Daidalos Team's Room -QUESTIONS AND REQUESTS ONLY - For 4.11

[Sturm_Williger]

Any chance of looking at late-war 109's "concrete elevator(tm)" ?

I recall some long threads which suggested that it was implemented for a km/h speed when it should have been for the same speed in mph. I don't know how true this is, but it has always seemed a rather unlikely "feature".

[robtek]

I think the "concrete Elevator" of the Bf's is related to TAS instead IAS as it should be.

[Blackdog_kt]

That was my impression too. I haven't flown them much apart from single player campaigns (i usually fly 190As), but recently i was practicing coops with a friend of mine who's a new convert to IL2 and i got some stick time with various models.

My numbers here are approximate because i just hopped in and started flying, i didn't do any detailed tests. In any case and with some approximation, it seems that down on the deck and up to 3000m of altitude it starts getting heavy around 400km/h IAS. If you go higher however, for example 6000m or more, it gets heavy at 300km/h IAS or less which doesn't make much sense since the air is actually thinner up there, so that leads me to believe that it's probably triggered by TAS and not IAS as it should be.

If i remember to do it later on tonight i'll try to run a rough test on QMB: start a mission at 3000m, go to wonder woman view where TAS is displayed, dive and try to pull out at 400km/h TAS or so, then repeat the same starting at 7500m.

[ImpalerNL]

Ive tested this with the Bf109G10 with 50% fuel, but this is probably the same for the other G/K 109s.

At 1630 m i get 4.8 G when pulling out of the dive at 400 km/h TAS.
At 6730 m i get 3.0 G when pulling out of the dive at 400 km/h TAS.

This gets worse when altitude increases.

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

And what does that mean to you?

[Ernst]

Originally Posted by EJGr.Ost_Caspar

And what does that mean to you?

The 109 elevator becomes heavy at high speeds, but 400 km/h is not high speed. Some 109 elevators and ailerons (later ones) are becoming too much heavy and too early. I think his concerns is about that. And IL2 manual asks for fly the 109 above 450 km/h when attacking.

Frequently i have my controls stuck at speed around 450 (or 500 km/h considering TAS at 4k). I do not think 450~500 (or even 550) km/h are high speeds (to me medium range speeds).

Maybe 109 model was made considering Carson appointments, but that was too much controversial and he contradicts its own info:

http://mitglied.multimania.de/luftwa...on/Carson.html

Carson says that at 400 mph = 640 km/h the stick force (for ailerons) is 20 pound= 9,2 kg per g. Lets consider the same for the elevators. Then to pull 5g ~ 45 6g ~ 55 kg (Ow what "incredible" force), and to pull the stick back is even more easy that to push it to sides since you can add the strenght of your entire body. Even i, and i am not very well fit can pull this weight in such position (109 had inclined sit position, this would help). Weekend gym users can pull much more easyl. And if you consider fighter pilots are well fit, pull even 70 kg is not difficult (ok, if not sustained at least for the duration of the manouver, we must differ hold a force for longer period and few seconds in a brake manouver).

And since you are constraining all your muscles, this would help the pilot not to blackout.

I suggest you take some force measurement device put it in the wal, put yourself in cockpit like position and see how much you can pull using only the force your arms, then use your torso too.

[JHartikka]

Originally Posted by orangefood

6 ~ Optional Bomb fusing

I agree with you! Here is the fusing bug among three main cases related to improving IL sim to get 'bomber work' properly realistic as it was during the harsh years back then:

1. Bomb SALVO settings.
2. Fuse settings for pilot.
3. Missing bomb damage after pilot hit.

Nr 1 means that this otherways truthful sim has a queer property of dropping bombs as pairs. I guess that we are rather unanimous that back in those days bomb effect was with all efforts maximized. It would have been unprecedentedly foolish to waste bomb effect by dropping bombs as pairs into the same spot! Luckily, there already is a fix available for this IL sim 'idiot pairs of bombs' dilemma so it should not be very difficult to set correct with some future patch, I hope!

Nr 2 means of course that for every mission bombs were funished with a fuse best suited for that particular mission. Again, bombs were never carried to be wasted in those days! It was crew's choice to say the last word about fuse that would be best for the mission. Pilot select should be the case with this sim, too, if we wish to further keep the sim historically accurate instead of becoming just another fancy game?

Nr 3 is the IL sim curious feature that bombs released before but exploding after flak or enemy interceptor has hit the bomber pilot do not cause any damage. In reality, bombs of course were quite as dangerous even after the aircraft that dropped them was hit!


Best regards,

- J. Hartikka -

Finland

Attached a wartime photo of men gathered to a supply of 1000 kg bombs on airfield of Joensuu. There is a collection of other original wartime photos that I have scanned on messages http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...d=1#post210220 and http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...782#post213782 and http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthr...588#post216588

[Ernst]

Originally Posted by cheesehawk

80kg would be quite a pull, especially if one hand was on the throttle/flaps/whatever else. I don't think they can simulate that with any of the current FF sticks, so lowering the amount of g's being pulled is the compromise. Your test indicates that they have modelled it in-game. Now whether or not its at the correct historical rate is debateable and at the same time, something we'll never be able to provide a definitive answer for.

