F6F Hellcat

[fuzeman]

   Are the kill death ratios here a joke??   remember a few things...in some theaters pilots shared kills without firing a shot(ask pappy boyington) and in some theaters us forces counted aircraft on the dround that were shot as kills.....even is they were decoys or parts aircraft in non flyable condition........and third...remember at the end of the war an enemy pilot facing overwhelming numbers could simply bail out if he received any damage and be flying later that same day...that is if a U.S. pilot didnt kill him in his chute....whereas the U.s pilot would struggle to keep his plane up and make it back to base istaed of being captured.....and so kill death ration really mneans NOTHING.  take two equal pilots...one on one...both flying their respective planes to their strengths....and you have a pretty even fight..........lets not dilute ourselves to looking at paper figures and thinking we know which plane was best or which pilot was best...................rememb er in ww1 richtofen had a large number of kills that were recon planes or boom and zoom kils(not all)...................Voss killed most of his planes(most fighters) dogfighting against superior numbers of enemy fighters........at yet richtofen is considered the most amazing fighter pilot in that conflict...ww2 had the same thing going on...prooganda....and the winners write the history,lol

No comment. I can't as this was so hard to read and understand................... ............................. ......................

[SectorNine50]

  Are the kill death ratios here a joke??   remember a few things...in some theaters pilots shared kills without firing a shot(ask pappy boyington) and in some theaters us forces counted aircraft on the dround that were shot as kills.....even is they were decoys or parts aircraft in non flyable condition........and third...remember at the end of the war an enemy pilot facing overwhelming numbers could simply bail out if he received any damage and be flying later that same day...that is if a U.S. pilot didnt kill him in his chute....whereas the U.s pilot would struggle to keep his plane up and make it back to base istaed of being captured.....and so kill death ration really mneans NOTHING.  take two equal pilots...one on one...both flying their respective planes to their strengths....and you have a pretty even fight..........lets not dilute ourselves to looking at paper figures and thinking we know which plane was best or which pilot was best...................rememb er in ww1 richtofen had a large number of kills that were recon planes or boom and zoom kils(not all)...................Voss killed most of his planes(most fighters) dogfighting against superior numbers of enemy fighters........at yet richtofen is considered the most amazing fighter pilot in that conflict...ww2 had the same thing going on...prooganda....and the winners write the history,lol

Spark Notes version:

The author states that the kill/death numbers we see in our history books are not 100% accurate.  He then goes on to say that because of this, we should not use them in any way to estimate pilot skill or aircraft abilities.

[mthrockmor]

In a great read there is a book titled McCampbell's Heros about VF-15's ride through the central Pacific.

In one small read they note that a division (four birds) of Hellcats come across an old A6M(?). They have altitude and of course speed and note that this guy must have been old school. Between all four Hellcats and lots of ammo when it was over the Zero went one way without a scratch and the four Hellcats went home to tell stories.

I am not an expert Hellcat pilot (any bird for that matter) but in reading on the Hellcat it was far more about section and division tactics then anything else. It is an above average plane in many regards though mostly it is a bird designed to fly as a team. Rugged, turns good enough, plenty of firepower and tore holes through the IJN/IJA via squad tactics that would make Boelke smile.

You get the rare breed like Greebo but in real life, not many of them, certainly not in WW2. I'd love to spend some time with a few scrubs flying division tactics in this bird.

My one and a half cent.

Boo

[MAINER]

   Are the kill death ratios here a joke??   remember a few things...in some theaters pilots shared kills without firing a shot(ask pappy boyington) and in some theaters us forces counted aircraft on the dround that were shot as kills.....even is they were decoys or parts aircraft in non flyable condition........and third...remember at the end of the war an enemy pilot facing overwhelming numbers could simply bail out if he received any damage and be flying later that same day...that is if a U.S. pilot didnt kill him in his chute....whereas the U.s pilot would struggle to keep his plane up and make it back to base istaed of being captured.....and so kill death ration really mneans NOTHING.  take two equal pilots...one on one...both flying their respective planes to their strengths....and you have a pretty even fight..........lets not dilute ourselves to looking at paper figures and thinking we know which plane was best or which pilot was best...................rememb er in ww1 richtofen had a large number of kills that were recon planes or boom and zoom kils(not all)...................Voss killed most of his planes(most fighters) dogfighting against superior numbers of enemy fighters........at yet richtofen is considered the most amazing fighter pilot in that conflict...ww2 had the same thing going on...prooganda....and the winners write the history,lol

A kill is still a Kill. as simple as that. It does not matter if it is a recon plane bomber fighter , boom and zoom, ho, turn-fight or surprise attack. A kill is a Kill.

