FW190-Menace of the weak Horizontal Stab

[Thzone]

Okay, I understand that it may have been just dumb luck or maybe bad flying, but in 10 out of 11 fights tonight, the first thing that I lost on my plane was the horizontal stabilizer.  Okay, enough griping.
Thzone

[Minotaur]

ThZone;

Seems to be a pretty common part to lose in all the planes.

You must have had a bad day.  

Good Luck in the Future!  

Mino

[lemur]

Actually, I have a general gripe about plane armor. I get killed by buff gunners when I'm flying the 190 VERY QUICKLY.

I thought the whole point of the 190 was that it was a well armored bomber-killer.

That doesn't seem to be the case now. Shouldn't a 190 be able to shrug off a certain amount of damage from those .50s?

I mean it's bad enough climbing to 30K in a 190 (it's wheezing like a fat kid running up a hill at those alts). But when you can barely catch up to the buff and his guns pick you to pieces (since you can't manage much in the way of slashing attacks) before you get a shot off...

Well, let's just say I can ALWAYS do a successfull bombing run if you give me time to get to alt. The same cannot be said when spending the same amount of time hunting bombers at high alt.

Maybe just some way that altitudes could be shown on the radar map so defenders have time to climb to alt and prepare a realistic defense? i.e. so they have time to get enough alt to do fast slashin attacks instead of rear-end chases.

~Lemur

[funked]

There's no armor on the horizontal stabilizer of any Fw 190 I've ever seen.

Keep in mind that the Fw 190 had a moveable stabilizer.  There were no trim tabs - the entire stabilizer was pivoted for pitch trim, just like a modern jetliner.

So instead of the stabilizer being an integral part of the airframe, it was instead  mounted on a hollow steel shaft which rode in bearings.

[juzz]

The Bf109 had the same sort of moving stab too I'm guessing? Would have been nice if they had developed an "all-flying tail" like on the F-86  

[funked]

Juzz - I'm sure they thought of that, but the actuation requirements are quite demanding.  The Fw 190 actuator (an electric unit) could provide sufficient torque to move the whole stabilizer, but only by using a large gear ratio which resulted in very slow movement of the stabilizer.

An actuator that could provide that much torque AND move the stabilizer quickly would have been too heavy for a plane as small as the Fw 190.

On a large jet with a powerful hydraulic system, it is not a big problem.

[juzz]

I guess the stick forces for a manually actuated tail would be fairly high...

Now about this losing horizontal stabs, vert stabs, control surfaces and to a lesser degree wings, etc... How often did these types of damage occur to real planes in combat? I'll wager it was rarely - the only time I've heard of a plane loosing its horizontal stab was when a B17 dropped its bombs on a lower B17's tail.  

[funked]

Juzz - You are right about the stick forces.  An all-moving stabilizer is not feasible without a powered actuation system.

[Werewolf]

Sorry, but the horizontal stab had a three point connection to the tail section. One of these had an electrical system in order to move the horizontal stab in an area of +4° to -5°.
I will post some detailed scans on this.

Werewo
 

[Werewolf]

Here is the pic:

 

Werewo

[juzz]

*squint* Nope, can't see it...

[Werewolf]

Hmm seems the link is broken... I have to talk to the guy responsible for our webdirectories.

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