71/2 Minutes at +11 Boost, Spit Ia100oct

[ATAG_Dutch]

Originally Posted by trademe900

Not enough.

He will just come down for a pass on you after his climb and then accelerate up and away again while you circle helplessly beneath him...

Sorry, I should've clarified. If you start in a co-alt situation and he climbs vertically......etc.

If he's already got altitude on you, dodge the first pass, wait for him to pass below you, quickly reverse your turn and get some shots in.

C'mon..who do you think I am? Sailor Malan?

[ATAG_Snapper]

I've now had a half dozen one-on-one engagements with 109's flying the Spitfire 1a 100 octane, at various altitudes and situations. I had earlier abandoned the 1a in CoD in favour of the Spitfire MK 1 2-speed prop since the latter wasn't so prone to overheating and had some advantages above FTH of ~ 16 angels. Based on Dutch's recent settings recommendations, I decided to give the 1a 100 octane another try.

It didn't start too well. The 109's have ample raw horsepower and I indeed overheated my engine twice in successive engagements trying to match -- and overtake -- a co-e 109 in a climb each time, desperately trying for a guns solution. Both times the engine blew I lost power in a very disadvantageous position. In both cases I immediately rolled into a vertical dive from well over 10,000 feet, keeping my speed below the 420 mph IAS lose-your-control-surfaces speed. (that's another issue for another time). Each time I was lucky that my opponent either lost sight of me against the terrain, or more likely he opted not to lose precious height over English soil.

A quick, if frustrated, discussion with Dutch brought these simple "dogfight rules" to bear. Other than checking your gauges before engaging, during the fight itself is no time to be taking your eyes off your opponent to verify temps, or moving levers about. So best to stick to this:

1) set rpms to 2400 with prop pitch (CSP) and leave it there
2) set rad to 50% open and leave it there
3) mixture pulled back to full Auto Rich and leave it there
4) keep boost cut out override CLOSED, limiting your boost to 6.2 lbs (less above 16 angels). EXCEPTION: if you're gonna die anyway (and you're 10 angels or less for this to work) open the BCOO gate and push your throttle to 11 lbs boost, and push your mixture lever forward into full Auto Lean (yeah, weird, I know). You've got 20 seconds to save your life; make each second count. Then pull your throttle back to 3 - 5 lbs boost, close the BCOO gate (if you remember), and fly level or a slight dive to cool your temps quickly.

5) accept the fact the 109's are faster, have more horsepower in the climb, and can out dive you. Their guns are better, their engines are more durable re overheating, they have much, much less radiator drag, and their engines don't cut out on neg g's. Other than this, the advantages are all yours: greater sustained turn, less nasty stalls & spins, better vision rearwards. And Spits are prettier than 109's. Never, NEVER let your speed decrease below 200 mph IAS at any time in combat. You climb after a 109 your engine will overheat as you slow down, PLUS you lose your maneuvrability and become an easy target. As Dutch said, wait for the 109 to commit to his dive on you. Be unpredictable, and chose a direction to start your turn. Turn gently at first to preserve your speed, then tighten progressively as he draws closer behind you. As he dives past, as Dutch said, reverse your turn quickly, kicking hard rudder to assist and chase down after him. Pull your sights through him as he pulls out and give a burst as he disappears beneath your nose. DO NOT FOLLOW HIM UP AS HE ZOOMS. Drop your nose and regain your airspeed -- change your course and clear your six. Do not play his game by circling underneath. Force his play by moving off, and try to regain some alt by gently climbing -- even 500 fpm if it allows you to maintain 200 mph IAS.

Boom and zooming is not as easy as many 109 pilots make it look. They happen to be very, very good at it, mainly by lots of practice on you and me. It requires excellent judgement skills in predicting where you'll be as they dive within gun/cannon range, and what you'll probably do to react as they're coming at you. Be unpredictable, and make opportunities to get a shot in -- if you clip their elevator they have a problem.

If there are two 109's and only one of you: SCRAM OUTTA THERE!

