My little 109 v spit experiment

[JG52Krupi]

Interestingly snapper I find the spit a joy to fly while the 109 is like a train (albeit a very fast one ) if you keep on the rails your good but if you try any kind of quick manoeuvre your in a spin WTF

[5./JG27.Farber]

Originally Posted by pstyle

2. The visibility is excellent. Much better that you would imagine based on the external look of the 109. That extra little bit of over-the-shoulder window meant I could see aircraft behind/below (7, 5 o'clock) that you just don't see in the spits. This helps explain why I'm often spotted, when I think I'm concealed. You really have to be under the 109 to be invisible - which is not a safe place to be anyway!

I disagree, do you use TrackIR? I do and I am addamant that rear visability is better in the Spitfire. You can also open the canopy in the Spit and look even further!

Forward visability on the other hand is ALLOT better in the 109, partially due to the tinted windshield in the Spit and hurri which is terrible.

[NZtyphoon]

Originally Posted by 5./JG27.Farber

I disagree, do you use TrackIR? I do and I am addamant that rear visability is better in the Spitfire. You can also open the canopy in the Spit and look even further!

Forward visability on the other hand is ALLOT better in the 109, partially due to the tinted windshield in the Spit and hurri which is terrible.

One of the aspects of forward visibility in the Spitfire that Jeffrey Quill (amongst others) complained about was the distortion to forward visibility created by the rounded sides of the windscreen - this was one reason later Mk VBs and all Cs switched to flat sidescreens and an internal bullet-resistant windscreen, first used on the prototype Mk III.

[notafinger!]

Originally Posted by 5./JG27.Farber

I disagree, do you use TrackIR? I do and I am addamant that rear visability is better in the Spitfire. You can also open the canopy in the Spit and look even further!

Forward visability on the other hand is ALLOT better in the 109, partially due to the tinted windshield in the Spit and hurri which is terrible.

Agree 100%. All around visibility in the Spit is far better than the 109. You can lean left/right even with canopy closed and get a full view of 6 & low 5/7. Red pilots can even sit up a bit and get a look out over the nose which can't be done in a 109.

Originally Posted by pstyle

3.The 109 engine sounds gave me a warning when the RPM was too high, and was about to overspeed/ blow! All I had to do was reduce rpm, and she went back to normal running. How I wish we had that kind of audible "warning" in the red fighters... which just suddenly blow the second they hit the modelled threshold!, and there's no way to anticipate/ recover in time without strict engine management procedures. I think the 109 engine setup is more forgiving.

IMHO in-cockpit 109 engine sound was much better in last official Steam release patch when the engine would really scream when it went over 2500 rpm. The current sound is very bland in comparison.

[Torian]

Only noticed this a few days ago but the manual prop pitch control is missing in the E4. Was prop pitch auto (only) in the real E4s ? Is manual prop pitch control of the E4s in CloD unrealistic ?
Personally I prefer manual prop pitch when in an E4 as some of the auto settings are annoying. However this fact alone would make flying against an E4 more interesting if they were subject to the vagaries of auto prop pitch manipulation.

[5./JG27.Farber]

Originally Posted by Torian

Only noticed this a few days ago but the manual prop pitch control is missing in the E4. Was prop pitch auto (only) in the real E4s ? Is manual prop pitch control of the E4s in CloD unrealistic ?
Personally I prefer manual prop pitch when in an E4 as some of the auto settings are annoying. However this fact alone would make flying against an E4 more interesting if they were subject to the vagaries of auto prop pitch manipulation.

You can use manual in the E4, the control was moved to the throttle. You must set toggle prop pitch automation key. In fact when flying online you need to disable it and re-enable it when your going 300kmh plus or it tends to malfuction and either got to 12:00 or 08:30 hours...

[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by pstyle

4. Recovering from a flick-stall (but not in a spin) was marvellous. I took my hands and feet off and just waited about 3 to 5 seconds for the heavy nose to drop. she righted herself and I was power diving and under lift within a second or two more. really nice. really stable. I might try and put one in a spin soon too, to see how that experience compares.

Defo a nice crate to fly. I might brave a few missions in the busier servers now too....
Does anyone know if point 4 is "historical"? Are the reasons why a 109 v spit will blow engines different, and thus the "sudden" nature of the spitfire breakdown is accruate? Should there be any kind of audible warning from the engine in either case that something is about to pop? Should it be avoidable to a point, even once the engine tone has changed to "abnormal"?

As to 4, yes, from everything I have read the gentle stall characteristics were definitely a forte of the 109 (which is the no. 1 reason I kept flying it in the old Il2 times, even after when the 190 was added, and which I would have normally preferred). I guess the plane's longitudinal stability has a lot to do with it.

