fw 190a5 flight model

[Mabroc]

Well, Im not sure about climb rates, they seem OK, but the acceleration of the Spitfires in level flight is waaay too good. They can do a lot of crazy turns and evasives and then go to full speed in 5 seconds. Many times I crossed a Spitfire in a head on without guns blazing at each other in my Fw-190, so I keep extending on level flight, the Spit just hard turn 180 degress and is on my tail very close, if I dont even touch the rudder controls I can extend safely in 3 or 5 m (they usually break pursuit), minor movements drop my speed too much and the Spit close in.

And this is the norm online, a couple of weeks ago I was in a Fw-190D9 at 5km altitude, spotted a Spitfire heading away from me at 1km of altitude and maybe 3km of separation, I dived, reached max speed (plane stuttering) and close on him, he saw me and started a loose (not tight 180 turn) I followed it on my dive, he finalized the turn heading straight full throttle towards a Me-110 in a strike sortie, at that point I was on his 6 but I loosed a lot of speed in the turning dive AND HE WAS OUTRUNNING ME!!!! When I reach full speed and start to close in He already killed the Me-110 and I was still 1KM from him, all the energy on me planes was wasted in a slight turn BUT GREAT DIVE, and the plane accelerated to full speed in maybe 30 seconds, meanwhile the Spit was already at max speed around 20 or 25 earlier, so he got a good separation from me.

I have fighted every allied plane with the Me-109 and Fw-190 and no other plane seem to accelerate that good, not even the Yak-3, Yak-9U or La-7. So, when you are closing on him, if the spit pilot sees you, just need to turn a little to avoid your fire, and your only move is just extend away, dont even try to adjust your fire, if you miss, he is already at your 6 at max speed and you will die before can reach you max speed again.

[Sillius_Sodus]

I've never found the Antons to be great climbers. Nevertheless, they are fun to fly and I've had my a** handed to me often by a well flown 190, no matter how good my kite is supposed to be.

[MaxGunz]

The AI-only planes fly a relaxed FM. I emailed Oleg once why not run them with small & fast table-driven FM? Then they would fly within limits and be predictable moves for AI computing. I guess he didn't like the idea. So when you hack an AI-only plane, it's a UFO.

The rest of the planes have the same FM with different parameter sets, the parameters being factors for equations not end-speed/height/etc of table-driven sims.

The FM seems to climb a bit easily. Find the slowest you can go at level flight, it will be at low power. For the P-40B I can hold 1000m alt with about 32% power pedal-dancing along flaps and gear up about 145kph. The level-flight power curve U left side only goes 32% high.

If I hold that speed and bring the throttle up, I climb quite well and very steep but can't get out of my own way for lack of speed.

The FM and data set is an approximation of flight that runs as the heart of a game with much going on. It's not going to fit charts without some stretching and balancing that all compared does have some weird spots. But they are spots, differences between chart and game rather than cracks where the game has new or different properties. I don't see any canning of stall behavior either, the FM is a very robust code and data engine.

[MaxGunz]

Some of the planes are on steroids because the reals were hotrods. The Spit 25-lb is a hotrod even more than the FW 190D-9. It's about power to weight and thrust being highest at low speed, and excess thrust being what changes your momentum. That plane is the Frankenfire, not a good meter for the name Spitfire. You want to hunt Spit VB's that crossed the channel down low and are at low combat speed climbing to get the proper FW experience. But do it in an A2 or A3.

I have video of a British ace who talked about the Spit IX's and how before it was always the Spits at a clear disadvantage, when the FW's crossed with Spit IX's and thought they were dealing with Spit V's, the Spit IX's "took the pants off the Focke Wulfs" and kept on doing so. After that when FW's spotted Spits below they took time to check.

What that tells me is that with any Spit IX you will not have an easy walk in your Dora 9. You have edge to build on.

Turn in the vertical where roll changes direction and is close to zero energy cost. use short zooms or dives to achieve change in direction and speed at the same time; from high speed to moving 60+ degrees different direction you zoom climb to store speed into height while rolling to the new vector then pull out as you approach corner speed, using gravity to assist you going back to full horizontal, drop to get your speed back.
Pulling hard turns at full speed is a non-no. Even to zoom, you can zoom in a 30 degree climb and let the plane slow down to maneuver speed, even roll and take a new direction off that at little cost in speed.

There's a flight pattern to practice that's good for learning energy. Fly tilted circles for speed along the bottom and height with fast angle change across the top. You want to top at pretty good speed to bring the nose around best. The circle is more egg shape and the egg turns every time the plane crosses the top, I bet that's how the cloverleaf turn spoken of by P-38 pilots is done, it uses the vertical.

