Hurricane & Spitfire control characteristics

[von Brühl]

Originally Posted by Kurfürst

I did a quick measurements of roll rates for the Hurricane (Rotol) and the Spitfire Mk IIa. I climbed to sufficient altitude, and then entered a 30-45 degree dive to get the aircraft up to 400 mph IAS, then rolled them to the right 90 degrees and measured the time required with a stopwatch.

The RAE testing noted in the first post gives 2 secs for Hurricane for a 90 degree roll and 8 secs for the Spitfire under maximum effort.

I've got 2.5 secs (instead of 8 secs) for the Spitfire Mk II and around 3 secs for the Hurricane Mk I Rotol (instead of 2 secs)

Conclusion:

The Spitfire Mk. IIa's roll rate is overmodelled by a factor of 3.2 (!!), ie. it rolls 3.2 times faster at 400 mph IAS than it should be.

The Hurricane Mk. I Rotol roll rate is undermodelled by a factor of 1.5 , ie. it rolls 1.5 times slower at 400 mph IAS than it should be.

That stacks up with the rest of the problems in the FMs for these two planes, as currently the Spit is more manueverable than the Hurri, which is opposite of RL.