F4u-4 and F8F

[pandacat]

Has there been any discussion or plans to include F4u-4 and F8F in this game? At least F4u-4 did see combats in WWII and was produced in pretty substantial quantity. If Ta-152 and some experiemental LW aircraft that weren't completely out of testing phase are included, it's perfectly legittimate to have corsair-4. F8F also entered service and just was too late to see combat. Just some thoughts.

[horseback]

Unfortunately, both aircraft are claimed as the 'intellectual property' of the US Defense Company with an overactive legal staff that Shall Not Be Named... (this is their company logo).

As far as I know, there would be an enormous can of worms involved, a great deal of money spent, and very little chance of getting anything worthwhile accomplished.

Your chances of getting a flyable Typhoon are much better.

cheers

horseback

[Laurwin]

tell me more about F4U in the game currently though?

do you feel it's historically correct in it's climb rate, power output etc...? likelihood of overheating?

you don't notice very much bad things when you fight against zero, because you can still outrun them eventually.

but against tonys (ki61) and the late war japanese monster planes hayate and shiden (ki84 and N1k2), I have BIG problems, always, with USN planes...

maybe it's historical, i dunno, i've heard though, that Ki84 is basically an uber plane of the pacific front though.

either online or offfline against AIs.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by Laurwin

tell me more about F4U in the game currently though?

do you feel it's historically correct in it's climb rate, power output etc...? likelihood of overheating?

you don't notice very much bad things when you fight against zero, because you can still outrun them eventually.

but against tonys (ki61) and the late war japanese monster planes hayate and shiden (ki84 and N1k2), I have BIG problems, always, with USN planes...

maybe it's historical, i dunno, i've heard though, that Ki84 is basically an uber plane of the pacific front though.

either online or offfline against AIs.

See the thread down a few pages about aircraft acceleration. The Corsair is a monster and quite a bit better than people think it is (good reason why not to go by "Feel" and instead do actual testing).

Fly a Corsair like it was meant to be flown and use the tactics and techniques that you'd find in the high scoring USMC squadrons in the Solomons and it'll do VERY well. Its top speed matches the published USN test reports almost dead on these days so its top speed and other attributes are accurate the last I and others checked.

The Ki-61 was one of the first Japanese fighters to challenge American aircraft on their own terms (with speed and dive capabilities) and both the Ki-84 and N1K are technically higher performing than the Corsair. I'd say the Ki-84 is modeled somewhat optimistically with a top speed and other performance levels consistent with the best maintained Ki-84s... indeed it may have even been based off of an American test using fuel that was better in quality than what Japan typically had access to. This can make a big difference. I've suggested that a 1944 year Ki-84 option be added to give a more typical level of performance while maintaining the higher performing ones as well.

Keep in mind two issues that the Japanese faced that you don't as a sim pilot:

1) Engine and other mechanical difficulties that many of their aircraft faced including the Ki-84, Ki-61, and N1K. Spare parts were hard to find in some theatres and the conditions and industrial issues that Japan faced caused many technical issues keeping these aircraft on the ground or at reduced levels of capability.

2) Pilot training issues caused by high losses of the experienced pilots in the first two years of the war. A pilot with little experience in an excellent aircraft won't be much use against a coordinated team flying Corsairs even if the Corsair is a little lower on the raw performance level.

[pandacat]

Originally Posted by horseback

Unfortunately, both aircraft are claimed as the 'intellectual property' of the US Defense Company with an overactive legal staff that Shall Not Be Named... (this is their company logo).

As far as I know, there would be an enormous can of worms involved, a great deal of money spent, and very little chance of getting anything worthwhile accomplished.

Your chances of getting a flyable Typhoon are much better.

cheers

horseback

Interesting why they kept F4u-4, but not F4u-1 or other variants? Since we have F4u-1s in game, I assume they kept a much looser hand on those.

[TinyTim]

Originally Posted by Laurwin

maybe it's historical, i dunno, i've heard though, that Ki84 is basically an uber plane of the pacific front though.

F4U: 2000 HP, 4000 kg (empty)
Ki-84: 2000 HP, 2700 kg (empty)

...

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by pandacat

Interesting why they kept F4u-4, but not F4u-1 or other variants? Since we have F4u-1s in game, I assume they kept a much looser hand on those.

Pacific Fighters shipped with the F4U-1 models. After it shipped, the legal wranglings began. The details are unclear but it was made clear to the third party development community some time after it was settled that no further aircraft from the corporation that shall not be named would be allowed.

Efforts to add the F4U-4 and other aircraft and objects such as ships were forever locked down for the original IL-2 series.

Because European companies don't have entire teams of bored and insane lawyers... those aircraft are still very much free reign. There are some popular options for both Europe and the Pacific that would be nice to have added at some point but unfortunately we'll never see the hottest of the Corsair models.

