic behaviour to the 109 I would guess)
A fellow officer commented on this: "Many times I had said to Oseau the FW-190A was better than the Bf-109, but he was an old Messerschmitt pilot, and he preferred it"
And then of course: "-Squadron Leader Alan Deere, (Osprey Spit MkV aces 1941-45, Ch. 3, p. 2: "Never had I seen the Hun stay and fight it out as these Focke-Wulf pilots were doing... In Me-109s the Hun tactic had always followed the same pattern- a quick pass and away, sound tactics against Spitfires and their SUPERIOR TURNING CIRCLE. Not so these 190 pilots: They were full of confidence..."
Quote, Kwiatek: " These confirmed also German raport from captured LA5 FN when they found that LA5 turn better then Fw 190 but worse then 109."
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-True, but easily explained by sustained turns at FULL power above 250 MPH:
http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/3950/pag20pl.jpg
As I said from the very first post, this La-5 report is the
only German WWII source to say this: Do you really want to pin your hopes
entirely on this, as I did for fifteen years? Or, -roll eyes-, the US Navy reports? Or do you want to at least consider what front-line pilots actually said?: Johnny Johnson : "190 out-turns Bf-109"
Russian experience evaluation: "Quote: -"The speed of the FW-190 is slightly higher than that of the Messerschmitt; it also has more powerful armament and is more maneuverable in horizontal flight." etc.. etc.. ad nauseam...
Quote, JTD: "Third, any effect the prop forces might have on turning, will be canceled out by the elevator, which itself only has a minimal impact on drag."
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-Ok, basic physics time... Last time I looked, the elevators were not off on their own, but rigidly connected to the main wings...
First of all, the load of the turn is not borne mostly by the tailplanes: I would think that would be obvious...
Second, the elevator has a 18 foot lever (the tail) to start an imbalance in the wing's angle of attack: A few hundred pounds of down force at the tail translates into maybe thousands of pound of force directed at changing the wing's angle of attack...
Third, upon the wings angle of attack being changed, the wing itself assists further changes because the leading edge is higher and higher, causing more and more upward drag on the wing, but this being prevented from going out of control by the prop's thrust AND other drag forces, all of which does not stop the wing's load from being increased... The wing's leading edge higher position acts in effect as a "power assist" to defeat the thrust force of the propeller, allowing the angrily pulling forward prop to be tilted back ever so slightly, so the pilot is not pulling back on the prop directly with his own muscle because the wing's increasing load is helping him by taking up the load, and in addition he has the 18 foot lever, with pulley assistance, to help initiate the tilt....
This is basic leverage physics: Just because, at the end of a 18 foot long lever, you are not using a lot of strenght to lift something, doesn't mean the loads are EASIER on the the pivot point...
You lift 1000 pounds with an 18 feet lever it might feel like 100 pounds to you, but unlike what JTD is suggesting with his "minimal drag" statement, this does not mean the pivot point is not lifting 1000 pounds...
I hope the vacuity of the JTD's argument is obvious, though the wing's leading edge nose-lift "power-assistance" issue was indeed less evident...
Gaston