Thanks again horseback!

If you dont mind, I made a little primitive chart in Excel using your data, it is much easier to compare planes this way... :)

Thanks, and thanks Horseback for doing this.

Thanks again Horseback, this continues to be very interesting.

The results that surprise me and some other people are likely a result of us being unfamiliar with specific planes at specific altitudes.

For example, at first glance it is very surprising that the Yak 9 and the LaGG3-66 do better than the La-5FN, but in-game the 5-FN is a scary monster only below 2000m, and that's where most La pilots fly it; the experienced ones because they know it's good there, the novice ones because they don't have the patience to climb.

I suspect it's a similar situation with the P-38J vs the Mustang; without doing the kind of testing Horseback has done, I always felt the P-38J does really well on deck (that's where I go to if I need to run away from a 190), while the Mustang's worst altitudes are in the 3000m - 5000m range.

I also always thought the 109G2 can outrun and outclimb the MkV Spit anywhere so I was surprised that he Spit did a bit better in this test, but then again I believe 3000m is the sweet-spot for the Spit's performance.

A shame about the performance of the F6F. The thing is a pig in the game, nothing at all like it was historically. Believe it or not, it was actually worse in previous versions of the game!

Well, this was the '43 Spit V, not the '41 version that got butchered when it crossed the Channel. The Mk V was continually being improved until production ceased in (I believe) early 1943 in favor of later Marques. The later Mk Vs were still quite competitive below 17kft/5300m. Chances are that if we ran this test with an early Vb that its performance would be much less impressive, even compared with the 109F.

Regarding the P-38, it was faster accelerating than the Mustang (at least, any of the wartime versions) or the Thunderbolt at all altitudes, according to every reliable source I've found (and most of the unreliable ones as well; I'm tempted to make a clean sweep and hold a seance to get Martin Caiden's opinion). It makes sense; as I pointed out, it was designed for an exceptional rate of climb by the standards of the late 1930s, and after the advent of radar, climb rate became less important to the Allies than endurance/payload, speed and firepower. Nightfighters became the most important interceptors in the inventory after the Battle of Britain, and they didn't need to get to 20,000 ft in less than seven minutes.

We tend to conflate acceleration with speed to some degree, but I like to call acceleration being quick in the way that NFL Hall of Famer Michael Irvin defines it: "Fast is fast. Quick is being able get fast right away."

The Lightning and the Spitfire are quicker than the Mustang, but the Mustang is faster.

cheers

horseback

Made another chart in Excel.

The P-40 and the FW-190 accelerates very poorly, is this realistic? Even more interesting, that the F4U-1A and the 109G2 have almost exactly the same acceleration!

I added some missing data from the earliest tests, like 350-400 or 400-450, its just guesswork, but it fits nicely. You can see the added numbers if you drag the chart away, I highlighted them in red.

The Focke-Wulf's acceleration is a problem for me too, but it may just be the altitude being too near the supercharger's shift point; the first one I tested was the A-5 (1.62 ata) version, and it's supposed to be optimized for fighter use (probably at a higher altitude band). I just finished testing a 'plain vanilla' A-5 without WEP, and the numbers for it were somewhat better, to the point that it achieved between 480 and 490 kph IAS in level flight, or not quite 600 kph TAS at 3050-3130m.

I've started to notice that most of these aircraft have a range of speeds where they accelerate best, where the engine has overcome the initial weight and inertia to the point that a climb of 30 meters (that's over 60 feet, or the height of a four or five story building) seems not to affect the pace of acceleration much, if at all. Of course these are generally periods of six seconds or less, but if you or I were sitting in the cockpit of the real thing, we're going to feel that, and it's going to be like a really good roller coaster (or a really bad one, if your harness isn't snug). In any case, it's kind of hard to extrapolate or predict those bands. Some are at lower speeds and some are a good bit higher. I will try to highlight these later.

With the exception of the water-injected Corsair, though, radial powered aircraft are usually more sluggish in the initial lower ranges.

As they reach the upper ends of the acceleration tests where the drag has built up and the engine is starting to overheat, the slightest incline or decline is critical. Here the test is to see if it can maintain a speed in level flight for several seconds; if it can't, I will not count it.

The P-40 is a big, heavy and relatively draggy airplane; if you build scale models, it becomes readily apparent when you place the US fighters of WWII next to German, Soviet or early Japanese fighters of the same scale. The P-40 is gigantic next to a FW 190A, and it just looks lumpy. Next to a P-51A, it's the same size, but it seems even more lumpy and crude, and the P-51A outperformed it at every height and measurement, from climb to acceleration to top speed; everyone agrees that the P-40 could turn a tighter circle, but any version of the real life P-51 was much less work for the pilot and easier to keep under control. Therefore if the pilot of the P-51 is as skilled as the P-40's pilot there would be no doubt about the outcome of a dogfight. It took a supremely skilled pilot to beat a merely good pilot in a P-51 or P-51A, and it took a supremely good and lucky P-40 pilot to beat an experienced Merlin P-51 driver.

Which brings me to something that has become a critical factor in these tests: trim response and the accuracy/clarity of the instrument panel. Some aircraft I have tested are like driving a very well made car on a smooth road; you push the throttle and Prop Pitch forward and just go. There may be a little twist as the increased torque kicks in, but this is easily corrected, and you can compensate with rudder and hold the stick forward while you add trim, but it's all very smooth. The wings don't wobble back and forth like you're balancing on the head of a pin, the climb indicator doesn't bounce back and forth, the needle and ball are quick and accurate, the artificial horizon is easily interpreted for maintaining level flight, and they are all easy to see.

