I Want my 4.09 Spit FM's back.........

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by K_Freddie

Quote:
Originally Posted by winny View Post
Use of the slats to deliberatly stall the plane to escape a Spitfire seem quite comon among the German Aces from what I've read



I'd like to read this book, never seen it before

That was Hans Joachim Marseille attacking Lufberry circles in Africa not 109's vs Spitfires in the BoB.

What actually IS documented in the BoB is that the better LW pilots often flew elliptical turns in a dog fight using the slats to temporarily pull some lead and then loosing the stick again before too much speed was washed off.

[Ernst]

Originally Posted by FC99

Hi,
our float carburetor and Shilling orifice model is primarily based on description in Pilot's Notes General AP 2095. We would welcome any better source than that.

In regard the video I think that you are wrong in your conclusion. You can take any Spitfire with SO and perform same maneuver. Biggest difference is that things are more binary in game than in RL. That is design decision because SO is tightly connected with mixture control model which is rather rudimentary in game at the moment.


That is another deliberate decision. We know that WEP is not realistic but we see it more like immersion problem. Changing it would require careful examination of the code. Very often some changes that look simple and harmless could cause problems later when it turns out that they interfere or interact with some other parts of the code which might not be obvious at first glance.

So in terms of cost/benefit we decided that it is best and safest to leave WEP for now.

FC

As far as i known Mrs Shilling Orifice was a not a definitive solution. The time for engine recovery was just lesser, but the negative g effect still there. Even carburetor was not as good as fuel injection.

[Tempest123]

Fuel injection wasn't designed as solution for inverted flight, it was designed to get an even charge of fuel/air to each cylinder. Rolls Royce used carburettors deliberately in the Merlin because they gave a colder/denser fuel/air mixture, so more power was produced than with a fuel injection system. It was a trade-off at that point, and they switched to pressure carburettors later on to cope with negative G's. Kind of interesting all these small details that come out in combat.

[jameson]

BBC documentary:
Spitfire! Two seconds to kill
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/battleo...in/11405.shtml

Bob Stanford Tuck and Douglas Bader discussing more or less what this thread is about. From 25 mins on, pertinent remarks regarding Merlin's neg G fuel Starvation and Miss Shillings orifice by Sir Stanley Hooker of Rolls Royce.

Please post a reply to say whether it's possible to watch this if you are outside UK, thanks.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Triggaaar

We're talking about how good competing aircraft were, so what they're up against is very relevant. The Me 262 was revolutionairy, but late designs of the Spit, FW190, or 109 were not, so it's not the same comparison.

How good any of these fighters were is completely dependant on how good their rivals were, so we have to compare models against each other. When the FW190 came out, it was better than the Spit mkV, so the Spit mkIX was made and avialable in the summer of 42. Improvements to each side's aircraft were made specifically to counter the opponents (the spit mk IX would never have been made if it weren't for the 190).

So when we want to look at how good the D9 was, we need to look at what it was up against, and what it was up against depended on how many D9s were in the air. For example, if there weren't enough pilots or fuel for the first 190s, the RAF would have never made the Spit mk IX, and looking back the first 190s would now be compared to the Spit mk V, so we'd think of the first 190s as better than the competition.

Regardless of that I am interested in how the D9 performed against the late war Spits, so if you have any documents, let's have 'em.

You're correct in what you say, but maybe i misunderstood why you were saying it.
What i was trying to convey is that the FM is the FM and it's not dependent on the competition's FM.
In that sense, when you are talking about how good the D9 was you obviously refer to how good it was in comparison to other aircraft, while i was talking specifically about what it can do in its own right. In any case, i'm glad you cleared it up for me

Originally Posted by JG4_Helofly

Hmmm... FM discussions. Have you ever noticed that most times it's only about turning performance or speed? As if these were the only variables that mattered.
That's the result of IL2 playing: It's the only reality we know

Let's hope that COD will introduce other things we will have to worry about in combat. Complex engine management for exemple. At the moment you can hit the W-key leave everything on 100% and you are ready to go. There is no advantage having the Kommandogerät or other automatic devices.
Should be interesting to see how COD will increase the workload in the cockpit. This should slightly change things. For exemple:Having a slight advantage in speed or turn will not make your plane supperior, because maybe the other guy can handle prop pitch etc. better then you.
Or more engine failures due to improper engine management.

I am looking forward to all this (if it's in the game)

That's exactly why i've been advocating improved subsystems modeling over IL2. Currently in IL2 the situation is completely reversed sometimes, for example a P47 can use most settings with near impunity while in reality it had 4 different engine controls to monitor (prop pitch, semi-auto mixture, throttle and turbo-supecharger), while the FW-190 which was completely automatic performs better when used in manual mode (at least the stock ones, the modded ones work fine on auto).

