Updated RAF FMs in 1.07.18301

[FS~Phat]

Guys please play nice or I'll have to start dishing out infractions.

On another note: seems we will never know the true performance and when you read things like in this article I attached, Its not hard to see that its human nature to not want to accept the "competition" has a bigger e-peen, given our own ego's and viewpoints. (this goes to both sides of the arguments)

So we should just learn to accept we have differing opinions and present credible material and information for discussion as adults.. So can we please discuss and not attack. Remove the sarcasm, remove the snide comments. PLEASE!

[Glider]

This is the full quote as posted by Kurfurst:-

When the Me.109 was following the Hurricane or Spitfire, it was found that our aircraft turned inside the Me.109 without difficulty when flown by determined pilots who were not afraid to pull their aircraft round hard in a tight turn. In a surprisingly large number of cases, however, the Me. 109 succeeded in keeping on the tail of the Spitfire or Hurricane during these turning tests, merely because our Pilots would not tighten up the turn suficiently from fear of stalling and spinning. ...

It clearly has two part

a) When the Me.109 was following the Hurricane or Spitfire, it was found that our aircraft turned inside the Me.109 without difficulty when flown by determined pilots who were not afraid to pull their aircraft round hard in a tight turn. So when two deteremined pilots fly the aircraft to the full the RAF fighters easily turned inside the Me109

b) In a surprisingly large number of cases, however, the Me. 109 succeeded in keeping on the tail of the Spitfire or Hurricane during these turning tests, merely because our Pilots would not tighten up the turn suficiently from fear of stalling and spinning
Where the Me109 pilot is the most determined the Me109 can stay with the RAF fighters

From this it seems that with pilots of equal ability the RAF fighters will turn tighter.

All I am saying is read the whole quote.

The fact that pilot skill and/or tactical advantage is of paramount performance should not be a surprise. Most would agree that the Hellcat is a better fighter to a Zero, but would you fancy your chances if Saburo Saki was in the Zero?

There are some other parts of the same test report which are worth noting:-

The aircraft stalled if the turn was tightened to give more than 4 g at speeds below about 200 m.p.h. The slots opened at about ½ g before the stall, and whilst opening caused the ailerons to snatch ; this upset the pilot's sighting immediately and caused him to lose ground. When the slots were fully open the aircraft could be turned quite steadily until very near the stall. If the stick was then pulled back a little more the aircraft suddenly shuddered, and either tended to come out of the turn or dropped its wing further, oscillating meanwhile in pitch and roll and rapidly losing height ; the aircraft immediately unstalled if the stick was eased forward. Even in a very tight turn the stall was quite gentle, with no tendency for the aircraft to suddenly flick over on to its back and spin. The Spitfires and Hurricanes could follow the Me.109 round during the stalled turns without themselves showing any signs of stalling
Interesting that at very slow speeds the RAF fighters could maintain control when the Me109 was stalled. This proves that those who believe that the Me109 could turn better than the RAF fighters at slow speed are wrong.
Also that the opening of the flaps fixed with the Me109F caused the Me109E to lose ground. In a tight turning combat losing ground giving an advantage to the RAF is a serious issue. Its also worth remembering that the German Flight tests were clear when reccomending that Me109 pilots shold not get into a turning combat with the Spitfire or Hurricane

After these turns the Me.109 was put into a steep dive at full throttle with the airscrew pitch coarsened to keep the r.p.m. down. It was found that both the Hurricanes and the Spitfires could keep up with the Me.109 in the dive; the aircraft with constant speed airscrews could do this more readily than those with two-pitch airscrews. The ailerons and elevator of the Me.109 became so heavy in the dive that rapid manceuvring was impossible, while, as explained in section 4.22, banked turns could be done more readily to the right than to the left because of the absence of rudder bias.
Speed is an issue as is the lack of advantage once in a dive. Normally the 109 did have an initial advantage due to the engine cut out.

In most cases this steep climb at low airspeed was the only manceuvre whereby the Me.109 pilot could keep away from the Hurricane or Spitfire. During the general fighting which folIowed the set programme, one other feature of advantage to the Me.109 emerged. If a negative g is put on the aircraft for a short time, the engine does not cut as it is of the direct injection type; whereas on the Spitfire or Hurricane the engine immediately splutters and stops when negative g is applied, because the carburettor quickly ceases to deliver petrol under these conditions.
A steep climb at a low airspeed will work as an evasion but only if you are one to one. If there is another RAF fighter around you are a sitting target, low speed low energy.


