4.101 RC - List of fixes

[JtD]

Fly 400 km/h IAS at 1000m alt. Trim the aircraft for level flight. Shortly apply rudder for 15° of slip and release. Try with a Spitfire of your choice, a Fw 190, an F6F and a P-51.

How often does each plane go back and forth before it stops oscillating?
How large is the first amplitude to the other side for each plane?
How much time is needed for each plane to settle back to a steady condition?

Do that and you'll see that the Spitfire is just as stable as other planes, it simply has more effective controls. It is possible to compensate for that with a proper joystick set-up or simply by being less ham-fisted.

[PE_Tihi]

Originally Posted by JtD

Fly 400 km/h IAS at 1000m alt. Trim the aircraft for level flight. Shortly apply rudder for 15° of slip and release. Try with a Spitfire of your choice, a Fw 190, an F6F and a P-51.

How often does each plane go back and forth before it stops oscillating?
How large is the first amplitude to the other side for each plane?
How much time is needed for each plane to settle back to a steady condition?

Do that and you'll see that the Spitfire is just as stable as other planes, it simply has more effective controls. It is possible to compensate for that with a proper joystick set-up or simply by being less ham-fisted.

You been testing the thing a bit wrongly, my dear. Wouldn't you expect the damping to be stronger and work faster at high speeds, hmm? So why did you test at 400 km/h, ehh?

Point the planes nose vertically upwards, and wait till the speed drops to about 100 kmh, then and kick the rudder to help the nose start falling down. Then tell me later will it fall. Let the plane climb further (you ll have no other choice, anyway) to zero speed. Then later, if you still feel like it, tell me how did your hammerhead look like? Now try the same with any other plane, or the 409 spit, for a comparison.

Call me ham-fisted, huh? A good pal of mine, called ham, could hit at 700 m almost at will and any deflection His flying was not worse. Well, it is from him that I learned most, so i may even be a bit ham-fisted, too, but I think you wouldnt find it that agreeable, flying for my opponents

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

Who said, that Spitfires will stay the only types with reviewed FM?
So pls stop listing planes, 'that has this and that wrong'...! There is no connection to them.

BTW: My personnel hit counter in Spits shows better results now than before with 4.09m.

[JtD]

Originally Posted by EJGr.Ost_Caspar

BTW: My personnel hit counter in Spits shows better results now than before with 4.09m.

Mine's unchanged.

[PE_Tihi]

Originally Posted by JtD

Originally Posted by EJGr.Ost_Caspar
BTW: My personnel hit counter in Spits shows better results now than before with 4.09m.

JtD: Mine's unchanged.

Well the thing s certainly good for spray and pray; and if you after the masses of enemy personnel.. certainly As for the arithmetic, it has got a number that doesn't change when halved

[Fafnir_6]

Originally Posted by EJGr.Ost_Caspar

Who said, that Spitfires will stay the only types with reviewed FM?

Cool!

Fafnir_6

[Birdflu]

I agree!!
Spit its much better on turns if you set propally the joystick.

[JtD]

Originally Posted by PE_Tihi

You been testing the thing a bit wrongly

Well, I went by what you wrote, you've repeatedly complained about stability. If you don't mean stability at all, your fault. Don't blame me. Anyway, looking at how you dodge anything that involves fact, let me sum it up for you:

- the Spitfires stability is realistic
- the Spitfires stability is in the same league as that of many other planes in game

And now it's the hammerhead which is so awfully wrong. What exactly does a vertical zoom climb with rudder input at 100 km/h in a Fw 190 look like? Or in a P-38? Or a P-39? Wait, they all go up, then out of control. And because the planes are different, they go out of control differently. Holy cow.

Which aerodynamic forces do you think should keep the plane controllable at 0 air speed?

