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IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey Famous title comes to consoles.

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  #21  
Old 10-03-2009, 01:15 AM
MorgothNL MorgothNL is offline
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Originally Posted by Widar View Post
The big difference however is that "Joe Average" cannot fly at 20/20 in simulator mode and will have to use 10/20 to 17/20 depending on the aircraft flown. In any event, the worst performing aircraft in BOP at 20/20 will not be able to outperform the best performing aircraft in BOP at 10/20 of 17/20. Proportionally the difference is not that great when testing all aircraft at 10/20 or 20/20, if it exists at all.

The really skilled virtual pilots will not get into a horizontal turning fight as it is, and against "Joe Average" it does not matter in any case since you will be able to get on their six in any event, if you are a skilled virtual pilot.

So to sum it up, this discussion is dangerously moving into the direction of a "I want to have the last word" argumentation which is really pointless.

So instead let me say that I look forward to your comparative detailed 20/20 BOP test results, since I disagree with your statement and will leave it at that. If you want to make a 20/20 test report for 20 aircraft: I certainly am not stopping you, more power to you!
The point is not to put the sensitivity at 20/20 per se.
You say the 10/20 for all, makes it equal. But it is not, you give the more instable planes an advantage, wich you WILL notice in game, meaning life or death.

What I would suggest, is to take a plane, make 4 or 5 360 degree turns, and put the sensitivity there, where the plane will just not stall.
This means 12/20 for a hurricane, and 17/20 for a la-7. Now, you HAVE 'equal' situations, and because both planes will handle just as stable, because you tuned the sensitivity for those planes, and no others, 'joe average' will be able to fly the la with 17/20, just as well as with 10/20. But now he makes the turn way faster.

Do you get my/our point?
in short: it is not about MAX sensitivity, it is about the best sensitivity for every plane seperate. 10/20 will be good for a hurricane, but will limit the la

EDIT: plz dont read this as a bitching post, im just trying to make you realise, the sensitivity does really matter, and 10/20 for each test, is not fair for many planes.
earlier this day, I was flying my spit, and got shot down 3 times in a row by a la-7. I could just not outfly him, were i normally can. Then I realised my sensitivity was not set for the spit, I put it just 1 notch up, and it made all the difference. like I said, sensitivity can mean life of death

PS.you are dutch, arent you?

Last edited by MorgothNL; 10-03-2009 at 01:22 AM.
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  #22  
Old 10-03-2009, 01:47 AM
fuzzychickens fuzzychickens is offline
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"What was tested is the performance of BOP aircraft under same circumstances with no risk of sudden stall+spin, and like I noted earlier any advantage that is there at 10/20 will also be there at 20/20."

Any advantage there at 10/20 may be not as great, the same, or more at 20/20. This is all I'm saying. It's basically the same reason the other poster suggested sensitivity settings adjusted for each plane to the point before it stalls so the best corner speed for all planes can be reached - I doubt best corner speed is reached for a lot of planes at 10/20 (La7 certainly not).

But you are not interested in max turn rates based on how you set up the tests, so for your purposes it may not matter anyway.

Really it's a difference in the data that we find important. It's your test, so I'm not complaining - just offering a different point of view.
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  #23  
Old 10-03-2009, 04:57 PM
imnotgeoff imnotgeoff is offline
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wow that must of taken quite a while to do
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  #24  
Old 10-03-2009, 07:39 PM
Widar Widar is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MorgothNL View Post
The point is not to put the sensitivity at 20/20 per se.
You say the 10/20 for all, makes it equal. But it is not, you give the more instable planes an advantage, wich you WILL notice in game, meaning life or death.
First of all, thanks for the reply. It seems however that my previous remarks have not all hit home. I will expand on them.

