P-38 kill ratio...out of whack.

[thorsim]

he didn't have to the design says it for him ...

Yeah, right. Show me where Kelly Johnson ever said that. I've read just about every Kelly Johnson statement on the P-38 that's been recorded for history. The dive flaps do not slow the plane down when it is diving at or above compression speeds of 0.65 Mach. If they did, it would never reach 0.72 Mach.

[Ack-Ack]

guys i believe the stand i took issue with is that "the dive brakes did not slow the plane down".

that statement is false "."

No, it's not false.  The P-38 did not have dive brakes.  

you can introduce all the design intent and situational exceptions you wish ...

Again, the increase of the drag from the dive flaps was rather minimul and any loss of energy from the dive flaps from themselves was also minimul.  The loss of energy came from the nose pitch, not the flaps themselves.

but it does not change the fact that the above statement is false, even if AH does not model it that way.

Again, no dive brakes so the so the statement isn't false, especially when one can't differentiate between what dive brakes and dive flaps are.

As for why AH doesn't model the minimul drag of the dive flaps?  Probably because the drag is so minimul that it really doesn't have an impact at all.  Though, I would like to hear the official reason.

my problem with the flaps is that they are distributed subjectively, and that the liabilities seem underrepresented to such an extent that the envelopes of the set are now very suspect.  

if you do not believe me please investigate what the F4U-POH says about flap deployments over 20deg and how that contradicts the situation in the game, and explain the p-40 flap deployment speeds relative to its POH.

it is a video game, don't try and justify the way you play it with real world examples, you can't.

it is just a game.

++S++

t

No, I think your problem was pretty much summed up HiTech in your thread about being able to deploy flaps above the stated limits.  Think another problem is that you really don't know how the dive flaps work in the P-38.

BTW i am still waiting to hear any accounts of combat with flap deflections anywhere near the kinds used in the game that some people are finding success with.

Speaking only as a long time P-38 flyer (one will be very hard pressed to find another player with as many flights in the P-38 as I do in AH + the years of AW and WB), these pilot reports of an engagement with some Me 109's is pretty much inline with how the experienced P-38 drivers in AH use their flaps.  How these pilots described using their flaps pretty much mirrors how I use mine in game.

Lt.Richard Berry  370th Combat report  June 14, 1944

“I was leading Yellow flight and we had completed our mission and were returning home at 3000 feet.  We had lost our flight leader in clouds and haze after an identification pass at friendly A/C.  We had just gone on instruments and were about to enter the overcast when we were bounced from 4 O’Clock by four Me 109s which had just broken out of the overcast.  Yellow 2 called for me to break right into the E/A.  The entire flight broke and I found myself after a half-turn of a Lufberry, turning inside the lead E/A.  I fired a four second burst from 200 yards at approximately 20 degrees deflection and observed strikes on the engine.  The E/A started to smoke and leveled off.  I fell into trail behind him and fired a 6-second burst at 0 Degrees deflection and again observed strikes, this time on the fuselage and right wing root.  Fire broke out and enveloped the entire right wing root as the E/A disappeared into cloud.  I did not follow him because I was low on fuel.  The other E/A disappeared into the clouds after the initial break.  We all used our maneuver flaps and had no difficulty in out turning the E/A.  I saw no one bail out from the plane I hit and in my opinion the pilot was hit and at least wounded on my first burst because he leveled off and flew at a very slight climb.”


Captain Paul Sabo, 370th FG  July 31, 1944

“I was leading Blue Flight circling the target area giving Red Flight Top Cover as they were dive bombing the target.  Circling above us at about 12,000 feet were 12 Me 109s.  I kept watching them; then 8 of them half rolled and got behind my flight.  I gave the order to jettison our bombs and break.  I dropped flaps and started in a tight Lufberry.  When I had completed one turn I was alone, and at that time I saw an Me 109 in a vertical turn coming in front of me so I started firing at him at a 90 degree deflection shot.  He flew right into the pattern and I saw strikes on him from nose to tail.  The plane seemed to shudder and slow down.  I was about 200 yards when I started to fire.  The Me 109 then made a 90 degree turn to the left and started to climb as if he was going to loop.  I followed him, closing to about 100 yards, fired and saw strikes all over his canopy, fuselage and tail surfaces.  As he was about at the top of his loop and almost on his back, I saw what looked like his canopy come off, as the plane seemed to hang there.  It looked like I had wounded the pilot during the first 90 degree deflection shot and he was rolling it over on his back to jettison his canopy and bail out.

