Originally posted by Krusty
It's no surprise the Ta152 isn't the best plane in the game. However, despite somewhat sluggish responses in AH1, it was a very powerful engine on a heavily armed airframe. It could E fight with the best in the vertical.
In AH2 it became less capable. It was much less smooth in dogfighting. However, it was still flyable if you were mashochistic (
) and/or very careful.
Then AH2 had the 2.06 (?) airflow recoding. Many planes with problems before (190, 109, some others) were fixed, and others flew more realistically (p51, p47), but the Ta152 became so unstable it's worse than the old mosquito was.
Versus bombers this isn't as much of an issue, because they rarely are flying like spitfires in the middle of a fight. When you get into mixing it up the problems with the plane modeling become clearer.
Fishtailing. You can fly it in level flight, and at a couple hundred mph pull back gently on the stick (I mean like you want to nose up 10 degrees, not hard at all) and it will fishtail. You pull hard Gs to evade and it's okay, but it spirals as you pull hard Gs and you can't track another plane very easily WHILE pulling back, because you have to add rudder and roll to keep it on target, and that just messes your aim up.
Nose bounce. You roll even the smallest amount and the nose jumps or settles. Even the slightest of input from a perfectly-trimmed feet-off level flight, and the slip ball slides so hard in both directions you cannot compensate for it, even if you try. The nose either comes up or goes down and ruins any aiming picture you have in your gunsight if you so much as roll 1 degree from where you are, drastically reducing effective range of this plane (against other fighters) down to 50 yards.
COG issues. Also, last I tried, the Ta152 is the ONLY plane in the game that has the center of gravity behind the main wing. It will tail-slide straight down if you try to air spawn it, no other plane has that problem.
Landing. Nearly impossible. I haven't been able to since 2.06 (?). Just last night I came in for a perfect landing. Perfectly lined up, slowed down, full flaps, gear, perfectly trimmed, no slip on ball indicator. I settled down with throttle at zero, no bounce, all gear touched, tail down, pulled back on the stick, hit the brakes key and I just skidded sideways out of control, slammed one wing, then when it came off slammed the other, and it came off, slammed the tail, and I sat there shaking like I was about to explode (note: 190 missing-tail-ditch-bug might be on the Ta152 also!).
Ok, I decided to check out the Ta 152 for myself. First, I flew two sorties in the MA. Landed 11 kills. Two P-47s, three F6Fs, two F4Us, a TBM, a Zero, P-51D and one other that I can't recall. Each one was clobbered at a range of 200 yards or less. Speed was good, if not outstanding. Not as fast as the 190D-9 at low to medium altitudes, but considerably better than the 190A-5.
I did some air spawns at 30K on the TA map. First with 25% fuel, then 50% fuel and finally 100% fuel. I had no issues with flat spins or tail slides. The aircraft stalled, and fell off on the left wing. It didn't spin and recovery was very easy.
Landings were uneventful, but the 152 does tend to hunt around a bit if you touch down with too much speed. No ground loops or off-runway excursions.
I did some flight tests, including max speed at sea level and turn radius.
I observed 363 mph at sea level.
I measured a turn radius of 601 feet using full flaps with 25% fuel. This is about equal to the 190A-5 and much better than the Dora.
Basic flight maneuvers were easy, with no adverse behavior.
In short, I did not see any of the problems you listed in your post.
I find the Ta 152 to be a fun ride, being a great alternative to the Dora, where it trades some speed for superior handling and far more lethal guns.
I'll fly it again as I found it to be a very capable fighter.
My regards,
Widewing
I found the stability of the 152 to be good, if not as stable as a P-38 or P-47. Nonetheless, I found it a stable gun platform. I had no nose bounce.