[Shuckins]

Kill-to-death ratios cannot be trusted....from any of the combatants.  There was too much going on in a dogfight for that.  Overclaiming was rife in every combat group.  Japanese pilots often overclaimed kills by an order of magnitude.  The vast claims put in by Germany's great ubermensch aces should also be taken with a grain of salt.

There is an excellent book called "Genda's Blade" about an elite squadron of Japanese aces that was organized near the end of the war for defense of the Japanese home islands.  For decades Japanese who studied the airwar had sung the praises of this group and were in awe of the vast number of kills that were amassed.  In the prologue the author states basically what I have above....that the large number of kills credited to the united were largely myth.  When tangling with U.S. Naval pilots in their first unit engagement for example, with a height and surprise advantage, the unit scored 14 kills while suffering 16 loses......which is about as even as it gets.  The author also stated that his "setting the record straight" in this matter would probably cause umbrage with many Japanese readers.

[Baumer]

What HTC did was restrict head movement too much. You can't get get your cartoon head anywhere near the canopy glass...

Which is now fixed in the Beta, thank you Pyro. 

[Baumer]

I believe another factor that reduces the Hellcats usage in the MA is that the stall characteristics of the Corsair are rather benign. I have flown several tests with the Corsair where rudder authority was maintained as low as 30mph, which is far below tested figures. This is what gives the Corsair such an advantage in a turn fight, why take the Hellcat when the Corsair can turn better.

[Ardy123]

I believe another factor that reduces the Hellcats usage in the MA is that the stall characteristics of the Corsair are rather benign. I have flown several tests with the Corsair where rudder authority was maintained as low as 30mph, which is far below tested figures. This is what gives the Corsair such an advantage in a turn fight, why take the Hellcat when the Corsair can turn better.

I have always wondered about that. There are several planes where the rudder seems to be very effective well below stall speed.

[Shane]

I have always wondered about that. There are several planes where the rudder seems to be very effective well below stall speed.

the hogs have huge honking rudders.

[SectorNine50]

the hogs have huge honking rudders.

They also have rather large torque-generating engines.

This has always been brought up though, the Corsair is quite a bit more stable at low speeds in AH than what appears in some of the reports people have read.

[FLS]

They also have rather large torque-generating engines.

This has always been brought up though, the Corsair is quite a bit more stable at low speeds in AH than what appears in some of the reports people have read.

 Most of the comments on the handling being too easy seem to be from people who have "fatally" crashed several Corsairs before declaring how easy they are. I have yet to see a report that indicates any actual problem with the modeling.

[Baumer]

I have spoken with Hitech many times about this, and he feels there might be an issue with the modeling, specifically relating to the slipstream effect on the rudder.  However, he hasn't had time to work on it due to other priorities. I'm sure that when he has time he will look at it it will be addressed, but currently the Corsair rudder is much more effective below stall speeds then what was tested back in 1944.   

[Rebel]

Most of the comments on the handling being too easy seem to be from people who have "fatally" crashed several Corsairs before declaring how easy they are. I have yet to see a report that indicates any actual problem with the modeling.

Baumer's comments aside (that being the slipstream possibly being mis-modeled in game)

To put it quite simply, torque is very much minuted as compared to the real life, for ease of game-play, and understandably so.  These are not Cessna's, or anything like that.  They are monsters of airplanes, beyond any doubt, and very difficult to fly.  No reason to fully replicate that- it's not fun.  

The Corsair was rejected for carrier duty  until the airframe was modified to get the low speed instability problem fixed.

They didn't call it the "Ensign Eliminator" for nothing.  

The Hellcat, on the other hand, suffers from more low speed instability than it's Vought cousin, and that is very odd indeed when you have test reports comparing the "High strung predator of the F4U, to the Nice, safe, popsiclecat of the F6F" (AHT, F6F Comments section).

Further evidence can be found in the P-40, believe it or not.  An old pilot's song goes like this:

Please don't give me a Peter Four Oh,
Oh Please don't give me a Peter Four Oh,
A ground-looping bastard,
You're sure to get plastered,
Oh Please don't give me a Peter Four Oh.

A common jape was you could always tell a P-40 pilot by his big right leg.

It seems that the minimizing of the torque has resulted in one aircraft (namely the F4U) becoming a popular ride because the low speed stability issues it faced in RL do not hamper it in-game, and yet keeps all of the world-class performance that it was famous for.