The least stable BOP aircraft of the 20 that were tested, meaning the ones that were most prone to sudden violent stalls+spins, were the Fw 190´s and the P51´s. These BOP aircraft are also the worst overall performers in the test. So there is no advantage at all there at 10/20 for the Fw 190´s and P51´s, as you are suggesting in your post, based on my test results, quite the contrary. The BOP La-7, La-5FN and the Spitfires were the best overall BOP performers in the test and in that order at 10/20 and will also be so at 20/20. The BOP Fw 190´s and P51´s are very difficult - if not impossible - to control for an average virtual pilot at 20/20 or even 15/20. The BOP La-7, La-5FN and Spitfires however can probably be flown by just about every average virtual pilot at 15/20. So I have to disagree with the point you want to make based on the test results.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MorgothNL View Post
What I would suggest, is to take a plane, make 4 or 5 360 degree turns, and put the sensitivity there, where the plane will just not stall.
This means 12/20 for a hurricane, and 17/20 for a la-7. Now, you HAVE 'equal' situations, and because both planes will handle just as stable, because you tuned the sensitivity for those planes, and no others, 'joe average' will be able to fly the la with 17/20, just as well as with 10/20. But now he makes the turn way faster.

Do you get my/our point?
in short: it is not about MAX sensitivity, it is about the best sensitivity for every plane seperate. 10/20 will be good for a hurricane, but will limit the la
This again is the Michael Schumacher or more appropriately the Erich Hartmann principle that you bring forward like fuzzychickens did earlier.

I understand the point you are trying to make, but it is like I explained earlier - in my opinion - an invalid one for TESTING in BOP since it is based on something subjective and personal. To make test results comparable you must have objective equal conditions for the BOP aircraft. The objective hard technical aspects of a BOP aircraft are hard data, meaning they are registered by the programmers in the data files for each BOP aircraft.

The objective hard technical aspects are the ones that I wanted to test because these cannot be influenced by virtual pilot skill. The soft subjective aspects - if you will - are virtual pilot skill and this is subjective, vague and personal, there is no clear way to measure it. So therefore I needed to eliminate that from the tests and for this 10/20 was found to be the best setting.

For example, during the online part of the testing a friend of mine started flying the BOP Fw 190 A/F-8 at 20/20 and started stalling+spinning at every manoeuvre. For the tests it was required that he kept flying at 20/20 so he soldiered on dutifully. After a while his good subjective `pilot´s hand´ got the hang of the BOP Fw 190 A/F-8 and he was to turn, roll, climb and dive at 20/20 quite successfully. I was still able to stay on his tail at 17/20 in the same Fw 190 A/F-8 in all test manoeuvres and at various altitudes mind you. For him however 20/20 had become the best setting in the BOP Fw 190 A/F-8, for me it was 17/20. Another friend that was later involved in the testing could just not control the BOP Fw 190 A/F-8 at 20/20 or 17/20 no matter how long that pilot flew the aircraft. This is the Erich Hartmann principle at work if you will.

The `best` sensitivity setting for you will not necessarily be the best sensitivity setting for `Joe Average`. The `best` sensitivity setting for a BOP aircraft is a subjective and personal factor. A friend of mine always flies at 20/20 in every aircraft in simulator mode, but this can hardly be a benchmark for `Joe Average`. You can of course test to find your own personal ´best´ sensitivity setting for each BOP aircraft, the results will be very interesting indeed but they also will be very personal and subjective since they depend greatly on your particular virtual pilot skill level and the controller used. The object of my test however, are the BOP hard data technical aircraft aspects and not the subjective virtual pilot skill. And since testing has revealed that any BOP flight advantage that is there at 10/20 will also be there at 20/20, and generally proportionally about the same at that, the end result of the subjective test that you describe will never alter the fact that the worst performing aircraft in BOP will proportionally do just as bad at 20/20 as at 10/20.

At 10/20 `Joe Average` can roll and turn the BOP Fw 190 and P51 - the worst piston engine performers tested in BOP - with maximum flight stick pressure applied during manoeuvres without the danger of suddenly stalling+spinning and that at least is an objective benchmark for testing the hard technical aspects of BOP aircraft performance and at the same time eliminates the subjective virtual pilot skill factor in testing. It is not the final word in testing though nor is it meant to be, to be sure.

