not changed since AH1: autoretract

[Guppy35]

Don't know that I've ever spun the old 38G because of flaps and I have em out a lot.

Good to see you got yourself back in the 38 however.

I'd suggest having fun with what we've got since it's as close as most of us are gonna get to a 38

[schlowy2]

How do we know that only the flaps would rip out or jam and that the whole wing wouldn't break off?

Shear, strain and force couples/moments.
A 'freebody diagram' for the dam wing might reveal:
The flap down would cause an axial torque on the wing, i.e. induce a 'force moment?' (been awhile) which would 'shear stress' the wing right off. Before the wing actually shears though, you might get a 'permanent deformation' i.e. 'strain' on the wings components, meaning some of the structure may have stretched too far, thinned, and weaken'ed, and need replacement.
Yep, its been awhile but otherwise, check a school's bookstore engineering department for book on 'statics' (a pre-dynamics class.) Btw statics is a different class from statistics.

Microsoft:
Leave the Flaps down in microsoft flight sim and I think we lose the whole wing. Summed up, at '200 tick'... ms might only say 'you have crashed.'
I need to test this but no time atm...

[Murdr]

We all (the likes of AKAK Corky Wide Badz and I) have learned to anticpate ARF and adjust our stick input accordingly.  I don't even need to hear the flap sound.  The magnitude of tunnel vision I can pull, tells me how close I am to the upper speed of the flap setting.

Regardless of ARF, a P-38 is most likely to depart into a spin when transitioning from nose down to level.  An auto retract just complicates that characteristic, but it can be adjusted to.

Fact is, we have pitched alternatives, and HiTech has pretty much told us he is unconvinced that there are more alternatives than auto-retract or break the instant the limit is reached.  I disagree, but that's irrelevent.  Just got to adapt to it.

By the way, the damage model only has 2 states for flaps.  They are either working or stuck.  There is no, broken off state, despite the graphic cues indicating otherwise.

[Karnak]

Yes, I have had one hit on my Ki-84 when they were down.  Having one stuck down made flying back to base very irritating and unpleasant.

[JB73]

Originally posted by Karnak
Yes, I have had one hit on my Ki-84 when they were down.  Having one stuck down made flying back to base very irritating and unpleasant.

it may sound funny, and you'd think why in the world would you ever be in that situation, but try flying a 190-d9 with 1 flap stuck down full

had it happen a couple of times, and basically after about a minute of trying to trim out I just nosed in to the ground. almost impossible to fly.

[Saxman]

Originally posted by Widewing
According to Bodhi, who rebuilds F4Us, if the flap lever was left down, the flaps would blow up, but come down automatically when speed allowed. Set it and forget it.... The RONCO Corsair!

My regards,

Widewing

Glad I read through the whole thread before posting this same info.

Now come on HTC, if you're going to give us flaps that automatically blow back up, then at LEAST give aircraft that had the historical capability to have them auto-drop do so.

I think I remember reading that while not in the manual, Corsair pilots in the field would frequently set the flap lever for two notches before entering combat to take advantage of this.

I also believe the F6F had the same capability.

[AKDogg]

There should be a option to have auto retract flaps for the players.  Let those who want manuel control have it by a click of the mouse in the game settings.

[Tac]

correct murdr. It also means there is no state in between 'deployed' and 'not deployed'. When you hear the flap going down its already too late, the airflow in your plane is changed instantly (hence the spins).

It would be good to have the system have a 2 second delay before retracting the flaps once it hits the marker. Flaps only work at slow speeds and nobody uses flaps flying straight and level nor on a dive..its on tight turns only..hence high G turns hence speed bleeding. That delay can mean the difference between spinning out because the speed ticker hits the retract spot for a split second and NOT spinning because in that 2 second timer your plane slowed down a further 50mph or so during the hard manouvers.

[Karnak]

I dunno Tac.  I see a lot of P-38 drivers doing vertical manuevering and the flaps are retracted on the acceleration downhill.  Happens to me in the Ki-84 all the time too.

Personally I would make them have a chance of jamming and no autoretract.  And that chance would be calculated separately for each flap.  The further over the rated limit you go the more likely it is to jam.  I'd make that chance pretty steep too, 50mph over would pretty much mean jammed flaps and 10mph over would have a good chance of jamming at least one.


Anything, such as your suggestion, that increases the hokey flapfest gameplay is to be avoided in my opinion.

[CAP1]

Originally posted by Tac
Welp HTC... tried this game again since AH1 and although the graphics are prettier, the FM tweaked a bit I see no difference in gameplay at all.