Until the devs see fit to fix the Spit and Hurri FM's to spec, this is the best we can do. Hope it helps.

[ATAG_Dutch]

Nice post Snapper.

Uh-oh. We're talking 'tactics'. Any minute now, someone'll jump in and say 'told you so'.

Unfortunately, it's not just tactics. There is strong relationship between lowering airspeed and overheating in the RAF planes which doesn't seem to exist in the LW planes. Plus the RAF radiators cause massive drag when opened beyond 50%.

The only reason we can't follow the 109s upwards is due to overheating when using higher performance engine settings as airspeed decreases.

It's currently an unfair advantage to the 109s. Simple as that.

We can try to use tactics to overcome this engine modelling problem, but we can't solve it. Only the developers can do that.

One thing in Snapper's post I'd differ with though, is that BCO is very useable below 10,000 with 2400rpm and 50% rad, mixture forward. It can be used as in the video. But you need to make sure of the airspeed. I can't emphasize this enough. You need the airspeed to use the additional power. Don't use BCO to speed your aircraft up from low airspeed. Get the airspeed up first, then punch the emergency boost for more speed. If you try to accelerate from low speed using BCO, you will blow up.

Oh, and you'll run out of petrol very quickly using +11 boost, as I found out last night to my cost!!

[trademe900]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Snapper

I've now had a half dozen one-on-one engagements with 109's flying the Spitfire 1a 100 octane, at various altitudes and situations. I had earlier abandoned the 1a in CoD in favour of the Spitfire MK 1 2-speed prop since the latter wasn't so prone to overheating and had some advantages above FTH of ~ 16 angels. Based on Dutch's recent settings recommendations, I decided to give the 1a 100 octane another try.

It didn't start too well. The 109's have ample raw horsepower and I indeed overheated my engine twice in successive engagements trying to match -- and overtake -- a co-e 109 in a climb each time, desperately trying for a guns solution. Both times the engine blew I lost power in a very disadvantageous position. In both cases I immediately rolled into a vertical dive from well over 10,000 feet, keeping my speed below the 420 mph IAS lose-your-control-surfaces speed. (that's another issue for another time). Each time I was lucky that my opponent either lost sight of me against the terrain, or more likely he opted not to lose precious height over English soil.

A quick, if frustrated, discussion with Dutch brought these simple "dogfight rules" to bear. Other than checking your gauges before engaging, during the fight itself is no time to be taking your eyes off your opponent to verify temps, or moving levers about. So best to stick to this:

1) set rpms to 2400 with prop pitch (CSP) and leave it there
2) set rad to 50% open and leave it there
3) mixture pulled back to full Auto Rich and leave it there
4) keep boost cut out override CLOSED, limiting your boost to 6.2 lbs (less above 16 angels). EXCEPTION: if you're gonna die anyway (and you're 10 angels or less for this to work) open the BCOO gate and push your throttle to 11 lbs boost, and push your mixture lever forward into full Auto Lean (yeah, weird, I know). You've got 20 seconds to save your life; make each second count. Then pull your throttle back to 3 - 5 lbs boost, close the BCOO gate (if you remember), and fly level or a slight dive to cool your temps quickly.

5) accept the fact the 109's are faster, have more horsepower in the climb, and can out dive you. Their guns are better, their engines are more durable re overheating, they have much, much less radiator drag, and their engines don't cut out on neg g's. Other than this, the advantages are all yours: greater sustained turn, less nasty stalls & spins, better vision rearwards. And Spits are prettier than 109's. Never, NEVER let your speed decrease below 200 mph IAS at any time in combat. You climb after a 109 your engine will overheat as you slow down, PLUS you lose your maneuvrability and become an easy target. As Dutch said, wait for the 109 to commit to his dive on you. Be unpredictable, and chose a direction to start your turn. Turn gently at first to preserve your speed, then tighten progressively as he draws closer behind you. As he dives past, as Dutch said, reverse your turn quickly, kicking hard rudder to assist and chase down after him. Pull your sights through him as he pulls out and give a burst as he disappears beneath your nose. DO NOT FOLLOW HIM UP AS HE ZOOMS. Drop your nose and regain your airspeed -- change your course and clear your six. Do not play his game by circling underneath. Force his play by moving off, and try to regain some alt by gently climbing -- even 500 fpm if it allows you to maintain 200 mph IAS.