During the general fighting, with the Me.109 chasing a Spitfire or Hurricane, some of our pilots escaped by doing a flick half-roll and then quickly pulling up out of the subsequent dive. The Me. 109 pilot found this particularly difficult to counter, for when the Me. 109 rolled after his opponent, the speed built up quickly in the steep dive which followed the half roll, and the elevator became so heavy that a quick pull out was impossible; in addition care had to be taken not to pull out quickly when the speed had decreased, because the aircraft stalled so readily under g. As a result 2,000-3,000 ft. may be lost in the manceuvre, and if a Me.109 pilot can be tempted to do this at low altitude a crash is almost inevitable. Conversation with some of the pilots who had had experience in actual combat with the Me.109 revealed that in several cases a Me.109 had, in fact, been observed to crash in this way without a shot being fired

Clearly high speed control forces is a particular issue with the Me109 as is the danger of stalling under G. Loss of height when the plane stalls is another issue.

The final summary of the turning performance is as follows:-
5.3. Comparative Turning Performance of Me.109 and Spitfire. – During the dog-fights against the Hurricane and Spitfire, it became apparent that our fighters could out-turn the Me.109 with ease when flown by determined pilots. Since the minimum radius of turn without height loss depends largely on stalling speed, and hence on wing loading, the poor turning performance of the Me.109 may be ascribed to its high wing loading, 32.2 lb./sq. ft. compared with 24.8 lb./sq. ft. on the Spitfire. It was thought of interest to go into the matter a little more deeply, and to calculate the relative performances of these aircraft in circling flight, so that the sacrifice of turning performance entailed by the Me. 109's high wing loading could be assessed qualitatively.


In a recent report on the dog-fight12 Gates gives an analysis whereby the performance of an aircraft in steady spiral flight at full throttle can be estimated from its measured full throttle performance in straight flight (partial climbs and top speed) ; the analysis leads to a compact diagram from which the radius and time of turn, and the corresponding rate of ascent or descent can be obtained at any given airspeed and normal g.

Such diagrams have been constructed for the Spitfire and Me.109, and are given in Fig. 17, together with an explanation of their use. The turning performance of the Hurricane is probably little different from that of the Spitfire, these aircraft being roughly similar in wing loading and level performance. The " stall boundary " depends on an estimate of CL max at full throttle. In the case of the Spitfire this has been measured in flight, while the Me.109 figures were based on the Spitfire results; tables of the assumed values of CL max are given in Fig. 17. CL max falls off as g is increased, because the stalling speed increases as g gets larger, thus lessening the slipstream effect.

It will be seen that the minimum radius of turn without height loss is obtained by flying as near the stall as possible at a comparatively small g. For ease of comparison the radius of turn has been plotted against speed for both aeroplanes in Fig. 18, (i) for turns at the stall, and (ii) for turns without height loss. The advantage of the Spitfire over the Me.109 at once becomes apparent, the minimum radius of turn without loss of height being about 696 ft. on the Spitfire as against 885 ft. on the Me.109. The characteristics of these turns are summarised in the following table :-

So read the whole thing

[IvanK]

+1 Glider very well summarised and written.

[winny]

I thought I'd add a translation of the German trials of the 109e, 110c, Hurricane, Curtiss and Spitfire.

Quote:

In the following performance and air combat comparison that has been performed at the E-Stelle Rechlin between Me 109E and Me 110C and the captured enemy fighters Spitfire, Hurricane and Curtiss, shall be brought to notice. The results of the comparison are to be announced immediately to all Jagd and Zestorer units to guarantee appropriate air combat behaviour in the engagements on the basis of technical conditions.

The Me109 clearly out-performs all foreign aircraft.

Speed : the Spitfire is at 0m by ca. 20 km/h, at 4km by ca. 10 km/h. Hurricane and Curtiss at 0m and 4km altitude by ca. 60km/h. A similar superiority of the Me 109E exists in climb performance too.

Climb times to 4 km.
Me109E - 4.4 mins
Spitfire - 5 mins
Hurricane - 5.6 mins
Curtiss - 5.2 mins

The Me110C is inferior speed wise to the Spitfire, superior to the Hurricane and Curtiss. Regarding climb performance the Curtiss is equal at ground level, up to 4 km superior then inferior. Hurricane is inferior up to an altitude of 2 km then superior up to 6.5 km. the Spitfire is equal at ground level but otherwise superior.

