What Makes The Perfect Fighter Aircraft.

[Panzergranate]

I'm going to discuss the science and physics of what makes the idealised and never achieved perfect fighter aircraft.

Idealy, it should have the following characteristics:

A reliable and powerful engine with quick throttle response.

Good engine power at all altitudes. (Take an I-16 above 20,000 Feet to experience not having this ability).

High structural integrety. (Won't fall apart during maneuvers).

An ability to asorb high levels of damage and still function.

A high roll rate.

A high yaw rate.

A high pitch rate.

A high rate of climb.

A high rate of speed gain during a dive.

A small dive recovery radius. (Dive bombers excell here).

A tight turning circle.

A tight looping circle.

Low spin tendency.

Equally controllable at all speeds.

Excellent cockpit visibility all around.

Adequate or better firepower.

Good range and endurance.

Good protection. (Armouring).

Unfortunately, it isn't possible to build such a fighter, so both WW1 and WW2 are littered with both good, OK and bad fighter aircraft.

Some aircraft come close to the ideal only to fail elsewhere seriously. For instance, the A6M Zero was only agile at low speeds, suffering from heavy controls and poor agility at speeds over 300 MPH plus having a poor dive speed gain rate.

The Brewster Buffalo, notoriuous for being both the worst fighter of WW2 and the most successful fighter every built (40:1 kill to loss rate) suffered from engine power and reliability problems due to Brewster using badly reconditioned second hand ex-airliner engines in warplanes to maximise company profits. The Finns had brand new engines in theirs and the difference shows.

Despite this it could out turn, all Japanese, Allied, Soviet and Axis fighters in the world.... and the Gloster Gladiator bi-plane repeatedly, in one RAF trail.

Some fighters, such as WW2's least successful fighter, the P-43 Lancer, features a failing "X" next to anything to do with agility and maneuverabilty. It was developed into the P-47 with not much improvement on the checklist.

Others, tick just enough boxes to be labelled as "OK", "Fine" or "It'll do for now" or "Export" such as the Fokker D-21, P-35, P-36 Hawk, P-39 Airacobra, P-43 Lancer and P-66 Vengance.

This works fine unless the enemy fields any fighter with a lot more ticks in the list where there are crosses in their opponents.

And then there are those that shouldn't have even been allowed into service such as the LaGG-1 and LaGG-3, Fiat G-50, Fairey Fulmar, Blackburn Roc, etc.

You need to read the excellent book, "The World's Worst Aircraft" to see what horrors thankfully failed to enter service such as the P-75.

Of course, an advantage in pilot training, skill, ability and morale can make a big difference, for good or bad. If you opponents have better aircraft and better ability compared to yout own then you're about to experience what the Soviet airforce went through during the 1939 "Winter War" and later 1941 "Continuation War".

If one rates any WW2 fighter against the above mention checklist you'll understand why some fighters sucked, why some were legendary and why even some dive bombers, such as the Douglas Dauntless managed to unexpectedly do well as fighters, producing a few aces along the way.

[FOZ_1983]

to make a good aircraft -

it should every your opponent doesnt have. What he does, you do better

[Ancient Seraph]

Originally Posted by FOZ_1983

to make a good aircraft -

it should every your opponent doesnt have. What he does, you do better

Like sattelite television ? Luckily there wasn't a perfect fighter in WWII.. that would make this game very boring .

[rik]

The ultra modern '5th generation' fighters tackle a lot of your criteria with regard to agility by being deliberately unstable. It might be a bit dramatic to say that the eurofighter typhoon (poss '4th gen'?) and the raptor would fall out of the sky without the computers that work the fly-by-wire controls, but they are kept stable by the computers so that when a command is entered by the pilot they are just waiting to get all twisty.

In a guns only environment a spitfire would easily turn inside later fighters like the lightning and the tornado but would be interesting to see it up against a typhoon with all its fancy tricks, or a raptor with it's directable thrust.

[ChankyChank]

What makes a good fighter? A well trained capable pilot.

[Crispus222]

Originally Posted by ChankyChank

What makes a good fighter? A well trained capable pilot.

Amen! What good is a plane if you don't have a good pilot.

[akuma]

F-22A Raptor.

Even a medicore pilot can defeat a well trained pilot. Its just that good.

[fuzzychickens]

The perfect plane is always the one on your 6 that you don't see.

Also, the raptor comparision points out why jets sims just simply suck.

High tech radar, fire and forget missles, and mind numbing speed - yea jets are cool and all and awesome to see fly in airshows - but nothing compares to air-to-air from WWI to WWII.

The only jet I think would be fun to fly in sim would be an A-10 warthog and do some tank blasting.

[MorgothNL]

Originally Posted by ChankyChank

What makes a good fighter? A well trained capable pilot.

+1

you can have the plane, but without the pilot its just a piece of metal and wood

[Steyr_amr]

There's an interview somewhere in among the dusty old books I have where someone interviews a fighter-cum-test pilot and asks them what his idea of a "perfect" fighter was, his response being something along the lines of

'A glass bubble, which you fly in your bathing suit, with an "I wish you were dead" missile.'