I know this is long but please stick with me and consider my pointsEver since I first heard of Aces High, and started visiting this BBS, I was excited. When Pyro announced that he would be doing either a Ki84 or a N1K2 as the initial Japanese fighter, I was ecstatic, since the N1K2 was my favorite plane in AW and I had always wanted to see one done in WB's.
Now back in AW, we called the N1K2 "George" the "Curious George" because it was an aircraft with unique qualities. It was fast below 15k feet (second in PAC only to P-51), had excellent acceleration, excellent guns, and was second in climbrate to only the Spitfire (PAC). It also had its drawbacks, it has poor roll rate, it has poor high speed handling, a "middle of the pack" turning ability that really bled E badly, and its power dropped off rapidly above 15k.
I expected to see something similar in AH. Yes Flightmodels and Physicmodels may differ, but in each game (AW, AH, WB, and even FA) the planes compared the same. A P-38 is a P-38. The Fw190 is the Fw190. A P-51 matches up to a Me-109 the same in all games.
The Aces High N1K2 is the first to break that mold.
When the N1K2 first appeared in AH, I felt that it was performing poorly, so I did some testing. That testing showed that it is 25%-30% too slow at all altitudes, and that its climbrate is 25%-30% too low at all altitudes, when compared to the data used in AW for the same plane. These can be found in two N1K2 Flight Testing threads in this forum, along with the TAIC data I am refering too.
But Pyro sure got the "poor" qualities down exactly
Pyro confirmed that the data I used to compare against was historical data from an Army TAIC Unit, but he felt that he wasn't convinced that the data was representative, and he based the N1K2 flight model upon other data.
So I started looking for this "other" data, or any other attribute that I could find, that would indicate the George performed the way it does in AH. The USAF museum says the data doesn't exist, and the USN Aviation Musuem hasn't responded to my inquires yet.
So I started to look at what is called "Engineering Indicators". These are factors that can be derived from more common data that indicate the general performance of an aircraft, or used to compare a relative performance between different aircraft types. Admittedly these are not enough to construct a flightmodel, but they should be sufficent to indicate if a set of data (the Army TAIC data in this case) is in the ballpark.
So I contend that the N1K2 is too
slow, and that its
climbrate & acceleration (two closely related attributes) are too low. So what indicators can I use for these?
TOP SPEEDAHT and other engineering texts, indicate that the best way to compare "theoretical" top speeds is too look at the ratio of Horsepower(hp) to Zero Lift drag (f). Zero Lift Drag is the primary drag component at higher speeds, and horsepower is a general indicator of thrust (if prop efficencies were available an actual thrust to drag ratio could be computed).
Now, using AHT, I calculated the above ratio at Sea Level for the P-51, the F4U-1D, and the Me-109G10. Critical data (Cd) for the other fighters in AH were not available for these calculations, so they are not shown here. I also calculated it for the P-47D and the F6F-3, since they were aircraft of the same general size/horsepower category of the N1K2 and were useful in this comparison. One critical piece of information, the zero lift drag coefficent (Cd), is however not available for the N1K2. So what I did was calculate it with 3 seperate values. The worst possible drag coefficent I have seen ( F2A Brewster Buffalo ), a middle of the road coefficent for a radial ( F4U-1D ), and the best coefficent for a radial fighter ( P-47D ). I highly doubt that the N1K2's drag coefficent is as bad as the Buffalo's, but I have included it here as a "worst case" scenario.
Lets look at the results. As you can see the "indicator" is almost dead on in ranking the flight test performance of the aircraft. The only anomaly is the Me-109G being faster than the P-51 by a very small amount, and this can be attributed to differences in Propellor efficencies.
If you look at the results for the N1K2 you can see that the *3 case data (P-47D drag coefficent) is probably incorrect since it would indicate that it would be faster than the P-51, something the historical TAIC data did not indicate. However if you look at either the "middle of the road" the *2 case (F4U-1 drag coefficent), or even the worst case *1 data ( F2A Buffalo drag coefficent), you will see that they BOTH support the TAIC data in that the N1K2 should be faster at sea level than the F4U-1. In Aces High, the N1K2 is the slowest plane in the game, well below planes that are slower than the F4U-1.
Conclusion: HP/ Zero Lift Drag Ratio's heavily support the TAIC data over the current modeling.
CLIMB & ACCELERATIONClimbrate and Acceleration are two factors that are directly related, and are proportional to one another. If you have high climb rate you have high acceleration.
The best "indicator" of climbrate and acceleration, is typically considered to be powerloading. Powerloading is simply the weight of theaircraft, or loading, divided by the power, or horsepower.
One way to do this is too compare at the fully loaded "take-off" weight.
The results again show that this "indicator" corresponds very well with flight test data. The La5 and Me109 are almost identical in the top spot, with the Spitifire in second, and the rest line up from there exactly as we see them in the game.
As can be seen, this "indicator" data matches the TAIC data, in that the N1K2 should be a good climber second only to the Spitfire in late war Pac planes. In Aces High, the N1K2 has a poor climb rate comparable to or less than the P-51D, which should be one of the slowest climbers.
Conclusion: Powerloading heavily support the TAIC data over the current modeling
Powerloading can also be calculated using an "empty" weight. This is done to remove fuel and other expendables as a factor from the calculation. In other words, if you load each aircraft with the exact same amount of fuel and no ammunition, this is how they would compare. It is presented here for informative purposes.
All this data & calculations adds up to one conclusion for me.
The general data and "indicators" that work for every other aircraft in Aces High (or in reality any aircraft, for that matter), just do not support the current modeling of the N1K2 George. In fact, they support in every way the historical data I presented (TAIC).
History supports the TAIC data also. Every description that I can find of the N1K2 uses terms like "... one of the most successful land-based fighter aircraft of the war." or " a truely outstanding fighter, capable of meeting on equal terms the best Allied Fighter Aircraft." There is even one account of where a single N1K2 engaged a group of 12 (yes twelve) F6F Hellcats, destroying four of them and forcing the others to break off combat. And this was a point in the war where the American pilots were vastly more experienced than their Japanese counterparts. Does this sound like the AH N1K2? Or do you think this could happen like described? I would have to answer both questions with a "not on a cold day in hell"
I know that somone's first response to this post is gonna be "Well.. I can get kills in it, you just suck". Well, you may be right
but the issue is the accuracy of the plane model, NOT the individual skills of a pilot. I also know several of you tend to not like mixing of Euro and Pac aircraft, so you are just down on any Japanese aircraft period. But consider this, next time it might be YOUR favorite plane that has its flight model "flawed".
Right now, the Aces High N1K2 is being flown in the arena because it has good guns, is stable (not bouncy), and it has moderate turning ability. But once more real TnB aircraft are modeled (Zero, Hurri, or F4F for instance) people will begin to realise how mediocre the George is in a turnfight and its use in the arena will fall to almost nothing. Wasting what was in reality a really effective aircraft, and turning it into another "could have been".
Pyro I know you have stated that in the next revision, you will begin to re-evaluate the flight models, and fine tune them. Please reconsider the use of the TAIC data. It seems to me that it is much more "likely" than whatever data we are currently using.
So which are we going to get?
The "Curious George" or a "Castrated George" ?
PS: If you won't reconsider, I guess I am going to have to start campaigning for the P-63 KingCobra, the Yak-3, or the Ki-84
------------------
Vermillion
WB's: (verm--), **MOL**, Men of Leisure,
"Real men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires
"
[This message has been edited by Vermillion (edited 11-29-1999).]
