FM discussion

[droz]

Originally Posted by Slipstream2012

Well said that man!,

Its always surprised me that I can choose a BF109 & start it up with out a cough or splutter. Ok I think that must be the beauty of fuel injection!
I crank the throttle to full without warming it up, it charges down the runway like a wild horse, ease back on the stick and it starts into a climb at what feels like 2500+ fpm climb straight to 3k meters, fight the nose forward and re-trim slightly nose heavy, by now its all configured, flying like a dream pulling 400 kph.

I choose a Spitfire at Hawkinge, fire it up, it coughs, splutters, rattles for awhile, and then it gradually starts sounding smoother but woe betide me if i even breath on that throttle lever before its reached temperature.
Even when its warmed up, I have to slam throttle forward almost full before taxying because mid range its all temperamental. After takeoff it climbs normally, and cruises nicely. But if you don't watch those temperatures or RPM, BAM!!! the engine blows a gasket! quite literally.

Now if that represents a UFO, the aliens would never have left their planet.
And if this represents the performance of the infamous "nimble little fighter" that was a joy to fly, and changed the outcome of the BoB, fighting wave after wave of enemy aircraft with only "the few", something isn't quite right here. Not to mention in the event of a scramble, the Germans would have been half way home by the time they got into the air.

I'm no expert, but to say the Spitfire is out performing the BF109 at present is a no brainer.

Pretty sure the 109E was considerably faster than the Spits in game IRL. Spit has maneuverability, 109 had speed.

Also, 109 is Fuel Injected. Not much sputter on a startup from that. Spit/Hurri early stuff was Carburated. you will see sputter on startup with that.

[zapatista]

Originally Posted by droz

Pretty sure the 109E was considerably faster than the Spits in game IRL. Spit has maneuverability, 109 had speed.

nope, very wrong there. and you must be new to this and are showing yourself not to be very well informed, because you are taking incomplete facts which you dont seem to understand and which are only partially true, and then you try to generalize from them with the result that what you say completely looses its meaning. the 109 was not "considerably faster", you'r making it sound like the 109 was a magic Ferrari that was competing against a citroen 2cv in straight line speed.

for ex, the only reason a 109 (during BoB) could "get away" from a spitfire close behind it, is that the 109 could use the sudden dive maneuver to initially get a speed advantage into the dive because the hurricane/spitfire carburetors would be briefly cutting out due to the -ve G created. in a large melee with a number of other friendly/enemy planes around and people constantly engaging/disengaging their enemies this might be good enough to let him slip away in the fog of war, but if that same spitfire would stay on his tail in a sustained dive the spitfire would actually gradually catch up on him at high speed (with the 109 also becoming significantly less maneuverable with the high compression forces it was more subjected to then the spitfire).

further, with both planes starting at level flight and with the same speed, the BoB era 109 has a slight advantage in better initial acceleration compared to the spitfire when both planes stay at the same altitude, but then the spitfire matches the 109 very equally. obviously any difference in straight line speed during level flight was not some magic or effective 109 evasive maneuver

Originally Posted by droz

Also, 109 is Fuel Injected. Not much sputter on a startup from that. Spit/Hurri early stuff was Carburated. you will see sputter on startup with that.

again an oversimplification which is not a relevant reply to the previous posters comment

if CoD is a simulation of real BoB era aircraft, you cant have one aircraft (the 109) be started, then accelerate immediately for takeoff and climb at full throttle to 3000 meters without having to be aware of engine stresses, when in comparison with a spitfire you need to carefully coax it into life, let engine temps rise for 5 min before even moderately increasing the throttle, then gently taxi during further warmup and finally takeoff when engine temp has finally reached the right levels and then climb away while making sure you are not using sustained full boost, and having to constantly carefully monitor and adjust mixture/temp/radiator/prop where with one small lapse of attention your engine blows up instantly

its not that these 2 aircraft should behave the same, each had its quirks and strength/weaknesses and this should be represented, but right now we have the 109 that can be flown unpunished way beyond its engine tolerance limits, and a spitfire engine which is much to sensitive (in addition to a number of spitfire FM performance errors)

request to black6: please have your testers compare engine startup procedures, engine tolerance to abuse and heat stress, and "cold" engine performances, then see how fast/easy it is with either aircraft to climb to 4000 meters altitude. there are some major problems here (109 to easy, spitfire to slow and engines to sensitive in comparison) which have been reported multiple times in bug report threads, and it significantly affects game play.