Originally posted by Karnak
Kurfurst,
If you have any documentation about the roll rate of the Mk VIII and Mk XIV please link to it as all that has been supplied to suggest a lower roll rate is a test of a extended wing Spitfire Mk VIII, which of course had a lower roll rate. Every other document I have found that mentions the roll rate of the Mk VIII or Mk XIV claims that they rolled as fast as the Mk IX. I could understand that claim if the difference was less than 5%, but in AH the Mk VIII rolls more than 15% slower than the Mk IX and 15+% lower is quite noticable. I doubt Jeffrey Quill would have considered the Mk VIII the best handling Spitfire of all (and he test flew all marks) if he had to struggle to roll it in comparison with the Mk IX. Certainly the max roll rate at full deflection (assuming the changed hinges didn't increase the maximum deflection angle obtainable) would have been slower than the Mk IX, but above that speed why would it be lower? The pilot should be able to get just as much deflection force out of the ailerons at speeds above maximum deflection speeds because he should be able to get greater deflection angle on them as a result of the aileron's smaller surface area. A greater deflection angle should result in a smaller aileron providing as high a deflection force as a larger aileron at a smaller deflection angle (obviously this only applies as long as we are keeping the aircraft type and control linkages the same).
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Yes I largely agree, I'd presume the effect of smaller span ailerons was that it rolled slower at lower speeds, but high speed response was probably improved - afaik the s.s. ailerons were to fix the flutter problems of the Spitfire.
Now as for the comparisons, it's difficult to tell, they are rather vague impressions of pilots not strictly measured dataset, and the ones I have seen (ie. AFDU's mk9 vs mk8) were not comparable because of the different wingtips and spans. There's also individual difference between production planes, and as I know, the aileron quality varied with each Spitfire, some had well matched ailerons that rolled well, others had poorly matched ones (dispersed production...) and this also caused the stickforce vary quite a lot, a friend from sweden sent me some nice curves about that.
Regarging the wing tanks, what you said is not strictly true. Added weight in the wings, such as the Spit VIII's small tanks or the Fw190A-5's outboard guns, do not reduce maximum roll rate. Added weight will reduce roll acceleration, the more weight and the further out it is the greater the reduction. In the case of the Mk VIII's wing tanks they are small (14 gallon IIRC) and on the inboard leading edge of the wings. They would have a very slight impact on roll acceleration and that is all. Now, even if I am wrong and you are right there is still a bug to be fixed as the Mk XIV rolls slightly faster than the Mk IX and if you are right it should roll slower as the Mk VIII does now.
In any case I am really hoping for a patch to address the Bf109's flaps and the Bf109G-14's sub-par performance. Boosting the Mk VIII's roll rate to the same level as the Mk IX's would just be icing on the cake.[/B]
True, the weight only effects roll acceleration, but that's also part of the pilot's impression, and is quite important since fighters rarely do more than 90-180 degree roll. I suppose this is the reason why the findings of the AFDU pilots testing the gondie-G6 and the clean-G2 don't match very well when you compare them.
Perhaps AH2 can't model accurately roll acceleration nd this is a kind of solution for it..? I don't know. What we would need is some nice Mk VIII roll data, is such available? I am all for fixing it, wheter it's too low or too high, I was merely posting what
could be a reason for how it's modelled in AH.
