Hey TD can you look again at the Corsair..

[Kittle]

'Maneuverable' is something one needs to take with a grain of salt. Absolutely no aircraft the US fielded in WWII could win a turning fight with a Zero unless both aircraft were at high speed. The Corsair is very maneuverable......at high speed. In a low/slow fight it's hopeless and should be shot down in short order. Over the Solomon's the Corsair was zeke bait just like everything else until the pilots learned how to fight it against Oscars and Zekes. If you keep your speed up, and make every effort to start the fight from an altitude advantage, you shouldn't have any problems.

[majorfailure]

Originally Posted by Black_Sage29

We're talking about performance. Corsair is supposed to be maneuverable and it's not even when in top speed low alt flight ( 220-230mph ). Also bleeds off speed way to fast

It is maneuverable. Rolls like no tomorrow. And is okay in a turn. Bleeding off spped too fast - thats very difficult to test and verify aginst real world data.

Originally Posted by Black_Sage29

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/f4u/f4u.html

Note that report above says the corsair should reach 300mph Indicated air speed. IN game it doesn't reach this..not even close to that ( 220-230mph is way off )..but ok...

The one you are reffering to is a specially cleaned up plane - and exceeds factory specs.

Originally Posted by Black_Sage29

The corsair's top speed is supposed to be about 20mph slower than the P-51 also according to wikipedia..and it's not. P-51 reaches a top speed of roughly around 300-310mph IAS in game level flight
Here's another report: http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.o...stangtest.html
^^^ P-51 reaches 363mph true airspeed low-alt flight
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...ZSEmP7iWljqfGg
^^ here you can see corsair has maximum speed of 343ph true airspeed in low-alt flight. That's about 20mph behind p51
Based on all of this the corsair should at least reach 260mph-280mph in level flight in game instead of 220-230mph

Just tried it: F4U1-D 100% fuel, with WEP engaged, 569 kph (true) at~ 2300m.
Compared to following test, thats fine -though a little faster could do:
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.o...evel-final.jpg
Maybe the engine curve of the Corsair ingame is a little off - does anyone know how to extract that data without extensive testing?

EDIT:
On a totally unrelated sidenote, how do you get to the conclusion that the Corsair does reach a speed of 320-330 MPH -speedbar or speed indicator? If speed indicator: its in KNOTS

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Hmmm I guess that's why a P-47 can be taken out with one shot. So can the Corsair which I believe has the same engine. Because it is so tough...... I do not see what you see in the Corsair in particular..I hope that someone in a position to do something at least gives the aircraft a serious look. I am not alone in my assessment of the Corsair and even if there are also over modeling issues with other aircraft the corsair deserves another look. like the previous poster said it's acceleration is suspect and it bleeds speed so fast that it is almost impossible to regain it once you loose it. I hope someone gives it a serious look.

Any plane can be taken out with one shot. The difference is you can sit behind a P-47 or Corsair and pump round after round into them without bringing them down more often than other types. It's not something you want to be on the receiving end of because it won't be a very flyable plane at the end of it... but it's better than insta-PK or a fairly wing loss when flying your typical Japanese type for example.

Different acceleration to top speed is the only thing I think is worth a serious discussion over and it may be the hardest to have one about. A lot of people have said it's slow and then I go and test the numbers (and others have) and it comes out to what the test reports say the real one should do. But when you're in a fight, the real thing you're worried about isn't how fast you can go but how quickly you can get/regain speed/energy and in this area the Corsair and Hellcat can sometimes feel a bit rough.

It's worth a look over by the FM crew.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by trashcanman

We are quickly guided to a debate about the Ki-84 ...wtf!!??!! ..and the the fact that the F4U is very maneuverable at speeds around 500-600km/h TAS ... again ...wtf!!!!???!!! ... this wasn't the original question!.

Other aircraft are a reasonable part of the discussion as one type is usually compared by most people against another. If the Corsairs speed is fine then maybe some of the aircraft it faces are wrong...

[Luno13]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

The former is quite possible.. the latter is quite true.. I have been playing around with stick settings to try to find a better profile.. The engine in the Corsair is the same one in the P-47 .. and P-47s have been known to keep running with a blown cylinder.. Sometimes it seems as if the DM of the radials is the same as the inline engines.. From all accounts it should be more robust.

It is more robust. I've had hits in the engine on a P-47 and made it hundreds of miles back to base on reduced RPM. Don't expect to be able to fight like that though. Also, be aware of confirmation bias. How many stories are there of a P-47 surviving with a missing cylinder? Bear in mind that you will never read the stories about the ones that didn't make it.

It starts with a perfectly reasonable request to review the attributes of an aircraft that seems to be different in-game versus the documented facts.

Bear in mind that the original question was about the speed of the F4U.