Worse yet, I see that the auto-retraction of flaps is still in the game. Very sad to see this considering that this issue severely affects the performance of the P-38. Kinda pointless most times to even use the fowler flaps knowing they are sure to be the cause of your death when they retract and spin you out during a hard G turn just because the stupid speed ticker hit the X speed mark for a split second during the turn.

I'm very dissapointed.

TAC..i just responded a bit in length to oone of your posts in the other current p38 thread....but all in all........a lot of us don't like em...and i still suck in the 38.......but all you have to do is learn to fly it as it is........and find it's strengths..and fly against your nmy's strenghts.........
HAVE FUN DUDE!!!!

<>

JOHN
1LTCAP

[CAP1]

Originally posted by Tac
Karnak,

There is no advantage to fowlers auto retracting. I dont see how you can make this claim.

You 2 notches of flaps down turning hard inside your target. To make it simple imagine its a loop-fight.

Top of the loop your speed falls to 100mph, on the bottom of the loop it reaches 200mph. Lets say the 'tick' mark for the autoretract of the 2nd notch of flaps is 200mph.

What happens is: The INSTANT the speed ticker hits 200mph on the bottom of the loop the flap retracts one notch.

Airflow on the wing changes AS you are pulling the nose hard up. Result? Spin. Nothing you can do about it.. its the game itself with this fairy feature screwing you over.


The 38 IRL did not have its flaps retract at all. They jammed ...and ONLY when they were seriously abused (I think the plane had to be like 150mph faster than the threshold to jam on their rails). They did not rip out.


If you have flaps out for 2 or 3 seconds past the max allowed speed then by all means rip them out, retract them, WHATEVER. But this BS of them retracting the instant a speed tick mark is reached (usually for less than half a second) causing spins should not be in the game.

GGGRRRRRRR........to spin, one wing HAS to stall FIRST.....so you MUST be in uncoordinated flight!!!!!!! period.    if you're flying in a turn, and coordinated, and stall, you're only gonna drop the nose, then recover....if you're skidding or slipping through your turn, then you'll spin.
 so theoretticlay you shouldn't be able to spin comming down through a loop. unless, you're slipping with rudder to prevent speed increase......but then if they retract, learn to use it to advantage......
and HAVE FUN

[Saxman]

Personally, I think it should be based on the aircraft.

If the aircraft's flaps were designed to automatically blow back up above a certain airspeed, then they should blow back up (and automatically deploy again if the aircraft's flap design allowed it, such as the afore-mentioned F4U). If they DIDN'T blow back up, then they don't in the game and you risk jamming and/or ripping them off.

[CAP1]

Originally posted by Saxman
Personally, I think it should be based on the aircraft.

If the aircraft's flaps were designed to automatically blow back up above a certain airspeed, then they should blow back up (and automatically deploy again if the aircraft's flap design allowed it, such as the afore-mentioned F4U). If they DIDN'T blow back up, then they don't in the game and you risk jamming and/or ripping them off.

sax...i agree that they shouldn't auto retract,,,,but they do, and apparently it's not gonna change....that's why i keep just saying to learn to fight with them as they are, and don't worry about wat's authentic.....ya wanna wint he fight, ya have to fly them as they are in here.......

<>

john

[Murdr]

Originally posted by Karnak
Personally I would make them have a chance of jamming and no autoretract.  And that chance would be calculated separately for each flap.  The further over the rated limit you go the more likely it is to jam.  I'd make that chance pretty steep too, 50mph over would pretty much mean jammed flaps and 10mph over would have a good chance of jamming at least one.

That's pretty much what I've asked for, but no dice.

[Saxman]

CAP just want to make sure you didn't misread me:

I'm not saying do away with blow-back entirely. I think auto retract should vary depending on the aircraft.

IE, as previously mentioned the flaps on the F4U and F6F were designed to automatically blow back up above a given airspeed, and similarly if the flap handle was left in the "down" position the flaps would deploy again as airspeed decreased -- not truly automatic combat flaps, but exploited historically by pilots for this very purpose. This is how the flaps should function in the game FOR THESE TWO AIRCRAFT (sorry Tac ).

HOWEVER, if the aircraft's flaps were NOT capable of automatically retracting in real life, then that's how they should respond in game FOR THAT PLANE ONLY: Leave them down and you risk a jam or tearing them off.

IMO that would be the ideal solution as it would FURTHER make proper flap management part of knowing your plane, rather than the arbitrary auto-retract across the plane set we have now.