Spit IIa is now so much more inferior to the 109

[Yellow14150]

I haven't read the entire thread, but did anyone test out the airspeeds at sea level? I know the 109 E-4 tops out at 460km/h in level flight on the deck with afterburner. That's optimal prop pitch of 10:25-10:30, and a trimmed radiator. In small dives I can hit 470 for 30 secs.

The G.50 hits 390-410 km/h as indicated on the deck. That's with the prop pitch set correctly (around 60-70%) and the radiator closed down 50%. You can also fully trim the G.50

Has anyone speed tested the Spits and Hurris?

[Kwiatek]

Originally Posted by Yellow14150

I haven't read the entire thread, but did anyone test out the airspeeds at sea level? I know the 109 E-4 tops out at 460km/h in level flight on the deck with afterburner. That's optimal prop pitch of 10:25-10:30, and a trimmed radiator. In small dives I can hit 470 for 30 secs.

The G.50 hits 390-410 km/h as indicated on the deck. That's with the prop pitch set correctly (around 60-70%) and the radiator closed down 50%. You can also fully trim the G.50

Has anyone speed tested the Spits and Hurris?

Unfortunately yes - only sea level result:


Hurricane MK 1 Rotol

238 mph /383 kph at the deck at +6 1/2 boost ------ should be 262-265 mph /420-426 kph !!!!

So it is 24-27mph/ 38-43 kph too slow at + 6 1/2 boost power !!!!

There is no WEP - so no 100 octan fuel performacne - which should give ab. 25 mph/ 40 kph extra speed at low alts

Spitfire MK1a

255 mph/410 kph at the deck at 6 1/2 boost ---------should be 283 mph/455 kph !!!!

So it is 28 mph/45 kph too slow at 6 1/2 boost.

No 100 Octan fuel performance at all - boost cut out doesnt rise power at all.

Spitfire MK II

268 mph/431 kph at deck at 6 1/2 lbs
285 mph/458 kph at deck at 9 lbs ------ should be 286-290 mph so it is quite accurate result!!!!

No emergency take off power +12 lbs included.


So actually with present FM and performacne of planes there is no sense to flying Hurricane MK1 and Spitfire MK1 against 109 casue their performacne is way off comparing to RL data even for only 87 octan fuel not mention absense of 100 Octan fuel performacne.

The thick pink line is from handbook. I do not know what these values represent though. Prudence with data whatever source is always prime.

Even flight tests are not representing the final truth as they only represent one individual plane and not average performance.

As Kur already has presented the specs for the 109 which had a guaranteed performance inside a +/-5% bandwidth which is a lot. This however is of course theoretical tolerance. It may have been that the delivered aircrafts were +/-2% from an average somewhere inside the +/-5% (we do not know where this average was and probably the Luftwaffe did not know either).

This should be always kept in mind. Unfortunately this is a big headache for any flight sim developer.

Personally if we could have all flight data of a good statistical probe for each plane I would like to have statistically scattered performances of planes in the game. But this will never happen as we never will have that data.

[Flanker35M]

S!

As said by all here, we just want to have correct performance and now we do not have it, be it either side of the channel Kwiatek, would it be hard to produce a graph about speeds with different power settings? For example some old graphs fro TsAGI I have had the WEP value colored and only up to 2km on Russian fighters for example.

Making graphs of speeds as they are now would help to get a better picture where the sim is at it's current state. And far easier to compare against RL values I think.

[Yellow14150]

Thanks for reply on the airspeeds. That's interesting that the mkI spit is that slow. The Hurricane matters less because the British historically pulled the Hurricane from the front because of appalling losses.

From a historical point of a view there are a lot of things to take into account. The manufactures did their tests without armor or guns in most cases, so a lot of the data about both aircraft shows them going way faster then in combat.

I think it all comes down to a balance. A faster plane, that's also more maneuverable then the enemy, breaks the game for playability. I like flying the G.50. It's my favorite by far. I flew it when it was way underpowered. It was far slower, but turned almost as well as a spit, and better than a hurricane. I got a lot of kills in it because I learned its weaknesses and advantages.

If I came down from 12,000 ft onto an unsuspecting Spit IIa I could shoot him down in a lot of cases.

I've read historical accounts about the spitfire that put it as being faster than the 109 in real life. I think as far as the game goes each side should either have maneuverablity or speed. The 109 is faster, in the game, because it's far less maneuverable than the spit. In order to keep the balance a plane needs one or the other. If we want the spit to be faster then the 109 then, out of thinking about playability, we would need to make the 109 more maneuverable then the spit. That notion seems silly.

I think as far as fixing the Spit Ia, the FM should be brought closer to reality. I think if the IIa was within 10 kmh of the e-4 it would break the game.

