B24D Project for IL2

[Fenrir]

Originally Posted by Airfoil

I was just curious if wing flexing, etc., was possible within the game engine, not so much to try to produce more headaches for anyone. Another little idiosyncrasy, that appeared in the Spitfire was the ailerons working like trim tabs and warping the wings, causing the aircraft to roll in the opposite direction. I don't recall the exact circumstances but high speed and extreme control movement seem to ring a bell. Again, just a point to ponder.

Thanks, Airfoil

With regards the Spitfire, Jeffrey Quill in his excellent book on his test flying and the development of the spitfire said that they 'expected' to run into aileron reversal issues as the mach numbers increased, not that any examples of this phenomenom had occurred; this is why the wings of the 20 series of Spitfire were redesigned and strengthened.

As far as I am aware, no case was ever documented of aileron reversal - indeed if it did, well, the Spitfire probably would have been so far above it's Vne that it either would have broken up under stress or never pulled out of the dive.

And for reference, the fastest Spitfire - the PRXI that got to mach .89 - did NOT have the new shape and strengthened wing.

Ice - the fabric aileron issue was one of becoming almost immovable at IAS above 400mph. Turns out that the thickness of the trailing edge has much to do with this. The static air trapped inside the fabric aileron would, thanks to bernoulli's principle, expand and cause the skin of the aileron to balloon; this in turn increased the trailing edge area. Once the metal ailerons came about, the ballooning stopped and the control problems virtually disappeared (it was still an effort to move ailerons above 400mph but that's just due to the force of the airflow - they at least would move with a bit of elbow grease).