I hope that this will put the Erich Hartmann principle discussion to rest.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MorgothNL View Post
EDIT: plz dont read this as a bitching post, im just trying to make you realise, the sensitivity does really matter, and 10/20 for each test, is not fair for many planes.
earlier this day, I was flying my spit, and got shot down 3 times in a row by a la-7. I could just not outfly him, were i normally can. Then I realised my sensitivity was not set for the spit, I put it just 1 notch up, and it made all the difference. like I said, sensitivity can mean life of death
No offense taken. As I said in my previous posts, different sensitivity settings can make a difference of give-or-take a second with some of the BOP aircraft that I tested online with friends. But based on this same testing the best performing BOP aircraft do both better at 10/20 and at 20/20, and generally proportionally the same at that. The example you give actually underlines this when combined with the Erich Hartmann principle.

In my tests the BOP La-7 best 360 degree turn at 6000 meters was done in 21.64 seconds (that was best of three by the way and the worst turn was about 1 second slower) and the BOP Spitfire Mk. XVI made the same turn (best of three) at 20.65 seconds. That is a difference of just 1 second.

In your example you were flying against – at an unknown altitude and speed - a BOP La-7 virtual pilot at unknown La-7 sensitivity settings and you then turned your Spitfire (I presume the Mk. XVI) sensitivity settings to maybe 17+/20 and were able to turn with the La-7. This hardly qualifies as a test example since the exact test circumstances are not known and subjective virtual pilot skill (the Erich Hartmann principle) is hard at work also in your case.

The BOP La-7 at 20/20 will however outturn all BOP Spitfires at 20/20 at low/medium altitudes. So in all probability the La-7 virtual pilot you faced had his sensitivity at a lower setting (i.e. 15/20) giving you maybe <= second less in a turn with your Spitfire which - combined with the probability that you also are a better virtual pilot (better ´pilot´s hand´) than the La-7 pilot - levels the playing field for you and gives you the ´edge´ you needed to be victorious. I presume you are an ´above average pilot´, since I remember a thread where you are complimented for outfighting your adversaries at three to one odds for something like 8 minutes, which is something that `Joe Average´ is not capable of to be sure.

I have observed a very good virtual pilot in BOP online who is able to outfight just about anybody in a Me 109 G-6, even pilots on my friends list that I know to be really good and hard to beat in a Spitfire Mk. XVI. Look at the test results of the Me 109 G-6 and based on them the Me 109 G-6 pilot´s success cannot be attributed to the BOP Me 109 G-6 flying qualities which are really quite inferior to the BOP Spitfire Mk. XVI´s that the virtual Me 109 G-6 pilot I refer to outfought. Incidentally, I also did online tests with friends at 17/20 with various BOP Spitfires and BOP Me 109´s and the advantages that you will see at 10/20 in the test table are also there proportionally at 17/20.

If you would like to see more tests to find the overall most superior aircraft in BOP of the 20 that I tested, there is really no need for that anymore. Take the La-7 and learn to fly it at 20/20, it is the best mount of the 20 BOP aircraft on the test list. The really good virtual pilots however will pick the worst BOP aircraft on the list, i.e. the Fw 190´s and P51´s, and will be victorious in them online against La-7´s just to show their opponents how good they are.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MorgothNL View Post
PS.you are dutch, arent you?
Guilty as charged.

Last edited by Widar; 10-03-2009 at 07:54 PM.
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  #25  
Old 10-03-2009, 07:49 PM
Widar Widar is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fuzzychickens View Post
Any advantage there at 10/20 may be not as great, the same, or more at 20/20. This is all I'm saying.
Thanks for the response. I still look forward to your 20/20 test results! Like I said earlier, according to the tests I conducted, proportionally the difference at 10/20 will be about the same - more or less - at 20/20. In some cases more, in some cases less, and also dependant on virtual pilot skill at 20/20. But the worst performers at 10/20 will remain the worst performers at any setting.

There are many more things I can think of that can be tested, like turn, roll, climb and dive rate at different altitudes for instance and at different asynchronous elevator/aileron sensitivity settings, angles, rudder applied, flap settings etc. For instance a Spitfire pilot in real life was told to generally avoid fighting a Fw 190 below 3000 ft., since the Fw 190 has a really great manoeuvrability advantage at that altitude according to WWII RAF RAE tests with captured Fw 190´s. When I tested this I found that this is not evident in BOP. That is also one of the reasons that the overall turn and roll manoeuvrability for the 20 BOP aircraft on the test list was only tested at just one certain altitude. Draw your own conclusions from the Fw 190 example and think of the time required to also do all those other type of tests I described and then registering the test results, and think if it is going to tell you anything substantially more or different than the test results that are there now.

