Scramble climb testing

[niklas]

[QUOTE... from a standing start on the runway...[/QUOTE]

This is not a good climb test. I recommend to fly at 20feet over water, already with  autospeed, and adjust power for level flight. Start the clock when you push the throttle full forward.

niklas

[Blue Mako]

Originally posted by niklas:
This is not a good climb test. I recommend to fly at 20feet over water, already with  autospeed, and adjust power for level flight. Start the clock when you push the throttle full forward.

niklas

This is a perfectly legitimate way to test for scramble times, which is what F4UDOA set out to do.

I have done a lot of flight testing IRL and the established method for climb testing is to fly level then start climbing, trimming for your desired speed.  The data is recorded from the time the aircraft stops zooming and is in a stable climb at the trim speed.

F4UDOA, one question, were the tests conducted with the same wind layers as the MA?

[edited to clean up quote and add IRL to comments]

[ 10-10-2001: Message edited by: Blue Mako ]

[F4UDOA]

Blue Mako,

I conducted the test under the default offline conditions. All from the same field in the same direction. No noticable wind was present during the test.

Niklas,

The reason for conducting the test from a standing start was to eliminate any benifit of zoom climb or to remove any scatter from the results caused by different speed or altitude variation at the start of the test. If anything I would think that the F4U would benifit greatly from this since it was a carrier A/C and had the second shortest takeoff roll next to the Hellcat. Half of the P-47D series. Even with this percieved advatage it fell miserably short of expectations. Even at normal power in the climb charts at 100% internal fuel it reached 20,000FT in 12Min.

Wotan,

Auto climb is supposed to utilize best climb speed through out the climb range. In the MA I typically use a low G zoom climb for best results. However this is not the same as sustained climb rate.

[Lephturn]

Auto climb is supposed to utilize best climb speed through out the climb range. In the MA I typically use a low G zoom climb for best results. However this is not the same as sustained climb rate.

That is not correct F4UDOA.  There really isn't an "auto climb" setting.  What we have is an auto-trim for speed.  For convenience, AH sets that default auto-trim speed at the approximate best climb speed for sea level.  Pyro has stated this before... although I don't have a link/reference handy.  I'm sure this is the case.  You'll notice that your air speed won't change one bit from the ground to 35k if you leave it in auto-trim for speed all the way.

That said, what we really need here is a simple and easily repeatable method for testing which approximates how we actually use the planes in the game.  I think your scramble climb test fits that need very well.  These tests may not be comparable to real-life test data, but they do give us valuable information about the game.

[niklas]

Originally posted by Blue Mako:
The data is recorded from the time the aircraft stops zooming and is in a stable climb at the trim speed.

This is exactly the reason why i sometimes have doubts about climbrate claims which are called "initial climbrate". Sometimes i have the impression that those claims refer to the climbrate of the little zoom at the beginning.


niklas

[Daff]

Climbspeed should have minor overall effect on the times, as long as they start out with the best speed.
For the P-47 it's 165mph to 15k, 155mph above.

Daff