The Ki-61 is an excellent example of what I'm describing here; the panel is well-laid out and the instruments are clear at my preferred Wide View setting and they are accurate. At the same time, the aircraft's FM itself is very predictable and smooth--it's not blazingly fast, but it is easier to keep straight and level at all speeds than the Macchi C.202 or the Bf 109E, and it gives better test results in part because of this quality. I never varied more than 12m from one interval from the next, which is vastly better than even much slower aircraft I have tested. It just responds beautifully to your commands, and I would expect it to be easier to keep on target because you're not fighting your stick and rudder all the time. The Ki-43 is similar, as is the P-38 (although the Lightning's instruments are on the tiny & fuzzy side in Wide View--you have to go with Normal View to see what's going on there).

By contrast, the much faster FW is a pain to test because the instruments are literally out of focus in Wide View, they are still hard to read in Normal view, and the climb indicator is simply deceptive; a tiny (one division, which should mean something like 100m per minute) deflection up or down can result in a climb of 150m in less than 5 seconds. The combination Turn & bank/Artificial Horizon is next to useless because the little 'airplane' disappears into the horizon line, unless you're in Gunsight view, the needle barely moves (ever!) and the ball is again, out of focus in Wide View, and really not much better in Normal View. Add to that the tendency for the FW to outrun its elevator trim, which has you shoving the stick three quarters of the way forward, while you simultaneously struggle with the head-of-a-pin wing leveling exercise...and finally, once you do get trimmed for almost level flight, the aircraft will consistently swoop upwards or downwards without warning as it reaches certain specific speeds.

When you're watching the track in Wonder Woman view, trying to concentrate on the speed changes, it looks like you are constantly jerking up and down, left and then right; a real-life pilot would be bruised and sore everywhere his harness touched him after only a couple of runs.

To be fair, the FW's cockpit animation dates back to the original Il-2 Sturmovik game that I bought in March of 2002, so it is quite dated, and the original equipment may actually have been that vague, because the pilot had a full range of vision, his inner ear and the pressure on the seat of his pants to augment what the instruments told him. This was the heyday of Visual Flight Rules, the era when IFR usually meant "I Follow Railroads", so yeah, I get that reasoning. However, in a flight simulation that doesn't provide 180 degree fields of vision or attitude changes to the virtual pilot's chair, uniform clarity and accuracy for all aircraft's instruments would seem a desirable thing.

Still distilling the data from my last series of tests. CW-21B, A6M2, Ki-61, Macchi C.202, plain FW 190A-5 and reruns of the 1A Corsair and the F6F-3 to my current data standards.

cheers

horseback

Test Group #6: CW-21B, A6M2, F6F-3, F4U-1A, Ki-61 ('43), Macchi C.202 ('43), FW 190A-5 (Std) and FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata).

From 270 to 350 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 25 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 24 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 21 seconds; CW-21B, 20 seconds; A6M2, 20 seconds; F6F-3, 20 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 18 seconds; F4U-1A, 16 seconds.

To 370 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 30 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 30 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 29 seconds; CW-21B, 30 seconds; A6M2, 30 seconds; F6F-3, 27 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 24 seconds; F4U-1A, 21 seconds.

To 380 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 34 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 34 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 34 seconds; CW-21B, 37 seconds; A6M2, 37 seconds; F6F-3, 33 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 27 seconds; F4U-1A, 24 seconds.

To 390 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 39 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 38 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 39 seconds; CW-21B, 37 seconds; A6M2, 47 seconds; F6F-3, 38 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 30 seconds; F4U-1A, 28 seconds.

To 400 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 43 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 43 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 45 seconds; CW-21B, 59 seconds; A6M2, 59 seconds (top speed achieved/487 TAS); F6F-3, 45 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 34 seconds; F4U-1A, 31 seconds.

To 410 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 46 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 47 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 52 seconds; CW-21B, 1 minute 49 seconds (top speed achieved/501 TAS); F6F-3, 51 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 40 seconds; F4U-1A, 35 seconds.

To 420 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 51 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 53 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 1 minute 2 seconds; F6F-3, 1 minute; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 45 seconds; F4U-1A, 39 seconds.

To 430 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 58 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 57 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 1 minute 16 seconds; F6F-3, 1 minute 12 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 52 seconds; F4U-1A, 44 seconds.

To 440 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 1 minute 3 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 1 minute 3 seconds; Ki-61 ('43), 1 minute 41 seconds (top speed achieved/531 TAS); F6F-3, 1 minute 27 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 59 seconds; F4U-1A, 49 seconds.

To 450 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 1 minute 10 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 1 minute 10 seconds; F6F-3, 1 minute 51 seconds (top speed achieved/549 TAS); Macchi C. 202 ('43), 1 minute 13 seconds seconds; F4U-1A, 54 seconds.

To 460 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 1 minute 20 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 1 minute 18 seconds; Macchi C. 202 ('43), 1 minute 29 seconds (top speed achieved/556 TAS); F4U-1A, 1 minute 1 second.

To 470 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 1 minute 29 seconds; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 1 minute 25 seconds; F4U-1A, 1 minute 9 seconds.

To 480 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 2 minute 1 second; FW 190A-5 (1.62 ata), 1 minute 35 seconds (top speed achieved/590 TAS); F4U-1A, 1 minute 17 seconds.

To 490 kph IAS: FW 190A-5 (Std), 2 minutes 36 seconds (top speed achieved/593 TAS); F4U-1A, 1 minute 29 seconds.

To 500 kph IAS: F4U-1A, 1 minute 54 seconds (top speed achieved/608 TAS).

