Spit/109 sea level speed comparisons in 1.08 beta patch

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by Crumpp

He is not an aircraft performance engineer or an aerodynamicist.

Actually the graphs were done by an engineer..

Which is something I pointed out in the first response to this graph where I took the time to read and than quoted the graph's source, i.e.

Originally Posted by "The Most Dangerous Enemy" by Stephen Bungay

Turning circles are as calculated by John Ackroyd of the Manchester School of Engineering

Thus proving that humans (pilots, engineers, etc) can make mistakes..

As for the graph, as I initially noted, I questioned it's purpose..

Initially it seemed like it was done to give the impression that the 109 turn circles are far worse than the Spit and Hurri..

Which they well may be!

But, if that is the case this graph does not do a very good job of showing it!

It actually raises more questions and cast doubt for those who are use to looking at performance graphs (like myself)

If the purpose was to convey the turn radius (circle) at sea level than there is no need to provide an X (radius) vs. Y (alt) graph in that there is no X (radius) vs. Y (alt) taking place..

It is just X (radius) @ Y (alt)

IF that is the case, than placing 'Altitude (000ft) along the Y axis was wrong!

A better way to 'graph' this 'data' would have been to draw circles inside of circle with the radius associated with each circle and title the plot turn radius (circle) at sea level

[bongodriver]

like this one...

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by bongodriver

like this one...

Bingo!

Now looking at this graph..

We can see that the P51 and Spitfire both have a tighter turning circle (smaller radius) because their circles are inside the outer circle that

Also note, the outer circle (bigger radius) contains the the Bf109 along with the Tempest, Fw190, P47

The only info left off here is what is the speed and altitude?

Because these relationships can change with altitude

Also we can safely assume that this are the best turn circles at the best turn rates, but what is the rate?

Which is important, because what you really care about is the time it takes to do a say a 180 (reverse direction).

[Kurfürst]

There is no doubt that there is some sort of demonstrating our superiority ooze about these turn radii graphs... but regardless the figures seem to be about right.

It is entirely another question why this so called superiority is given so much importance. Even the graph shows that the turn radii difference between the Hurri and the 109 was about 200 feet, or about 60 meters. Even the span of these aircraft was 11-12 meters, and actually that's about the distance a 109 wingman kept from his leader... or even less. So what's all the fuss about it?

BTW the figures are rather similiar to what Morgan and Morris came up with in 1940 (for 12k feet - both figures are more of an educated estimate, not trials): http://kurfurst.org/Tactical_trials/...ls/Morgan.html