About that time I looked in my rear view mirror and saw an Me 109 on my tail.  I dropped flaps and turned into him. He half rolled and went down.  As I rolled out I saw an Me 109 coming down in front of me.  I opened up again and gave him a 90-degree deflection shot.    He ran into my pattern and I saw strikes all over the plane.  I followed him and kept firing from directly behind him, seeing strikes on his tail surfaces.  Then he proceeded to go down in a wild dive from about 5000 feet.  I looked back in my mirror again, because all during this time I was still alone.  My flight had left me.  I saw another Me 109 coming in on my tail. I dropped flaps, leveled out and turned into him. He automatically went into a steep climb and I lost him in the sun.  When I looked I saw no more enemy and called my Flight to join me.”


Lt. Royal Madden  from the same Flight and same fight, July 31, 1944

“Approximately 15 Me 109s came down on Blue Flight and we broke left.  I then made a vertical right turn and observed Blue Two below and close and Blue Four was ahead and slightly above me.  I glanced behind me and saw four Me 109s closing on my tail fast and within range so I broke left and down in a Split S. I used flaps to get out and pulled up and to the left. I then noticed a single Me 109 on my tail and hit the deck in a sharp spiral.

We seemed to be the only two planes around so we proceeded to mix it up in a good old-fashioned dogfight at about 1000 feet.  This boy was good and he had me plenty worried  as he sat on my tail for about five minutes, but I managed to keep him from getting any deflection.  I was using maneuvering flaps often and finally got inside of him. I gave him a short burst at 60 degrees, but saw I was slightly short so I took about 2 radii lead at about 150 yards and gave him a good long burst.  There were strikes on the cockpit and all over the ship and the canopy came off.  He rolled over on his back and seemed out of control so I closed in and was about to give him a burst at 0 deflection when he bailed out at 800 feet.

Having lost the squadron I hit the deck for home.  Upon landing I learned that my two 500 pound bombs had not released when I had tried to jettison them upon being jumped.  As a result I carried them throughout the fight.”

ack-ack

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

It doesnt matter where the tail is it will have the same problem. You are arguing against yourself here since my post agreed with you. The problem is exactly as I stated it and is not in disagreement with the engineers at all but they had no way to know the tail booms were flexing. By the way the dives that killed pilots like Ralph Virden were not shallow dives of 45 degrees. Phillips is correct.

Wrong again. According to reliable witness, chief tower operator F. B. Berger, at Grand Central Air Terminal, "Virden was in a shallow dive at around 3000 feet when the tail appeared to break away". The plane flipped inverted, and crashed upside down. The tail section floated away. It was YP-38 C/N 2202, Air Corps # AC39-689, the first YP-38.

According to Kelly Johnson, the spring tab operating link broke, causing the elevator to go to full deflection. At an altitude of less than 2000 feet, at a speed of over 300MPH, full elevator deflection would have loaded the tail booms of the fuselage far beyond any design criteria.

So no, Virden was not diving steeper than 45 degrees, there's no way to dive steeper than 45 degrees at less than 3000 feet and more than 300MPH, and not slam nose first into the ground in a crater 15 feet deep.

Other witnesses were quoted as saying "Virden was in a shallow dive at blinding speed headed back towards the Lockheed Burbank plant". Witnesses John Margwarth, collecting data from Virden's tests for Lockheed, and I.C. Thomas, a local real estate dealer, were both quoted as saying they saw the tail come off and float away, after Virden pulled up sharply, then the plane spun off to the side, flipped inverted, and crashed into a house.

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

he didn't have to the design says it for him ...

Well, you'll pardon me but you claimed:

no actually the Lockheed Engineer i discussed this subject with this afternoon agreed with me and kelly johnston that the unadjusted p38 was more efficient than one with any of the secondary flight controls deployed.

But you have zero supporting evidence that Kelly Johnson ever made any such statement, ever.

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

umm ...

you need to re read this thread ...

no offense ...

++S++

t

I have no need to reread this thread, once again, you have absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support any of your claims, at all.

Especially not this one:

no actually the Lockheed Engineer i discussed this subject with this afternoon agreed with me and kelly johnston that the unadjusted p38 was more efficient than one with any of the secondary flight controls deployed.

You have no proof Kelly Johnson said, felt, or believed anything of the sort. And honestly, I seriously doubt that you spoke to any current Lockheed engineer that even knew Kelly Johnson personally. The man retired about 30 years ago. And I also really doubt any engineer would agree with you on anything you say.

[Chalenge]

Wrong again. According to reliable witness, ...