NOTES:
1. CW-21B ran faster and much cooler at 120% Mixture; this is consistent with Navy and Marine pilot's accounts of high power settings when flying Wildcats and Buffalos which used a different model of the same engine, even though it doesn't appear to apply to those aircraft's FMs; while not actually quicker than the A6M2, it is modeled just a hair faster at 10,000 ft, and a lot easier to fly straight and level.
2. A6M2 Zero Type 21 is hamstrung by its very poor cockpit layout and the difficulty of tracking its instruments' readings; this is made more difficult by the inconsistent trim response. Actual performance might be better for someone who has gotten used to it and can keep it on the straight and level. I couldn't get out of it soon enough.
3. The early F6F-3 Hellcat is fairly sluggish without the water injection that the F4U in this test boasts; it is further limited by its tendency to go straight up the microsecond the pilot's attention shifts from the climb indicator which is at best very deceptive; a single division up or down results in a couple of hundred meters' difference in three to five seconds. Like the Focke-Wulf, the elevator trim is either miles behind or suddenly catches up and in either case, you are fighting your stick's springs. Rudder trim is almost as bad, but the rudder response is not so sensitive as the FW or the Corsair's.
4. Corsair is still the hot ship in this bunch; the water injection really makes up for minor errors in trim and rudder application; it just bangs through every interval from 350 to 450 kph indicated in 5 seconds or less, and just goes at a steadily decreasing rate until it hits the 'wall' at around 605 kph true airspeed.
5. Ki-61 is just a sweet ride; the cockpit is attractive, the instruments are clear and accurate and it responds beautifully. It is not as quick as it feels, but it is so easy to fly accurately that it will be superior to many aircraft with higher performance FMs, especially if you can sucker them into a low speed contest where their controls are not going to be as cooperative.
6. Macchi MC 202 is sneaky quick, but the cockpit feels a bit cramped, with your virtual face mashed up against the upper instruments. It's pretty, but it seems much too close, even in Wide View. Like the Hellcat, the Zero and the Focke-Wulf, the ailerons are constantly slipping off to one side or the other and you find yourself making constant microcorrections--it's like when you are half asleep, nodding off in your chair and fighting to keep your head upright. Still, after the initial 'twist' from pushing the throttle and prop pitch forward, it holds course and altitude better than most, and instruments are accurate, if poorly located IMHO.
7. There is very little difference between the plain 'vanilla' 190A-5 and the 'souped up' 1.62 ata version with its WEP. For all intents and purposes, they are identical in acceleration up to 460 kph indicated at this altitude, with the same faults. On the other hand, the 1.62 ata version sounds faster. The poorly animated and out of focus instruments (in Wide and Normal FOVs) are hard to read and inaccurate, if not dishonest. The climb and dive indicator has 100m per minute divisions up to 500m per minute, but if that needle rises or falls slightly higher or lower than one division, you can expect an increase or loss of 100m in 5 seconds or so. As mentioned above, the trim is inconsistent and is either not felt or will suddenly seem to show up all at once, driving your nose sharply up or down as you reach the low to middle 400 kph range; this doesn't match Western Allied test reports and evaluations that I am familiar with, which report the elevator trim as predictable and consistent. The rudder is touchy as well; very minor changes can drive the vector ball across the screen (well, at least across the sight circle), and you often find yourself with a three degree course change in a 5 second/10 kph interval. This may be partly the fault of the older cockpit paint, which makes it harder to keep up with the aircraft as it accelerates, but it is an enormous pain in the neck.

cheers

horseback

Don't worry, I'm pretty sure he didn't hear anything at all... :)

Interesting work, horseback. Is your feeling that acceleration is tied directly to, and only, drag? The reason I ask is because blade pitch was another major factor, in that as it increased more thrust was diverted from forward propulsion to resisting rotation. The result would then be a much faster drop off of acceleration at the top of the scale than the simple increase of drag. Curiosity only.

As for the 190, you're right, the trim in the real plane wasn't anywhere near twitchy and, bizarrely, the faster the plane went the less adjustment it needed for speed's sake. Above 260mph no adjustments in trim were needed at all if the only variable was speed. Sounds like you could use that characteristic - lol. As to its in game takeoff acceleration I've done standing start drag races between an absolutely empty (no ammo, 10% fuel) A8 closed cowl flaps (and auto prop) and an overloaded (1600lb, fully fueled) SBD with canopy and cowl flaps open and to 100mph it's practically a draw! lol. Fun times.

--- Trivia: Lowest drag D9 cowl flap setting was 23% open. ---

No, weight is definitely a factor; re-testing the P-47D-22, now that I have more of a 'feel' for what I need to watch and compensate for, makes it clear that the FM for that bird makes acceleration very dependent on what angle your nose is pointed. If you're just a hair high, you can gain 20m in altitude and lose a second or two in a 3-5 second 10kph interval. Conversely, if your nose is just a skosh (not sure of the spelling) low, you can lose 25 or 30m and decrease your 10 kph interval by a second or three. This applies throughout the P-47's speed range, while for lighter aircraft like the Corsair, it applies mainly at the far end of the acceleration run, where the engine is straining for that last bit of speed.

My understanding is that the Thunderbolt was pretty aerodynamic and that it had surprisingly low drag for its size. It was however, a big heavy sucker with inefficient props (the paddleblades aren't modeled on the razorback Jugs), so I kind of expected that its acceleration would be less than spectacular, especially at these altitudes.

However the Mustang, which is a fairly heavy aircraft when you consider the horsepower of the V-1650 (even with the fuselage tank empty), doesn't seem to suffer for it nearly as much as the Corsair at the far end of its performance curve, so that's where I assume the drag coefficient comes in. I'm going to try to quit complaining about the unrealistic trim demands so much, because the Hellcat, the P-47, the Focke-Wulf and even the Zero have it worse.

The FW 190A, though, was supposed to be much quicker off the mark even than most models of the Spitfire V, so I really don't know where to assign the blame for that.

