Originally posted by Widewing
I did encounter that "fishtailing" phenomena, which while a bit disconcerting, but was quickly overcome by easing a bit on AoA. It felt like the fuselage was blanking the rudder, inducing a yaw oscillation.
That's exactly what it feels like. It's exactly like I pictured it, but since I was just guessing with no proper aerodynamics knowledge I couldn't use it as any sort of argument. The updated flow model certainly would have made that part of the model more accurate... But somehow it doesn't feel right as is.
I flew the 152 a bunch today and yesterday, managed to get used to it again and landed a bunch of streaks, last one 20 kills.. So it still works really well, I have most of the good examples of its shortcomings in stall fights on film, but I don't have the patience to sort through it all right away.
I found the same thing, reducing the AOA and working the rudder and throttle will put the plane back on its tracks, but it costs a lot of degrees and time when you're in a tight fight, e.g. early rolling scissors when both fighters are trying to out brake each other.
DTango, I don't have any aerodynamic proof, you know that.. I'm suspicious of the FM because it just doesn't behave like the old 152 did. I mean that after flying a lot of planes, you start getting a feeling for what each design and each of its iterations was meant to do, and the present FM doesn't match what the 152 used to be like in AH1. That's all I've got, but it's a genuine gut feeling. It just doesn't make sense that it'd go from what it was in AH1 to what it is now, for better or worse.
The ball's in your court as far as concise aerodynamics are concerned.. If you're a schmoe, I'm just a pixel pilot who doesn't even look at the instruments when he flies.. e.g. when the sideslip ball is mentionned, I can't relate to that. It and the rest of the instruments don't mean much to me, I fly completely by feeling.
I can't think of any other plane that changed so much for the worse.. which ones are you thinking of? They all felt a lot more defined at very low speeds, with the updates, whether they performed better or worse, they stayed true to the character they had in the previous FM.
The 152 doesn't.. that's my gut feeling and it's all I have to offer as argument. Give the AH1 152 a try and you'll see for yourself.
I just want HTC to give it a look. I'll be content with whatever they figure is best.