I will say, however, that as far as historical scenarios go... we have the Corsair models necessary to do every campaign. Even in 1944 and 1945 the F4U-1D was pretty much the model in use and the F4U-4 was comparatively rare. Similarly... the best of the Japanese types were rare to begin with and beset by technical and reliability issues so proper historical campaigns will have the models we have VERY much in their element.

[Laurwin]

thx for the answer icefire.

Well, true enough, good teamwork works well enough with wildcats vs zekes, I hope it would work also with corsair vs george/frank (n1k2 ki84).

Also I'm not ranting, actually as a matter of fact I just had a great evening on skies of valor server, I had personal IL-2 record sofar there. By my own calculations on yesterday's game, I had 16:1 victory/defeat ratio + 3 damaged enemy ac. My aerial defeat came when I went strafing enemy base alone, I got bounced by two p-38s. I had two kills in the bag already though.


On one hand, I understand, that the game would become quite complicated to balance, if we went with completely historically accurate "circumstances"
(lack of spare parts, poor engine quality, poor fuel quality etc...)

On the other hand, aviation fuel quality was quite important technological factor to have in WW2. After all, all engines use fuel, even the best engine is simply an overengineered paperweight, unless supplied with dinosaur-remains, petrol products. Power comes from the chemical energy of the fuel, does it not?

I dunno how accurate this is but here's this web-article, Dr Peter W. Becker, University of South Carolina, for the significance of avgas quality in WW2 http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...aug/becker.htm


Essentially, the site says, because of American high quality avgas, Allied airforces were able to field aircraft engines which had better power output. Substantial increases in aircraft speed, range, and ceiling would be made possible with high octane avgas.

These advantages Germany was unable to obtain until 1945 or so, claims the article. I would hazard a guess that the high octane fuel bottleneck prevented Luftwaffe from having properly functioning high altitude fighter aircraft, at an earlier time. Worse German fuel, compared to Allied fuel, would lead to bad compression ratio in German engines, meaning less power output.

[Igo kyu]

Originally Posted by Laurwin

These advantages Germany was unable to obtain until 1945 or so, claims the article. I would hazard a guess that the high octane fuel bottleneck prevented Luftwaffe from having properly functioning high altitude fighter aircraft, at an earlier time. Worse German fuel, compared to Allied fuel, would lead to bad compression ratio in German engines, meaning less power output.

The Bf 109 was known to have a higher service ceiling than the Spitfire during the BOB and afterwards.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by Laurwin

thx for the answer icefire.

Well, true enough, good teamwork works well enough with wildcats vs zekes, I hope it would work also with corsair vs george/frank (n1k2 ki84).

Also I'm not ranting, actually as a matter of fact I just had a great evening on skies of valor server, I had personal IL-2 record sofar there. By my own calculations on yesterday's game, I had 16:1 victory/defeat ratio + 3 damaged enemy ac. My aerial defeat came when I went strafing enemy base alone, I got bounced by two p-38s. I had two kills in the bag already though.


On one hand, I understand, that the game would become quite complicated to balance, if we went with completely historically accurate "circumstances"
(lack of spare parts, poor engine quality, poor fuel quality etc...)

On the other hand, aviation fuel quality was quite important technological factor to have in WW2. After all, all engines use fuel, even the best engine is simply an overengineered paperweight, unless supplied with dinosaur-remains, petrol products. Power comes from the chemical energy of the fuel, does it not?

I dunno how accurate this is but here's this web-article, Dr Peter W. Becker, University of South Carolina, for the significance of avgas quality in WW2 http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...aug/becker.htm


Essentially, the site says, because of American high quality avgas, Allied airforces were able to field aircraft engines which had better power output. Substantial increases in aircraft speed, range, and ceiling would be made possible with high octane avgas.

These advantages Germany was unable to obtain until 1945 or so, claims the article. I would hazard a guess that the high octane fuel bottleneck prevented Luftwaffe from having properly functioning high altitude fighter aircraft, at an earlier time. Worse German fuel, compared to Allied fuel, would lead to bad compression ratio in German engines, meaning less power output.

Whole other can of worms you're opening there

The short version is that the original flight models for these aircraft were done with various choices in place and plenty of arguments and bickering on the old Oleg's Ready Room forum (Ubisoft Forums). Most aircraft were modelled with best possible performance numbers which may not have always been the best decision in my mind (I'd rather war typical performance levels).

I'd also wager that the best known performance data on the Japanese aircraft may have come from Allied sources rather than from Japan. The Allies tested Japanese aircraft extensively and often with better gas and maintenance than front line Japanese squadrons... at least this is what I've read. Which suggests the best sources we have on the rarer Japanese types are somewhat higher performing than they probably did in the field. By how much is also open to debate of course.

Again... all of that is a totally different can of worms. I'll stop before I tempt fate and we see a 30 pager