If The Ta152 is perked...then why isnt the b17/b26

[JoeCrip]

I have noticed somthing lately in the MA...primarily dealing with buffs. People have been using buffs as high high-alt. interceptors. Ta152 is perked beacuse: 1) prefroms well at high alt. The b17 and b26 can both out-prefrom a Ta152 at high alts. Hell, i have been beaten at high alts. by a b26 in a 152. Why can buffs outturn, outroll, outrun, and out-everything fighters at 25+ K...Pllllllzzz Fix this

[streakeagle]

There is nothing to fix.

Long thin wings work great at high altitude.

Fighters use stubbier wings combined with horsepower to get superior speed and climb performance. But at altitude, engine performance falls off and wing performance dominates.

The F-15 is Mach 2.5+ and has better than 1.4:1 thrust to weight, but has a service ceiling of about 60,000 feet. The U-2 has almost no thrust to weight but awesome sailplane style high aspect ratio wing, which gives it a service ceiling well above 80,000 feet. I once saw an F-15E pilot make a statement on a bulletin board in reply to a complaint about the way the F-15's performance fell off at altitude in Jane's F-15. He made it quite clear that fully loaded KC-135 refueling planes outclimbed and outmaneuvered even lightly loaded F-15Es at 30,000 feet. At that altitude, the Strike Eagle is relatively close to its stall speed when subsonic, so it is at a relatively high angle of attack and needs to use a lot of power to compensate for the extra drag.

Bombers need more lift to carry heavy loads at altitude rather than speed, so they have wings more like a glider. Even the TA-152 with its long thin wings has too high of a wingloading to compare to the efficiency of the B-17. The B-17's vertical stabilizer and rudder are huge compared to fighters, so even at lower speeds, it still generates quite a bit of force. If the B-24 is ever added and modeled correctly, its wing was even better than the B-17 in terms of aspect ratio and aerodynamic efficiency.

I don't believe AH will ever get their flight models 100% correct using lookup tables based on a few data samples, but I believe they have done a very good job. A lot of the torque/stall/spin characteristics could probably benefit from extensive test data, but the basic performance and maneuverability seem to be pretty close to dead on.

If you don't believe what I am saying and have really good algebra skills, I recommend you read some aerodynamics books, gather some aircraft data, and try out some of the equations yourself. In the end, no single design can do everything well, so fighters sacrifice a lot to gain speed performance.

[Aub]

Nice explanation strike

Is the SR-71's high alt ability mainly come from its massive speed?

Aub

[whels]

Originally posted by JoeCrip
I have noticed somthing lately in the MA...primarily dealing with buffs. People have been using buffs as high high-alt. interceptors. Ta152 is perked beacuse: 1) prefroms well at high alt. The b17 and b26 can both out-prefrom a Ta152 at high alts. Hell, i have been beaten at high alts. by a b26 in a 152. Why can buffs outturn, outroll, outrun, and out-everything fighters at 25+ K...Pllllllzzz Fix this

Joe,

alot of the problem stems from not needing more then 25% fuel
to fly around the arena and home.  If the fuel multiplier was
applied so they had to take 100% fuel  to be able to travel the same distance, ud see alot less fightbuffin at Alt.

id like to see fuel at takeoff be hard coded to 100%, DTs optional.
ud never see a pilot tell the ground crew, oh only put 25% in my.

u want realism, id bet they never took off with 25% fuel in RL.

whels

[streakeagle]

Actually, I am willing to bet it depended on the mission. Fuel weight does reduce payload.

Since most missions were flown across the channel deep into Europe or over wide expanses of Pacific and usually had to spend quite a bit of time forming up and getting altitude, I would agree that B-17s and B-24s probably carried 100% fuel. But if those same planes had been employed they way they are in the main arena, surely they would have cut fuel loads and increased the bomb payloads.

Civil aircraft tend to carry as little fuel as practical so that there is a minimal risk during landing. I am pretty sure Navy jets do the same thing to ease their burden for carrier landings. Is it so unrealistic for MA buffs to exploit the full performance of their aircraft?

Do you want a reasonably accurate simulation or a well balanced arcade game? Because you can't have 100% both. There is no balance in reality, but everyone agrees 100% realism is boring. I think AH strikes the necessary compromise pretty well as it is currently implemented, though there are always going to be differing opinions and therefore always going to be room for improvement.

[iculus]

Read "B-17's over Berlin".  They rarely put 100% fuel in a fort.  There was a safety margin, yes, but some planes still landed with only a few minutes of fuel left or wound up ditching in the North Sea.

IC

[WBHoncho]

"Near the end of 1944, Kurt Tank himself had a narrow escape while flying one of his Ta 152Hs. He was flying from Langenhagen near Hannover to attend a meeting at the Focke-Wulf plant in Cottbus. His plane carried armament, but no ammunition. Shortly after takeoff, he was jumped by four Mustangs. Tank pressed the button which activated his MW 50 boost, opened the throttle wide, and quickly left the Mustangs far behind in a cloud of blue smoke. "

_ _ _ _


"The result was an airplane faster and more maneuverable than the P-51 Mustang and the P-47 Thunderbolt. "

_ _ _ _



Quotes, there is a million of em, I not flown Ah version enough to see how it tracks with history.  I would suspect it best stay perked.

[Glasses]

Which in AH apparently is false Honcho P47s and P51s in AH can eat a Ta152 alive even if you outmaneuver them they'll still get you with the space age guided weapons(Rude:a whine has been recorded ),again I don't think it should be unperked I like it and all but not unperked, though I'd really like it if it was cheaper than 30 perks , say 15 perk points then it would be acceptable and still would keep it rare.

