[JG14_Josf]

Not necessarily, if the 109 decides to fly straight there is nothing you can do.

Robo,

I did not get very far into your welcome reply before I saw a need to be more clear rather than being less clear. The engagement to which the above quote is referencing is obviously not known by you or you would not have responded in that way, since your response has nothing to do with the words I wrote in reference to the engagement I experienced.

Why you may be concentrating on a specific level flight speed advantage is your axe to grind, for whatever reason you may want to do so, and as to how that axe grinding relates to this topic on Energy Maneuverability, and the specific engagement, or my specific comments, are your exclusive understanding at this point. I have no clue as to how your comment fits into this general discussion or my specific comments.

Had we had Spitfires, not 109s, in the specific engagement in reference, the 109 would have been shot down much sooner, probably by Hertt, and the point is that in such an engagement, 4 on 1, the Spitfire's advantages are significant advantages, as it can turn and burn remarkably better, and the remarks are specific, and the betterness is not specific to top speed, or hit and run tactics, had a different engagement been specified such as us flying along and having a single attacker attack once, one hit, and then leave the scene in a level straight line run.

Furthermore, assuming that the single attack by the single 109 upon our group of 4 thereby defensive fighters defending against the single attack by the single fighter, had we seen the attack, rather than being bounced, and having Spitfires, rather than 109s, we can more handily avoid the single attack, by the single 109, and then the single 109 is gone forever, or the single 109 turns, burns, and returns, with more or less energy burnt and that is actually the subject topic, being the topic of Energy Maneuverability.

How much energy is lost, relatively speaking, when plane A does the same thing that plane B does, and therefore which plane can stay and fight, or Angles Fighting (to borrow from Shaw), and which plane can't - i.e. Double Inferior.

Going back:

With more experience with this sim you will find that one Spitfire is no match for four 109s on comms.

So...we are inexperienced and we are shown to be of such poorness for our being almost shot down with 4 of us against 1 Spitfire. Do I understand what you are telling me?

Going back further:

My point in general is, that perhaps more time in the sim is needed for anyone to embrace the FM characteristics in detail and both sides should be flown extensively before making any conclusions. All above with all due respect to your flying skill and theoretical knowledge.

I have enough experience to conclude, without any room for any doubt (other than a possible improvement with light fuel loads), that the Spitfire in the game is Superior in Sustained Turn Performance which can be plotted out on an Energy Maneuverability Stall line at Ps=0, whereby the Spitfire will handily out maneuver a 109 on that Ps=0, level, or horizontal, sustained, turn.

If you can please either confirm or contend with that conclusion and please consider avoiding such an acknowledgement any further as my ability to read between the lines continues as your words appear to be changing the focus of attention from those facts to my level of experience instead. I do not appreciate that if that is your attention, and you can help me here by acknowledging the conclusion or contending with it if you think that the conclusion is in error.

Thanks in advance.

Backing up to the start (before I felt the need to interrupt the flow of information that is welcome from you):

Hello Josf, sorry to confuse you. I really enjoy fighter aircraft tactics debates and being a keen virtual pilot I appreciate your effort in this thread. I don't know you at all and there is no subtext in my reply and you should read is as plain it was written.

I can confuse myself well enough, so I don't need any help, so thanks. I am working at avoiding the reading between the lines, and to that end it would help greatly if you were to acknowledge the conclusion offered which is the obvious and accurately measurable conclusion that the Spitfire is at least Single Superior with the superior Sustained Turn Performance advantage that is coded into the game.

Moving back to the flow of information after the quote that broke my concentration, and now I will respond to each offering as I read each, as I no longer see any reason to read the whole thing first - before responding.

It can also be attributed to your inability to use the 109 to its full potential yet.

The point here, if my efforts are not understood, is to understand all the variables, well enough, and then conclude the facts as they are knowable, such as:

The Spitfire is at least Single Superior with a decidedly superior Sustained Turn Performance Advantage.

That is the one obvious fact I can confidently conclude so far, and the other variables, such as my present lack of skill is understood too, so I don't need any help in that department, that fact of my lack of skill is as plain as the nose on my face, but thanks, and you really don't need to remind me of that fact, like my nose, it is there all the time, a big nose.

Pretty much as expected. Mind you that in the sim it is indeed possible to outturn a Spitfire if 109 pilot happens to be of higher skill and Spitfire pilot of rather low.

I think I can take the "pretty much as expected" comment to be a confirmation in the conclusion made concerning the Single (at least) Superior Performance of the Spitfire over the 109 in Sustained Turn Performance, which is not yet conclusive of, or to be assumed to be, a lower (therefor better) Corner Speed performance advantage coded into the Spitfire over the 109? Can I take that as an acknowledgment or is that reading too much in between lines?

A Corner Speed advantage held by either plane is a significant advantage and I do not know which plane, not yet, has that advantage.

As to how poorly a Spitfire virtual pilot has to be in order to be out turned by a 109 or how good the 109 pilot has to be, well that is good news, because that is another thing found in the document reproduced on this Forum where the British were engaging in mock combat with a captured 109, where the actual British Spitfire Combat Pilots were failing to get close enough to the edge of their flight envelopes, where their Spitfires were subject to nasty spins, according to the document, and the 109 pilot, who was British, turned inside the British pilots turns, and he could do so without any tendency, according to the report, for the 109 to spin, even when departing the flight envelope.

