Why do Spitfires turn better than Hurricanes?!

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by reflected

OK, I'm out of this discussion. I have many books, and all of them say the same thing, consistently. If I list them it won't change the facts. This is not the case in CoD. However, since I can't state that the sky is blue without reference I'll let you prove the opposite, I don't think 1C is gonna touch the FMs anyway.

I have many books too, but it's not absolute academia that will give us answers. The turning performance of an aircraft is affected by many things:

1)aeroplane related: wing design, wing load, aeroplane weight, power plant, propeller, aerodynamic features.

2)environment related: mainly altitude (air humidity and temperature are negligible)

3)piloting related: pilot's general skill, pilot's specific skills on the machine, testing skills.

an aeroplane is like a short blanket: you can have an edge on something but it will affect something else.

The Spit had the edge in maneuverability because of the fantastic elliptical wing design, but it was an extremely flimsy and delicate wing structure which couldn't take much damage.

No offense, but I'm not gonna write an essay, post charts and stuff jsut to convince you or prove that I'm right, because it will have no effect on the game (unless you're a dev, but you're not), so it would be a waste of time.

..then what's the point of your original message?
I am ready to hear any opinion and vouch for it or not, but it will need a thing called reliable evidences to support it.

[617Squadron]

There really wasn't that much performance difference between early models of Spifrire and Hurricane, but I don't think that sheer turning performance alone had that much to do with it.

Historically, in the early months of the BoB, the Hurricanes took on the bombers, as the airframe was more robust, it was a very stable gun platform, it could take more punishment and keep flying and the simple fact was that more Hurricanes were in service than Spitfires at that time.

Spitfires also tended to take on the fighter escorts more than the bombers, as Spitfires were considered the more agile fighter. The fighter escorts were also fewer than the bombers, so the odds were more evenly matched between the ME 109 and the Spitfire.

WW2 veteran Pilot interviews that I have watched about the Spitfire have commented that the ailerons were very heavy when compared to the Hurricane's, so there are other factors such as the brute strength of the pilot to consider. Heavy ailerons might make you think that turning rates would be slower as a result

In short, there is no right answer to this question, as there are so many factors at work.

[BlackbusheFlyer]

Originally Posted by 617Squadron

There really wasn't that much performance difference between early models of Spifrire and Hurricane, but I don't think that sheer turning performance alone had that much to do with it.

Historically, in the early months of the BoB, the Hurricanes took on the bombers, as the airframe was more robust, it was a very stable gun platform, it could take more punishment and keep flying and the simple fact was that more Hurricanes were in service than Spitfires at that time.

Spitfires also tended to take on the fighter escorts more than the bombers, as Spitfires were considered the more agile fighter. The fighter escorts were also fewer than the bombers, so the odds were more evenly matched between the ME 109 and the Spitfire.

WW2 veteran Pilot interviews that I have watched about the Spitfire have commented that the ailerons were very heavy when compared to the Hurricane's, so there are other factors such as the brute strength of the pilot to consider. Heavy ailerons might make you think that turning rates would be slower as a result

In short, there is no right answer to this question, as there are so many factors at work.

Heavy ailerons affects rate of roll and has nothing to do with rate of turn. An aircraft described as having heavy ailerons means it is less agile for the pilot to change from one direction to another. The metal ailerons added to the Spits helped this problem.

You use aileron to establish the bank angle, then to turn you pull it with elevator. In combat turns it would mean steep turns greater than 60 degrees of bank (more like 90 degree turns pulling 2/3/4 G).

[TomcatViP]

Flat turn at :

60° of bank angle -> 2G
90° of bank angle -> 4G (min)

[BlackbusheFlyer]

Originally Posted by TomcatViP

Flat turn at :

60° of bank angle -> 2G
90° of bank angle -> 4G (min)

Correct

[Viper2000]

90º bank = descent

89.99999º bank = very large, but finite g required to maintain altitude without recourse to slip.

4 g is about 75.5º IIRC; vertical component of lift varies as the cosine of the bank angle, thus load factor required to maintain altitude is 1/cosine of the bank angle.

[TomcatViP]

Originally Posted by Viper2000

90º bank = descent

89.99999º bank = very large, but finite g required to maintain altitude without recourse to slip.

