AH vs R/L planes

[earl1937]

I can only speak for the warbird trainer SNJ texans stall behavior as the closest thing to warbirds stall behavior I have gotten to fly...

coordinated rudder plays a huge part in the stall behavior of the texan.

straight and level coordinated power on or off the stall can be gentle and the nose simply drops forward. BUT...

if you enter a stall in an uncoordinated state or in a turn uncoordinated you will get wing drop very noticable as the plane stalls.

there is some buffet and you can feel it coming and recover easily but if you ham fist it you could end up nearly upside down at the beginning of a spin in a nose down angle.

this is how people die in t6 texans on a regular basis. if they attempt a roll at too low an airspeed and altitude or a base to final turn in a skid and exceed the critical angle of attack on one wing before the other the NTSB gets involved and there ussually are no survivors in the texan.



(Image removed from quote.)

There could be an argument made that the T-6 was the best primary flight trainer ever made! If you could master the T-6, you could almost fly anything, in so far as stick and rudder control is concerned. Stick and Rudder coordinated flight at all times is a must!!

[earl1937]

Two questions have flashed into my mind.

-How was the WW2 planes prop pitch control working? In AH, you just set an rpm and your prop pitch is changing constantly to maintain that, only limited by the engine power (at low very low speeds) and the highest angle of the prop pitch (the prop is forced to hit higher rpms at very high speeds than its wep rpm)

-The stall. Im not a R/L pilot, in fact, i have never been flying or been on an aeroplane in flight, therefore i cannot imagine the feeling when the aircraft stalls. Could a R/L pilot explain this for me?

Thanks!

Have you tail spun the 109's and 190's? If not, try it: power off, nose up about 30 degrees and as buffering starts, full left rudder and full back stick and just sit there, might take a turn or two before it gets to spinning like a real aircraft. Easy, quick way to come down from 15K to 5K when RTB.

[Arlo]

One other thing, when the stall happens, it feels like when, on a rollercoaster, you drop down one of the hills (i.e., "the bottom falls out" sort of feeling).

The only ting I hated about flight lessons.  

[Brooke]

I like spins, turbulence, etc. -- but I am very susceptible to motion sickness even in a car if I'm not the one driving.

One of the times flying for me that was the most fun was a very, very turbulent gusty day in Michigan in a Cessna 152.  In addition to that, it was a hot summer day, and there was a large plowed-up section of dark earth right before the runway.  So, I'd set it up on final, then get over the plowed-up section, and the plane would get slammed upward.

One of the others was taking off and landing on a grass strip with a paved runway running across the middle of it.  The paved runway was higher than the grass, so I had to keep the nose wheel off the ground when transiting that, and the plane would do a little jump going across the raised part.

The closest I got to puking was flying at Air Combat USA.  Coming back after the dogfights, the instructor pilot came hammering back to the field and then slammed it into a hard turn without telling me he was going to do that, and I quickly blacked out.  When I came back to, the g-limit beeper was sounding, so I'm guessing 6 g's or a little more.  Then, I almost hurled.     I found dogfighting in the SF.260 to be very close to dogfighting in AH -- all the same moves and techniques worked the same way.

[Arlo]

Oh,that's a fun lookin' plane!





I want. (Seems my theme, lately.)

[Blagard]

I like spins, turbulence, etc. -- but I am very susceptible to motion sickness even in a car if I'm not the one driving.

I went up in a Cessna 152 one day with the sole intention of doing aerobatics with the instructor. After a few rolls loops and spins I could tell the instructor was getting a little green when he said "let me show you something" His way of getting back on the controls so avoid hurling! - In this instance I can't remember all the settings but throttle came back to around 1500 RPM and he nursed the 152 along until he got the speed and attitude all set up. Next was to throw in the lot (I think) because the 152 executed a flick roll, recovery from which is more about timing than trying to follow the horizon which just spun around as a blur! I never knew it had the capability! - A conventional roll in a 152 (Full aileron and rudder) takes forever at much higher speed from a nose high attitude to exit in a nose low (wind it up to 120 in a shallow dive! before raising the nose). After a few more manoeuvres from the instructor it was my turn to start the cold sweat warning you of an impending hurl!

[hitech]

One of the times flying for me that was the most fun was a very, very turbulent gusty day in Michigan in a Cessna 152.  In addition to that, it was a hot summer day, and there was a large plowed-up section of dark earth right before the runway.  So, I'd set it up on final, then get over the plowed-up section, and the plane would get slammed upward.

You are a sick man. And the first I know of who enjoys hot airplanes and bumps.

The closest I got to puking was flying at Air Combat USA.  Coming back after the dogfights, the instructor pilot came hammering back to the field and then slammed it into a hard turn without telling me he was going to do that, and I quickly blacked out.  When I came back to, the g-limit beeper was sounding, so I'm guessing 6 g's or a little more.  Then, I almost hurled.     I found dogfighting in the SF.260 to be very close to dogfighting in AH -- all the same moves and techniques worked the same way.

