"Easy" or "hard"? Starring the AH P-38

[uptown]

I say neither to the OPs question, fair, average, does all things with an average bent, one thing it excels at is attraction but think that was already established in this thread, makes for a big target, would be curious to see some numbers on the size of the hit bubble compared to say a yak or LA7 ingame.

The Pee51s and 47s have a smaller side profile than the 38.

[Soulyss]

The Pee51s and 47s have a smaller side profile than the 38.

Only when looking at the planform, look from the side down the wing and the 38 is no bigger than a 51, abd probably smaller than a 47.   getting skinny is something 38 drivers have to learn.

[uptown]

Only when looking at the planform, look from the side down the wing and the 38 is no bigger than a 51, abd probably smaller than a 47.   getting skinny is something 38 drivers have to learn.

Yes I got that backwards. The 51 and 47s have a LARGER side profile than the 38s  ..........TwinBoom mentioned something about getting "skinny" but when ever I suck my gut in I still get shot to hell!   The swearing off of Twinkies and doing jumping jacks before a sortie isn't working either.  

[Randy1]

 getting skinny is something 38 drivers have to learn.

Soulyss, I have finally started working that into my skills.  It took awhile to have it happen without much thought.

[IronDog]

Several years ago I flew with the 475th Squadron,and at it's peak we had the best pilots in AH,TwinBoom,Killnu,Fester,SkyRock,and many more I can't recall now.Most of them are flying with the Muppet's now as they are among the best pilots in AH.Most of them fly planes with high eny's because they are that good!A P-38 to me flown by a good stick,is a killing machine!A p-38 flown by an average stick like me is a death trap!My SA has long since departed,and I get picked a lot while trying to rope a enemy.I think a P-38 is a well balanced air plane,and while it is a big target,one must be careful,when you engage one when you don't have any help around,as they will beat you if flown by a good stick.

[HL117]

Only when looking at the planform, look from the side down the wing and the 38 is no bigger than a 51, abd probably smaller than a 47.   getting skinny is something 38 drivers have to learn.

The numbers I am seeing for the side view :

P-38 - Length 37 feet

P-51 - Length 32 feet

P-47 - Length 36 feet

 I found nothing for the height of the fuselage with wheels up, but you can see the jug is much taller through out the lenght when it comes to fuse height.

Like I said ealier show me the number for the hit bubble, just think we could start a whole new whine section on why this plane has this size hit bubble and what not, Oh the humanity!

[moot]

If the 38 goes into BnZ mode, the spit has no hope so what exactly is it again that makes a plane easy or hard?  Is a spit5 easy beacause the 38 turned with it and lost or is the 38 easy because the spit played the E game with it and lost?  It seems that ones actions define the "easiness" of the other plane.

No.  It's (as I understand others) about how much of a "buffer" the plane is to players' basic tactical intentions.  Analogous to some performance cars or motorcycles that are described as "telepathic" but others not; and yet those others might perform (overall) on par or better.

If we say the P-38 is roughly on par with the P-51 in terms of overall killing ability (apples and oranges squeezed to equal volume of juice), we have a good illustration: they're roughly equal on that benchmark, but the 51 is pretty unarguably more user friendly.  IOW the 51 is more "easy"


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Triton I'll have time to do more than reply at a glance midweek when I'm done with moving.  Don't mean to ignore the discussion.

[Letalis]

"Easy" and "Hard" are what the pilot makes of them.  Attaching such labels to an airframe will establish a baseline correlation based on the average player's flying style, but ultimately attaching the label to the airframe is pointless.

Want to fly a Pony into into a swarm of Spits on the deck? Life just got hard.  Want to pick your matchups from the top of a furball in a K4?  Life just got easy.  

Personally, I consider the 38 to be a moderately hard aircraft to fly successfully in, much like the Jug.  It's difficulties do not stem from any severe shortcoming in performance, but more because of unique size and handling characteristics.

[muzik]

1.  stable plane/platform =  less 'manuverable' (in a 'TnB' sense)
2.  plane that's inherently unstable = manuverable (in a 'TnB' sense)

Think you got this backwards. And I would add unstable usually means higher top speeds.

[Debrody]

For me, the P38 is pretty damn hard. I mean, i have tryed it in the MA, even had some success with it, but couldnt feel well in that aircraft. After some dueling rounds with IrishOne, found out, why: no torque, no talwhipping tricks, fancy reversals, easy snaprolls, etc, all my moves i like to use are nearly impossible in this aircraft. If someone figures out, how to live with it, this plane might be OK, but nowhere as easy as a Spit, a Niki, a Lala or even a 109K.

[Wiley]

Like I said ealier show me the number for the hit bubble, just think we could start a whole new whine section on why this plane has this size hit bubble and what not, Oh the humanity!

Pretty sure there is no hit 'bubble'.  Bullets actually have to hit the 3D model, or they cause no damage.

Wiley.

[Karnak]

Pretty sure there is no hit 'bubble'.  Bullets actually have to hit the 3D model, or they cause no damage.

Wiley.

Correct.  There was a hit bubble in AH1, but AH2 fixed that and now rounds have to hit the 3D model shape.

[Gman]

One thing I read in a link someplace from this BBS, I'll have to try and find it again, is that the designers of the P38 stated that most of the hits absorbed when a fighter is shot at are along the fuselage axis where the P38 has mostly empty space, right between the twin tail booms.  They stated it as a percentage factor, and I can't remember it for the life of me, but it was astonishingly high, the amount of "air" that incoming bullets would hit instead of aircraft body.

I've even noticed this in AH, when talking about getting skinny, IE pointing your wing at an opponent who is firing or just about to get into a firing solution whenever it is possible.  Even when you can't get that wing quite at your opponent, even though the P38 seems like a large target, and planform with the big wing, it is, there is still that spot, the "sweet" spot the designers were talking about where most incoming rounds hit standard shape planes, that the P38 has nothing but empty space.  When shooting at P38s many times in deflection shots with the 30mm, I've had rounds whistle right through that spot on playback on flim, shots against any other aircraft would be catastrophic kills.  It's one of the fascinating things about the P38 that makes it sort of a romantic aircraft to me, the fact that it is big, yet small at the same time.

I hope somebody here, one of the P38 guru's, or probably WideWing, knows that source for what I'm talking about, I'd love to have a permanent link or copy of that information, regarding that empty space in the design, and how incoming rounds were factored into that etc.

[Soulyss]

If the 38's is considered to be on the more difficult side I think it's because it doesn't have a trump card against a lot of the more common aircraft in the MA.  Or I should say it's trump card can be harder to employ to gain an advantage.

Some other planes have something that they can fall back on against a lot of opponents, whether it's speed, climb, turn rate, turn radius etc. In a A6M, Brewster, Ki-43, etc.  my tactic is going to be try and slow the fight down, in a 190 or 51 I am going to keep it fast nearly every chance I get. 

With the 38 it can do a lot of things reasonably well but you're constantly changing tactics and having to make a lot of decisions, the one thing that it can fall back on, the one thing that it does better than anything else is be very, very stable at low speeds which is hard to exploit to advantage IMHO.  The 38 can park nose high all the way down to 0 airspeed and then fall off in just about any way it chooses.  It doesn't roll well at low speeds but it remains under control and can roll either way (albeit slowly).

What I've also found is that I've picked up a lot of habits from flying the 38 that don't translate well into other planes, I tend to roll right a lot of the time which works to my disadvantage when slow in a lot of single engine planes.

In the end I don't know if the question is whether it is easier or hard but more of how much different is it due to the zero net torque and jack of all trades characteristics than some of the other A/C in the set.

[Brooke]

Well put, I think.