Boom and zooming is not as easy as many 109 pilots make it look. They happen to be very, very good at it, mainly by lots of practice on you and me. It requires excellent judgement skills in predicting where you'll be as they dive within gun/cannon range, and what you'll probably do to react as they're coming at you. Be unpredictable, and make opportunities to get a shot in -- if you clip their elevator they have a problem.

If there are two 109's and only one of you: SCRAM OUTTA THERE!

Until the devs see fit to fix the Spit and Hurri FM's to spec, this is the best we can do. Hope it helps.

This is a really good post.

Just a thought: I find 2400 although good for outright speed is no good in dogfight, you lose speed too quickly. For dogfight I would rather choose more radiator but full rpm and even boost (if low altitude).

Still, the 109 will not die easily even when hit. It takes an eternity for it to overheat from damaged coolant system. Actually, this goes for all planes. Currently, hitting 109 fuel tank and waiting for it to run out of fuel is the fastest way to put one down.

Agree about the RAF flight models. Playing with engine temperature effects off is great to restore the flight models but then it becomes very hard to shoot down anything since the planes will not go down due to coolant system damage at all.

[ATAG_Snapper]

Dutch said:

"One thing in Snapper's post I'd differ with though, is that BCO is very useable below 10,000 with 2400rpm and 50% rad, mixture forward. It can be used as in the video. But you need to make sure of the airspeed. I can't emphasize this enough. You need the airspeed to use the additional power."

Ah, very true. The 20 second ka-boom hearkens back to when I was in the 2850 - 3000 rpm range with this model. It's endurance is, as you say, much longer at 2400 rpms per your video, as long as you keep your speed up.

[ATAG_Snapper]

Originally Posted by trademe900

This is a really good post.

Just a thought: I find 2400 although good for outright speed is no good in dogfight, you lose speed too quickly. For dogfight I would rather choose more radiator but full rpm and even boost (if low altitude).

Still, the 109 will not die easily even when hit. It takes an eternity for it to overheat from damaged coolant system. Actually, this goes for all planes.

Makes plenty sense if the Spits and Hurries were modelled accurately.

Unfortunately, a wide open RAF radiator acts like a drogue chute in this sim, which counters the extra power you get at higher rpms and hence causes your temps to shoot skyward and literally blow a gasket. The devs saw fit to double the Spits' and Hurries' radiator surface area from the previous beta to this one, effectively giving the RAF fighters TRIPLE the surface area over the LW fighters. To add insult to injury, the devs also assigned a drag coefficient of the RAF fighters's rad 40% greater than that of the LW rads -- compounding the overheating problem. Especially if you open your rad greater than 50%.

This is why Dutch found 2400 rpms @ 50% rad to give the best return in performance at 6.2 lbs for controllable overheating (except in performance climb).

[ATAG_Colander]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Snapper

Boom and zooming is not as easy as many 109 pilots make it look. They happen to be very, very good at it, mainly by lots of practice on you and me. It requires excellent judgement skills in predicting where you'll be as they dive within gun/cannon range, and what you'll probably do to react as they're coming at you. Be unpredictable, and make opportunities to get a shot in -- if you clip their elevator they have a problem.

Indeed. The advantage of BnZ is that, if done properly, can be done again and again.
The problem is that after a few passes, the pilot tends to get inpatient and that's when the mistakes happen. This is what you should try to force, mistakes, and is done by, as Snapper says, being unpredictable.

Note that every correction in trajectory a BnZ'er makes, implies loss of energy. If the BnZ'er looses that advantage, then the spits and hurris are in control of the fight.