If you want to know which BOP aircraft of the 20 that I tested has the tightest horizontal turning circle in seconds in BOP at 20/20 at low/medium altitude that is easy, it is the La-7. There is really no reason for more tests to confirm this and to know how many seconds or tens of seconds precisely you can win by flying at 20/20 as compared to 10/20 or 17/20. But you are free to carry out your own tests and I look forward to the results. Also include the I-153 and the I-16 in your tests if turning circle in seconds is your main interest.

I respect your comments and opinion, and as far as my test results go, they are there and available for free for all forum members to either use them or don´t use them.

Interesting questions that remain are: where are the flight characteristic test results of all BOP aircraft that were registered by the professional testers that were employed by the developer/publisher? Where are the official Gaijin BOP in-game simulator mode aircraft statistics?

Last edited by Widar; 10-03-2009 at 09:08 PM.
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  #26  
Old 10-03-2009, 07:57 PM
Reknad Reknad is offline
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Spit Mildly overrated? i think not....
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  #27  
Old 10-03-2009, 08:02 PM
Ancient Seraph Ancient Seraph is offline
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I'll just rely on my experience in saying the Spit and La-7 own most of the other aircraft.
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  #28  
Old 10-03-2009, 08:11 PM
Reknad Reknad is offline
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Originally Posted by Ancient Seraph View Post
I'll just rely on my experience in saying the Spit and La-7 own most of the other aircraft.
Yak 3 is actually better in a turn compared to the LA 7 IMO, or atleast i didnt really pay attention to it.
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  #29  
Old 10-03-2009, 08:52 PM
fuzzychickens fuzzychickens is offline
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I agree, Yak 3 for sure is best. It just takes a fine touch compared to La7. The yak is more prone to stall despite its better turn.
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  #30  
Old 10-04-2009, 12:47 AM
Widar Widar is offline
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Originally Posted by Reknad View Post
Spit Mildly overrated? i think not....
In `Fighter` by Len Deighton the following data is supplied on the early Hurricane, Spitfire and Me 109 models during the Battle of Britain:

`An altitude of 3048 m. (10,000 feet) and a speed of 428 km/h (300 mph) allowed the Me 109 E-3 a minimum horizontal turn radius of 228 m. (750 feet) at 8.1 gravity with a half fuel wing loading of 25 lbs. per square foot, the Hurricane Mk. I/II a minimum horizontal turn radius of 243 m. (800 feet) at 7.5 gravity with a half fuel wing loading of 22 pounds per square foot, the Spitfire Mk. I/II a minimum horizontal turn radius of 268 m. (880 feet) at 7.0 gravity with a half fuel wing loading of 24 pounds per square foot.`

`Some of the Spitfires were lost in spins, so RAF pilots were told to avoid this maneuver. The Messerschmitt Me 109 suffered no such vice, there was no problem getting out of a spin and it never went into a flat spin.´

‘The (Hurricane and Spitfire) Merlin engine carburettor system seldom delivered exactly the same amount of fuel simultaneously to each cylinder. Worst of all, the (British Hurricane and Spitfire 1940 Merlin engine) carburettor was subject to centrifugal effect, so that it starved, and missed a beat or two, as it went into a dive. The RAF pilots (therefore) learned how to half-roll before diving, so that the fuel from the carburettor was thrown into the Merlin engine instead of out of it, but in battle this could be a very dangerous time-wasting necessity.’

‘The RAF fighter pilots were learning about their German adversaries. The Bf 109, with its fuel-injection engine, not only dived without missing a beat or two (unlike the carburettor-fed British Merlin engines) but could also outdive the (1940) RAF Hurricane and Spitfire fighters.’

‘(The German invented) fuel injection (in the Bf 109), which puts a measured amount of fuel into each cylinder according to temperature and engine speed etc., was demonstrably superior to the carburettors that the (Hurricane and Spitfire) Merlin engines used.’

‘The 32-foot wing span of the Bf 109 gave it an advantage over its rivals. In spite of its high wing loading, it had a horizontal turn radius of only 750 feet (Spitfire 880 feet and Hurricane 800 feet), and this could be a vital factor in air fighting.’