Maybe you should try it in  the CT where the stakes are not that high in perk point cost and even getting points for a 262 is arelatively easy task.

There's a suspicion that maybe the Jumos in AH MIGHT  be undermodeled I cannot confirm this so I won't say anything more about it(B-T-W it was not me who said this) but if there's any proof about it and tests are done to confirm it within guidelines for plane testing here then it should be brought forth for a revision until then zip zippity doo dah.

I was also told by very a reliable, trustworthy, and sort of respected source(s) that BUFFs in AH don't have a Flight Model per say only are a gameplay concession to broaden  the playing field  unfortunately I don't have the screenshot of our private conversation only a couple of months ago .

[Lowstrut]

Originally posted by streakeagle
Actually, I am willing to bet it depended on the mission. Fuel weight does reduce payload.

Since most missions were flown across the channel deep into Europe or over wide expanses of Pacific and usually had to spend quite a bit of time forming up and getting altitude, I would agree that B-17s and B-24s probably carried 100% fuel. But if those same planes had been employed they way they are in the main arena, surely they would have cut fuel loads and increased the bomb payloads.

Civil aircraft tend to carry as little fuel as practical so that there is a minimal risk during landing. I am pretty sure Navy jets do the same thing to ease their burden for carrier landings. Is it so unrealistic for MA buffs to exploit the full performance of their aircraft?

Do you want a reasonably accurate simulation or a well balanced arcade game? Because you can't have 100% both. There is no balance in reality, but everyone agrees 100% realism is boring. I think AH strikes the necessary compromise pretty well as it is currently implemented, though there are always going to be differing opinions and therefore always going to be room for improvement.

nothing really just perusing the boards and figured I'd toss this in..

Navy fighters take off with as much fuel as they can carry.... the more the better... think of it this way.. nearest land is 7 miles straight down.. how much gas would you want..?

Hornets are the worst.. the leave the deck hunting for a tanker with a full payload.. if they have extra fuel they dump it prior to arrival.. if memory serves correctly the average fuel weight on arrival was 2.0-2.8 thousand lbs.. sometimes lower depending on the situation.. and they had tankers available immediately off the deck for aircraft in need. Heh..

The reason I know all this.. is because I was in the navy for 10 years as an air traffic controller.. and we monitored fuel states pretty tightly on board ship...

[Apar]

Enlarging the MA maps will make the B17 and B26 need to take more fuel.

[mrsid2]

And boredom from 2 hour transit flights to the nearest field.

[Wilbus]

Belive that was me glasses, I'm on it

[streakeagle]

nothing really just perusing the boards and figured I'd toss this in..

Navy fighters take off with as much fuel as they can carry.... the more the better... think of it this way.. nearest land is 7 miles straight down.. how much gas would you want..?

Hornets are the worst.. the leave the deck hunting for a tanker with a full payload.. if they have extra fuel they dump it prior to arrival.. if memory serves correctly the average fuel weight on arrival was 2.0-2.8 thousand lbs.. sometimes lower depending on the situation.. and they had tankers available immediately off the deck for aircraft in need. Heh..

The reason I know all this.. is because I was in the navy for 10 years as an air traffic controller.. and we monitored fuel states pretty tightly on board ship...

I know F-14s don't ever take off from a carrier with 6 Phoenix missiles because their landing weight would be too high and no one wants to jettison missiles that cost almost as much as a MiG-21. 6 Phoenix missiles weigh about 6000 lbs. But they land just fine with 4 Phoenix missiles. So they are concerned about a 2000 lb difference. A full load of fuel weighs a whole lot more. Given these facts, I find it difficult to believe that they always take off with 100% fuel if the duration/range of the mission will not consume at least half of the internal load. Would they Jettison 4000 lbs or more of fuel every flight? Or just light the afterburners up for the sake of lightening their load? Sounds very wasteful.

Of course you were there and I was not. But what were the mission profiles when all this fuel was being carried? Hornets are notoriously short ranged, so I wouldn't doubt they always takeoff with full loads. But most other Navy aircraft like Tomcats, Vikings, and Intruders have impressive ranges and endurances. I wouldn't expect them to need 100% loadouts for short hops, unless the Navy's policy is to get the absolute maximum flight time out of every flight (which is possible). I am not saying you are lying, I am looking for further clarification.

I wonder how the Air Force operates? Always topped off? F-15Es can carry 23,000 lbs of fuel internally plus another 12,000 lbs externally. They would make a big crater with either loadout and certainly don't need to fly over 3000 nm on their average training flights. Not to mention the performance degradation when loaded out like that.

[Steven]

Military aircraft do not always takeoff with full bags of fuel.  Look at your typical "Mission Planning Form" and you can see fuel is one of the variables calculated for in determining weight/range of an aircraft.  Less fuel carried can sometimes mean more weapons carried as well.  So you are saying USN ATC guys are informed of the amount of fuel carried at time of takeoff?

<>
This is not atypical for many aircraft types through the years, and there can be several reasons for these two points.  Some aircraft will specifically takeoff with an insufficient amount of fuel so they can get off the deck with a good amount of weapons and then tank and get the fuel needed for the mission..if needed.  Also, during form-up over a carrier for a package/alpha strike, afterburner takeoffs and forming up can take time and fuel and it's not aypical to take on extra gas before heading out to bad-guy territory.  And yeah, to land on a CV it's quite common to dump the fuel being carried, but again, this doesn't mean that aircraft started with full bags.

[SKurj]

Buffs as hi alt interceptors?  LOL

They would have to take off 40mins or more before the target came into its airspace...

B26 doesn't even know what Hi alt means...

SKurj