Quote:
Originally Posted by Liz Lemon
I wonder how many people realize that 15mph difference from stated performance was generally accepted in production aircraft.
I remember reading a report where production P-38s were performing 25mph below their specified performance and over 1000m below their stated max altitude. This happened to be a bit below the army air force cut off and the aircraft went to naca for testing. As it turned out the ducting for the turbo chargers had gaps of a few millimeters. These gaps were enough to make the air turn a bit too turbulent for the turbo-superchargers to ingest properly, and robbed the aircraft of a fairly significant amount of power. This resulted in a max speed and alt quite a bit lower then specified.
Now I'm not saying the FM of this game is completely borked or flawed... but to expect that the performance figures from test aircraft that were probably hand assembled and tested by the best pilots and flown in the best conditions possible... well the stated performance of such test shouldn't be taken as gospel when it comes to aircraft flying on the front lines. Small flaws in production, and the dings and dents that come with field operation can rob and aircraft of a surprising amount of top speed.
And this isn't even getting into the issues of pressure, temps and the like. Which also have a very large impact on an aircraft. Just ask anyone who has flown a cessna on a winter day and a hot, humid summer day.
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As a matter of fact every! german plane leaving the production line was tested to meet the standards before it was delivered to the Luftwaffe.
Any plane not meeting the tolerances was sent back for refurbishing.
I believe the procedure became more lax in 1945, though.
I also believe that the allies had something similar.