‘Both the (1940) RAF fighters (Hurricane and Spitfire) had eight Browning 7.7 mm machine guns. The German Bf 109 E was equipped with two 7.92-mm machine guns and two 20-mm cannon. Although exact comparisons are difficult (because in combat the German 20-mm cannon were firing thin-shelled ‘mine type’ 20-mm missiles that exploded on impact), it is reasonable to say that a three-seconds’ burst of gunfire from the Messerschmitt Bf 109 E weighed 18 lbs. The RAF fighter fired at most 13 lbs. in the same duration of shooting.’

‘During (the Battle of Britain in) 1940 the Hurricanes and Spitfires carried eight Browning 7.7 mm machine guns. The Bf 109 E usually had two 7.92-mm machine guns on top of the engine cowling and a 20-mm cannon in each wing. Most German 20-mm cannon shells were thin-walled and contained explosive, but incendiary and armour-piercing rounds were also used.’

‘One of the problems of the Browning 7.7-mm machine gun, in RAF use, was the fact that it had to fire the British Army’s rifle bullets’.

‘On 11 July 1940 Peter Townsend a peacetime RAF pilot, a flyer of great skill and experience, raked a German bomber with his eight Browning 7.7-mm machine guns.. … Townsend had put 220 bullets into the German bomber but it got home to Arras.’

‘In an incident in the Battle of Britain six Spitfires of 74 Squadron expended 7,000 bullets in attacks on a single (!) German bomber but did not bring it down.’

‘On Sunday 28 July 1940 … (RAF fighter ace) ‘Sailor’ Malan was leading twelve Spitfires of 74 Squadron from Manston. (Luftwaffe fighter ace) Mölders was leading a (Me 109) formation, he turned and shot down a Spitfire. ... Both Mölders and Malan were fast, but Mölders was a split second faster …, Mölders was already on his tail, Malan turned into the attack … his (7.7-mm) machine gun bullets raked the Me 109. Had Spitfires been armed with (reliable) cannon, Mölders would not have been able to nurse his badly damaged machine back to his base at Wissant.’

‘Although the rival merits of machine gun and cannon were much argued at the time, the RAF had secretly concluded that the cannon was far better. In 1940 (at the Royal Aircraft Establishment), a series of tests was carried out against an old Blenheim airframe (incorporating armour). The eight machine gun configuration was fourth in a list in which two cannon were top.’

‘As an experiment the RAF used a few Spitfires equipped with (Hispano 20-mm) cannon during the 1940 battles. However the RAF had trouble with its unreliable 20-mm cannon guns, and the few RAF pilots that were given them during the Battle of Britain for the most part cursed their luck and were then re-equipped with 7.7-mm machine-gun fighters.’

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Major Werner "Vati" Mölders, Kommodore of JG 51 during the Battle of Britain, participated in the comparative trials at E-Stelle Rechlin, the German equivalent of the RAF RAE, during which he flew both the Spitfire and the Hurricane, on which he recalled, in agreement with the report below.

"It was very interesting to carry out the flight trials at Rechlin with the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Both types are very simple to fly compared to our aircraft, and childishly easy to take-off and land. The Hurricane is good-natured and turns well, but its performance is decidedly inferior to that of the Me 109. It has strong stick forces and is "lazy" on the ailerons.

The Spitfire (Mk. I/II) is one class better. It handles well, is light on the controls, faultless in the turn and has a performance approaching that of the Bf 109. As a fighting aircraft, however, it is miserable. A sudden push forward on the stick will cause the Motor to cut; and because the propeller has only two pitch settings (take-off and cruise), in a rapidly changing air combat situation the motor is either over speeding or else is not being used to the full."

Mölders proved very successful during the Battle, despite a poor start on 28 July, when he lead his Bf 109 unit the first time into combat, and was wounded in combat with Spitfires but also shooting one down one in the confusion. During the Battle of Britain he was victorious in 29 air combats against RAF fighters (14-14 aerial victories against Hurricanes and Spitfires, and another against a FAF Curtiss), culminating on 31 August, when he downed 3 Hurricanes in quick succession, repeating the same feat on 12 and on 22 October once again; ultimately finishing the Battle with 54 victories to his name.