Someone in an earlier post suggested E-bleed is what is hamstringing these supposedly high-performance aircraft, and that's as good a place as any to start. Most of the victims of this issue appear to have had what was described at the time as 'sensitive' trim tabs or trim controls; the aircraft was described as easy to trim because the trim adjustments were relatively minor as speed or power changed, and the tabs were often described as 'effective'. What I have been finding is that most of the needed adjustments are too small to use button trim--you either go way over or way under with that last click; the happy medium leaves you either pushing your stick forward or pulling it back 5-10 degrees, which is not the best way to squeeze that last 6-8 kph out of your aircraft by keeping her absolutely level.

I've tried switching to trim both on a throttle quadrant and on the Saitek X52 throttle (I just couldn't abide that stick, though, so I either use my CH Combatstick or my son's Thrustmaster T.1600). In either case, the increments you have to apply are teeny-wheeny tiny, especially in the elevator trim. I sometimes think that blowing on the damned things can have a measurable effect on my angle of attack at higher speeds. I have tried a variety of curves, but mostly what happens is that the transition point between 43 and 60 is located just where I needed an extra tiny adjustment.

What confuses me is that if you actually watch your rudder or elevators from outside the cockpit as you apply trim by button while parked on the ground, it takes about 80 clicks from a neutral position to the maximum in each direction (80 clicks up, 80 clicks down; same with rudder left/right trim). The animation shows no visible movement for four or five clicks (depending on where you are in the motion range), but I am taking it on faith that the single click has some effect when we are 'flying'; if you watch the vector ball in Wonder Woman view, a single click of rudder trim always has a visible effect, so I'm assuming that the elevator trim works the same way, even though it's harder to detect or measure via the vector ball method.

You'd think that 160 clicks of range of adjustment on each control surface would confer a little more precision...

cheers

horseback

Yes, no visible elevator/rudder/aileron (trim) movement for 5 clicks.

I, too, have the impression that a single click has some effect, but I, too, find that I go way over or way under with the last click.

Nevertheless, I'm a bit perplexed, for Devicelink reports trim settings only with the first decimals via UDPSpeed. So what you see is 0,0,0,0,0;0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1,0,1;0.2,0.2,0.2,0.2, etc.

In theory, one click should have a value of 0.02, but it's unclear whether only it's display is truncated, or the higher precision value is roughly neglected/rounded up (this latter would explain the 'way over or way under' experience and the precision issues).

Anyway, it would be great if TD could clarify this point.

I think the one click too far thing is a combination of the delay between trim command and application and the tendency of some planes to enter an oscillation - while the plane is perfectly trimmed for its speed and altitude it still climbs/falls slightly - if let be it would continue up and down a little but in total neither loose height or climb. If you apply trim then you will have overtrimmed

What would be nice to have for trim would be a coarse and a fine setting combined with a finer gradation, coarse trim could be what we have now and one click of fine trim would be one fifth or one tenth of one click coarse trim.

The delay thingy seems to me unlikely. These planes had manual trim wheels, the effect of which should be immediate. (They are not like flaps.) And if you assign e.g. the elevator trim to an axis, you'll see that its effect is immediate indeed.

As to the oscillation thing, I find that many planes are impossible to trim perfectly, what sometimes makes me mad. But I can't say whether it's realistic or not (and to what extent). I simply don't know what 'perfect trimming' means in real life in these planes. Only an r/l pilot who has flown them could give us an idea of that.

We have discussed these trim problems and their possible solution not long ago here:

The acceleration of the 190 is probably too poor ingame. Reports from wwiiaircraftperformance.org confirm this:

Navy test, Fw-190A5 vs. F6F-3 vs. F4U-1

"Relative accelerations, for all speed over 160 knots, showed both the F4U-1 and Fw-190 to be slightly superior to the F6F-3 and showed the F4U-1 to be slightly superior to the Fw-190 up to 15.000 feet, above which altitude, the Fw-190 had a slight advantage. At speeds less than 160 knots the F6F-3 and Fw-190 were equal."

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.o...0/ptr-1107.pdf

Another report, again Fw-190A5

..."The run is short as the aircraft accelarates rapidly"...
..."Airspeed acceleration after take-off is noticeably good"...

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.o...-47-1658-D.pdf

According to these, the 190 had good acceleration. Ingame, its mediocre at best.

I am also of the opinion that the Fw acceleration is worse than it should be (although much better since 4.11), plus its climb angle at least compared to Spits.

British tests of an A3 vs MkV and MkIX spits.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...6.jpg~original

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...7.jpg~original

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y29...8.jpg~original

No they are not. It was "fixed" because some nice people abused instant trim by placing it on a slider and using it to make their planes react faster//turn tighter. Now trim is not applied immediately but after a few seconds.
For a real life fighter pilot I'd think trim would mainly serve the purpose of having an (nearly) unloaded stick and pedals.

Edit:
The problem with those reports is mainly that there is no hard data. "slightly superior" in horizontal acceleration could very well mean "After one minute the Corsair is 20 kph faster than the Fw190" or "After one minute the Corsair is 2 kph faster than the Fw190"

I thought that this was an actual historical tactic used by some Finnish pilots flying the Bf-109G.

It seems to me that there should be some compromise between the "instant trimming" you get from the "trim on a slider" cheat and historical rates of response for using trim to improve turn performance.

You're right, but the delay is really small and it plays a role only when you make major trim adjustements like neutral to max tail heavy with one sudden slider movement (corresponding to 20 to 40 clicks or so). It works like a value 8 filtering on the throttle: it smooths the change and, therefore, delays its full effect a bit, but it is applied immediately. My point was that in a normal flight situation, where you slowly adjust your trim in small increments, trim changes are effective practically immediately.

Right, but my question is how much constant stick and pedal correction was needed to keep a 'perfectly trimmed' plane straight and level (horseback's original problem). In Il-2, the needed input varies from plane to plane, as it may have varied in r/l, but the question is how these two relate and correspond.