It's not only historically correct to model these intricacies, it also happens to balance the game out between higher and lower performing aircraft without resorting to gimmicks but by copying what each aircraft actually did in real life.

What's more, this doesn't only benefit the blue team's planes, since the situation was reversed early in the war due to the different choice of propellers used as Kwiatek correctly points out:

Originally Posted by Kwiatek

JG4_Helofly Spits or Hurricanes from BOB era have not too much engine workload. You opearated mostly throttle level beacuse you got CSP ( constant speed propeller unit) which mean that you just set only wanted RPM ( in fight maximum possible, in cruise depend of economy of fuel) and mixture level was also only for economical flying ( auto - reach - lean). Much more work load have planes with variable prop pitch like early 109s and early russian planes.

With a constant speed prop you move the lever until you reach the desired RPM and the prop governor keeps it there no matter what you do with the throttle or if you climb or dive (within certain limits due to the prop blade's gimbal stops/rotation limits, it's still possible to have increased RPM in a long dive or low RPM when idling on the ground even when the prop lever is at maximum, but it's easy to manage), but with a variable pitch prop you have to manually do the work that the prop governor does in constant speed props.

Essentially, with a CSP you select your RPM and the governor keeps it there by automatically adjusting the blade angle, but with a variable pitch prop you directly change the blade angle yourself. Since the same blade angle produces different RPM for different airspeeds and throttle settings, you have to constantly be on your toes and juggle between inadequate RPM and overspeed.
For example, if CoD can save separate control configurations for each aircraft, it's most likely that i will map the in-game throttle to my keyboard and use my joystick throttle for prop pitch when flying an early 109E, just to be able to manage this.

Once again, the better performing plane (the 109) has the increased workload, which balances things out in a historical manner.

P.S. Jameson, it's not possible to get the clip you posted about the negative G issues outside the UK, but the other interview works fine.

[WTE_Galway]

Originally Posted by Ernst

As far as i known Mrs Shilling Orifice was a not a definitive solution. The time for engine recovery was just lesser, but the negative g effect still there. Even carburetor was not as good as fuel injection.

All the Tilly Orifice did was restrict the maximum rate of fuel flow to the float chamber and hence reduce the rate of flooding and resultant over rich mixture cut-out in the SU carbs fitted to early Merlins. (The needle valve was also modified.)

It absolutely did NOT eliminate the problem just made it more manageable.

Eliminating the problem completely was impossible without using a totally different type of carb or going to fuel injection ... the neg G issue was "built in" to the float chamber based SU carb design.

The onset of neg G flooding and cut out was much later in a Tilly/Shilling Orifice equipped Merlin than with a standard SU but the problem remained and sustained inverted flight was still impossible.

From 42/43 onwards Bendix and later Rolls Royce pressure carburettors were fitted and these actually DID eliminate the problem altogether.

[K_Freddie]

Originally Posted by WTE_Galway

What actually IS documented in the BoB is that the better LW pilots often flew elliptical turns in a dog fight using the slats to temporarily pull some lead and then loosing the stick again before too much speed was washed off.

What I read/heard is that the slats never caused a stall, but allied BoB pilots thought it did, as in tight turns the me109 will roll out.

The actual reality was that the slats came out with such a 'bang' (force) and inexperienced pilots thought they were being shot at and hit, so rolled out of the turn. Experienced pilots had no such problems. The slats did cause a momentary loss of aim.

[JtD]

Originally Posted by WTE_Galway

All the Tilly Orifice did was restrict the maximum rate of fuel flow to the float chamber and hence reduce the rate of flooding and resultant over rich mixture cut-out in the SU carbs fitted to early Merlins.
...
but the problem remained and sustained inverted flight was still impossible.

The Tilly Orifice reduced the fuel flow to the amount of fuel needed at maximum power - 12/16 lb of boost and 3000 rpm. At that power setting, the engine would not cut out in sustained inverted flight due to flooding.

[Fenrir]

Originally Posted by 6S.Manu

I'm not questioning the SpitIX's birth. Simply I think that engineering industry (engines, materials ect) always works for improvements and of course during wartime the improvements are researched very quickly (with problems of durability and safety, like you say the matter is to win the war).

Why did the DB use the fuel injection? Why was the Me262 drawn up in 1939? The war was almost ended but P51Hs, P47Ms, P80s were to be used by the Air Force: weren't the P51Ds and P47Ds enough to win the war?