I fly on both red and blue, but I fly the G.50 because I think it's the best dog fighter. The spit is by no means outmatched by the 109 because it's slower. It can out dogfight the 109 any day of the week. What spit pilots have to do, as I do in G.50, is learn how to use a slower more maneuverable aircraft to it's advantages.

Originally Posted by Yellow14150

Thanks for reply on the airspeeds. That's interesting that the mkI spit is that slow. The Hurricane matters less because the British historically pulled the Hurricane from the front because of appalling losses.

From a historical point of a view there are a lot of things to take into account. The manufactures did their tests without armor or guns in most cases, so a lot of the data about both aircraft shows them going way faster then in combat.

I think it all comes down to a balance. A faster plane, that's also more maneuverable then the enemy, breaks the game for playability. I like flying the G.50. It's my favorite by far. I flew it when it was way underpowered. It was far slower, but turned almost as well as a spit, and better than a hurricane. I got a lot of kills in it because I learned its weaknesses and advantages.

If I came down from 12,000 ft onto an unsuspecting Spit IIa I could shoot him down in a lot of cases.

I've read historical accounts about the spitfire that put it as being faster than the 109 in real life. I think as far as the game goes each side should either have maneuverablity or speed. The 109 is faster, in the game, because it's far less maneuverable than the spit. In order to keep the balance a plane needs one or the other. If we want the spit to be faster then the 109 then, out of thinking about playability, we would need to make the 109 more maneuverable then the spit. That notion seems silly.

I think as far as fixing the Spit Ia, the FM should be brought closer to reality. I think if the IIa was within 10 kmh of the e-4 it would break the game.

I fly on both red and blue, but I fly the G.50 because I think it's the best dog fighter. The spit is by no means outmatched by the 109 because it's slower. It can out dogfight the 109 any day of the week. What spit pilots have to do, as I do in G.50, is learn how to use a slower more maneuverable aircraft to it's advantages.

I think if the spit was faster in RL it should be made faster. If it was slower it should be slower. The quarrel is here which was faster. This question seems to be difficult to answer. Both sides have and still claim that their ride was faster. Probably because both were so close and the perception which one was faster depended on some other conditions (using emergency power, being slightly higher initially, having a well performing individual plane over a badly performing individual plane, being in the altitude range that provided performance advantage for own plane, ...).

[Bokononist]

Originally Posted by Yellow14150

Thanks for reply on the airspeeds. That's interesting that the mkI spit is that slow. The Hurricane matters less because the British historically pulled the Hurricane from the front because of appalling losses.

The Hurricane was indeed pulled from the front after the Battle of Britain. But in the battle itself it is arguably more important than the spit as it recorded many more kills, and was present in greater numbers. Lets try to get all of these planes FM's as close as we can. Fingers crossed.

[Kwiatek]

Originally Posted by Yellow14150

Thanks for reply on the airspeeds. That's interesting that the mkI spit is that slow. The Hurricane matters less because the British historically pulled the Hurricane from the front because of appalling losses.

Polish pilots from 303SQN taking part in BOB from 31 august 1940 was flying Hurricanes MK1 of course using 100 Octan fuel ( i read their combat raports) and they were the highest score RAF SQN during BOB time. They got also the best kill to death ratio so in experience hand Hurricane was still good fighter plane in BOB time. Expecially when it could use +12 emergency power which make huge difference in low level combats.

[Blackdog_kt]

Originally Posted by Kwiatek

Polish pilots from 303SQN taking part in BOB from 31 august 1940 was flying Hurricanes MK1 of course using 100 Octan fuel ( i read their combat raports) and they were the highest score RAF SQN during BOB time. They got also the best kill to death ratio so in experience hand Hurricane was still good fighter plane in BOB time. Expecially when it could use +12 emergency power which make huge difference in low level combats.

I'm quoting this not because i want to reply directly to it, but because it brings up another point that many of us don't think too much about.

As you can see in the last sentence, WEP on RAF fighters was a situational thing. It was mostly a low-altitude advantage and this translates to one of these two things:

1) Scramble and climb to altitude.

2) Dive low and use it to escape.

The reasons it worked like this is that pilots of the time flew differently than us. The fights happened high because of bomber flights, so RAF pilots had to climb fast. Then, because LW pilots had bombers to escort, if an RAF pilot would dive out of the fight, kick it into WEP and leave, a lot of times he would not be followed unless the 109 tailing him could score a quick kill and get back to protecting its bombers.

What we do is different: the RAF putters around at treetop height, the LW is cruising around at optimal fuel economy cruise for hours and BnZ'ing them, but all too often the 109s will drop down, give chase and lose the advantage.

There's nothing wrong with that, because we all want to have fun and get in fights. What's wrong is expecting to see historical outcomes while we are using non-historical tactics.

