The 3 ailerons were NOT similar in surface dimensions...
The three different ailerons had three different CHORD dimensions; it was not a matter of improvement; you can differenciate them in some photos by the position of the fixed trim tab; with the trim tab fully inboard, the trailing edge "extends" to be level with the trim tab, therefore increasing the chord by about 40-50 mm or so. (This is beyond the wing trailing edge!)
With the trim tab at the one-third inboard position, the trim tab sticks out; no extended aileron trailing edge.
A longer chord aileron meant more aileron authority at low speeds, shorter chord meant less aileron heaviness at high speeds. In late A-8s, the proper 190A tactics against later American fighters made the low speed turning advantage increasingly important, so the long chord was more common.
The FW-190A-8 Western ace I mentionned went even further and added SPACERS to the aileron hinge, to "artificially" boost the chord even further (and thus increasing the low-speed "stall catching authority"), making the A-8 an even more specialized low-speed dogfighter. This took advantage of the P-47's, and especially of the P-51's, weakness in low-speed turning ("especially" not because of a vast low-speed turning performance difference between those two U.S. fighters, but because the stronger P-47 could afford more head-to-head combat, therefore ignoring speed to keep facing head-to-head into an attack was less productive than with the P-51). Unlike the Japanese, whose less armed and more fragile aircrafts could not effectively counter hit-and-run tactics with a series of head-to-heads runs, the FW-190A was powerful and strong enough to make head-to-heads a losing proposition to U.S. fighters, particularly the P-51.
So the FW-190A was probably one of the few marginally successful counters that the old dogfighting doctrine found to hit and run tactics, hence the preliminary flap-popping and downthrottling, described by an actual FW-190A-8 Western ace, when facing P-51s... He did not care about "energy fighting", only low speed turn response against multiple opponents...
The Japanese compared their imported FW-190A-5 to their heavily armed, tight-turning J2M3, but the difference with the FW-190A was that the J2M3 could make viciously hard prolonged turns at higher speeds: One was observed by a witness making high speed turns "more violent than anything I had ever seen in Europe", resulting in the pursuing P-51D losing its tail control surfaces and crashing.
In comparison, the FW-190A could probably initiate a fairly violent turn at high speed, especially to the left, but it could not sustain it to compete with P-51s or P-47s; it would mush or stall. Again;
http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/3950/pag20pl.jpg The Zero Model 52 may not have been able to duplicate the J2M3's high speed turning performance, but its evolution followed the correct path for a late-war low-speed dogfighter: Much longer-ranged cannons, and then seriously increased armament, regardless of the cost to top speed, to exploit its remaining low-speed turning advantage. This would then force the hit-and-run American fighter into a series of head-to-head attacks, where the odds were at least even against the later five-gun A6M5c... Note that the Zero is unique in getting the windshield armoured glass as a standard BEFORE even getting pilot back armor, a clear indication of the perceived combat priority...
This is not to say the Zero or the FW-190A never used hit-and-run tactics, but in the case of the 190A in particular, these hit-and-run tactics certainly occurred mostly at the higher altitudes to compensate for the 190A's lack of competitive high altitude turn performance. Also, up there the miserable pull-out performance of both the Zero and the 190A mattered less than when fighting low to the ground...
To characterize the FW-190A as a good hit-and-run fighter is only slightly less ridiculous than for the Zero because of the 190A's high dive speed. Otherwise you could not be further away from its true character... The Me-109G was actually much more versatile than the FW-190A in vertical maneuvers, despite a 50-70 MPH slower top dive speed, but even so it generally had trouble matching U.S. vertical combat performance.
Remember the Russian evaluation of hundreds of compiled combat reports; "The FW-190A does not like vertical maneuvers"
An interesting thread here were the cited document takes the superiority of the FW-190A in general turning performance, over the Me-109G when confronting the La-5, as an implied "common knowledge" that is not worthy of any elaboration...
Only today has this become a "mystery"...;
http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/23110283/m/1121035477 Once again, "common knowledge" can be lost, and I hope the increasing mountain of evidence will not be ignored forever...
Gaston
