Help me understand something...

[Krusty]

No, that made them highly unstable. They could and did spin out. They had a nasty unrecoverable spin, because the wonderful visibility of the bubble canopy came at a cost in dorsal surface area (cut down from the B-models)

[Bronk]

Krusty any film of this UFO spit?

[Krusty]

Been happening for years. Since we got the spixteen it's been a UFO. Spit8 gets less press, but just as bad. I'm sure the fact the spit16 even stalled out below me the first time was an utter shock to the pilot, as the plane is almost impossible to stall.

I stopped recording film a while back. Got a tip about others seeing distant dots before I did, and how maybe rolling film was the cause, so I stopped rolling film to avoid this.

[Stang]

 

I've never, ever seen a spit do anything like you said Krusty.  Never.  Not even close.  Spits aren't fast.  Either you were going really slow or were turning and allowed him to not have to break that hard and not lose E to stay on you.  Plus you were probably crying hysterically like a hyena about the BS of it all so you were probably moving your controls around frantically wasting more E as the spit caught up to you.  Wish I woulda seen it.

 

[Bronk]

Yea not that I don't believe you but... I treat this type of thing like a collision whine.  Need something a bit more tangible than hyperbole.

[Anaxogoras]

So much for answering the original question.   Let me try to address the points more individually:

Why is it that the P51 is so much faster than the Spit 16, but the Spit 16 holds E better and is so much better in the vertical?  If the P51 is so much more aerodynamically "cleaner" than the Spit, then shouldn't it hold E as well? If the Spit is better in the vertical because it is lighter, shouldn't it also have a higher top speed (power to weight)?

You need to understand a few concepts which are, more or less, in opposite pairs:

• parasite drag vs. induced drag

Parasite drag is comparable to holding your arm out of a car window.  The faster you go, the more drag your arm creates which you can feel from the force of the wind on your skin.  One of the big contributing factors to parasite drag on an aircraft are the wings.  Big wings that create lots of lift incur more parasite drag than small wings that create less lift.
Induced drag is caused by the force required to create lift.  The faster you go, the less induced drag you incur.  At low speeds, induced drag increases, but a large wing will incur less induced drag at low speed than a small wing.
The P-51 wing incurs high induced drag at low speed, but little parasite drag at high seed.  The Spitfire is the opposite.  Because the P-51 incurs little parasite drag compared to the Spitfire, it has a better thrust/drag ratio, and so it is faster.

• Powerloading vs. energy retention

Powerloading is the ratio of an aircraft's weight to its horsepower.  Better powerloading means better acceleration and better climbrate.  Energy retention is comparable to kinetic energy.  The heavier aircraft retains energy better than the lighter aircraft because of its higher kinetic energy state.  The Spitfire may be slower than the P-51 because of their thrust/drag ratios, but it accelerates and climbs better because it is lighter.  That the spitfire doesn't slow down much in a turn is due to its low induced drag, not energy retention.  An aircraft with superior energy retention will lose speed more slowly after diving to 500mph and then leveling off compared to one that is lighter (assuming similar drag coefficients), so you see that what the spitfire can do is not an example of superior energy retention.


What I have said is a simplification, but I hope it helps to tease out the most important concepts. [/list]

[Karnak]

Had 2 squaddies witness it. I believe B2B and Snaphook, or B2B and Gumby, maybe?

Edit: regardless, that's not the only BS the spit has shown. You can have a spixteen dweeb HO you, pull a 180 behind you as you continue straight, and then accelerate and close to kill range from behind you while you retained full speed the entire time. The Spits are bogus.

Fortunately the Spit is so mismodeled that you immediately went offline and made a film of it doing these things and sent it to HTC.  Right?  Oh, no, you didn't because you can't because it can't.

[Ack-Ack]

You can have a spixteen dweeb HO you, pull a 180 behind you as you continue straight, and then accelerate and close to kill range from behind you while you retained full speed the entire time. The Spits are bogus.

I got into a fight last night with a Yak that had both altitude and energy advantage over me and dove at me from my 12 O'clock for a head to head merge.  We did a clean merge and I went into a low Yo-Yo, only pulling 3Gs to maintain my E state and gain a little in the Yo-Yo and was able to saddle up on the Yak, which was going much faster than I was on the merge and killed him.  The player asked me how I was able to maintain me I after pulling a 180 turn and I explained how by using a low yo-yo and pulling 3Gs, I was able to maintain my merge energy state and even gain a little bit of extra E, which allowed me to have enough speed to chase down the Yak and kill him.  Nothing bogus about the flight model and probably what the Spitfire Mk XVI did to you.