Essentially you re both correct - there has always been a pre-emptive drive to produce more powerful engines, faster aeroplanes, with better rates of climb and more firepower well ahead of any direct reaction to the enemies technological advancement; given the rate of developments (2-3 years even back then) for an engine airframe, you couldn't do otherwise else if all you did was react to the technological advancement of your enemy you'd lose the battle very quickly. Take the Fw190 for example. That 1st flew well before any Bf109 met a Spitfire in combat.

What tended to happen particularly in the British industry was that a technology being developed focusing on a different aspect of the air war or already in development, was found to be suitable to solve an immediate problem with another, or the development was accelerated to get that technology into service as fast as possible. Take the Mk IX, for which this analogy applies on both counts.

The Merlin 60 series was actually designed for powering high altitude bomber designs, but it's much improved output and the fact it would give the Spitfire such a performance boost in light of the then Focke-Wulf ascendancy dictated that it was given priority in this arena.

The Mk IX then is a reactionary a/c in this respect - it's a Mk V with the minimum modifications required to take the new engine. However the technology behind it is of a far more measured and pre-emptive development.

Similarly the Griffon. The Mk IV - later to become the MK XII - first flew in 1941 before the 190 threat was properly understood, but given that in it's early variants the Griffon's high altitude performance was lacking at a time when fighting took place from 20,000ft up it was something of a white elephant. However, they do become useful against the low-level tip and run raiders - tho this is more a case of it fortuitously being available and a suitable answer to an enemies tactics.

Until the two-stage supercharger comes in and we get the Mk XIV (another stop-gap by the way, essentially a Mk VIII with the minimum required modifications to take the Griffon 60 series) then we see a superbly performing fighter at all altitudes.

So unlike the Mk IX, the Griffon Spit's weren't a direct reaction to a particular technology crisis but indicative if the all encompassing urge to go faster, higher, get there faster and kill stuff quickly that drives all a/c development.

[Triggaaar]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

maybe i misunderstood why you were saying it.

Reading it again I'm not even sure myself

The fact is that there are people on both sides of the fence that think their favourite aircraft is better than the opponents, and we can't all be right. So there will be comments from both sides that are not accurate.

This thread started with a complaint that the Spit is not as good as it was in an earlier version, and some replies saying that's just as well, as it was like a UFO. Lots of aircrafts have different advantages. I didn't know about the La7 or Yak3 before IL2 (did someone say forgotten battles?), but they're held in the highest regard in lots of books. So the Spits, 109s and FW190s have their own advantages. My personal view is that the i16 was overmodelled in IL2, and the Hurricane undermodelled. I had much more success in the i16 against 109s than I could ever have in the Hurricane, but I'm lead to believe the i16 was really outclassed in the war, and the Brits gave the Russians Hurricanes which actually performed pretty well against the 109. In the BoB the Hurricane could out-turn a Spitfire, and wasn't much slower than a 109. I could easily be wrong about the i16, that's just an opinion I've formed from the odd book.

Forum newbies always start by asking which was the best fighter of the war, and it's no bad thing that there's no one answer. There are too many factors to take into account, like what height a fight is at (no point having the best high altitude fighter defending/attacking low altitude bombers), range, armament, inteception capabilities etc. I still find the comparisons interesting though.

One of the best things about the 190 was the ability to choose whether or not to fight. If you weren't being bounced by someone above, you had a good chance of being able to run. Some of our servers use this advantage, but many don't have the patience and they're then suprised when they can't out dogfight an allied plane that they think is inferior. The more evidence we can find about how these old war birds flew, the better as far as I'm concerned.

What i was trying to convey is that the FM is the FM and it's not dependent on the competition's FM.

Yes, understood, thanks.

Originally Posted by JtD

The Tilly Orifice reduced the fuel flow to the amount of fuel needed at maximum power - 12/16 lb of boost and 3000 rpm. At that power setting, the engine would not cut out in sustained inverted flight due to flooding.

Unfortunately it's rather difficult to model the physical difficulties associated with flying under negative G for extended periods, so I think this is a tactic used by 109s more in IL2 than in real life. Pushing the nose down (for negative G rather than to dive) happens a lot in IL2, but doesn't seem to be talked about as a common fail safe from real pilots.
EDIT - I'm going to have to take that back. It seems there is plenty of evidence of 109 pilots dippint their nose, with Hurricane and Spitfire pilots having to roll onto their back to follow.

Originally Posted by Fenrir

What tended to happen particularly in the British industry was that a technology being developed focusing on a different aspect of the air war or already in development, was found to be suitable to solve an immediate problem with another, or the development was accelerated to get that technology into service as fast as possible. Take the Mk IX, for which this analogy applies on both counts.

I agree. It seems Germany made plans for war before everyone else