Boom and Zoom, don't strike from direct 6. Come in from the side with high closing speed -just because of that side vector- and shoot deflection starting from 400 meters out. Your closing speed effectively shrinks that range closer to 300m, aim as if 300m shot. You will soon be 300m and closing anyway. Hartman did the real version, turning into a target he flew 50m off the wing of, turned and fired into the target point-blank and exited behind the target all in one move. Try that in sim! I start at 400m, correct aim if need and start fire again by 300m. Less than a second later I am at 200m and need to turn to avoid ramming. I am -NOT- Erich Hartmann, even in sim!

Really. side approach cuts the number of evasions. If you have a wingman about 600m or so back, that should cut his workable evasions even more.
You just have to get good at deflection shooting, a matter of practice.

[K_Freddie]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

Ass-uming the pilot can take any 13 or 14 G's beyond momentarily, less than a second.

I was at a Korea vets meeting, where the old guys were talking about pulling 12Gs in P51s and not blacking out ??? Maybe we're a lot tougher down south - Something to think about
Or maybe our blood pressure goes up radically when we have to deal with crap

[Mabroc]

Good advices MaxGunz, I knew most of the tactics you explain and I follow them, been flying this sim since 2001, and many others before. My point was that after I loss all my energy from that turning dive I couldnt close in the Spit, meanwhile it just speed away after a hard 180 level turn. Yes, it was a Mark IX 25lbs but the standard VIII and IX are similar against same year AXIS planes.
They loss the energy same as other planes but regain it too quickly, being the Fw-190 much slower to accelerate (and before 4.11 they were even worst, now they are better, but 20-30khm slower at max speed) against a 109 the difference is still there but too a lesser extent. Well, gauging by experience not numbers the Spit seems to accelerate 3 times better than a 190 and maybe 1.5-2x better than a 109, alway speaking of level acceleration and same year enemies.

[MaxGunz]

You need to get numbers, record tracks, etc. Anything predictably so wrong should be recorded, analyzed, and presented with docs backing up the reasons. And then comes criticism without which you have only 1 opinion presented.. yours. Maybe someone changes their mind based on what all can see? It beats the Gaston game.

Do you know what speed you had after your turn? I've pulled some bleeders before, it's real easy to get too far inside and watch your speed go down fast. That's what practicing the tilted circle for, to teach you where the edge between just before stall is.

Make tracks so you can at least get alt/speed/etc, change the view around and see what happened more clearly.

I made tracks just to see where my shots were going and how my sight picture looked just before, my gunnery got better. Suddenly the DM's of enemy planes wasn't so tough as before.

Can you tell me the power to weight of these planes?

Can you tell me the clean stall speeds? What speed before each is no longer nose-high just to maintain alt, and what that means about acceleration? You may find a low speed zone where the FW should not do so well that no FW pilot in combat should ever get so slow.

Do you cross-control? That is using the joystick on diagonal. It makes more drag. Watch air racers, the move their sticks in + motions.

I shoot from long distance because if the target turns, I need turn much less to get a lead on his motion. I won't be able to keep that but I get my shot without losing much speed. Coming from a side, not 6, helps all that.

[JtD]

Given that at some altitudes the Spitfire climbs nearly twice as fast as the Fw 190, acceleration should also be nearly twice as good.

[MaxGunz]

Yes Freddy, bumpy air shakes planes. Safe speed is lower in bad weather.

You can probably survive a 25G impact FWIW.

That's momentary G's. Tell me about 12G turns because someone said they saw 12 on the G meter. That's cause he's twice as much as any ordinary man!

I remember the Army machinegunner who claimed that 50 cal bullets speed up after they leave the barrel. LOL, he should know, right?

[Herra Tohtori]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

Yes Freddy, bumpy air shakes planes. Safe speed is lower in bad weather.

You can probably survive a 25G impact FWIW.

That's momentary G's. Tell me about 12G turns because someone said they saw 12 on the G meter. That's cause he's twice as much as any ordinary man!

Transient lateral acceleration limits of humans vary from person to person and short spike of 12 g, I reckon it's possible but right about at the limit of human performance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8i04jBLI5I

What's impressive is if they actually had the time to look at their g-load gauges, or if they had some sort of flight recording systems (like a small needle in the g-load gauge, pushed by the indicator needle and showing the highest peak force)?

How reliable were these g-load indicators?


Did Mustang pilots in Korea era use any sort of G-wear? When did G-pants and G-suits make their appearance?

Impact g-forces are very short duration and with the right equipment (appropriate harness) you can survive impressively high decelerations. Empirical test results have shown that human beings can survive at least 45 g's of deceleration in forward/backward axis and 35 g's in sideways acceleration. Lateral acceleration limits would probably be a bit lower due to the massive stress on the neck and the spine in general, and you'd most definitely lose consciousness due to lack of blood pressure, but again I expect with proper harness and head/neck support surviving lateral decelerations above 25 g's would be quite possible.

I remember the Army machinegunner who claimed that 50 cal bullets speed up after they leave the barrel. LOL, he should know, right?

This is exactly why anecdotes are such a reliable way of assembling a mental picture of the comparative performances of combat aircraft of 60 years ago.