The problem with the trim delay for me is that you don’t see the effects until you have overdone it; logically, you would expect the pressure on the stick needed to keep the nose down to gradually be relieved as you kept pumping that nose down trim button, but that has not been my experience with most of the aircraft we all agree seem twitchy and trim sensitive. When the trim effects do actually arrive, it usually seems as though all of the cumulative trim inputs are applied at once, instead of being felt as they are being input.

Psychologically, while you’re waiting for the trim to take effect, you are wondering if the game sensed that last input, or that maybe that button has finally given up the ghost after 8-10 years of frantic trimming…to say the least, it is very unsatisfying.

A couple of things come to mind: first, that I have no idea whether the trim delay time is exactly the same for every aircraft or if the trim is input in exactly the same degrees, minutes or seconds of the control surface’s arc every time, or how quickly I can input trim button pushes without the game deciding that I’m just holding the button down. Second, I don’t know if some aircraft’s trim inputs are given special treatment according to some arcane formula involving weight, speed attained and the current phase of the moon.

Aircraft modeled like the Mustang require two or three clicks of elevator and/or rudder trim for every change of 10 kph or greater or any significant throttle increase, so if you're entering a dive or trying to speed up, the delay is constantly in play, and therefore unrealistic.

The obvious answer to me is for the trim inputs to be noted on-screen in the same way changes in prop pitch or throttle are noted, and secondly to allow some means of accurately pre-setting your trim to the anticipated levels as you start your high speed run; a RL pilot obviously had a pretty good idea of how much nose down trim he would need if he was going to add 100-150kph to his IAS over the next 30 seconds or so, but in this sim, although some aircraft have the animated trim knobs and wheels, there seems to be little relationship between what you can see on the screen and the amount of trim you have actually applied.

Since most aircraft do not have the animated trim knob and wheels, it seems to be a purely visual effect, and it would be a tremendous amount of work to provide accurate trim control animations for each aircraft in the directory. Being able to see that I have applied 23% nose down elevator trim or better yet, 3.5° right rudder trim after I punch the trim button or twist my trim rotary would be extremely useful. Currently, people have to spend several hours working with a given aircraft model to develop a feel for how much trim is needed for a given speed/situation, and the high-trim aircraft have a much steeper learning curve because it is not currently obvious in any way how much trim has been applied or in what direction, because when you have to apply a lot of trim at once, the stick never 'unloads'.

It would improve everyone's piloting, I believe, and cut down on the "my ride is porked!" complaints if the players could track their trim and see what the effects of 6.8° of nose down trim does to their aircraft at speed X IAS.

cheers

horseback

+++:)

I don't understand your problem here - you just mustn't hold the button pushed. The value, the trim changed with one short push is small enough and happens imidiatly to give you a very easy way to see the planes reaction (if you push repeatly).

Then, maybe just better documentation on how to use trim is needed. I'll confess to being ignorant about exactly how it works for most planes.

Horseback's idea of allowing players to know exactly how many degrees of trim they've applied is a good idea. It might even be historical if trim wheels were actually marked with degrees of trim. If not, it would be a nice option for the "wonder woman" view.

I'll echo Caspar here:

Tap the trim key to make fine adjustments. Hold it down for coarse adjustments. There is a slight delay from holding it down, but it's useful to get from one end of the trim range to the other very quickly. Just tap it instead, and you'll have all the control you need.

I'll confess I never knew you could just hold it down. I've been rapid-fire mashing it like the manual gear lower/raise (unless you can hold that too...in which case everything I've known is shattered :-P )

Most aircraft of that era did have some kind of demarcation or marking to tell the pilot how much trim was applied; the FW 190 has its elevation trim setting in a readout on the left side panel, the Mustang's elevator, rudder and aileron trim knobs have their degrees of offset marked off (and some of this is incompletely portrayed in the game). However, most of the aircraft in the game are not given the benefit of an animated (and correctly labeled) trim knobs and wheels--and it's hard to glance down and read the ones that do work the way a pilot in the actual aircraft's cockpit could.

The point is that trim has become critically important in this sim with the improved Flight Model and physics that came with the 4.0x series of patches, and the average pilot has no clearly calibrated and marked set of trim pots on his USB controllers, and button trim is only 'felt' as an effect; you have to take it on faith that your push of that key or button was sensed when there is no clear and obvious indication on the instrument panel (okay, sometimes the rudder trim is indicated on the Turn & Bank indicator, but the state of elevator and aileron trims are for all intents and purposes invisible until you apply too much trim.

Now for people who habitually fly one aircraft type, especially those aircraft that are treated as having little or no need for extensive trim adjustment, this is usually just fine; they know from long practice how much trim to apply for their favorite ride (in most circumstances), and it is to their advantage that others flying a variety of technically superior or faster aircraft cannot get the actual performance that should theoretically be available to them. They are happy to chirp "Learn to fly!" and bask in the assurance of their own superior skills and knowledge. They have the upper hand, so they aren't about to question their good fortune.

And they aren't about to try to fly one of the trim hogs if they can possibly avoid it.

As I believe I noted about the Ki-61, it is so easy to get the best performance out of that fighter that someone facing them in the nominally superior F6F-3 Hellcat will be at a serious disadvantage because in the context of this simulation, it is very difficult to keep the Hellcat in trim, and unless it is kept in trim, the Hellcat constantly hemorrhages its energy, and almost always ends up low and slow, an easy target. I haven't spent a few dozen hours in the F6F, but I have spent about three or four hours taking it through its range of speeds and trim settings. As I've pointed out earlier, they are inconsistent--you need to add nose down trim at one speed range, and at a somewhat higher speed range, the nose abruptly tucks down and you need to apply nose up trim. The FW 190A also exhibits this behavior, as well as the P-47 (of the aircraft I've tested so far).