The best climb for the Me 109E and Me 110C is achieved with shallow climb angle and higher speeds than the enemy fighters.

It is wrong to climb away steeply or climb behind an enemy fighter with the same angle.

Before turning fights with the Me 109E, it must be noted that in every case, that all 3 foreign planes have significantly smaller turning circles and turning times.
An attack on the opponent as well as disengagement can only be accomplished on the basis of existing superiority in performance.

The following suggestions are made:

The Spitfire and Hurricane have 2 pitch propellers. Climbing away with the Me109 and Me 110 must be done with the best climbing speed or even higher speeds of about 280-300 km/h. On aircraft with 2 pitch propellers with low blade angle the engine will experience a very high over-revolution, on the other hand a high blade angle, high boost pressure - therefore, in other words, performance loss.

On a sudden push forward on the stick to dive, the carburettor cuts out due to negative acceleration. This evasive measure, diving, is also recommended.

The rolling ability of the enemy fighters at high speeds is worse than that of the Me 109. Quick changes of trajectory along the vertical axis cause, especially with the Spitfire, load changes around the cranial axis, coming from high longitudinal thrust momentum, and significantly disturbing aiming.

In summary it can be said that all three enemy types are inferior to the German planes regarding flying qualities. The Spitfire has bad elevator and rudder stability on the target approach. In addition, wing-mounted weapons have known shooting technique disadvantages.

A bit more on the subject.

On the 11th July 1940 Wing Commander George Stainforth - of Schneider trophy fame flew the 109 in a seris of comparative trials concerning the turning circles of the 109, Spitfire and Hurricane. Stainforths subsequent report concluded that the Hurricane out-turned the 109 'within about 1 complete turn' and that 'The Messerschmitt appears to be only slightly faster than the Hurricane.' 'The Spitfire out turned the 109 almost as easily as the Hurricane'
(unlike the Rechlin tests this Spitfire had a CSP). 'The Spitfire pilot reported that he had no difficulty in sitting on the 109s tail, and could, in fact have tightened his turn quite a lot more and got well on the inside, he was at +5 boost, almost full throttle'

[6S.Manu]

Originally Posted by Glider

This is the full quote as posted by Kurfurst:-

When the Me.109 was following the Hurricane or Spitfire, it was found that our aircraft turned inside the Me.109 without difficulty when flown by determined pilots who were not afraid to pull their aircraft round hard in a tight turn. In a surprisingly large number of cases, however, the Me. 109 succeeded in keeping on the tail of the Spitfire or Hurricane during these turning tests, merely because our Pilots would not tighten up the turn suficiently from fear of stalling and spinning. ...

It clearly has two part

a) When the Me.109 was following the Hurricane or Spitfire, it was found that our aircraft turned inside the Me.109 without difficulty when flown by determined pilots who were not afraid to pull their aircraft round hard in a tight turn. So when two deteremined pilots fly the aircraft to the full the RAF fighters easily turned inside the Me109

b) In a surprisingly large number of cases, however, the Me. 109 succeeded in keeping on the tail of the Spitfire or Hurricane during these turning tests, merely because our Pilots would not tighten up the turn suficiently from fear of stalling and spinning
Where the Me109 pilot is the most determined the Me109 can stay with the RAF fighters

From this it seems that with pilots of equal ability the RAF fighters will turn tighter.

All I am saying is read the whole quote.

The world is not white and black.

Let's talk about flying skill of the pilot: there is the general skill and I agree that the 109 pilot was really skilled, if not he would not be chosen as enemy for the test. But being a skilled pilot in some kind of plane does not mean that your as skilled in another one. For accuracy I asked to my teammate, the military pilot, and he agree with me... you need experience in THAT plane to reach the best performance. The document states that he fled it until he was used to it (how many hours? can't read by now)... but how can we know that he could push the plane at its limit like the determined pilots did in their Spitfires?

This "H + Sp > H + Bf > L + Sp" (H is a High skilled pilot, L is Low skilled pilot) as many of you want to use as proof is wrong. We don't know if the L pilots are really inexperienced... they could be expert Hurricanes' pilots flying in a Spitfire!!
So it's "H + Sp > H + Bf > (?) + Sp"

But, again, H and L can't be the pilot general skill... they must be the personal skill in those planes.
Lets add the new variable (there A means that pilot is really accustomed to the plane, and B means that the pilot is not used to fly it)...

H + Sp + (A) > H + Bf + (?) > (?) + Sp + (?)

