Torque Modeling

[Cuba]

My flight of four P-38s was bounced by twenty-five to thirty FW-190s of the yellow-nosed variety from Abbeville.  A string of six or more of them got in behind me before I noticed them, and just as No. 1 began to fire, I rolled into a right climbing turn and went to war emergency of 60 inches of manifold pressure.  As we went round and round in our corkscrew climb, I could see over my right shoulder the various FW-190 pilots booting right rudder attempting to control their torque at 150 mph and full throttle, but one by one they flipped over to the left and spun out

-from "Flying Combat Aircraft of the USAAF-USAF"

I tried to duplicate this in AH - doesn't happen.  I know torque is supposed to be modeled, maybe just not to this extent?

It would be a neat trick for P-38s if it was.

[ 11-19-2001: Message edited by: Cuba ]

[Voss]

I would love to see torgue increased!  

[Blue Mako]

Originally posted by Cuba:
I tried to duplicate this in AH - doesn't happen.  I know torque is supposed to be modeled, maybe just not to this extent?

Turn off combat trim and leave aileron and rudder trim neutral.  Fly slowly and then throw the throttle from idle to full and back a few times.  Torque is there...

[GRUNHERZ]

Yes its sort of there there but it wont flip a near stalled plane over on its back. The combined torque effects did this in RL, they dont do in AH as of now. IIRC this was possible before the FM changed a few versions ago.

And yes I tested with stupid CT easy mode off (never use it anyway) and trims centered.

[ 11-19-2001: Message edited by: GRUNHERZ ]

[wells]

If the rpm doesn't change, you won't see a torque reaction.  Normally, a pilot would set high rpm for landing or a little less to prevent over-revving when the throttle is advanced.  When the throttle is advanced faster than the prop governer can compensate, you get a change in rpm and a torque reaction.

[Voss]

I don't know... torgue feels about right for a Cessna 152. The asymmetric propeller blade effect seems more pronounced then torgue. Concessions for gameplay I assume.

[Tac]

That sounds true if it was at 25k+. The 38 has a tremendous advantage at that alt, specially if the pilot was using the fowler flaps (at that alt they turn the 38 into a virtual zeke!).

But I do think that in AH the torque is grossly negligible. I remember pre-FM change , the F4U was HARD to fly, specially on vertical manouvers because of its Torque.. I had to lower throttle or cut engine on the top of the loop to avoid spin-stall. In today's FM you can put full throttle, wep it, get down to 80mph on the top of the loop and have no torque problems (you feel very little , but its not as strong as pre-FM change).

[Naudet]

I could see over my right shoulder the various FW-190 pilots booting right rudder attempting to control their torque at 150 mph and full throttle, but one by one they flipped over to the left and spun out

This at all is not a torque effect of the FW190, its the well known flip over stall the 190 was prone to.

A 190 that flies a hard turn and stalls will flip over to the opposite site and if the pilot doesnt release the controls at once, will enter a spin.
This was very nasty near ground level, and when FW190 1st appeared at the channel front, a few accidents accured this way, when the FW pilot tried to follow a spit through a tide turn.
On the other hand, this was an emergency escape maneuver against bandits when at high alt. The FW pilot pulls the turn, flip flops over and spins out. No plane could follow this "Snap roll".

The FW190 was a plane that acutally dont needed a rudder or aileron trim inflight. If the trim tabs were in correct position, the plane did not change the rudder or aileron forces over the whole speed range it had.
This fact is well described, especially bye the GB Test pilots.
I think the FW in AH has too much torque, its changes it charakteristics much more than i RL.

Planes that were well know for hvy torque are the P51, Bf109, F4U, YAK-9 and late spit models.
Both the P51 and F4U could make a "ground loop" when throttle wasnt slowly put forward. Try it in AH, maybe at the beginning you will crash the F4U, but with the P51 no way to do it.

[ 11-20-2001: Message edited by: Naudet ]

[Duedel]

Isn't it so that slip stream has much more effect at low speeds than torque?

[Daff]

I got way more gyroscopic effects in the Beagle Pup I fly and tons more in the Pitts than I do in any sim.

Daff

[Tac]

"On the other hand, this was an emergency escape maneuver against bandits when at high alt. The FW pilot pulls the turn, flip flops over and spins out. No plane could follow this "Snap roll"."