According to airspacemag:

Ralph Virden was the first to fall. Virden, a Lockheed test pilot was flying his P-38 through a dive test in November 1941 when the airplane pitched maniacally and became nearly uncontrollable because of what later came to be called “Mach tuck.” The twin-engine Lightning, gaining speed in the dive, was still well below the speed of sound, but the air accelerating over its wing was moving faster than the airplane itself. When Virden hit Mach .675, the airflow over the wings became supersonic. A shock wave leapt to life over the wing stubs between the fighter’s lozenge-like cockpit cab and its engine nacelles. The inboard wings suddenly stalled; the airplane slumped. The usually strong airstream that the wings guided back and down onto the fighter’s horizontal tail ceased, no longer counterbalancing the weight of the engines and forward structure. The nose rotated down—“tucked.”
This wouldn’t have come as a surprise to Virden. P-38 designer Kelly Johnson had been one of the first to postulate the effects of compressibility, the baffling behavior of air moving at supersonic speeds. So the P-38 that Virden was flying, one of the first of the twin-boom fighters to be built, had a raised tail, which had already been fitted with special devices to give it more muscle in the inevitable struggle to regain balanced flight.

I think I will stick to the views of Phillips.

[thorsim]

one question if there were no drag consequences to the dive flaps, and they solved a critical design flaw,

then why weren't they a fixed feature and not deployable/retractable ...

they offered a correction for a specific state of flight and were only an advantage then, otherwise they produced drag(slowed you down) and were then considered undesirable.

i assure you most anything you drop extend or add to an airplane adds drag, that would include the "i am a p-38 fanboy" banner btw ...

[Chalenge]

And from page 2 of "Mach 1: Assaulting the Barrier"

Instead, the NACA developed small, wedge-shaped “dive flaps” that were popped out of the underside of the wing at the first sign of Mach tuck. Many to this day assume the dive flaps simply slowed the airplanes below shock wave speed, but the truth is that they restored enough of the wing’s lost lift to enable the pilot to pull out despite the tail’s recalcitrance. They worked well enough to also be installed on some of the P-38’s contemporaries: P-47 fighters, A-26 attack bombers, and the two earlier U.S. jets, the P-59 and P-80.

http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/Mach_1.html

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

According to airspacemag:
I think I will stick to the views of Phillips.

You may stick with whatever you like. I'm sure Phillips knows more about the crash than the eyewitnesses, especially the one who was recording data from the tests Virden had already completed. Not to mention the fact that the evidence (the plane could not have been in a 45+ degree dive and been near level at 3000 feet at the same time, and it could not have been in a 45+ degree dive at high speed at 3000 feet and ended up above ground after impact, nor would it have left more than 1/2 of the house standing) does not agree at all with his position. But you stick to whatever you want.

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

And from page 2 of "Mach 1: Assaulting the Barrier"
http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/Mach_1.html

Once again, you're quoting "airspace mag", where as I'm quoting the engineer who designed the airplane, as written by the engineer who worked for him for 20+ years.

[CAP1]

it is what doesn't happen at 30-60 degrees that have problems with, that and when some planes get that 10deg relative to other planes. 

well, you tried to avoid answering the question.

so...answer my question please? what happens when you plunk down 10 degrees of flaps in level flight?

and if you're going where i think you are, with the 30-60 degree comment, you're wrong there too. BTW...the 38 doesn't have 60 degrees fo flaps. 

[Chalenge]

Phillips understands more about aerodynamics than just about anyone living today. None of what I have said or what he has written (except about Virdens death) are in disagreement with what you said or what the engineers said about the problem. You are just being argumentative because of what is going on between you and these other guys. Phillips isnt the only one to say this either as airspacemag reports the same thing.

Virden died because the spring loaded servo mechanism did its job too well and the load it put upon the tail broke the tail. So you could say (and you wouldnt be wrong) that his death was engineered but that sort of thing happens in war.

Johnson is not a god and engineers screw up sometimes.  

[CAP1]

in the beginning of the film, i first nose up, with a speed advantage. you'll note though, that as i do, the zeek increases his speed.

as i come over the top, note, that i'm doing a mere 37mph, and as the nose drops, thanks to the thrust and counter rotating props, i really have good control of the aircraft. if you watch this same part from the zeeks view, you'll not he is having trouble holding her steady, at 164mph. at this point, his speed is still decreasing, and at the point i manage to score some hits on him, he was doing 87mph. again, if you watch from his view, there wasn't anywhere near the control authority that my 38 had.