So we don't know the overall skill of the outturned Spitfire's pilots.... we don't know if the 109 pilot could push it to its limit.... the only thing we can know is that the determined pilots who actually outturned the 109 were experienced pilots but for sure more used to fly Spitfires than the 109's pilot was used to fly the german plane.

Now can they outturn a "Marseille"? Probably... but how can we be so sure?

[TomcatViP]

So now it's normal to think that the SPit outurned the Hurri ?

Regarding all you have posted Seadog, it's sad that you keep posting things that have been alrdy discussed heavily. It show what I am saying since long now : some of you don't care at all of what others can says and keep posting the same extract, the same curves, the same "document" even if those are questionable.

That's boring. We push arguments frwrd and you keep putting wall of this in every post.

Boring.

Did you ever see that we have no prob saying that the Spit will outurn a 109 in what was the condition of the test? You didn't even read that. Convinced that the truth can't be other that what you did build in your own mind.

Dogfighting is a difficult exercise. It's not acrobatic work. But that you can not understand and keep holding the point of view that the best turner have to be British and rules the fight.

Before pasting bellow another hundreds of copied lines from another thread, take the time to re-read what we have said. Otherwise, ONCE MORE, there is no point arguing with some of you.

Operational results during BoB shows that the Hurri has been the best fighter, just followed by the 109 (I put logically the Hurri frwd as it did won BoB when the 109 just loose). But that you don't care. You and others can't admits that point and still push forward the SPit, mixing it's perf with latter model just to ensure you have your Tie-Fighter ride online. Of course that a thing that you can't do with the Hurri as the theSidney Cam fighter did reach nearly all it's potential during BoB.

Moreover, anyone with an ounce of flying experience flying the SPit we have in game see immediately how ridiculous it behave. This has been pointed by many others before but still we have to ear your ridiculous discussions about frwd speed, mean tide height for "accurate" perf assessment (Oh G. forgive us for our sins), and many hair raising theorizing idea.

Enough is enough. I want myself to be able to fly a SPitfire in CoD without feeling ashamed of myself. That's how a proud Brit should spend his time on an aviation forum !

Why does it hve to be a Frenchman writing that ?

[Glider]

I think we agree on most things.

There is a difference between skill and experience on that I think we agree. It is quite possible to have a lot of experience on an aircraft but still not be skilled enough to takie it to the limit. It is also possible to be very skilled and not a lot of experience in an aircraft.

The Me109 was flown by an RAE pilot who we can assume is a very skilled pilot used to flying a variety of different types of aircraft. As you say he wouldn't have been given the job without that extra something. Test flying is by definition the art of taking the plane to the limit, to push the envelope to see what it does.
You are correct, we don't know how many hours he had on the Me109 but that is of lesser important than his experience as a test pilot.
From the test we know that he was confident to fly the Me 109 past the deployment of the slats which is something a number of German pilots didn't do. We know that from other quotes from other german pilots. We also know that he flew it past the stall in a tight turn until he had to recover it which means that he did push the envelope until the plane stalled.
The intresting thing is the combat with the RAF pilots. Some clearly did fly their aircraft until the shudder and those did turn inside the Me109 whatever the 109 pilot did, even until the Me109 stalled. However, others didn't and they found the Me109 when flown to the limit, stayed with them.
Those RAF would have been experienced but the skill level differed. I say they would have been experienced because if a Sqdn Leader was asked to send some pilots to fly mock dogfights against an Me109, I am willing to bet a pound to a penny they would go themselves and say the flight leaders. They wouldn't send someone inexperienced

|I know my experience was in gliders but I flew a number of different types and it didn't take that long to get the hang of something. The only real issues were if the glider had a new feature which I had no experience in, how to use that feature took a little time but you got there within a few days, not weeks.

Edit - I should add that using the new feature was fairly easy, getting the bewst use of it was something else. In my case it was when I started to fly high performance gliders with water ballast. Using it was easy, knowing when to use it was tricky

[Crumpp]

The Stability and Control characteristics of the early marque Spitfires are well defined and measureable across multiple sources, the RAE, NACA, and post war stability and control engineering text's.

[Glider]

Originally Posted by Crumpp

The Stability and Control characteristics of the early marque Spitfires are well defined and measureable across multiple sources, the RAE, NACA, and post war stability and control engineering text's.

As are the views of those who flew it

[Crumpp]

As are the views of those who flew it

Subjective opinion, unmeasureable, and without definition...