But if you have any definitive proof the flight model of any of the Spitfires are incorrect, you should post the data.  From the years I've been playing AH, so far no one has been able to show any sort of definitive proof that any of the Spitfire models are porked other than "so and so did that to me in a Spitfire and it's B.S!  Spitfire model is FUBAR!"  I don't have to tell you that's not any sort of proof.


ack-ack

[moot]

While Krusty does have to provide film to support his point, I have to agree that the FM is flawed in some ways. e.g. The Tempest is not supposed to be one of the spunkiest accelerator in the game, according to one of the charts Widewing posted. It's the one that's part of the same series of docs that includes the not-to-scale relative turning circles featuring the Tempest, Meteor, "P47 thunderbolt", one or a couple of Spitfires, the 190A, 109G, and at least one P51.. That series of docs has the Tempest as one of the slower level flight accelerators, and yet it's the opposite in AH.

[SmokinLoon]

Why would HTC fix the current stuff when they can just add new?

There have been countless observations with legit proof of certain aircraft doing certain things that the real thing couldnt do, likewise there are things the real thing could do that we cant because of programming issues, etc. 

For some reason, HTC just doesnt seem to jump on the ball and work on the items that are routinely brought up with legit information and proof.  No, Krusty didnt submit film but is he the first to make an issue out of the Spit16's super powers?  No way.

 

[CAP1]

 

For some reason, HTC just doesnt seem to jump on the ball and work on the items that are routinely brought up with legit information and proof. 
 

orrrr.......maybe they are, and it's not as easy as we all think?

[moot]

Why would HTC fix the current stuff when they can just add new?

There have been countless observations with legit proof of certain aircraft doing certain things that the real thing couldnt do, likewise there are things the real thing could do that we cant because of programming issues, etc. 

For some reason, HTC just doesnt seem to jump on the ball and work on the items that are routinely brought up with legit information and proof.  No, Krusty didnt submit film but is he the first to make an issue out of the Spit16's super powers?  No way.

 

fudge..

[Bodhi]

I think, more than anything, it's an issue with the spit modeling.

I was in a Ta152, had speed and alt at about 8-10k. A spixteen zooms up from below me with a bit of speed so I spiral climb up. It takes him a while to stall out, but when he does (at 600 yards) he stalls hard enough to dip a wing. I was saving my E for this, so I'm about to roll in on him and he recovers.

From a stalled out position he recovers, noses UP at me in an 80-degree climb, and stays laser-aimed at me (never rolling, faltering, spinning, dipping a wing) while I use all the rest of my E spiralling way way higher to get away (and he stays with me, 600-800, perfectly aligned with his target), but the spixteen that had just stalled out hard was able to catch a faster, higher E-state, ta152.

Sounds to me that you just got duped by a spit faking a stall.  The funny thing is you do not realize it and instead blame the game.

[Twizzty]

Sounds to me that you just got duped by a spit faking a stall.  The funny thing is you do not realize it and instead blame the game.

Yep, I love faking the stall in a 16. Dip a wing, you think I'm stalling and turn in for the shot, and I'm left with plenty of E and a nice little snapshot. I normally use this on B&Z planes that are trying to rope/spiral climb on me, no way they are going to turn on me and give me that shot otherwise.

[CAP1]

Yep, I love faking the stall in a 16. Dip a wing, you think I'm stalling and turn in for the shot, and I'm left with plenty of E and a nice little snapshot. I normally use this on B&Z planes that are trying to rope/spiral climb on me, no way they are going to turn on me and give me that shot otherwise.

the key here is to watch them VERY carefully when you're dragging em up. i fell for that "fake" stall in the past. then i started being a bit late in nosing over for a stalled con.
 what i do now, is to watch for the nose to "wobble" a bit, then wings dropping.....these are kinda hard to fake, and a sure sign that he's about to stop flying for a few seconds. When i see the combination, i crank her over, and take my shot......although i generally miss, as my gunnery sucks.