I doubt that the real aircraft did this--but I also doubt that these aircraft needed this much trim adjustment in proportion to aircraft like the Ki-61, the Ki-43, the La-5 series, or literally unknowable fantasy flight models like the Ki-84 and the J2M.

Letting the pilot know if his trim input was sensed and how much trim he has applied with a momentary message is the easiest way to remedy the problem.

cheers

horseback

Somehow I suspect, you are talking about 'perfect trim' (as you needed it for your acceleration tests). I do triming only by 'feel' and the way it is done in Il-2 gives me a 'good trim' without problems. On acceleration, when nose wants to come up and plane wants to shift, I counter it with the stick (forward and rudder), then I apply some tapping of elevator trim down and rudder (if possible) and meanwhile slowly release the stick (watching the reticle keeping the same place at the horizon). Thats somewhat near to what pilots did back then and works very well. Watching the plane (and the ball) is my best indicator. Mostly I don't even need the ball to tell, how I have to trim in turns. Maybe I'm just extraordinary sensitive. :D

I doubt, pilots in WW2 where so eager to find always the correct trim by scale (this only for starts or landings maybe).

In short - I can not re-experience your difficulties.


EDIT: I don't see a problem for wonder woman view though. But for the sim I would rather like to live without even more neon flickering hud messages.

I understand your point, but please understand our point. If we can have hud messages for throttle, pitch, mixture, flaps, rads, supercharger, and even magnetos (btw, most of these settings can be quite easily tracked via cockpit instruments as well), then why couldn't we have knowledge of our actual trim settings (other than through Devicelink)??? :confused:

EDIT: Personal preferences and flying habits may differ, but what I put up here is a matter of consistency. IF the way the game's FM simulates flight is heavily affected by a certain parameter (affected by a setting), AND this setting was accessible to the r/l pilot real-time (via cockpit gauges, levers, marked wheels, etc.), THEN it's a bit of inconsistency when one setting is displayed multiple ways in-game (hud and cockpit), while others not at all (no hud, no cockpit).

Many (probably most, actually) of the American fighters had specific optimum trim settings for various flight configurations spelled out in their flight manuals. Takeoff, landing, best climb, dive, and cruising at bare minimum were standard. For birds like the Mustang, Thunderbolt, and Lightning which were used in very long range escort roles, sometimes you got multiple trim configs as fuel burned off and for different cruising speeds.

I know the Mustang at bare minimum had a table showing different trim compensation as the fuel load decreased.

Regarding trim, I found the best first-person description from Bud Anderson's story "He was only trying to kill me".

I can tell you that it is not all that important to see where that demarcation is. In a real airplane, you use trim by feel alone. It's not even a case of memorizing where the best trim locations are over time; you just don't ever look at the trim wheel, and you can still use it properly from day one. After all, it's not like there are demarcations on the yoke or pedals to study, right?

The only trim location that was ever marked in any way on the planes I've flown is "neutral" for landing and takeoff in normal conditions. Even then, it's more of a guideline and you should trim the aircraft based on feel. This is true for aircraft that use electrical trim with a button or a trim wheel.

That's also just how it works with Il-2: You adjust the trim until it feels right (ie, you don't have to put force into the joystick) and if need be, you just hit the trim reset button to center the trim again automatically for takeoff and landing, and re-trim from there. It's quite simple, and it works very well.

Most WWII fighter pilots also trimmed by 'feel'; the one on the seat of their pants. If you felt yourself sliding a bit to the left, you added a bit of right rudder trim; if you felt yourself being pressed back into your seat, you rolled the elevator trim wheel forward a bit to achieve level (and efficient) flight and relieve the pressure on your stick. Those feelings are not present in the game, along with the obvious advantages of a clear and (consistently) accurate instrument panel, full peripheral vision and inputs for the inner ear.

Now, for many of the aircraft modeled in Il-2 '46, this is not a great problem; their FMs are derived from 70 year old test reports, a modern physics model applied to ideal airframes and powerplants coupled with the vivid imaginations of the programmers, so an aircraft described as being light on the controls and easily trimmed needs a consistent (and small) set of up, down, left or right clicks of trim to settle the ball and establish flight speed at almost every speed. Even aircraft known to be very demanding of trim inputs (like the P-40 and the P-39 for example) are given a relatively forgiving trim model. And we don't even address stuff like landing behavior, which would lead to conservatively, at least two thirds of the 109 and P-40 landings ending in disaster (among other aircraft--but these two would draw the most complaints).

However, there is another class of aircraft that has a rather extensive modern set of data, which is measured by the modern standard: the late war US fighters, the Spitfire to some degree, and I suspect, the FW 190 series, now that 1:1 scale replicas are on hand and the findings from their flights are being widely published. In my ten plus years' experience with this game, in these aircraft, the trim adjustments do not result in a steadily decreasing pressure on my joystick's springs as I struggle to maintain level flight or even a relatively well trimmed state; instead, the aircraft will suddenly go up or down once the trim level exceeds the ideal (and I do not hold the button down--I tap it just as you and Luno have repeatedly described). While WWII era reports tell us that these aircraft were easy to trim and that their controls were generally light and well balanced (even more so than most of the reports of other WWII era fighters that are given, shall we say, more optimistic trim models), we know that by today's modern standards, they were more demanding than modern jets with boosted controls or the average modern civilian general aviation aircraft with less than a quarter the horsepower and even less proportional payload capacity, packed with every modern convenience and engineering miracle to make the pilot/purchaser's task easier.

What a shock. To think that men who were picked from the cream of their nations' youth for their physical fitness and intelligence in an era when so much more work was done with human muscle power might find the same stick and rudder forces you or I might find objectionable to be 'light', or that more extensive trim inputs would be required from the peak of the aircraft engineering and design in 1942 compared to the modern commercial light aviation standards of the 21st century, or that of supersonic jets that don't have to deal with stuff like propellers and torque, much less p-factor.