4 g is about 75.5º IIRC; vertical component of lift varies as the cosine of the bank angle, thus load factor required to maintain altitude is 1/cosine of the bank angle.

he he but 75° was not in the input table Sir. Don't stamp me with a D

[Viper2000]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

The Spit had the edge in maneuverability because of the fantastic elliptical wing design, but it was an extremely flimsy and delicate wing structure which couldn't take much damage.

Sorry but this is simply incorrect.

There is an awful lot of rubbish written about the Spitfire's wing. It has a pretty elliptical planform, but it also has washout, so it doesn't have an elliptical lift distribution.

In fact, if you look at the early project drawings, you'll see that it started out with straight taper and four guns.

The elliptical planform came in when the Air Ministry decided that they wanted to increase the armament, first to 6 guns and then to 8; going to an elliptical planform provided the structural depth required to accommodate the extra guns outboard.

This is covered in some detail in Spitfire The History by Morgan & Shacklady IIRC...

The real genius of Mitchell's wing design was that he realised that a low t/c would result in good high speed performance; the Spitfire had the highest tactical Mach number of any WWII fighter, and could not be out-dived by any aircraft under control until the advent of the XP-86 in 1947.

It certainly wasn't delicate: it had one of the highest limiting speeds of any WWII fighter; 450 mph EAS for the Merlin Spitfire's wing, and somewhat faster for the Griffon Spitfire (IIRC Henshaw states 520 mph; but this is probably IAS assuming about 20 mph position error; Henshaw dived Merlin Spitfires to 470 mph IAS routinely as part of their production testing, and from what I can gather this was because the position error was assumed to be 20 mph IAS at this speed). That's not what I'd call a flimsy wing.

Furthermore, we know that the absolute load factor that the Spitfire's wing could take was >>10 g; the RAE high speed flight had an unfortunate habit of breaking props & reduction gears away from their PR.XI Spitfires in high Mach number dives, with extensive instrumentation aboard, and rather impressive figures (c.12 IIRC) were recorded without structural failure (although the aeroplane was comprehensively bent and subsequently scrapped).

The main problem with the Spitfire's wing was that it was hard to build because it's a collection of compound curves. It was also uncomfortably thin for carrying the armament required. Naturally being hard to build, it was also hard to repair in case of battle damage.

But as for the amount of damage it could take, I haven't seen anything like as much gun camera footage of Spitfire wings being knocked off, even by cannon fire, as I have of other types. Of course, there's an obvious bias problem with guncamera footage, because there's relatively little German footage. But the Germans undoubtedly had big guns, so they'd arguably have more chance of dismantling aeroplanes for the camera than for example the Americans.

[TomcatViP]

Did I say that I luve yo ? (quoting AB ) i am so glad to read you.

let's go a step behond if you don't mind :
The elliptical theory is a misunderstanding of a Math tools applied to aero. It does not hve a real bckgrd unless with biased assumptions.

The fact is (as stated by Vip above) that thickness ratio and the wonderful Merlin made the spit what it was as a real performer. And the all genie of R. Mitchell was to build the Spit as a weapon platform that any average pilot could use and perform where German's Nazi kept arguing with their elitist theory (the UberMensh bulls***etc...). The result was that the 109 was harder to perform than the Spit or the Hurri....

As a side note lets say that it is sad that the elliptical wing was made as a brand mark for vick-Sup. IMHO it leads to the rapid demise of the Supermarine design bureau as soon as the war ended (mid 50's).

It is also funny to see how history can repeat itself nowadays in Eu

But this is way out of topic

~S!

[Sternjaeger II]

Viper, you know that I respect you because of your factual approach, and yes, there are a lot of misconceptions about the Spit wing design, but according to a gentleman in the UK who owns and regularly flies his Spit MkIX, his Hurri IIb and P-51D, the maneuverability of the Spit is unparalleled, simply because its wing behaves and performs better, albeit being more prone to torque along its span and flex ("the whole plane feeling is of extreme agility and flimsiness, it was obviously an aeroplane that has been based on a sport design and not conceived for war").

As for wing sturdiness, I have walked to the wingtip of a Mustang without the plane making a single movement, but you wouldn't be able to do the same on a Spitfire. A cannon strike on the single spar Spit wing is more likely to do more damage and above all weaken the structure enough to cause a fracture than on a robust Mustang double spar.

Let's not forget that a Mustang is almost twice the weight of a Spitfire!