Up to May 1941, when he was transferred to the Eastern Front, he downed a further 13 Spitfires and Hurricanes - the friendly rivalry between him and Galland in scoring victories was legendary. His final number of victories was raised to 115 victories in his later career as fighter pilot.

Mölders was also one of the first to test the new Bf 109 F-1 against the RAF during the last phase of the battle, his first flight on the Bf 109 F-1 being on 6 October 1940.

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In " Duels in the Sky", by Captain Eric Brown ret. a WWII British combat fighter pilot and the WWII Royal Aircraft Establishment Chief test pilot at Farnborough, Brown discusses many major aircraft of the 1940-45 period, and explains how different types would have fared in dogfights. As the Chief RAE test pilot, he flew almost all Allied and Axis WWII planes, including all Spitfire Marks, and his evaluation is therefore probably unique.

For what it's worth, his own hardest trial may have been while flying an RAF Spitfire Mk. IX against a Fw 190 over France. After 10 minutes, the German and he realized that their pilot skills were so evenly matched that they broke off combat. The German fighter had an edge "in the vertical", while the Spitfire had an edge "in the horizontal". Neither could get his sights on the other, and they finally gave up.

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In `Wings of the Luftwaffe`, by Captain Eric Brown ret. a WWII British combat fighter pilot and the WWII Royal Aircraft Establishment Chief test pilot at Farnborough, Brown discusses in technical detail the flying characteristics of 16 German aircraft types, not counting the various mark variants, that he tested as WWII RAE Chief test pilot. He remarks on his RAE tests of a Fw 190 A-8 (he flew and tested various Fw 190 marks from the A-3, A-4, A-8 and F-8 right up to the Fw 190 D-9 and the Ta 152 H-1 which are all discussed in his book):

`Several fighters were to display the hallmark of the thoroughbred during World War II – aircraft that were outstanding to varying degrees of excellence in their combat performance, their amenability to a variety of operational scenarios, their ease of pilot handling and their field maintenance tractability – but none more so than designer Kurt Tank´s remarkable creation sporting the prosaic designation of Focke-Wulf Fw 190.`

`Within six or seven months of its operation debut, the Fw 190 was causing widespread consternation among RAF fighter squadrons based in the south of England. The Tank-designed fighter could out-perform the contemporary Spitfire on every count with the exception of the horizontal turning circle – one leading RAF pilot is recorded as having commented acidly when this attribute of his mount was stressed during a pre-operation briefing, `Turning does not win battles!`. By April 1942, RAF combat attrition on the Channel Front reached prohibitive levels primarily as a result of the activities of its redoubtable German adversary – more than a hundred Spitfires being lost on offensive operations over Europe during the course of the month – and the Merlin 61-engine Spitfire Mk. IX was still two or three months away. But while going a long way towards redressing the balance and even offering an edge in climb above 26,000 feet (7 925 m) the Spitfire Mk. IX was still to be left standing by the Focke-Wulf´s half-roll and dive!`

`Indeed, as the months passed and the Focke-Wulf consolidated the ascendancy that it had established over its RAF contemporaries from the time of its operational debut, morale of pilots of the Spitfire squadrons inevitably being affected, Air Ministry concern over the situation began to border on desperation.`

`I was pleasantly surprised to find, after clambering into the somewhat narrow Fw 190 cockpit, that the forward view was still rather better than offered by the Me 109, the Spitfire or the Mustang. The semi-reclining seat – ideal for high-g maneuvers - proved comfortable and the controls fell easily in the hand.´

`Incredible aileron turns were possible in the Fw 190 that would have torn the wings from a Bf 109 and badly strained the arm muscles of any Spitfire pilot trying to follow.`

´From high-speed cruise, a pull up into a climb gave the Fw 190 an initial advantage owing to its superior acceleration and the superiority of the German fighter was even more noticeable when both aircraft were pulled up into a zoom climb from a dive. In the dive the Fw 190 could leave the Spitfire Mk. IX without difficulty and there was no gainsaying that in so far as maneuverability was concerned the German fighter was markedly the superior of the two in all save the tight horizontal turn – the Spitfire Mk. IX could not follow in aileron turns and reversals at high speeds and the worst heights for a Spitfire pilot to engage the Fw 190 in combat were between 18,000 and 22,000 ft (5 485 and 6 705 meters), and at altitudes below 3,000 ft (915 meters).´

