Acceleration comparisons

[Luno13]

Is there any way to compare this to real-world testing?

Overall, it seems to fit one's expectations.

But I am rather surprised that the Yaks are 'quicker' than the La-5s (in terms of acceleration).

[majorfailure]

Interesting. Slap some water-injection engine in that F6F, and its acceleration performance gets close to Fw190s/P-38s.
Maybe the F6F is not that total dog it seemed before, but the 'sair just shines too bright in that department. Seems though that with the F6F-5 you can easily leave Zeros+Ki-61 wheezing and puffing behind you.

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by majorfailure

Interesting. Slap some water-injection engine in that F6F, and its acceleration performance gets close to Fw190s/P-38s.
Maybe the F6F is not that total dog it seemed before, but the 'sair just shines too bright in that department. Seems though that with the F6F-5 you can easily leave Zeros+Ki-61 wheezing and puffing behind you.

The interesting bit about all of this was the initial discussion was centered on the notion that the Corsair was a very slow accelerating aircraft... but the charts show that it's actually quite impressive.

[horseback]

Originally Posted by IceFire

The interesting bit about all of this was the initial discussion was centered on the notion that the Corsair was a very slow accelerating aircraft... but the charts show that it's actually quite impressive.

What the charts don't show is how much trim adjustment the F4U needs; you spend a lot of time pounding away at the elevator trim for nose down AND at the same time the aircraft's attitude/AOA moves down quite a bit, so that flying level at 270kph your crosshairs are pointed quite a bit higher than they are at 450.

This became very obvious when I started doing my tests at 100m, where I had hoped to use the horizon line for a reference instead of staring at the climb or altitude indicators and slowly going cross-eyed. The P-47 and Hellcat are much worse than the Corsair, while the IJN and IJA fighters don't seem to have this problem at all. In comparison to the US inventory, the Japanese fighters, while a bit slow, can be whipped around with a great deal of precision and confidence without burning up a lot of energy. If you get your American birds out of trim, you can't be sure where you'll end up, but you can be sure that you will have bled off a lot of your E in the process.

cheers

horseback

[IceFire]

Originally Posted by horseback

What the charts don't show is how much trim adjustment the F4U needs; you spend a lot of time pounding away at the elevator trim for nose down AND at the same time the aircraft's attitude/AOA moves down quite a bit, so that flying level at 270kph your crosshairs are pointed quite a bit higher than they are at 450.

This became very obvious when I started doing my tests at 100m, where I had hoped to use the horizon line for a reference instead of staring at the climb or altitude indicators and slowly going cross-eyed. The P-47 and Hellcat are much worse than the Corsair, while the IJN and IJA fighters don't seem to have this problem at all. In comparison to the US inventory, the Japanese fighters, while a bit slow, can be whipped around with a great deal of precision and confidence without burning up a lot of energy. If you get your American birds out of trim, you can't be sure where you'll end up, but you can be sure that you will have bled off a lot of your E in the process.

cheers

horseback

Makes sense that if you're out of trim then the aircraft will not be as efficient. The relative differences between I have no expertise in. If this is accurate or not I can't say but it does make it worthwhile to point out to players that if they want the most out of a specific type... trim is absolutely essential.

[RPS69]

Originally Posted by Luno13

But I am rather surprised that the Yaks are 'quicker' than the La-5s (in terms of acceleration).

I'am much more impressed by the LaGG66 acceleration, and having higher final speed. I think that some of this must be rechecked, and it would be a healthy thing to do.

Horseback, since you were on the WW view, you weren't checking the slip ball by chance? The higher the engine power, the more important it is.

[JtD]

Regarding trim, both the F4U and the F6F as tested by NACA required loads of elevator trim. Stick force changes were in the range of 30lb between 200 and 400 mph in level flight. Trimmed for neutral stick forces at low speed, pilots would sometimes not be able to keep the aircraft in a dive.
Trim as suchs seems to have been a bit more effective than it is in game.

[MaxGunz]

Is giving it full throttle and RPM going to give the best acceleration especially to heavy planes with huge power?

Most prop speed controls will try and maintain prop RPM which at lower speeds may be course enough to stall the prop just keeping it from over-rev. Manual 100% RPM will waste full power but at least be a bit better than prop AOA too high. Either way is "spinning wheels" without smoke and noise to show it.

Getting the most out of a plane isn't 'simply' anything.

If you want accurate data, get a devicelink data logger like UDPSpeed and ditch the stopwatch.

[Luno13]

So, I guess what Horseback is getting at is that the USN aircraft require more trim to accelerate properly than their IJN counterparts, which is unfair/unrealistic

If anything, that has to be a problem with the IJN aircraft. Changing speed in an airplane requires a fair deal of attention to trim.

I can also imagine that part of the problem is the uber-experience of online pilots - thousands of hours of flight time with zero real deaths...Even if you run away properly they can nail you from 500+ meters (and a lot of pilots use zoom to do it from even further).

[horseback]

Originally Posted by Luno13

So, I guess what Horseback is getting at is that the USN aircraft require more trim to accelerate properly than their IJN counterparts, which is unfair/unrealistic

If anything, that has to be a problem with the IJN aircraft. Changing speed in an airplane requires a fair deal of attention to trim.

I can also imagine that part of the problem is the uber-experience of online pilots - thousands of hours of flight time with zero real deaths...Even if you run away properly they can nail you from 500+ meters (and a lot of pilots use zoom to do it from even further).

On the contrary, I am pointing out that it is much harder to make any kind of maneuver in the USN aircraft without lots of trim adjustments. You can easily straighten out and run away (and you will be rewarded by even more speed sooner if you drop your nose a bit), but if you attempt all but the most careful turns or climbs without your eyes glued to the slip ball, you will lose all of your hard won energy rather quickly.

The IJN/IJA fighters do require trim adjustments, but the adjustments are not excessive in terms of button presses and they are consistent and predictable in a way that the Corsair and Hellcat are not. This allows the fairly average IJN flyer a degree of immediate precision that the USN flyer must learn over many times more hours of practice (and if he's using button trim, he's still going to be 'behind the curve' the moment he wiggles his stick).

You can add in the way that the F4U and F6F's noses drop and later rise in level (changing AOA) flight as speed increases (this is also evident in the P-47); most of us use the gunsight or some part of the cockpit framing as a reference to maintain our angle of flight, and this will add to the problems of flying with any degree of precision, especially if competing against aircraft whose trim requirements and flight qualities are best guesses derived from 70 year old documents and pilot reports.

cheers

horseback