As for the Spitties engine breakdowns, I would say the prime reason is that the 109 has so many automated systems that its basically fool-proof. It has great cooling capacity, and essentially you only need to adjust the throttle. In comparison the Spit has a zillion engine related switches and levers, so its quite easy for the pilot to select wrong mixture/rpm/boost/temperature combination. In addition the negative g problem of the Merlin means that you can suddenly loose oil pressure with a bad move on the stick, and that is not a good thing for any engine. There's quite simply too many things going on too keep track of all of them. Rpm should be probably less of a problem on both planes, since actually both the DB and the Merlin tolerated fairly high overreving for considerable periods (2400/3000 and 3000/3600 for 30 secs iirc)

[SlipBall]

There was a training period for those pilots that we do not have access to for this sim. Mistakes being made here is understandable, a training do's and don'ts is needed, or the butchering of fm.

[Robo.]

Originally Posted by Kurfürst

In comparison the Spit has a zillion engine related switches and levers, so its quite easy for the pilot to select wrong mixture/rpm/boost/temperature combination. In addition the negative g problem of the Merlin means that you can suddenly loose oil pressure with a bad move on the stick, and that is not a good thing for any engine. There's quite simply too many things going on too keep track of all of them.

Do you mean real life BoB pilots trained on Tiger Moths and then Harvards? I don't think so. There were 2 levers you used to control your engine and that was:

1. throttle (same as in 109, you move it forward and you go faster you know)
2. propeller pitch (same as in 109, but slightly easier to reach before the Daumenschalter got introduced)

everything else was the same. Of course later, when the LW came with the Kommandogeraet equipped fighters, things were much easier just as you say. But in the BoB era all you had was RPM you had to tinker with constantly even during the dogfight (what we have in game as Drehzahl lever in the middle of the instrument board was certainly a bit awkward to control, I always admired the LW pilots who could do that and fight - must have been great skill) and that's the reason they put it on Daumenschalter on later models, you would still had to tinker with it more than the RAF pilot who had the set and forget RPM CSP lever. He basically also only had to work with the throttle lever doring the combat. As for E-4 automatic PP, it wasn't exactly great right from the beginning and especially in the high alt, it was common procedure to switch to manual and work with the lever again in order to get some extra speed up there. If the E-4 pilot uses the throttle lever in the combat and auto PP, the RAF pilot would use the RPM lever once to set combat RPM and then just throttle lever. I don't see much of a difference. Even using both levers was natural and they were close together.

There was nothing wrong or more difficult on RAF setup imho, I believe that in order to get the max performance from you engine, pilots of both sides would need to show same amount of skill.

Neg-G effects are irrelevant for pilot's workload. It was certainly a big limitation but it was also quite natural to them all.

[JG52Krupi]

Originally Posted by Robo.

Do you mean real life BoB pilots trained on Tiger Moths and then Harvards? I don't think so. There were 2 levers you used to control your engine and that was:

1. throttle (same as in 109, you move it forward and you go faster you know)
2. propeller pitch (same as in 109, but slightly easier to reach before the Daumenschalter got introduced)

everything else was the same. Of course later, when the LW came with the Kommandogeraet equipped fighters, things were much easier just as you say. But in the BoB era all you had was RPM you had to tinker with constantly even during the dogfight (what we have in game as Drehzahl lever in the middle of the instrument board was certainly a bit awkward to control, I always admired the LW pilots who could do that and fight - must have been great skill) and that's the reason they put it on Daumenschalter on later models, you would still had to tinker with it more than the RAF pilot who had the set and forget RPM CSP lever. He basically also only had to work with the throttle lever doring the combat. As for E-4 automatic PP, it wasn't exactly great right from the beginning and especially in the high alt, it was common procedure to switch to manual and work with the lever again in order to get some extra speed up there. If the E-4 pilot uses the throttle lever in the combat and auto PP, the RAF pilot would use the RPM lever once to set combat RPM and then just throttle lever. I don't see much of a difference. Even using both levers was natural and they were close together.

There was nothing wrong or more difficult on RAF setup imho, I believe that in order to get the max performance from you engine, pilots of both sides would need to show same amount of skill.

Neg-G effects are irrelevant for pilot's workload. It was certainly a big limitation but it was also quite natural to them all.

+1

This will be very interesting when it comes to the eastern theatre as the la5 apparently had a load of levers to deal with compared to the 109 and 190.

I am now wondering if my favourite aircraft from 1946 the 190 will be one of the most boring aircraft to fly and be given the "n00b plane" name which was given to the la7 in 1946