IMHO, it has affected gameplay, and Torque should probably be looked at a little more closely, and possibly increased.  I'm not for making the planes impossible to fly, but when an F4U out turns the F6f because it doesn't have to worry about stability problems, that seems (to me, at least) to be more than enough evidence to at least take a 2nd look at it.  

[Shuckins]

There were a number of reasons why the Corsair did not pass carrier qualification trials until late 1944.  Corky Meyer identified quite a few of them:  Unacceptable visibility during carrier approaches;  poor stall characteristics,  insufficient directional-control capability (specifically the tendency to torque-roll when power was applied after a wave-off);  and uncontrollable bounce by the landing gear that put the aircraft over the barrier and into parked aircraft on the foredeck during landing.

Nevertheless, the British Royal Navy qualified the Corsair for carrier operations before the American Navy did.  Corky asked Capt. Eric Brown, the Royal Navy's most decorated test pilot and asked him how they were able to do it.

Capt. Brown's answer:  "We were a bit desperate at that time with our new carriers being launched faster than we were able to equip them.  The Corsairs gave us a bit of a hard time, and we soon understood exactly why the Americans had so much trouble with them.  One problem was the bad view over the nose.  Also, if one got slow on approach and added full power to go around again, one could induce an uncontrollable torque roll.  Because of the Corsair's small stabilizing vertical-fin area (one-third the size of the Hellcat's) and high power, the aircraft would then yaw, roll, stall and spin into the water.  It also had a most non-resilient landing gear that would bounce the beast over the barrier into the parked aircraft pack on the foredeck."

"It's redeeming factor was its high kill rate - second only to the Hellcat's, but the high accident rate cost a lot of Allied pilots their lives.  The Royal Navy had a lot of trash in its Seafire and Sea Hurricane aircraft because neither was designed from the ground up for carrier operations."

Question answered:  because of its great need for carrier fighters, the British Royal Navy accepted the Corsair's abysmal losses.

Evidently, the torque roll problem was never fully corrected.  Meyer states that as late as 1952 the F4U-5 Pilot's Handbook stated clearly on page 29, "At the stall with POWER ON, FLAPS DOWN, a roll off to the left is violent and is accompanied by a 600-to 900-foot loss in altitude."  Why had Chance-Vought not fully addressed this problem at such a late date?  When Meyer posed this question to two Vought WW II test pilots, they immediately replied that Vought's engineering boss simply didn't want to hear that anything was wrong with the Corsair, even from Navy-trained test pilots."

[The above information is taken from a special edition of Flight Journal, 2004, dedicated to the F4U Corsair.]

[Shuckins]

It seems that the minimizing of the torque has resulted in one aircraft (namely the F4U) becoming a popular ride because the low speed stability issues it faced in RL do not hamper it in-game, and yet keeps all of the world-class performance that it was famous for.

IMHO, it has affected gameplay, and Torque should probably be looked at a little more closely, and possibly increased.  I'm not for making the planes impossible to fly, but when an F4U out turns the F6f because it doesn't have to worry about stability problems, that seems (to me, at least) to be more than enough evidence to at least take a 2nd look at it.  

On pages 602-606 in AHT the author cites a number of tests and pilot appraisals of the major fighter aircraft employed by the U.S. during WW II.  The results make interesting reading, and are very pertinent to this topic:

Best All-Around Visibility:  P-51D, P-47D-30, F6F-5, F4U-1D
Best Ailerons at 350mph:  P-51D, F4U-1D, P-38L, F6F-5
Best Ailerons at 100mph:  F6F-5, F4U-1D, P-47D-30, FM-2
Best Elevators:  F4U-1D, F6F-5, P-51D, P-47D-30
Best Rudder:  F6F-5, F4U-1D, P-38L, P-51D
Nicest All Around Stability: F6F-5, F4U-1D, P-61B, P-47B
Best characteristics 5mph above the Stall:  F6F-5, P-61B, P-38L FM-2

In turning performance, using the FM-2 as the base against which all the other fighters were measured, the aircraft performed thusly:

FM-2 (the champ)
P-63
P-61 (Yep...a large twin-engined fighter)
F6F-5
P-51D
P-38L
P-47D
F4U-1D (dead last)

The Corsair had a little over twice the turning circle of the FM-2, or 212% of the FM-2's turning circle.  The Hellcat had 138% of the FM-2's turning circle.