Thanks TimRas for the examples. I don't quite know how to explain it for people who have never heard about torque before.
Trying again. The prop is spinning in one direction, in order for the prop not to fly away to that direction it needs something that counter its own movement. In the case of airplanes this counterpart is the airplane it self.
Have you ever watched a car dragracing? Take a more normal car (not any of those long specially designed dragsters), let's take a Mustang with a big A** engine. Watch it drive away, even at high speeds you will see one of the front gears that wants rise off of the ground. You will se maybe the left gear/left front side of the car almost leaving the ground. This is the result of Torque.
If you firewall an airplane this is very noticable, hell it is even noticable with a small civilian boring airplane like a 4 seater Cesna. Now take a High performance WW2 fighter, any one of them but specially the light weight, big engined hot rods (109, spit, Ki84 etc). They have the smallest possible airframe with the biggest possible engine installed in them.
Torque is almost non existant in AH.
TimRas posted some perfect examples of what happaned to both F4u's and Mustangs and spits. Three quite different airplanes in terms of weight, one radial and two inlines but they all suffer from torque.
Also read the quote about the F4u a little extra
And you didn't dare add power quickly since the powerful engine turning that large prop could make the aircraft roll uncontrollably to the left-the dreaded "torque roll."
Which was what I tried to say before. The F4u was infamous for this, big a** engine with a big a** prop produces an enormous ammount of torque. The F4u is infact one of those planes in AH with least torque, easily being more controllable then most planes even at full power or when firewalled.
Sugest you read
this link. Another plane infamous for torque, A1 Skyraider (Prop plane used in the Vietnam war).
And one more quote
One "vice" plagued the Corsair throughout its production run. At low speeds, the huge R2800 engine produced huge amounts of torque. If an inexperience pilot jammed the throttle to the firewall on takeoff, the torque could easily twist the airplane onto its back and "ruin the pilot's afternoon." This tendency earned the Corsair the nickname "Ensign Eliminator." Experienced pilots said the F4U was no more challenging to fly than any other high-performance fighter then in service.
Notice it would actually flip the plane onto its BACK in worst case scenario. Do you think that torque would be friendly when flying at stall speed in a turn (or even worse, going straight up stalling out) and firewalling the throttle?
Try doing that in AH, firewall the throttle and watch your plane roll away nicely. Try doing it in the air and feel very little difference. The torque just isn't there, on any planes really. Although it is, (IMO right now) most noticable on the 109.
