Just curious about the P-51 FM

[Pips]

Well done horseback, that's one of the best summaries on the abilities of the P-51 I've seen for a long time. And most of what you have said is borne out in the classic book "America's Hundred Thousand" by Dean. Easily the most comprehensive and succinct book on US WWII fighters.

[horseback]

Originally Posted by RPS69

Your accounts were acceptable, until this last comment. Some other statements, could belong to USA propaganda. After all, they got vast amounts of obsolete ships at the end of the war, and they urgently needed a market to sell the vets and make some money.

But this last statement is at best, a poor one.

Sorry if it offends you, but I was there in '05/06, when the 4.0x series of patches came out and things got weird with the US fighters that had not seen a lot of Lend Lease service with the VVS. Every problem I cited can be found on that forum, and I am far from the only poster to make those points. It's very difficult to believe that there wasn't at least a small measure of vindictiveness involved with the treatment of late war US fighter's FMs, after so many documented conflicts with the historical record. I've been flying this sim since 2002; if you doubt me, check the Ubi forums and do a search for my posts. You will find that I registered there back in June of 2002.

Now if you think that the US government was so desperate for cash at the end of WWII that it had to 'propagandize' the P-51's reputation to sell it at 1/10th of the government cost to veterans who had often already flown it in combat or known someone who did, you really need to re-think a few things. Admittedly, a great many war planes were sold off for very low prices, but not because the US government needed the money; the aircraft were being sold for much less than their scrap value--it was thought that promoting sport aviation would result in a stronger demand for aircraft production and strengthen that industry, which was looking at a severe contraction after almost five years of all-out demand. Also, you must realize that the P-51 was still the USAAF's best fighter overall until the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was available in reasonable numbers (and even then the Mustang had vastly more range and payload); it was 'obsolete' only in the sense that it wasn't a jet, but given the limitations of the early jets, it had a great deal of military usefulness over the next six or seven years.

Finally a question: who was the only major industrial power in the world in 1945 that had not been subject to major damage to its infrastructure and had to provide modern goods and services to not only its own population, but to most of the free world (generally at a reasonable profit)? Bear in mind that we were (and still are) also a major agricultural power and produced a large portion of the world's food for most of the 1940s. The United States is not Pakistan; we are kind of big and wealthy, and have been since early in the 20th century. Unfortunately, the hallmark of governments is that even the best ones tend to be wasteful, even when they are trying to look thrifty, and the US is no exception.

cheers

horseback

[Bearcat]

I think that by "down rudder" he means going full rudder in whatever position is closest to the ground... in a right handed turn that would be full right rudder.. in a left handed turn that would be full left rudder but I imagine that IRL the torque from the engine would play a roll in a left or right turn as far as which would be more effective..

[MaxGunz]

Originally Posted by JtD

I once saw a documentary on a WW2 battle and it started with the offical, documented weather reports from both sides on the day of the battle. Both were in agreement that it was overcast with occasional rain. Note that this was the report, not the forecast.

Just a possibility; Rain has a ceiling, if the battle was above the clouds or was met in a place where it wasn't socked in? Even so, they should have started out in wet overcast conditions.

[JtD]

Originally Posted by MaxGunz

Just a possibility; Rain has a ceiling, if the battle was above the clouds or was met in a place where it wasn't socked in? Even so, they should have started out in wet overcast conditions.

That show was about a ground battle, not air combat.

[MaxGunz]

Well how about that? LOL!

Being there and later giving an encyclopedic account of every detail are not inclusive! Because what I find from the "they were there" guys is that every word is to be treated as straight literal fact.

I remember one guy that took Dave Southwoods' article Flying Black Six and came up with a stall speed test that allows loss of height as long as a wing does not drop since Southwood never mentioned keeping height as part of a normal stall speed test. The result being that when he performed the stall speed test his way the IL-2 109G-6 has a stall speed of 135kph, time to let Oleg know the 109's are overmodeled. It was hilarious!

Why certainly, every account, book or magazine article become complete reference and instruction material carved in gold to the worshipful fanboy. And every fanboy has the uncanny mental ability to extract the supreme truth from every account, etc.

Next stop, a special museum to see how people lived with dinosaurs and the many ways that evolution and most all science is wrong. Don't forget to buy the DVD's!