A newbies impression of the 109 and spit

[robtek]

He wrote about the spit 1a.

[Robo.]

Originally Posted by robtek

He wrote about the spit 1a.

It just said 'Spit' at the time I was reading it, sorry.

Anyway, the 2 German pilots were not very good then.

[Osprey]

They must've been idiots.

Try it post patch and have more than one flight.

[gimpy117]

I'm speaking about the Spit Ia or really all the spits. I think it's too easy to fly in general. Not really too fast, but just too easy in general to skillfully maneuver. I suppose I wasn't clear as to what i was talking of

lets put it this way:

In ROF the Camel has also been characterized as having a very light and touchy elevator, this makes the camel the most agile plane in the game...but also tricky to fly...yet rewarding. Currently with my limited experience with the spit it seems to not have touchy elevators, but just effective everything controls.

I dunno, I was reading reports from German pilots saying: (paraphrasing) "was on par with the ME-109 or inferior, unless flown by an exceptional pilot". Now, I just jumped in the thing and played around in the mud, with garbage tactics when i knew i should be dead...and won...flying circles around these guys...and I'm no master pilot as far as i know.

[Robo.]

Originally Posted by gimpy117

I dunno, I was reading reports from German pilots saying: (paraphrasing) "was on par with the ME-109 or inferior, unless flown by an exceptional pilot".

I would say that this is very much the case in the sim. It certainly is inferior to the 109.

Originally Posted by gimpy117

Now, I just jumped in the thing and played around in the mud, with garbage tactics when i knew i should be dead...and won...flying circles around these guys...and I'm no master pilot as far as i know.

I suggest you try her a bit more against competent pilots, that might give you better picture.

[335th_GRAthos]

I think you are already self-consious enough Gimpy with the title of your post "A newbies...."

Just out of curiocity, you are flying with Complex Engine Management ON and all additional difficulty options engaged and, you are testing the Spit 1a against online pilots (not AI), right?

A well flown Bf109 rules over a Spit 1a, unless the Bf109 run out of ammo...

~S~

[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by gimpy117

I'm speaking about the Spit Ia or really all the spits. I think it's too easy to fly in general. Not really too fast, but just too easy in general to skillfully maneuver. I suppose I wasn't clear as to what i was talking of

lets put it this way:

In ROF the Camel has also been characterized as having a very light and touchy elevator, this makes the camel the most agile plane in the game...but also tricky to fly...yet rewarding. Currently with my limited experience with the spit it seems to not have touchy elevators, but just effective everything controls.

I dunno, I was reading reports from German pilots saying: (paraphrasing) "was on par with the ME-109 or inferior, unless flown by an exceptional pilot". Now, I just jumped in the thing and played around in the mud, with garbage tactics when i knew i should be dead...and won...flying circles around these guys...and I'm no master pilot as far as i know.

Indeed this is the most annoying thing about the whole Spit model, which was very much like the famous Camel in this regard. The elevator touchiness is not modeled (nor was in old Il-2). Every manual, report, pilot commenting on the issue noted that the Spitfire elevator was exceedingly light, and sensitive and required very delicate control. Stick force / g was in the order of 4 lbs / G, so you could easily pull 12-13 Gs with one hand, which would certainly black you out in short order, stall or even break the aircraft.

In Il-2 COD, pulling the sick full back not even stalled the Spit II for example...

The handling is fishy for all aircraft I would say, its very hard to stall them and outright impossible to break them (and I tried really hard flying in the most dangerous fashion possible: full nose up trim AND full stick-on-stomach at the end of the dive at around 350-400 mph IAS, which would be certain to break any fighter in the game two, but you simply can't...). I guess its just more profilic in the case of the Spit, which had ultra sensitive pitch control compared to all others.

[gimpy117]

Originally Posted by Kurfürst

Indeed this is the most annoying thing about the whole Spit model, which was very much like the famous Camel in this regard. The elevator touchiness is not modeled (nor was in old Il-2). Every manual, report, pilot commenting on the issue noted that the Spitfire elevator was exceedingly light, and sensitive and required very delicate control. Stick force / g was in the order of 4 lbs / G, so you could easily pull 12-13 Gs with one hand, which would certainly black you out in short order, stall or even break the aircraft.

In Il-2 COD, pulling the sick full back not even stalled the Spit II for example...

The handling is fishy for all aircraft I would say, its very hard to stall them and outright impossible to break them (and I tried really hard flying in the most dangerous fashion possible: full nose up trim AND full stick-on-stomach at the end of the dive at around 350-400 mph IAS, which would be certain to break any fighter in the game two, but you simply can't...). I guess its just more profilic in the case of the Spit, which had ultra sensitive pitch control compared to all others.

I agree with that. It's just a little to easy to fly. I'm sure a well flown Me-109 can win a battle...but the fact is...IMO the skill and practice required to fly the Me-109 is not even remotely mirrored by the Spitfire. Making the spit rightfully touchy would solve this. It was always difficult in RoF because the camel was so touchy and took discretionary control inputs to fly at it's best, just yanking the stick back all the way to turn resulted in a stall.

Also, I do fly on the Atag server. and against other planes

Originally Posted by Robo.

I suggest you try her a bit more against competent pilots, that might give you better picture.

yes, but just the fact I could put myself in a terrible position, the 1st time in the a/c and still come out on top, while flying the plane to a much higher level at 2:1 odds kinda says something...or at least in my opinion.

[Sandstone]

Originally Posted by Kurfürst

I guess its just more profilic in the case of the Spit, which had ultra sensitive pitch control compared to all others.

I think it was sensitive and like many aircraft of this era had poorly harmonised controls, but it can't realistically be described as "ultra sensitive", otherwise the literature would be full of accounts of Spits getting bent in PIOs on landing. It's also possible to over-estimate the impact of poorly-harmonised controls. In my limited experience of flying, you quickly adjust to the control forces needed for different aircraft and it ceases to be a problem, unless they are so high as to be tiring.

I agree that spit pilots learnt with exercise to handle the difference between elevator and roll sensitivity which was noticed by several pilots. I do not know if it caused much trouble for pilots as I do not have much flying experience with badly harmonized controls though. I imagine that it does require a bit of learning.

The stall behaviour seems a bit odd in any plane right now imho. And the 109 does turn like a brick while I think it was more agile even though not as agile as the spit turn radius and to a certain extend turn rate wise.