second time up, i'm 900 ft higher, and nearly the same speed. he was 2.5k behind, and i pulled him in. i rolled out at the top of the first immel at about 164mph, with him 1.5 below and behind, still doing 273.
 i pulled into my second immel, letting him think he had a shot on me. to be honest, i thought i might've made a mistake there. i was down to about 120, him at 160, now 600 below me. again, look from his views, and you'll see the fight he had to hold her steady, against torque.
 this time i didn't hold it too well, and let her start stalling at around 75mph. at this point, he's doing 85mph, and fighting to control his ride.

 using my rudders, flaps, and wide open throttle, i still have nearly full control of my aircraft, as i bring the nose over. he either stalls, or sees me nosing over, and brings his nose down to regain speed, but at this point, i'm already re-accelerated up to 157mph. using rudders, i try to bring my guns to bear, but i was too slow reacting.
  
 seeing him in tight, and the fact that there is no way i can keep myself inside his turn, i extend to reset the fight.

 third time up, about 800ft alt difference, and about 50mph. i was intending an immel, so i went nearly vertical, whereas he climbed more gently. top of first immel, he's 800 below me, at 188mph, i'm at 140mph.
 i misjudged quite a bit, and never made it to the top of the second immel, and let her fall off at around 54mph. at this point, he's still doing 70, but can't keep climbing...and is heavily fighting his ride.
 same deal...rudders, firewall it, and roll into him. he get his nose down, tries to regain speed, so he can avoid the attack. i kept full flaps out, as i wanted a little extra time, and they'd help force my nose up onto him, as i accelerated. he tries to turn into me, hoping to take away any shot i might have had, but i'm already back up to 160mph, with him about the same, giving me enough control to make a good shot happen.

 now, bear in mind, i do truly believe i was more lucky than any good to have won this fight. the entire fight was almost 9 minutes, and he pinged me at least once, when i mis-judged one of my vertical moves.

 the point here is, that the conditions were nearly equal each time i went up, yet i was able to hold it slightly longer than the zeek. i don't know what all is modeled in here, but i know flaps feel pretty right, on everything i've used em on. the rudder authority at those low speeds is amazing, leading me to believe that the prop blast is modeled in here too.
 this would affect not only the rudders on the 38, but also the flaps, due to the positioning of the engines, again providing prop blast over them.
 this is not an "L", but rather a "J" i was flying, so the only thing i had to control my speed going downhill(which i didn't use in this fight) was a forward slip.

 i understand the numbers. numbers cannot, and do not tke into account the many many variables in a fight though, as shown here.

now to figure out how the hell to link the film.


http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?4yz2ykjyzzm

it's 4 minutes.


again, nothing i said above is meant derogatorily towards the zeek driver.

[Ack-Ack]

one question if there were no drag consequences to the dive flaps, and they solved a critical design flaw,

then why weren't they a fixed feature and not deployable/retractable ...

they offered a correction for a specific state of flight and were only an advantage then, otherwise they produced drag(slowed you down) and were then considered undesirable.

i assure you most anything you drop extend or add to an airplane adds drag, that would include the "i am a p-38 fanboy" banner btw ...

Again, please point out where I said the dive flaps did not have any drag?  The drag effect was minimul and any loss of speed was minimul, unlike the drag associated with the Fowler and the conventional hinged flaps the Lightning used.  Yes, you could fly with the dive flaps deployed at lower speeds (300mph IAS and lower) and the speed loss associated with the drag on the dive flaps was minimul, the pilot did not have to increase power to compensate for the associated drag.

Your assertion that the dive flaps amounted to the same as dive brakes due to the associated drag when deployed is inaccurate and with no data to back the claim.  Rather like your comment that how we use the flaps in the P-38 in AH in no way mirrors the reality of their usage in real life, and guess what?  That was proven false too.


ack-ack

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

one question if there were no drag consequences to the dive flaps, and they solved a critical design flaw,

then why weren't they a fixed feature and not deployable/retractable ...

they offered a correction for a specific state of flight and were only an advantage then, otherwise they produced drag(slowed you down) and were then considered undesirable.

i assure you most anything you drop extend or add to an airplane adds drag, that would include the "i am a p-38 fanboy" banner btw ...

They did not solve a "critical design flaw". There was no design flaw, the wing performed exactly as they knew it would. They knew in 1937 that the thicker wing was going to enter compression.

They were retractable because at speeds below 0.65 Mach they were not needed, and they did not work below 0.65 Mach.

No one, no one, has ever said they did anything other than alleviate compression symptoms, with the exception that I stated "if they were deployed at speeds where compression was not a problem, they would produce a momentary "pitch up" of 15 degrees." No where in that statement did I say anything about drag. A few pilots knew of that attribute, and even fewer used it. And it has nothing at all to do with how the dive flaps perform when deployed at speeds where compression is a problem.