Hurricane & Spitfire control characteristics

[Osprey]

Originally Posted by Crumpp

That is a rather unusual statement.

The leading edge slats snapping in and out is what gives the Me-109 its very good stall characteristics and virtual immunity to spinning.

When they snap in and out they snatch the air on the stalling wing and make the aeroplane harder to handle at those border speeds. This is well documented from test aerobatic flights. This at low speeds and heaviness at high speeds meant that the 109 was not good aerobatically, or rather far worse than the Spitfire.

"Immunity to spinning" - brilliant Biff, I guess you learned that type of engineering quote from your records of early 20th century shipbuilding and will stick with it. "She is unsinkable sir"

[VO101_Tom]

Originally Posted by Osprey

"Immunity to spinning" - brilliant Biff, I guess you learned that type of engineering quote from your records of early 20th century shipbuilding and will stick with it. "She is unsinkable sir"

There are aircrafts, which more difficult to take a spin, especially the school planes, for example. It is known, if you can maintained the airflow on the wingtip, the aircraft remains stable even near to stall speed, with high angle of attack. Furthermore, very difficult take a spin. The assets of the air flow maintaining the leading edge flap and the mechanical and aerodynamic wing twist...

[Osprey]

Originally Posted by VO101_Tom

There are aircrafts, which more difficult to take a spin, especially the school planes, for example. It is known, if you can maintained the airflow on the wingtip, the aircraft remains stable even near to stall speed, with high angle of attack. Furthermore, very difficult take a spin. The assets of the air flow maintaining the leading edge flap and the mechanical and aerodynamic wing twist...

Oh yes of course. Likewise there are ships that are harder to sink than others, but none are unsinkable nor is the 109 immune from spinning.

@Manu, I know what slats are for but regardless of that when they pop out the wing snatches. In a sustained move I suspect that this is useful for an aircraft with such a high wing loading, but in sudden moves I wouldn't expect it to make things smooth and predictable. Don't ask me though, just read pilot accounts and test flights, there are plenty of them. As for the Spitfire, the wing design stalls at the roots before the tips so it is very controllable. The Spitfire is a far superior aerobatic machine to the 109, you'd have to be a fanboy not to realise that. If I picked my moment everytime I'd rather have the 109 characteristics, but you can't. What then? Would you prefer to move better if you cannot run? Ceteris Paribus the Spit has more important advantages, without diving away and not fighting at all that is.

[von Brühl]

None of them say that when the slat deploys it makes it less manueverable like you suggest, nearly all of them state its the bang that makes it an unsettling experience.

I suggest you guys back off Osprey, clearly he's still in a state of aggravation from the Spit II's FM's being brought back to reality, further degradation of the wonderful properties of the Spitfire are just a bit to handle right now, especially since it seems that the devs backed the Spitnerf with a bit more oompf to the 109.

I can remember flying against Osprey on ATAG, he's an excellent pilot, any time he got shot down, was simply due to undermodelling the Spits and Hurri's, and the continued undermodelling of said craft will force an undue burden of learning upon those who's planes clearly cannot keep up with their skill.

[/sarcasm]

This is a bit OT (when talking about the slats): Personally I believe if the slats had posed a big problem without providing sufficient advantage they would have eliminated it from later models.

To my understanding some unexperienced pilots were afraid of going to points were slats would open. The reason I imagine is linked to what was said by a previous poster: It was very likely not smooth. So an unexperienced pilot might have been surprised by the rather sudden change in lift and may have reacted wrongly. Someone with experience would have learned to do the right moves at the moment the slats opened.

Another issue was perhaps that for symmetric opening one would have to avoid side slip and there also experience comes in, an experienced pilot likely being more automatic in maintaining symmetric flight than an unexperienced one.

I think I have read some pilot tales that said that the real manoeuvering for them started when the slats opened as the plane then could provide enough lift for tighter turning.

[6S.Manu]

Originally Posted by 41Sqn_Stormcrow

This is a bit OT (when talking about the slats): Personally I believe if the slats had posed a big problem without providing sufficient advantage they would have eliminated it from later models.

To my understanding some unexperienced pilots were afraid of going to points were slats would open. The reason I imagine is linked to what was said by a previous poster: It was very likely not smooth. So an unexperienced pilot might have been surprised by the rather sudden change in lift and may have reacted wrongly. Someone with experience would have learned to do the right moves at the moment the slats opened.

Another issue was perhaps that for symmetric opening one would have to avoid side slip and there also experience comes in, an experienced pilot likely being more automatic in maintaining symmetric flight than an unexperienced one.

I think I have read some pilot tales that said that the real manoeuvering for them started when the slats opened as the plane then could provide enough lift for tighter turning.

I think during training the 109's pilot could get used to that attitude... it could be scary but it saved their life because that was the final warning to not turn tighter.

Without that attitude I suppose there could be many more pilots afraid to not tighten the turn at plane's limit because there was not a real defined final warning and the stall would be a lot more violent and probably they never tested it.

