With 1.04 out the door, it might be a good time to analyse e-retention of AH planes. Sure, there's some work to be done in yaw still, but you're supposed to be coordinated to conserve E, right? I did calculations for WB a long time ago and there's a few different ways to measure it. My preferred method is to convert the acceleration or deceleration at various speeds and G-loads into a rate of decent, since acceleration and vertical velocity are directly related.
Testing in the simulation requires good piloting skills to maintain a constant speed and G-load in a spiral dive. What you do is measure the rate of decent. The plane that decends faster at a given speed and g-load is losing energy fastest. For best accuracy, you want it to take longer to decend so that any time discrepencies equate to minimal error, yet at the same time, you want to be close to the angle of attack limit for maximum energy bleed. What this means is that you should choose a relatively low speed and a G-load that you know all planes are capable of, say 250 mph and 4 g's. Start at 20000 feet, get the plane trimmed up for 250 mph IAS level, set power as required, then go into a spiral dive, maintain speed and 4 G's in the dive, do not adjust power (It is essentially cancelling out the parasite drag, so we can limit the results to the effects of increased induced drag only).
If anyone wants to volunteer to test fly a few planes, I'll post the calculations so we can compare. The calculations may not match sim results perfectly, but should give a very good indication of relative performance between aircraft. I guess 50% fuel load would be appropriate?