The easiest way to capture some of what we read in the books is to fix the bombers first. No, i'm not kidding. With the latest testing patches a lot of people can now fly bombers in formation online.

Fixing the rest of the bombers' bugs (they have a few remaining issues with their bombsights) will take things to the next level: more people will fly bombers, which makes fighters have a reason to fly high and stay high.

Then, we have two positive outcomes as a result. First of all, tactics and the situational parameters of the "arena" are closer to real life, so we can make easier comparisons. Second, the good and bad points of all fighter FMs will be exposed through using them in a more structured tactical environment with specific demands.

What we have right now is a lot of gnashing of teeth for now real reason: we can't expect our favorite ride to perform a certain way when we fly it a totally different way. Even if the FMs were 100% accurate, it would not be the same because how you use the FM matters as much as the FM itself.

Currently in the sim, the 109s escort nothing so they are free to range about at 1.2 Ata for more than an hour per sortie and pick their targets, while the Spits and Hurricanes are hugging the trees and hunting squirrels most of the time.

It used to be a bit like that in IL:1946 as well, because the RAF planes are nimble and the temptation to just go and mix it up is great. However, the best and most dangerous Spit pilots i've ever seen while flying IL2:1946 were not the ones who scored 5-6 kills per sortie during a furball on the deck and then got shot down by a Dora that happened to be passing by.

The ones i feared the most when i was flying blue were the ones that flew at altitude and used it like a BnZ plane. It might not be that fast compared to the 51s and 47s, but it was nimbler and climbed very well, allowing it to constantly evade and follow it up with aggressive climbing, retaining its advantage. These pilots didn't score 5+ kills per sortie, but they usually scored 10-15 kills for every time they were shot down, they would very often go in with a disadvantage of 3vs1 and win because they were flying their brains instead of flying only the FM.

[MB_Avro_UK]

Originally Posted by Blackdog_kt

I'm quoting this not because i want to reply directly to it, but because it brings up another point that many of us don't think too much about.

As you can see in the last sentence, WEP on RAF fighters was a situational thing. It was mostly a low-altitude advantage and this translates to one of these two things:

1) Scramble and climb to altitude.

2) Dive low and use it to escape.

The reasons it worked like this is that pilots of the time flew differently than us. The fights happened high because of bomber flights, so RAF pilots had to climb fast. Then, because LW pilots had bombers to escort, if an RAF pilot would dive out of the fight, kick it into WEP and leave, a lot of times he would not be followed unless the 109 tailing him could score a quick kill and get back to protecting its bombers.

What we do is different: the RAF putters around at treetop height, the LW is cruising around at optimal fuel economy cruise for hours and BnZ'ing them, but all too often the 109s will drop down, give chase and lose the advantage.

There's nothing wrong with that, because we all want to have fun and get in fights. What's wrong is expecting to see historical outcomes while we are using non-historical tactics.

The easiest way to capture some of what we read in the books is to fix the bombers first. No, i'm not kidding. With the latest testing patches a lot of people can now fly bombers in formation online.

Fixing the rest of the bombers' bugs (they have a few remaining issues with their bombsights) will take things to the next level: more people will fly bombers, which makes fighters have a reason to fly high and stay high.

Then, we have two positive outcomes as a result. First of all, tactics and the situational parameters of the "arena" are closer to real life, so we can make easier comparisons. Second, the good and bad points of all fighter FMs will be exposed through using them in a more structured tactical environment with specific demands.

What we have right now is a lot of gnashing of teeth for now real reason: we can't expect our favorite ride to perform a certain way when we fly it a totally different way. Even if the FMs were 100% accurate, it would not be the same because how you use the FM matters as much as the FM itself.

Currently in the sim, the 109s escort nothing so they are free to range about at 1.2 Ata for more than an hour per sortie and pick their targets, while the Spits and Hurricanes are hugging the trees and hunting squirrels most of the time.

It used to be a bit like that in IL:1946 as well, because the RAF planes are nimble and the temptation to just go and mix it up is great. However, the best and most dangerous Spit pilots i've ever seen while flying IL2:1946 were not the ones who scored 5-6 kills per sortie during a furball on the deck and then got shot down by a Dora that happened to be passing by.

The ones i feared the most when i was flying blue were the ones that flew at altitude and used it like a BnZ plane. It might not be that fast compared to the 51s and 47s, but it was nimbler and climbed very well, allowing it to constantly evade and follow it up with aggressive climbing, retaining its advantage. These pilots didn't score 5+ kills per sortie, but they usually scored 10-15 kills for every time they were shot down, they would very often go in with a disadvantage of 3vs1 and win because they were flying their brains instead of flying only the FM.

A very good post.

Best Regards,
MB_Avro.