Gerd, the Turbochargers don't do much at low level.
They are there to make the airpreasure of the incoming air stay a constant preasure even when getting up to 20,000 or 35,000 feet.
For example the Merlin engine's turbo only runs at 10% at sea level. At 20,000 feet it finnally hits 100%, and past that the engine slowly looses power thru oxygen deprivation.
After all, an engine cannot hold as much as as you would like to pump into it. It has limits. Thick air at low altitude, plus the Turbo running at full blast would probably blow the engine block up as too much air would be in the cylanders.
Also, you do have control over the Turbo. The + and - keys on the Keypad are the default controls. Most leave them set to max (the default setting). Your guzzling gas, but your plane is putting out max power.
The reason the B-17 wallows on takeoff isn't the B-17's fault. The runway is too short. Fighters can get off the ground in that space, but the B-17 needs a longer takeoff roll than there is concrete in AH.
I can get the B-17 up at 115 MPH (even 100mph), and before the end of the runway.
As for the autopilot, well technically you souldn't have it. I wouldn't whine about that.
The Trim settings? Well, there is a bit about why they are they way they are here in the online instructions manual. Compromises have to be made.
The first thing to understand about trim is that there is no way possible to make it work
like a real plane. The joystick interaction with the controls is a completely different
mechanical setup.
In a real plane you would be holding the stick back to maintain level flight. You would
then turn the trim knob to relieve any pressure on the stick, without the stick moving.
With a computer joystick, this simply isn't possible. When you let go of the stick it will
always go back to center. Even force feedback sticks do not have the ability of
adjusting stick spring center.
The second problem is stick feel. When Pyro and I originally did some early models for
CK we tried setting real settings for elevator deflection. For example, the spit's stick
setup is capable of generating about 38 degress AOA, and the plane stalls at around 17
degs AOA. This would equate to pulling the stick less than halfway back and that
would stall the plane.
Now from a purely mathematical realistic point of view, that’s the way the plane was set
up so it should be the same in the sim. But if you step back and look at things another
way, what did the plane feel like to fly and does it "FEEL" realistic when things change?
When flying a real aircraft I sense very little stick movement. I perceive much more on
how hard I'm pulling, how much I'm grunting, how much the stick is vibrating, than how
much I’m moving the stick.
To accomplish some of this we use the stall horn, now the stall horn is NOT realistic by
any means, but some method is needed to give you the same realistic feed back from the
plane that you get in real life. Therefore, you are forced to choose a method that works
and gives the perception of reality. We chose to setup controls that will let you stall
with full stick deflection unless you are limited by control force.
Now comes the trim problem. At slower speeds, where do you scale the stick movement
from and how do you add in trim?
The method we have been using was to always give you x degrees of elevator travel
than just add that degree to the current trim degree. This leads to problems if you are
slow with nose down trim, you could no longer pull the plane to the edge of stall. This
isn't how real planes fly in the slower flight envelope. Very few planes could you not
generate enough stick force to pull into stall at slower speeds. This oversight is why
people use trim in a slower turn fight and hence get an advantage by giving more up trim
at slower speeds.
Under 1.04 we have change the control setup slightly. We now scale the elevator/stick
deflection to the same ending angle no matter where the trim tab is positioned.
There is another misconception that trimming your plane perfectly gives you a flight
advantage. Trimming your plane or just holding controls and pressing rudder to center
the ball is exactly the same thing, and the plane will fly the same under both methods.
Hans.
[This message has been edited by Hans (edited 12-01-2000).]