No water and a hot 6g day, had me working to keep it down it down while flying Air Combat USA.
Lesson learned that day was ,  hot day, I always have water in the plane.
But my record remains clean.

The other time I felt ill was after giving 4 different people aerobatic rides on a hot after noon.

HiTech




HiTech

[Arlo]

You are a sick man. And the first I know of who enjoys hot airplanes and bumps.

No water and a hot 6g day, had me working to keep it down it down while flying Air Combat USA.
Lesson learned that day was ,  hot day, I always have water in the plane.
But my record remains clean.

The other time I felt ill was after giving 4 different people aerobatic rides on a hot after noon.

HiTech

Hot weather in the 152 I trained in meant 3/4 tank, tops. I weighed in 225 football weight and my instructor was heavier than me.

But geez, stall recovery was mandatory every hop. Did a lot of killin the engine and lookin for a dirt road (and the telephone lines around them).

 

[Debrody]

Have you tail spun the 109's and 190's? If not, try it: power off, nose up about 30 degrees and as buffering starts, full left rudder and full back stick and just sit there, might take a turn or two before it gets to spinning like a real aircraft. Easy, quick way to come down from 15K to 5K when RTB.

I think i have tryed almost everything a 109G6 and a 190D9 can do in-game. Was just curious, how close the in-game flight model is to the "real aircraft feeling" - sorry, i cannot express myself any better.

[Brooke]

I went up in a Cessna 152 one day with the sole intention of doing aerobatics with the instructor. After a few rolls loops and spins

I hope that it was a 152 Aerobat! 

[Brooke]

You are a sick man. And the first I know of who enjoys hot airplanes and bumps.

OK, I admit to not being so fond of the hot interior of the plane. 

No water and a hot 6g day, had me working to keep it down it down while flying Air Combat USA.
Lesson learned that day was ,  hot day, I always have water in the plane.
But my record remains clean.

Heh! 

My Air Combat USA day, I very queasy for the whole rest of the day.

[Brooke]

Was just curious, how close the in-game flight model is to the "real aircraft feeling" - sorry, i cannot express myself any better.

Compared to a bunch of guys here, I have almost no real flight time -- I don't presume to speak for any of them.  The following is from only my limited experience.

With regard to flying around in a regular civilian airplane, the main thing you don't feel in AH compared to the real thing is the bumpiness here and there of the usual little bit of turbulence.  AH is like flying on a very calm day.  However, I think that it would be a very bad idea to have constant screen shake in the game as turbulence, as it would quickly make many people nauseous.  The same is true of driving games that implement road bumpiness and make the screen constantly shake about -- that is, I think, a bad choice.  Your visual system has the ability to deal with bumpiness in real life -- when its a computer screen shaking around, though, shakiness is not a good analog and, instead of making things more realistic, can make it unrealistically intolerable.

With regard to flying in a prop-plane dogfight, such as Air Combat USA, the main difference is feeling the g's, but that's not too big a deal at 4 g's or less.  (Turbulence here is not a factor at all or even noticed when you are in a dogfight.)  The handling of an SF.260 -- how it feels on its controls, control response, what it's like to roll it, loop it, do split s'es down onto your opponent's tail, high yo yo, do a vertical pursuit in it, stall-speed turning fights on the "deck" (which at Air Combat USA was 3000 ft) -- is very much like typical planes in AH (like a P-51 or Spitfire).  Even how it feels approaching accelerated stalls is about the same as in AH.  Everything that you do fighting in AH translates exactly to fighting in an SF.260.

Flying formation is easier in real life than in AH because of unavoidable network communication effects.  Looking backward is a little easier in AH than in real life, depending on the flexibility of your neck and whether you are wearing glasses or contacts.  For landing, AH seems more forgiving on sideways and vertical speeds at touchdown (although look at some carrier landings for what those military aircraft could routinely take, so I'm not saying that AH is wrong).  The landing gear interaction with the ground seems a little more bouncy in AH than in real life (although I remember on my solo in a 152 doing a few bounces after touchdown as I wasn't used yet to the plane being so much lighter without the instructor in it).

Overall, I think AH is a wonderful flight simulation and excellent as a prop-plane dogfighting sim.

[Debrody]

Overall, I think AH is a wonderful flight simulation and excellent as a prop-plane dogfighting sim.

Heard this from many people. 

[pembquist]

I'd like to add that AH models slipping where xplane and fsxxx doesn't seem to, (I seem to remember reading about one cessna that somebody made that did in fsx.)  I don't know what slipping any of the real planes that are modeled in AH would be like so I don't know how realistic it is but the fact that you CAN slip makes it feel like a much better stick and rudder sim than the other two. Instruments are a little peculiar though.  I find it hard to believe that the real life AH aircraft were quite so easy to land without ground looping, you can jam the throttle on and not much happens, also there is never a cross wind.

[gyrene81]

I find it hard to believe that the real life AH aircraft were quite so easy to land without ground looping, you can jam the throttle on and not much happens, also there is never a cross wind.

i don't know what you been flying but using manual take off, i've crashed 109s, f4us and f6fs jamming the throttle forward and not using any rudder.