[PE_Tihi]

Originally Posted by JtD

Well, I went by what you wrote, you've repeatedly complained about stability. If you don't mean stability at all, your fault. Don't blame me. Anyway, looking at how you dodge anything that involves fact, let me sum it up for you:

- the Spitfires stability is realistic
- the Spitfires stability is in the same league as that of many other planes in game

And now it's the hammerhead which is so awfully wrong. What exactly does a vertical zoom climb with rudder input at 100 km/h in a Fw 190 look like? Or in a P-38? Or a P-39? Wait, they all go up, then out of control. And because the planes are different, they go out of control differently. Holy cow.

Which aerodynamic forces do you think should keep the plane controllable at 0 air speed?

If a plane has a low 'reserve' of stabillity, it is in the very slow flight that this deficit shows in a most pronounced manner. Thats where you would ve got the best chance of noticing it; of course if you do not want or cannot, that s another matter.

All other planes including the ones you name can be helped with a kick on the rudder to drop their noses shortly before the steeply climbing plane stalls. It can be done without reducing power.
Spit enters shortly before the stall speed a zone of completely neutral stability, where there is no natural tendency to drop the nose which could be helped. Gyroscopic forces keep the nose pointing upwards, and the controls can do nothing about it. You ll have to cut power if you want the nose to drop, and lose further energy in the strong oscillations which, with the pilot helping, still do not diminish before the plane reaches 160-170 kph. By that time you ll be quite a bit underneath a P40, not to speak of a Bf which is really good at stall fight.

Even at higher speeds, in a dogfight (say 350-250 kph), if you press a pedal to move the aiming point ( do you use the rudder for aiming at all?) it causes easily noticeable oscillations, spiced with precession from the rotating prop, which are practically unnoticeable in the old Spit or any other game plane.
The effect is that you sideslipping mostly as you shoot, making the bullets go where they want.
The people flying this game longer mostly use much more rudder than newer pilots, both in maneouvres or when aiming. Even if you shoot at 400 kmh where the damping is better, as you aim, you ll still be sideslipping enough to miss.

1) I do not know whether the Spit stabillity is reallistic in 4.10- and suspect not. You know it, good for you.
2) I certainly know your second sentence is not true.

If you cannot fly a hammerhead, you have one recipe here. And if you don't want to find out something, but only to prove yourself smart, you can do that without my involvement, either.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by JtD

Well, I went by what you wrote, you've repeatedly complained about stability. If you don't mean stability at all, your fault. Don't blame me. Anyway, looking at how you dodge anything that involves fact, let me sum it up for you:

- the Spitfires stability is realistic
- the Spitfires stability is in the same league as that of many other planes in game

And now it's the hammerhead which is so awfully wrong. What exactly does a vertical zoom climb with rudder input at 100 km/h in a Fw 190 look like? Or in a P-38? Or a P-39? Wait, they all go up, then out of control. And because the planes are different, they go out of control differently. Holy cow.

Which aerodynamic forces do you think should keep the plane controllable at 0 air speed?

Sorry for wading in

Most people don't seem to be able to articulate what they are seeing. So I'll give it a try.

It took me a while to notice but eventually I did. Now that I've noticed... I can tell that the Spitfire is definitely a slightly more challenging ride than before. Before it felt a bit like it was on rails in some cases. Now it does have some "extra character to it". I can't say if it's right, wrong or different. So far the best way for me to test to see the difference is to snap roll 90 degrees left and right and then return to level flight.

It seems the aileron movements causes the extra yaw. I'm fairly certain this is called adverse yaw. It is slightly more severe than on many other types (by my approximation) although I can also list several types that have it more extreme than the Spitfire as well.

I do know that stability changed between the different Spitfire models and the redesigned tail for the later IX models represented an attempt at correcting some stability issues introduced by the Merlin 60 series installed up front which changed the length, weight distribution and relative stability of the model. I don't have the numbers... just the general details so unfortunately I cannot be more specific.

The revised modeling does seem to be across the board but it may be worthwhile to double check Mark V versus early Mark IX versus late IX (and VIII) just to be certain that values are what they should be?

Just some thoughts.

EDIT: Those of you having more difficulties with this may want to adjust their joystick curves to slightly reduce the sensitivity. Particularly on the rudder. That should help... along with a proper rudder coordination technique to work with excess yaw. Particularly during gunnery.