190 and nose down attitude

[Hristo]

Weren't they know for flying at slight nose down angle ?

Seems to be missing in AH, especially with D-9 and Ta 152.

[Hooligan]

Here's an interesting question then.  How exactly do you tell if an aircraft in AH has a nose down attitude?  I can't really think of a reasonably accurate way to measure this.  It would be nice if someone could figure out a way.  

I tried the following:  Offline I flew a dora on autotrim at an altitude of about 50 feet over the water at around 350mph.  Under these conditions the dora did appear to be ever so slightly nose down when I looked at the wingtips and compared their attitude to the horizon.  At much slower speeds, the attitude seemed to be slightly nose up.  However, I can't really say I have much faith in the accuracy of these observations.

Hooligan

[Hristo]

Sightiline and cowl line. If you aim straight and nose is aimed slightly low, you shouldn't see TA 152 cowl, should you ?

[funkedup]

Hoolgn - That's normal for the attitude to change.  At lower speeds you need a higher lift coefficient --> higher angle of attack.

[Widewing]

Originally posted by funkedup:
Hoolgn - That's normal for the attitude to change.  At lower speeds you need a higher lift coefficient --> higher angle of attack.

I think, of greater significance is the angle of incidence of the wing. This should determine the angle of the nose relative to the ground while in level flight.

My regards,

Widewing

[wells]

A wing incidence of about 2-3 degrees with a design CL of 0.3 is about right.  That works out to near 250 mph for the Dora.  Hooligan, your method is accurate enough.  When the gunsight is right on the horizon at very low altitude, you are level.

[juzz]

The only reference to this I have seen is in the RAE evaluation of the Fw 190A-3. They quote a 5º angle down from the centre of the gunsight reticule to the top of the reflector. I've checked this angle on the AH cockpit graphics and it is correct.

All planes will fly nose down, up or whatever depending on the AoA(plus the incidence angle) of the wing at any given speed.

The reason you can see the Ta 152, Fw 190D-9 etc. cowling has absolutely nothing to do with the planes attitude in flight. It's because you have to look at that angle to sight the guns. Stupid Germans should have elevated the guns when they fit those big ugly MG 131 breech covers that are blocking up your view...  

[ft]

Originally posted by Widewing:

I think, of greater significance is the angle of incidence of the wing. This should determine the angle of the nose relative to the ground while in level flight.

Widewing

I have to disagree. AoA of the airfoil in level flight is pitch + angle of incidence. AoA will have to be adjusted so that lift equals weight for the given airspeed. You can't change the angle of incidence on most planes so you will have to raise or lower the nose. Angle of incidence is normally set to give the pitch for lowest fuselage drag at the design speed and weight(*) and that's it.

However, I recall reading at least one reference to the seemingly tail-high attitude of the 190s (Clostermann, I think). Probably had a fuselage design that created this illusion. I'm fairly sure they didn't design the thing to fly around with the thrust vector pointing downwards.  

Cheers,
  /ft

(*) Except for on the DC-10 where they messed up bigtime, if ramp rumors are true   Getting the W&B right was a PITA at least, nose heavy crates those. Especially the ones retrofitted with a galley in the forward cargo bay...

[Jimdandy]

From what I remember the 109G-10's were real nose heavy pigs. I can't remember where I read it. Do they fly with a nose down angle?

[hitech]

Nose heavy planes fly with a more nose high attitude for any given speed.

This is do to more down force required at the horizon stab, hence more lift required by wing to counter this down force, hence higher AOA needed at the wing.

HiTech

[StSanta]

Heh ya have to be a bloody aeronautical engineer if you wanna follow SOME of the discussions here  . Am very much enjoying these discussions, as I havwven't been exposed to the physics behind lying to any large extent before I came here.

Poor HT and Pyro. They have to put it all together and actually make a sim outta it.