That question has been answered at least three times with actual documentation. Are you stuffing your fingers in your ears and going "La la la" until you can find something that matches your preference? The rest of your post is invalid hooplah so I won't bother commenting on it.

Note that report above says the corsair should reach 300mph Indicated air speed. IN game it doesn't reach this..not even close to that ( 220-230mph is way off )..but ok...

This is your own problem, not the game's. It is easy to achieve 300 mph in game. I just got 340 mph at 1000m and 417mph at 7000 meters.

[Bearcat]

How long did that take to achieve?

[Luno13]

I didn't time it, but I would guess within a few minutes, which seems perfectly reasonable. You don't just hit your top speed like a brick wall. You have to work to get to it, and you have to be vigilant to keep it. Note that the combat report quoted earlier advises pilots not to get slow. This doesn't mean you can get slow for a bit to tease your Zero opponent and then turn on afterburners to whizz up into low earth orbit again.

I learned quickly that altitude was paramount. Whoever had altitude dictated the terms of the battle, and there was nothing a Zero pilot could do to change that — we had him. The F4U could outperform a Zero in every aspect except slow speed manoeuvrability and slow speed rate of climb. Therefore you avoided getting slow when combating a Zero. It took time but eventually we developed tactics and deployed them very effectively... There were times, however, that I tangled with a Zero at slow speed, one on one. In these instances I considered myself fortunate to survive a battle. Of my 21 victories, 17 were against Zeros, and I lost five aircraft in combat. I was shot down three times and I crashed one that ploughed into the line back at base and wiped out another F4U.

The A6M2-21 has a loaded power to weight ratio of .29 kW/kg while the Corsair has one of .23kW/kg which is a 26% advantage in favor of the Zero. The A6M3 hamp has even better power to weight ratio at .31kW/kg, loaded. Don't expect miracles.

[Treetop64]

I've flown the Corsair quite a few times in the game, and I have to say that the only thing I don't like about it is that it tends to be a bit of a "wobbly goblin" in the yaw axis. Other than that, I like it.

The machine is more in its element the faster it goes. The faster the better. It rolls better than most at speed, but you have to take it easy in the turns, even at high speed!

I suspect a lot of the complaints stem from how some fly the Corsair, in that they rely too much on applying engine power to give them the speed they need, when in fact you have to fly the plane in a manner that will give you the most speed with the least amount of effort from the plane or pilot. In part, that means long, gentle high speed turns, and not aggressive fighting turns to stay in a fight. If you dive down on a target but the trigonometry of the situation isn't looking good, oh well... Continue on your way while maintaining your high speed (and don't squander it with a hard turn!), use your speed to regain altitude, be patient, and set yourself up for another pass. If someone else snags him in the meantime, tough. Get over it and move on.

Yes, it's a conservative, time-consuming, and - to some - a boring way to fight, but it's efficient and effective. At least it has been for me.

Also, you don't want the props to be at fine pitch during all this. Ideally, 2500 RPM, give or take a hundred or so while gyrating round, is what you want. Higher RPMs does not equal higher speed when you're already moving fast. At high speed, you want a more coarse propeller pitch to bite more air out from front of you to move quickly. The engine generates enough power to provide the torque necessary to do this at the selected RPMs. Also, you lower operating temps with a lower RPM, even with closed cowl flaps.

Again, I'm just speaking from personal experience with flying the Corsairs in the game, and I'm sure some will disagree, but that's fine.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Luno13

I didn't time it, but I would guess within a few minutes, which seems perfectly reasonable. You don't just hit your top speed like a brick wall. You have to work to get to it, and you have to be vigilant to keep it. Note that the combat report quoted earlier advises pilots not to get slow. This doesn't mean you can get slow for a bit to tease your Zero opponent and then turn on afterburners to whizz up into low earth orbit again.



The A6M2-21 has a loaded power to weight ratio of .29 kW/kg while the Corsair has one of .23kW/kg which is a 26% advantage in favor of the Zero. The A6M3 hamp has even better power to weight ratio at .31kW/kg, loaded. Don't expect miracles.

I wouldn't expect it to accelerate like a car... Maybe I am doing something wrong but even with using throttle and pitch it is difficult for me to get any real speed out of the AC and it seems to overheat unless I keep the throttle below 80% or so .. Maybe it is me but a revisit wouldn't hurt by TD even if it was just to spend some time flying it just as a sim pilot to see if theynseenwhat I see.

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

Maybe it is me but a revisit wouldn't hurt by TD even if it was just to spend some time flying it just as a sim pilot to see if theynseenwhat I see.

Who sais, we don't do?
Climb performance and acceleration are directly linked. Is something off with climb performance on the F4U? I don't think so.

Anyway, it would be an interesting test to let a P-47 and F4U doing same maneuvers side by side.