A newbies impression of the 109 and spit

[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.

[gimpy117]

Originally Posted by 41Sqn_Stormcrow

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.

I've has sim experience in ROF flying with the camel, you need a feather touch on the elevator and can over turn the camel with ease. It's also a trick to fly level, as to not overshoot your controls and nose up or down wildly.

I do kinda agree with the Me-109 turn. It should of course, not be able to hold with the spit in a sustained turn...but it seems right now to not nearly to be able to stay with the spit even with an energy advantage. I got bounced by an ME-109 today (he ran me down from my 6 so he was moving faster) who somehow missed with his cannons. I immediately broke left and held a tight turn with ease, Looped around and found him in a now lower energy state after attempting to follow me. I pumped some rounds into him and killed his pilot pretty quickly. It just makes me wonder how I held so much energy from that hard turn, where as the ME-109 seemed to bleed a crazy amount, and be a sitting duck for me to come around and fill him with lead. The Spit should turn better yes, But my question is...does it bleed energy as fast and is this historic? Maybe we could do a test and make a hard turn and see how long it takes to stall, or alternatively how high we can get in altitude after the turn. this would have a comparison of energy retained after a vigorous turn possibly. We wouldn't be comparing turn radius, just energy retained after a min turn radius turn.

[Robo.]

gimpy you seem to be lucky meeting inexperienced 109 pilots. Or was that an AI?

In my book it's not the plane that holds energy, it's the pilot. If you did your evasive turn to the left clean enough and he tried to follow you and turn with you instead of climbing (and not missing the burst in the first place) and yo yo into your turn (no matter how tight, 109 rolls fast enough) outmanoevering you effectively. If the 109 was me, I'd probably turn with you for a while, especially so after scoring some hits and if you'd be gaining angles on me I would still be able to extend safely, horizontally or vertically. And I am not quite as good as 109 specialists.

Same goes for the Spitfire - if your turn is sloppy, you'd lose lots of E, drop wing or stall alltogether.

The above is based on my experience online as RAF or LW pilot, yrmv of course.

[Glider]

I love this constant reference to longitudinal instability, from a plane that everyone who flew it be they allied or German found very easy to fly and land.

Don't you think its being over egged

[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by Glider

I love this constant reference to longitudinal instability, from a plane that everyone who flew it be they allied or German found very easy to fly and land.

... and longitudally unstable:

The German view:

The rolling ability of the enemy fighters at high speeds is worse than that of the Bf 109. Quick changes of the trajectory along the vertical axis cause especially with the Spitfire load changes around the cranial axis, coming from high longitudinal thrust momemtum, and significantly disturb the aiming.

In summary, it can be said that all three enemy planes types are inferior to the German planes regarding the flying qualities. Especially the Spitfire has bad rudder and elevator stability on the target approach. In addition the wing-mounted weapons have the known shooting-technique disadvantages.

http://kurfurst.org/Tactical_trials/...g_Aug1940.html

The British view:

[Catseye]

Originally Posted by gimpy117

It just makes me wonder how I held so much energy from that hard turn, where as the ME-109 seemed to bleed a crazy amount, and be a sitting duck for me to come around and fill him with lead. The Spit should turn better yes, But my question is...does it bleed energy as fast and is this historic?

Gimpy117,
Not having your realism settings set accordingly can initiate unrealistic performance as you describe.

Here is a pic of the realism settings FYI - check your Engine settings and Atomosphere and Handling.

S!

[Kurfürst]

The real 109E could do sustained turns in 18.92 secs at 1.3ata at SL, we have the 1.35ata version so probably it can be marginally better than that.. anyway, I did a quick test and got about that much, so I don't there's something wrong there.

I don't know how fast Hurris and Spits turn though. They should be better, but by how much? If they would do a sustained turn in 11-12 secs I'd say something is definietely stinking (that's a biplane only zone), but 15-16 secs would sound about right.