I don't know if you read that document. It is very interesting.

Yes indeed.

I will now take that as a confirmation on the question of which plane is coded with the superior Sustained Turn Performance, that being the Spitfire.

Certainly.

There is where I have to trust your judgment, at this point, because I have found that the 109 is very tight in turning at corner speed, so I have yet to see if the Spitfire is even better, which would be remarkable indeed.

Note: Which plane loses altitude faster (dumps energy) during that turn at Corner Speed if the turn is such as described in Navair as a Windup Turn (extended beyond the finding of the data plot)? <----an Energy Maneuverability question and decidedly ON TOPIC.

109 (very much depending on pilot's CEM skill)

CEM, if I am not mistaken, means Engine Management, but there is more to it, and that is what I am here to find out, and it is very encouraging to find someone willing to discuss this stuff in any detail.

That is the subject of Level Flight Acceleration and that is a vital part in finding out which plane has a Specific Excess Power advantage and that is the stuff of the Double Superior area, the Vertical Maneuvering as opposed to the Horizontal Maneuvering, or the Energy Fighting as opposed to the Angles Fighting area since a loaded (wings are loaded to maintain level flight) acceleration advantage is understood to be an unloaded (minimum drag such as a dive) acceleration advantage and therefore an unloaded zoom climb (minimum drag again) deceleration advantage, which means that the 109 should then be very good at performing a Sustained Turn Technique against an eager Spitfire pilot, even if the Spitfire has a lower corner speed (advantage in corner speed).

Level Flight Acceleration tests are well described on the Naviar site, and I can cut and paste if needed. There are methods used to plot out that data and then use that data to build Energy Maneuverability information, such as Specific Excess Power information.

Level flight acceleration is the stuff of Total Thrust minus Total Drag as described by John Boyd and is formula which goes something like this:

Ps = V(T/W-D/W)

Level Flight Acceleration Performance Advantage is a Specific Excess Power advantage which means a higher total POWER to accelerate after Total Drag is subtracted during the flight conditions where acceleration is knowable.

If the plane is accelerating then Total Thrust is more than Total Drag - of course. How much more? Which plane has more Specific Excess Power? How much more Specific Excess Power does the 109 have over the Spitfire in Level Flight as one plane will accelerate faster than the other at which speeds from stall to Top Speed in Level Flight?

It stands to reason that the faster Top Speed indicates a faster rate of acceleration along the way from stall to Top Speed.

This information, this conclusion that the 109 is faster in acceleration in level flight, is the information that determines the Energy Fighting Performance Advantages, or Single Superiority of the 109, if the information is accurate, and I see no reason to doubt it, then the score card is:

Sustained Turn Performance/Angles Fighting/Horizontal Maneuvering/Single Superior Advantage goes to: Spitfire

Level Acceleration/unloaded dive acceleration/unloaded zoom climb deceleration/Energy Fighting/Vertical Maneuvering/Single Superior Advantage goes to: 109

Spitfire is by those conclusions not Double Superior.

109 is by those conclusions not Double Superior.

You are wrong indeed. You will find that the 109 is far superior in the vertical level.

That has to do with my estimates of probability, which are estimates, so the wrongness or rightness of my estimates are understood to be unknown variables.

It is encouraging to here of these conditions of Single Superiority, not that I have any argument about which plane should or should not be double superior historically, but because I know how the IL2 game started with a very simplistic Flight Model and this news is encouraging because the CLoD Flight Model may actually be an improvement in the ability to model Single Superiority of one plane, one plane being an Angles Fighter, and another plane modeled as an Energy Fighter, rather than the way the IL2 game was limited, where one plane was either/or Double Inferior or Double Superior originally, and then someone started messing with the program to attempt to fudge the Flight Model in such a way as to model Single Superiority, but I think that they ended up changing the threshold of black out on one plane relative to another plane and that is how the game developed, as far as I know so far.

Changing the individual pilots g force tolerance from 5 g to 6 g, for example, does not change the plots on the Accelerated Stall line Coded into the game, in other words the plane is the same plane, but the change in the individual pilots g force tolerance does move the pilots capacity to move up and right on that accelerated stall line, and up means (if you look at that Accelerated Stall Line on an Energy Maneuverability Chart) a higher turn rate, more degrees per second, but not necessarily a better turn radius, moving to the right is higher speed before blacking out - interesting stuff.

Note how the Korean War EM chart does not duplicate (as in calculated) the same shape of the Accelerated Stall Line, so it is possible, but remains to be documented, or otherwise concluded, that this new game CLoD, is of such a highly refined Flight Model, that individual Accelerated Stall Lines, of a character that is individual to the individual plane, and not a size and shape that "fits all", may be the case.

Imagine that!

Individual characteristics for each plane such that one plane may be Single Superior to another plane rather than every plane being either/or Double Inferior or Double Superior, and is that even possible on a Personal Computer, without having to adjust individual pilot g load tolerances?

I don't know, but this latest news in encouraging.

I did not comment on the laughter in your squad at all, I also make funny comments while flying with my pals.

Great! I have chores to do right now and I plan on returning to this discussion when time permits, no time for editing.