Ok. But for the manouver you can use both hands. I think i can pull 50 kg for some seconds. At 500 km/h the force must be somewhat less for 6g.

[Blackdog_kt]

Without going into how the game models forces on stick (i think it's a fixed amount for one hand only for all aircraft), i think the main issue is that the 109's elevators lock up in almost level flight above 6000km but they don't do the same at lower altitudes, even at higher IAS values.

This is what's causing me to think that maybe TAS is being factored into the "stiffness" calculations instead of IAS as it should probably be in reality.

At high altitudes TAS is much higher than IAS. With the sim's 109s you can maneuver just fine at more than 400km/h IAS on the deck, but you can't do the same up at 7000km or so. I'm not an aerodynamics expert but i've studied physics in university for a few years, so i treated it as a deductive experiment, started comparing the two situations and tried to find out what's similar and what's different in each one.

Well, if the maneuver is similar, the G pulled is about the same and IAS is the same, what else is there that changes when you go from low to high altitude? Air density, which is actually why your IAS gauge shows lower than what you're really doing (TAS).

It seems like the speed threshold for elevator stiffness is based on TAS in the sim, which is like ignoring the air density at the given altitude. This also seems contrary to some well established aviation standards. Nowadays, in the age of inertial navigation systems, GPS and automated flight management systems, it's easy as pie to know an airplane's true airspeed and even it's ground speed.
Even a cessna pilot has this much information available to him: the IAS and compass readings (which provide the indicated speed vector) are fed to the GPS unit, the GPS unit already knows the aircraft's true path from the satellite and its rate of change (the real speed over the ground), so by subtracting these two vectors the GPS can also tell you the wind direction and speed.

And yet, even today, the primary speed indicator on all aircraft, from cessnas to airliners to fighters, shows IAS even when it's easy to show TAS or GS. Why? Because IAS tells us how the aircraft feels the air around it, which is a direct measure of how well it will respond to a given maneuver. If the air is not thick enough at high altitude and the pilots sees a GS or TAS of 400km/h, he might be tricked into pulling hard into a maneuver and stalling, but if he sees an IAS of less than 200km/h this is his indication that the aircraft will feel mushy. In a sense, IAS is not so much about how fast you travel but if the air around you is dense enough to support a given maneuver.

I have the feeling that in general, aircraft who fly at different altitudes and true airspeeds will more or less fly the same if they can maintain the same IAS. Ok, maybe a higher altitude/higher TAS scenario means more Gs needed for the same change of path, but that's just what it says: you will need to pull harder or for a longer time. It doesn't however reflect on the actual effectiveness of the controls to let you do that. Simply put, if there's enough air particles to hit a deflected control surface the aircraft turns around a certain axis at a proportional rate.

In fact, i've seen some manuals for high flying general aviation aircraft that advise the pilot to always use the autopilot above a certain altitude, because the thin air presents less resistance to control deflection and thus makes it easier for the pilot to overcontrol. So for example, if it needs a force of 5kg to move the ailerons to the stops at 5000ft, it could only need a force of 1kg to do the same at 25000ft. This balances out and in fact overcomes the reduced efficiency of the controls, to the point that autopilot use is mandatory in order not to over control the airplane: it's harder for the control to effect the same change of roll/pitch/yaw for a given deflection due to the thin air, but it's easier for the pilot to reach and surpass that deflection, again because of the thin air.

To sum up, it feels like in IL2 the 109's controls need a higher force to be deflected when flying at higher altitudes due to TAS being factored into the calculations. From reading those manuals it seems that airplane control stiffness in general is mostly dependent on air density/IAS and not TAS, actually making it easier to deflect the controls at higher altitude, but not as effective for the same amount of deflection. Of course, the big question is "how much does each effect cancel the other out, or under what conditions does one of them prevail?", i wish i knew the answer to that

If all this is true (corrections are more than welcome, i'm not claiming any expertise here, just a basic understanding of a few physics variables), the way it would be modeled in IL2 would be that when flying high our aircraft would need bigger inputs but it would be easier to reach them. Essentially, the maneuvering cap during high altitude flight would not be the needed forces on the stick but the control stops.

[ImpalerNL]

Originally Posted by EJGr.Ost_Caspar

And what does that mean to you?

Me 109 F/G:
"- What's the fastest you ever had a 109 in a dive?
I've taken it to about 680 to 750 km/hr at which point you needed 2 hands to pull it out of the dive."

-Franz Stigler, German fighter ace. 28 victories. Interview of Franz Stigler.

Asuming this is true airspeed. Currently when flying a bf109G at 7000m, at 600 km/h TAS or ~410 km/h IAS, the elevator/aileron controls stiffen considerably, making maneurvering impossible. This is ~80km/h below the speed stated by Franz Stigler.

At all altitudes the bf109F/G/K elevator becomes unusable between 550-600 TAS.
This should be at least 680 TAS, because at 680 TAS speed the stick force increased but the controls didnt lock up.