However, the trim behaviors of these aircraft are clearly more consistent with somewhat exaggerated modern reports rather than with the reports of the WWII tests and pilots' impressions and the instruments also appear to be judged by more modern standards, if the gross inaccuracies of the late-war Western fighter's instrument panels in the game are compared to the game's depictions of more accurate readings from earlier generation British & American instruments in the Hurricane, Spitfire Mk V, the P-39 and P-40 series fighters. And then the game's advocates claim that they are merely catering to the demand for 'accuracy'.

In-game, this clearly saps a lot of the power and performance of this group of late war aircraft the moment they enter into common combat maneuvers, because even minor imperfections in trim result in extra drag penalties (which to me seem somewhat excessive and would go a long way towards explaining why the Mustang has so much better acceleration than the P-38 and the paddleblade-equipped P-47D-27, when the historical record says that all three were fairly close and that the P-38 had the best level acceleration of the group). Add in the rather odd behaviors in trim response that I found at certain speed ranges (and at the first application of full power with the so-called heavies) and it becomes very difficult to reconcile the in-game behaviors of these fighters to wartime reports. It simply becomes very difficult to trim to rapidly changing conditions because the penalties seem to me to be both out of proportion and hard to make sense of and anticipate.

Rather than completely redoing these aircraft's FMs, I think the quick fix is to at least let the pilot of the high-trim fighters be able to see their current trim state as it changes, and possibly to re-work some of the instruments' depictions to a common standard of readability and accuracy in Wide view.

cheers

horseback

PS: Yes, I know that I'm asking someone else to do extra uncompensated work:cool:

Anderson's account is the first thing that comes up any time complaints about the Mustang's trim behavior in-game arise; what people tend to forget is that Anderson had a co-author--the same fellow who worked on Chuck Yeager's book with Yeager. It gives the customers 'what they want'--which is drama.

Had the pilot of the 109 he was fighting survived the fight, his memoir might have included stuff about how slow the stabilizer trim wheel responded, or how heavy the rudder got as he compensated for the higher or lower speeds as he climbed and dived, how the supercharger became steadily less effective the higher he went, the way the windshield kept frosting up or how sloppy the stick got at 10km (and all of these things can be read about in any number of well known resources like Caldwell's JG 26: Top Guns of the Luftwaffe), and then his thirty something civilian co-author would still ask him to 'punch it up' for the reading audience of the late 1980s.

I've read a number of pilot memoirs that state quite flatly that the Mustang didn't need a lot of trimming in combat because the stick forces were exceptionally light and well balanced by the standards of the time; Anderson's comment simply shocked me when I read it for the first time because it contradicts almost everything else I had read on the subject. You trimmed for level flight on long distance escorts, sudden changes in power and for the depletion of fuel in the wing tanks (otherwise, there would have been no need for aileron trim), and you would add a little nose up trim for landings; everything else was reported as a matter of pilot preference.

I long ago transcribed the trimming sections of America's Hundred Thousand for the old UbiSoft Il-2 forums; I'll be happy to post them here, along with 354th FG ace Richard Turner's description of the flying qualities of the Mustang, or David McCampbell's description of the Hellcat, if you need more proof.

cheers

horseback

These are my first efforts: I find that just attaching the pictures works better than trying to attach the whole Excel Workbook and allows greater access for everyone. The longer and flatter the curve, the better the acceleration over time. Notice how much faster and better accelerating the early P-40E is than the later P-40M.

cheers

horseback

More Charts: RAF vs LW, Spit IX vs Mustang and Japan. Again, the lower and flatter, the better the acceleration. Look for the anomalies in the curves; these may be indicators of the odd behaviors I noted earlier or inconsistencies in the FM.

Enjoy/debate.

cheers

horseback

The P-39s I fly ingame are rather demanding on the trim.

Thats how it should be. P40E had a full throttle height of ~3500m and the P40M roughly double - so 3k alt is very nice for the E and the M is still in the proces of warming up.

The 270-350 and the 350/370 interval is the same spacing as the other ones that are only ten kph apart in the graph, may be misleading. And to be nitpicking: These are not a(cceleration) graphs, these are v vs. t diagrams.

The P-39 series is not as demanding as the Mustang, Corsair, Hellcat or P-47 depictions in this sim; all of these aircraft demand multiple clicks of trim adjustment for rudder and elevator for EVERY 5 to 15 kph of speed increase and any change in power or prop pitch greater than 5%, or you find yourself fighting your stick's springs. In addition, all of these aircraft have speed ranges where after constantly adding nose down trim and stabilizing in level flight, you suddenly need to switch to nose up trim and then a few seconds later you are back to clicking nose down (and a bit of opposite rudder as well).

Please note that all of these aircraft were considered very well behaved and easily trimmed for high performance fighters of the day; the Mustang was not merely a speed and range fighter, the Corsair was considered 'touchy' mainly in the carrier landing regime (and because it was invariably compared to the much more benign Grumman 'cats in that respect), and the Hellcat was, like Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way for a carrier fighter in the Pacific (it just wasn't <quite> as fast as the Corsair). All of them were considered to be easily transitioned into (the Mustang particularly--the 8th AF transitioned all but one of its P-47 and P-38 equipped groups into it in the middle of high combat operations during early to late 1944); easily taught and mastered.

By contrast, the Il-2 '46 P-39 needs somewhatmore trim than most aircraft of its era, but it is consistent and therefore much more easily anticipated. The real thing had a reputation for being touchy and for the CG changing critically when the cannon ammo was expended; it was NOT consistent and as easily anticipated as it is depicted in this game. And what's with the instruments being so much more readable and accurate on earlier generation fighters?

