I went and tried what ra said offline, and lo and behold, it worked. The F-4U4 (trimmed yaw and roll neutral with 50% gas and pitch trim full up) actually took off hands free. It did turn slightly left, and ran off the left side of the boat slightly before the end, but it powered out of the descent just prior to hitting the water although it was a very close thing. It then developed a left rolling motion that took it back towards the water, but the up trim began to raise the nose again as airspeed built. Once again it began to climb, then continuing its left roll, ended up on its back diving towards the water. I took over at this point, recovered the aircraft, and climbed to 12k for another torque test. Once established and trimmed into level flight at 12k, I reduced power pulled nose up, and entered a right hand erect spin by pulling stick full aft, and applying full right rudder once the aircraft stalled. Once established in the spin, I attempted to recover using standard inputs of stick slightly forward, and full opposite rudder. The aircraft began to slowly recover. I applied full throttle, and the spin recovered almost immediately, which leads me to believe that the torque of the engine is at least modelled somewhat. It then occured to me that perhaps the reason that the aircraft recovered, was because the engine is so powerful that the application of power immediately broke the stall with increased airspeed and airflow, to the point where the rudder had more authority. So I tried a left hand spin. Same trick didnt work here, so torque is modelled to a certain degree at least. By the way, the spin characteristics of the F-4U4 are weird to say the least, it is much harder to spin than the F-4U1 is, at least in my opinion.
I then tried the hands free takeoff with the F-4UD, F-4U1, F-6f, and the Zeke. All went off the left side of the runway and crashed. The Hellcat came the closest to succeeding. The Zeke, which has the least power and torque of all these planes was affected most by torque. Of course its lighter too, which would make it more susceptible to torque, but I would still think from the accounts that I have read by pilots that got the chance to fly both, that the Corsair should have much worse torque than the Zero. I next tried the F-4U4 with the trim in the default setting. This time it went off the left side slightly sooner and crashed, which is odd because you would think that the default trim setting should be either all neutralized, or else in some setting that would help you takeoff, rather than making the airplane turn left even more than it already wants to. Default takeoff trim for my F-4U4 was Aileron slightly right wing down which helps of course, and rudder slightly left which doesnt.
I tried taking off normally with the Corsair and paid careful attention to how much rudder input I used. It wasnt as much as I thought I had been using, just enough to keep the plane centered on the runway. I then tried taking off from a land field in the P-47 to see if my memory was failing me since I know that I usually have to use lots of rudder. In the Jug, torque is much more apparent. At 50% fuel, and carrying no external ordnance, the Jug turned sharply to the left upon application of full power, and exited the runway almost immediately. I then tried taking off normally, and I did indeed have to use lots of rudder input to maintain directional stability. So the Jug seems more accurately modelled which brings up an interesting question. The P-47 and the F-4U use the same engine, but the Corsair is somewhat lighter, which would logically lead you to conclude that torque would have a stronger effect on the Corsair. This doesnt seem to be the case though. I took the Corsair off the land field too, so the thesis could be proven with all variables set equal, and again the Corsair hardly deviated to the left.
My conclusion is that torque isnt modelled correctly on the Corsair. Some of the other planes seem to exhibit a more correct behavior however, so the flight model of the Corsair may need to be tweaked somewhat.
I met a Corsair pilot once, the only Navy night fighter ace of the Korean war. His name is Guy Bordelon, and you may have seen a famous painting of him shooting down his 5th enemy with his F-4U5 Corsair. He told me several stories about the Corsair, and from the stories he told, it seems to me that the Corsair was very very tricky to handle, largely due to the torque of the engine. Other books that I have about the "Ensign eliminator" suggest the same. Either there is something not modelled correctly, or HTC has made the conscious decision to tone down the effect slighly in the interest of making the Corsair slightly more accessible to the casual player. I will still say, however, that the AH flight model is likely the best of any flight simulator I have flown, and I have tried over 30. I havent tried Il-2 yet, have to give it a shot as soon as I get the chance. I need a good offline sim to backup Aces High for those times when my Internet access is down.