Daamn. A case of real life stick-stirring.  

[mauser]

Yep... in "Green Hearts: First in Combat with the Dora 9," there were a couple instances where pilots "took the elevator down" to get the hell out of a fight quickly.  From the pilot's description, they pulled the stick back towards their stomach and caused a spin, dropping away. Of course you needed altitude to do this...

mauser

P.S. as to the original post, I read that somewheres too.  But it's hard to judge exactly what was happening in that quote (did this really happen or was it a tall tale?).  My sentiment would be that this could happen if everyone in the fight was already low on speed.  If one of those FW's was fast and close enough though...

[ 11-20-2001: Message edited by: mauser ]

[Cuba]

Originally posted by mauser:
P.S. as to the original post, I read that somewheres too.  But it's hard to judge exactly what was happening in that quote (did this really happen or was it a tall tale?).  My sentiment would be that this could happen if everyone in the fight was already low on speed.  If one of those FW's was fast and close enough though...

I didn't see this in the original source, but as quoted by Robert Shaw in "Fighter Combat".  He used it as an example of the effect of torque and P-factor on sustained turn performance.

The paragraph that precedes the quote is:

 

This phenomenom (torque, P-factor) has been used to good effect in combat, since it is more pronounced in some fighters than in others, and because prop rotation direction may be reversed between combatants.  The following WWII combat example of this tactic involves the P-38J Lightning versus the German FW-190.  The P-38 is a twin-engine fighter with counter-rotating props and essentially no net torque or P-factor.

In the section that the quote appears in, Shaw talks about how rudder is required to offset the effects of torque and P-factor and maintain balanced flight, and under certain conditions, "sufficient rudder power is just not available"; thus the difficulty of the FW pilots.

I am just a cyber pilot, so I wouldn't really know, but it seems to me that the torque effects in AH have been reduced to a point where the P-38s counter-rotating props offer no real advantage in combat.

I've only been playing AH for a few months, but the way I understand it, you don't need to coordinate turns with rudder, since this is done automatically and there is no way to turn it off.  Correct?

If this is true, I wonder how accurately you can model torque with automatically coordinated flight, since you you don't have to compensate for it by using rudder.

[Tac]

What aces high has is COMBAT TRIM Cuba, it will trim the elevator, rudder and aleirons for the pilot.

What I do find interesting is that even with the F4u with all trims on dead center, the current version f4u barely shows a torque spin tendency at slow speeds and high angles. I remember in pre-fm change when Torque (pilot) would kill all other F4U's out there because we couldnt control the torque (of the plane).

[Cuba]

Originally posted by Tac:
What aces high has is COMBAT TRIM Cuba, it will trim the elevator, rudder and aleirons for the pilot.

What I meant by auto-coordination is that the planes don't slip in turns.  Again, I've never flown in real life so I only know what I know from reading and playing other flight sims.

So, for example, in MS Flight Sim, when you turn make a left turn, the ball in the turn indicator will drop to the inside (left of center) indicating that the plane is slipping.  To counter-act this, you use left rudder to center the ball.  In right turns, the ball drops to the inside (this time right of center) and you use right rudder to coordinate.

In AH, however, if you center the ball with rudder trim in level flight, and go into a bank, the ball will stay centered as long as you don't apply any back pressure with the stick.

If you do apply back pressure (pulling back on the stick), the ball will go left of center (in single engine, clockwise rotating prop airplanes) whether you are in a left or right turn.  So it's a little odd in that you have to use left rudder to coordinate a right turn.

I think the reason why the ball goes to the left of center with back pressure in AH is because of gyroscopic precession modeling.  It goes right of center if you go nose down, which is what should happen with a clockwise rotating propeller.

Since the planes are auto-coordinated and won't slip (unless you induce it yourself), the only effect you see in turns is gyroscopic precession.

I was experimenting a little to figure this out and I did find that FW and other planes DO actually flip over and spin out as described in the original quote, if you try to maintain a spiraling climb with increasing back pressure.  If you do the same thing with a P-38, it does not flip over; it just falls off the climb.

So I guess it is something that might work in a fight in AH, if you were able to judge E states accurately.