´At low speeds Fw 190 rudder control proved positive and effective and I found it satisfactory at high speeds, seldom needing to be used for any normal maneuver. It was when one took the three controls together rather than in isolation that one appreciated the fact that the Fw 190´s magic as a fighter lay in its superb control harmony. A good dogfighter and a good gun platform called for just the characteristics that this German fighter possessed in all important matters of stability and control. At the normal cruise of 330 mph (530 km/h) at 8,000 ft (2 440 m), the stability was very good directionally, unstable laterally and neutral longitudinally.´

Brown, as noted earlier, was both a WWII British combat fighter pilot and the Chief RAE test pilot in WWII and as such he flew almost all Allied and Axis WWII planes, including all Spitfire Marks, and his evaluation is therefore probably unique.

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Some data from Osprey´s Aircraft of the Aces No. 9 `Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Aces of the Western Front´ written by John Weal:

´In the spring of 1941 … in the west there remained just two complete Luftwaffe Jagdgeschwader (JG´s 2 and 26, between them fielding exactly 140 serviceable fighters).´

´The winter months of 1941-42 provided a welcome hiatus for Douglas´100 RAF fighter squadrons (that is well over 1200 RAF fighters, mainly Spitfires, against 140 Luftwaffe fighters). … Figures of the time for the latter half of 1941 quote the RAF as admitting the loss of 411 of their own fighters over the Channel and northern Europe, while claiming the destruction of 731 German fighters. In fact, the true cost to the Luftwaffe´s western based Jagdgeschwader (JG 2 and JG 26) was just 103 fighters. This victory-to-loss ratio of some four to one in favour of the heavily outnumbered German defenders prompted the British Air Staff to warn Air Marshall Sholto Douglas, the man who had initiated the policy of ´leaning forward into France´ upon succeeding Sir Hugh Dowding as AOC Fighter Command in November 1940, that a more defensive stance had now become ´a disagreeable necessity´.´

` ... the pilots of JG 26 had been enjoying three months of near total mastery of the skies (in July 1942). There were even reported instances of German pilots cheekily performing ´upward Charlies´ (climbing rolls) alongside formations of Spitfires, which did little to improve RAF morale! In many fighter messes along the south coast of England the Fw 190 became the main topic of conversation, and debate. If not exactly ´twitchy´, many RAF pilots conceded among themselves that ´they´ (i.e. the Jagdwaffe) have definitely got the upper hand at the moment´. Official figures tend to support this view. By the end of March RAF Fighter Command had lost 32 Spitfires and their pilots at a cost to JG 26 of just five pilots killed.´

´Throughout May 1942 the Fw 190´s of JG 26 continued to inflict heavy losses on the RAF. On 1 June Circus No 178 saw eight bomb-carrying Hurricanes over northern Belgium escorted by no less than 168 Spitfires! Two Gruppen were scrambled (paper strength at best 72 servicable Fw 190 fighters, with about 60% operational, meaning 40 Fw 190 aircraft operational at best) to intercept them – Hauptmann Seifert´s I./JG 26 from St. Omer-Arques and Hauptmann Priller´s III./JG 26 from Wevelghem. The two Gruppen caught the four Spitfire squadrons of the Debden Wing over the coast east of Ostende. A classic ´feint-and-bounce´out of the sun resulted in the loss of the Wing´s commander and eight of his Spitfires, with another five suffering damage. … Not a single machine of JG 26 suffered any reportable damage.´

´July 1942 witnessed … the introduction of the Spitfire Mk. IX into RAF squadron service – a move which reduced, while not eliminating, the Fw 190´s margin of superiority …´

´On 19 August 1942 (in) Operation Jubilee, the costly raid by the Canadians on Dieppe … (the) RAF had paid a high price for maintaining aerial superiority over the strict confines of the Dieppe beaches and offshore waters – with 106 aircraft lost, including 88 Spitfires. Against this JG 2 lost 14 fighters (with eight pilots killed) and JG 26 six fighters and their pilots.´

Last edited by Widar; 10-05-2009 at 07:05 AM.
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