Now, about the P-40 comparisons. The E model is (as its reputation suggested) neck and neck with the P-39 in the early acceleration phase from 270 to 370 kph both of them taking 23 seconds to add 100 kph of indicated speed, and then the Warhawk gradually dropping back; by contrast, the M model Warhawk is 7 seconds behind the E, then 10 seconds at 380, 11 seconds at 390, 13 seconds at 400, 20 seconds behind at 410, 33 seconds at 420, and then it poops out at 430, 31 seconds behind the E model, which at that point is midway between 440 and 450 kph.

At a constant speed of 370 kph, a 7 second lead is well over 700m, which we can safely assume to be out of range. It becomes much greater if you are accelerating away, and the E is right at 400 the same time that the M is wheezing and puffing up to 380.

My impression was that the later P-40 models got more powerful engines to match the extra weight of armor, new radios and so on, and that high alt performance improved marginally in the Allison powered models. My (limited) sources on the P-40 say that the M model was a full minute faster to 15,000 ft than the E models, which should result in obtaining level speed more quickly if all other things remain the same (and they mostly do). Those same sources state flatly that performance at lower altitudes remained largely the same, which isn't what is reflected here.

US Naval aviators were an eyelash away from mutiny when the slower, heavier, shorter ranged and lesser firing time F4F-4 Wildcat was introduced just before the battle of Midway. Army Air Force officers would have raised hell if they were handed a pig like the P-40M depicted here, and their objections would be a part of the historical record, but I find no such reports. I'm inclined to call the M model in Il-2 '46 bogus at best.

cheers

horseback

Oops, forgot the Soviet Fighters' Chart. Non nitpickers will appreciate that it compares the ability of these four fighters to increase their speeds at this height and at these speed ranges. Everybody else will have to whip out their scientific calculators and see whose is bigger.

cheers

horseback

I wasn't complaining about a darn thing, just pointing out a book that the author takes the time to include details flying a fighter.

Gens, this discussion is getting out of control. Simply too many aspects of this great game are blurred together. What if this thread were continued as separate threads?

- late-war high-performance aircraft issue (if any);
- relation of FM and flight controls discussion (trim, charts, etc);
- cockpit/hud display of control settings issue (what must/should/could we have, and what we don't need);
- general reality issue ('realistic' cockpit visibility as a handicap).

Just a suggestion. :rolleyes:

No, I was the one who was complaining; I simply pointed out that the Anderson quote is inevitably brought up (usually from multiple posters) if anyone suggests that the current trim model of the Merlin powered P-51s is excessive.

There is a school of thought in the flight sim community that if it is harder, it must be more realistic; they also seem to think that newer, heavier and faster must also mean more complicated because that would mean harder to control (and therefore, more realistic). But the reality is that as technology becomes more advanced, it always becomes simpler and easier to use. Compare your DVD or DVR to the VHS systems I was using (at great expense, I might add) in the 1980s. The DVD/DVR is smaller, lighter, more energy efficient and much, much easier for you to operate.

While Anderson's book is very well written and generally accurate, that one sentence does not make the thousands of paragraphs and sentences written on the subject of trimming the Mustang before and since invalid, and most of the material on the subject says that the Mustang (like most later designs of that era) was better than its predecessors and most of its contemporaries because it was easier to fly and keep under control than the other fighters of its day, not just because it was merely faster and had longer range.

cheers

horseback

BIG LOL!!!

Also keep in mind, that almost all aircraft have been made strange by this particular perception of reality. This is not new to the sim, but it is nice when someone take the whole picture, and not just a biased one.

Still, all these discusions on aircraft performance, being it differential or not, start again every time a new patch appears, maybe with different actors, but it nevertheless starts again.

Tagert got a good tool to analyze this, while he still used that name. It enabled him to process other peoples tracks. With some help you could achieve many more test conditions, and got some in game behaviours faster, with the addition of joy inputs to discard player wrong inputs.

The trim retard was introduced because of some complain of cheating by people that love to play in horizontal furballs on dogfight servers. Nothing to do with reality.

Which addresses one of my repeated requests for options in the game:

The Ability to Turn Stuff OFF If You Don't Like It.

If you don't like seeing some message (or all messages) described on the HUD, or if you're a server admin who thinks that they're unrealistic or favor one side unfairly, you just create an option in the GUI or conf.ini that allows you to turn them off.

It's a simple solution, it makes everyone happy, and it can't be that hard to code.

Classic quote :)

Here is the final (and complete) set of charts for 10,000 ft/3000m.
I’ve re-organized and re-formatted the charts, so that the basic data is below the chart. Remember that the longer and flatter the curve, the faster the acceleration.

A few things to remember; weight vs power should govern the curve at the lower speed range and as speed increases, the effect of drag increases exponentially and eventually becomes the primary limiting factor. A heavy aircraft may not accumulate speed as quickly, but I expect that once achieved, it should not shed it quickly and that the greater weight will add momentum in the higher ranges so that minor changes in level flight will have somewhat less effect, and even less effect if the flat plate drag is low. I have the (general) US fighter drag and weight to power data from America’s Hundred Thousand, but I haven’t found the data for the Spitfire or other aircraft, and I would love to get that.

Those desiring specific comparisons may PM me and I’ll be glad to make a chart or send you the data.

I’m taking this program to the main forums; I’ve started doing the sea-level (100m) testing, and plan to take series at 5,000 ft/1525m, 15,000/4600 and 25,000/7600 to satisfy my own curiosity and hopefully encourage some debate about not only the raw speed data, but how the depictions of the cockpit instruments and the trim model affect how you fly issues.

cheers

horseback

AAAAHHH!!!

Only a five document limit!

But wait, there's more!

cheers

horseback