[madrebel]

Originally Posted by b101uk

You will find almost all performance characteristics documented for British military equipment is on the conservative side of what its true value is and that has been the ethos long before ww2, this is also true for no end of different countries military equipment.

not really no. i've found brit reports are fairly standard. the only airforce who is often conservative i have found is the germans but only in some cases. examples being the finnish tests of their F4s and G2s were all quite a bit higher than the german tests (above standard deviation).

Perhaps if you wanted more true values you would perhaps use the RAE ME109 times then find the test by the war time German equivalent of the “RAE” on captured spitfires, given there is no need for the British to occlude true performance figures of ME109 test results & the same is true of the Germans with true spitfire performance figures.

which are all similar to the british tests. as are US tests

Also with respect to very heavy ailerons etc at speed (spitfire and hurricane), what may be heavy or physically limiting during testing over the relative safety of your own country soon becomes much lighter at the same speed when in combat as the adrenalin is racing threw your system, so the implication is a physically strong pilot engaged in combat will achieve better roll rates at high speed than a weaker pilot in the same situation BUT both will achieved better comparative roll rates than the “tests flights” due to the adrenalin of combat giving strength.

same goes for all planes then, right?