Quote:
Originally Posted by Panzergranate
In realistic the P-51 D should hit a maximum level flight speed of 465 MPH with WEP applied, just like the real thing. However the peformance seems to be modelled on the Allison engined P-51 A version as it is nearly 100 MPH too slow in level flight.
As the war progressed, engines became larger and more powerful with bigger propellors. This gives a larger torque effect and thus the increased tendency to spin to the right, due to the clockwise rotation of the propellor.
Also I've noticed that most folks don't realise or know that a pilot applies negative (reverse) rudder when an aircraft is banked into aturn to prevent spinning. It is this balancing act of using the rudder to keep the nose up that stops aircraft spinning. It takes quick reactions and familiarity with the aircraft in question plus the the sensitivity on 100% but it is possible to push some fighters into the historically tight turns that some aces managed to pull.
In a test flight with a friend flying a Spitfire Mk.XVI, I managed to pull a tighter turn in a Fw.190-A5 by using the negative rudder technique than the Spitfire could follow.... it is very, very tricky though and takes hours of practice.
If you just turn on airelons and elevators alone you will spin out.
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The 460mph occurs at 8,000m, or about 26,000ft. Are you testing it at 8,000? I ran that test a few weeks ago on the PC version. I saved tracks. They're long, and boring, with lots of trimming-tabbing.
On turns, I was strongly given to understand that pilots "kept the ball centered". In the instrument panel, there is this thing that looks sort of like a builder's level. The idea is, in the turn, you adjust the rudder to keep the G-force going down, rather than in some other funky direction. Real-world pilots do it by fell; we have to do it by eyeball.
The P-51 uses laminar flow wings. They are great for high speed, but they have some particularly nasty stall characteristics. Pull to hard and it'll snap at you. The Fw-190 has the same problem, btw.
The P-51 is also rather underpowered. Compared to the Spitfire, or the Bf-109, you have a plane that is about a tonn heavier, yet has 10L less engine. The Merlin is a 1,640cc (27L) engine, that produces around 1700hp with boost, while the Griffon that powered the Spitfire was a 2,240cc (36.7L) engine that produced 2000hp, and the DB605 was another 2,176cc (35.7L) engine that could produce 1800-2000+hp, depending on additives. It doesn't help that the supercharger on the Packard Merlin has a dead spot right around 5000m, right where the "happy spot" for most of the German engines are.
I was going to continue, but it's late, and I'm out of steam. Basically, get a lot of energy, and hoard it, and you can do pretty well in the P-51, but it's not a mixer the way a La-7 or clean 109 is. I forget who it was who said, that, the P-51 couldn't do what a Spitfire could, but it could do it over Berlin. People talk about how overrated it was, but they forget just how fantastic it was for a single engine fighter to have a 2,000 mile range, and what it costs to get that.