Maybe it can be also one of the reasons of many accounts on which bad turners are actually outturning the better one.

@Osprey: I own many books regarding british, french, japanese and german pilots (but nothing on italians )... most of them are in english: I know I'm not able to write well in english but still I can read them correctly.

Originally Posted by Osprey

If I picked my moment everytime I'd rather have the 109 characteristics, but you can't. What then? Would you prefer to move better if you cannot run? Ceteris Paribus the Spit has more important advantages, without diving away and not fighting at all that is.

IMO the aerobatic skill was not important at all. It's a placebo who's works only against undisciplined pilots.

I think many players here are too much influenced by ingame dogfight: in reality aerobatic skill of the plane and flying ability of the pilot weren't the most important things as, sadly, they are ingame because of its many limits.

I quote Lt. Colonel "Billy" Bishop: "The most important thing in fighting was shooting, next the various tactics in coming into a fight and last of all flying ability itself."

And Air Vice-Marshal J. E. "Johnnie" Johnson: "Tight turns were more a defensive than an offensive tactic and did not win air battles."

Those are things I learned long time before I read the Shaw's book by personal experience (that's a lot of ingame KIAs) and today I still teach to my cadets (the ones who actually want to learn... ) that the only good defensive manouvre is diving away since you already lost the battle giving the energy or positional advantage to the enemy.

Now you can stay in the fight in a defensive position, turning circles, but good pilots will not give away the advantage they gained.
And in reality manouvering hard the pilot will get tired long before the BnZers.

I take speed and service ceiling far ahead of turning rating. Of course if your plane has no speed it's better that it has good aerobatic performances.. but still..

My point that I'd tried to pass over was that for experienced pilots the sudden slat opening did not make them jump or feel unsave and some good ones learned to just drive the 109 at the point when the slats were open in order to increase turn performance at will.

I do think that pilots coming from the flight school might have experienced and taught slat opening a little bit but not enough to feel comfortable with slats springing open. Compared to experienced pilots or veterans they are a bit like new owners of a driving licence compared to Michael Schumacher.

[Robo.]

Originally Posted by von Brühl

None of them say that when the slat deploys it makes it less manueverable like you suggest, nearly all of them state its the bang that makes it an unsettling experience.

I suggest you guys back off Osprey, clearly he's still in a state of aggravation from the Spit II's FM's being brought back to reality, further degradation of the wonderful properties of the Spitfire are just a bit to handle right now, especially since it seems that the devs backed the Spitnerf with a bit more oompf to the 109.

I can remember flying against Osprey on ATAG, he's an excellent pilot, any time he got shot down, was simply due to undermodelling the Spits and Hurri's, and the continued undermodelling of said craft will force an undue burden of learning upon those who's planes clearly cannot keep up with their skill.

[/sarcasm]

Yes you're right, he is an excellent pilot, not so much in Spitfire Mk.II but Mk.I fighters most of the time (just for the record ). What you say has nothing to do with anything. The truth is, even now, pre-patch, the Spitfire Mk.I is performing worse than it should be and it seems it will not be fixed, quite the opposite.

The issue has been commented and backed up with data - it seems that Spitfire is rolling too fast at given speed. The problem with fabric ailerons should be modelled in the sim (along with 100 octane fuel and correctly operating wingslats on the 109 etc etc ) if we want to pretend we're fighting in the Battle of Britain era.

What is the point of this argueing anyway?

[Osprey]

Originally Posted by von Brühl

None of them say that when the slat deploys it makes it less manueverable like you suggest, nearly all of them state its the bang that makes it an unsettling experience.

I suggest you guys back off Osprey, clearly he's still in a state of aggravation from the Spit II's FM's being brought back to reality, further degradation of the wonderful properties of the Spitfire are just a bit to handle right now, especially since it seems that the devs backed the Spitnerf with a bit more oompf to the 109.

I can remember flying against Osprey on ATAG, he's an excellent pilot, any time he got shot down, was simply due to undermodelling the Spits and Hurri's, and the continued undermodelling of said craft will force an undue burden of learning upon those who's planes clearly cannot keep up with their skill.

[/sarcasm]

Well I didn't mean to upset you about the slats von Bruhl. My comment was driven by Biff stating that the 109 couldn't be stalled. Had he said it about the "Spitnerf" (thanks for demonstrating your level of parity to us) then I'd have called him up on that too.

Is this a standard post you put up with a parameterised name though? Go check my stats on ATAG, I have no problem with that, you won't find many probably but you will find I that I don't get shot down very often. You're very unlikely to find a single Spitfire II sortie though, a few Spitfire I (2 stage) and Hurricane Rotol but that's it. My main gripe is putting a ton of lead into some 109 driver only for him to run away back home when he should be going in really. I'm not sure why you needed to attempt a character assassination when you could've just provided some examples though.

Do you fly as Von Bruhl? I'll have a look, I'll wager you can't live without mineshells.......

[Osprey]

Thanks Robo, and tbh I think you can teach me a lot mate Really, please!