No sane WW II fighter pilot toddled around during a dogfight with his flaps fully extended. It was a sure way to commit suicide. When flaps were used at all it was for only brief....very brief....periods....to evade an attacker or attain a firing solution.
This isn't limited to the F4U, it stands for every fighter in the game. While the F4U may not be used in a "WWII realistic" manner, neither is any other fighter in AH.
Personally, I'm absolutely 100% in favor of any model-modification necessary to get the most realism possible when it comes to the F4U. It's the only plane in AH I'm interested in flying, and I'd like it to be as realistic as possible. Making it more difficult to fly (as long as it's realistic) would be an improvement in my opinion. If it's as simple as restructuring the slipstream, or whatever, great! Hopefully HTC sees it as a worthwhile improvement.
However, it doesn't really matter in the end, because it's going to be flat-out impossible to model the F4U in a manner that will cause it to fly/fight realistically in the game. As a matter of fact, if it
is modeled "perfectly" it will fight (not necessarily fly) closer to the way it does now than to reality... HTC would have to model it
incorrectly flight model-wise to get it to fight "realistically".
That's because the capabilities of the pilot in reality vs. AH are completely different. Personally, I think this is more important than the flight-model when it comes to "realistic" use of airplanes, and "realistic" dog-fighting strategies when it comes to a simulator. In this case, I'm not talking about the basic G-forces effects or fatigue factors. I'm talking about the fact that I can manipulate more controls, easier, in less time, and simultaneously, than a real pilot could. As long as that's possible, "realistic" dog-fights and strategies aren't.
IMO, it probably isn't that the FM is way off, or that the effects of the flaps are way off. It's more likely that the flaps and throttle (which any self-respecting F4U pilot will tell you are vital in fighting with the F4U) are able to be manipulated in an unrealistic manner, at unrealistic times, with unrealistic ease. This leads to unrealistic fight strategies and unrealistic results. Even if the F4U FM is flawless (which it might not be, but which also hasn't been proven in gobs and gobs of time, effort, and pages). Oops, did I mention the gear?
Look at this cockpit. I've circled the throttle and flap controls in red, and the gear lever in blue (and the trim in green, just for hoots). What's wrong with this picture?
The problem is that realistically, a pilot would never be able to manipulate the throttle and flaps at the same time. He'd have to choose to do one or the other; switching back and forth would take time and effort (especially under G-load), and he might even have to fumble a bit to get his hand's fingers where they needed to be. The amount of effort required would vary as well, depending upon circumstance. How precise could he be at choosing to drop 1,2, or 3 notches of flaps in a stressful situation and under G's?
On the other hand, I have all those controls at my fingertips, and am not experiencing any G's. I can easily manipulate those controls all at the same time if I desire. I can make them go back and forth, too! Imagine how difficult it would be to make all of the small (and large) adjustments I make during a fight, if I had to do it in reality! Moving my hand and arm back and forth between the throttle and flaps, maybe even to the trim wheel, maybe to the gear lever... Flaps up, flaps down. Down another notch, then up! All the throttle tweaking at the same time (well, not in reality...).
The simple fact is that it would have been far more difficult for an actual pilot to make use of the flaps and throttle in the way I can (an do) do it with ease. That alone would have prevented many pilots from ever "playing with" the flaps like we do in AH. The pilot would probably have kept his hand on the throttle for the most part, and wouldn't have been all that likely to mess with flaps and get low, slow and dirty. Especially since doing so would put him at a distinct disadvantage, and probably into a situation where he'd have been forced to impossibly manipulate his controls in an efficient "AH manner" to survive.
This is true even if the FM for any particular plane is absolutely flawless...
But of course, if the slipstream model is incorrect, I'm hopeful it'll be fixed. Same thing goes for the effects of torque (which I highly suspect is neutered).
But if those do become modeled "perfectly" the planes will still be easily capable of "unrealistic" flight until the capabilities of the pilots are modeled precisely as well. Maybe there could be a link between the amount of G's being experienced, and whether or not you could adjust flap settings?
