Know Thine Aircraft - Improved Performance Comparison Charts

[Vermillion]

First Rule of ACM, know the strengths of your aircraft vs the weakness of your enemy.

As part of my testing of some of the aircraft Flight Models, I digitized the data that I presented in numerous charts last week for each of the planes from AH, and collated them too one chart per performance variable (climb, speed, turn).

 

 

 

If anyone has the data needed to add the Maachi MC.205, please forward it too me, and I will add it to the charts.

I will also try to update the charts as other aircraft are added to the planeset.

Feel free to copy the charts or link to them on my site. However, please give credit of their source if you use them publicly.


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Vermillion
WB's: (verm--), **MOL**, Men of Leisure,

[Granger]

What good are these charts?
Historical performance dont mean squat here..lets see someone poor sucker outrun a 109 at 5k in a 51 in aces high.

[Mark Luper]

Granger,
I do it regularly, only plane that can catch me is another P-51. Just learn how to do it. Keep it in a dive at first, full wep, don't get too close to the con 109 unless he is going the other direction or 90 deg to yours before you start your dive. Make sure your plane is "clean", i.e. no rockets, drop tanks, or anything else flapping around in the wind. Do not initiate any kind of climb, dive to the deck in wep and stay there, in wep. Don't turn any. Straight and level will do it.
When you get about 2 to 3k from him do a high yo-yo and bludgeon him to death with B&Z :-).


MarkAT

[Vermillion]

Well Granger, there are many factors that effect a situation like you describe, it isn't just climb, speed, or turnrate.

Your neglecting factors such as initial E state, current speed, acceleration, roll rates, dive speed, aircraft configurations, fuel and ammo loads, flaps and gear positions, Center of Gravity, and several others if you want to get really in depth. In fact it would take a graduate degree in engineering (or equivalent experience), to adequately describe or even understand all the factors and ramifications in detail of a 4 Dimensional analysis such as this (ie mathematically).

The charts are useful as a general indicator of performance. In other words, all other things being equal, a P-51 is gonna be faster than a La-5 at all altitudes. But the La-5 should outturn the P-51 the Pony in a strictly flat turn fight below 17,000 ft. Add in more variables, and things get much more complicated.

Factoring in all the other variables, for instance the ones I named above (and others), is what seperates the expert pilots from the common pilots.

Also remember that this is a beta and the Flight Models aren't perfected yet, thats why I title them "Historic". Because your experience may differ right now. For instance it seems that the N1K2 is horribly underpowered right now in AH according to my data. But that remains to be seen, I could be mistaken or making an assumption based upon incorrect data.

I'm not making you use them   Totally disregard them if you wish.

They're most useful to people new to flight sims, or trying out an airplane they are totally unfamiliar with.

There is no substitute for experience.


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Vermillion
WB's: (verm--), **MOL**, Men of Leisure,
"Real men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires "

[leonid]

Verm,
No wonder the Spitfire is such a dweeb plane in AW, look at it's rate of climb.  Whether it is accurate is something I don't know, but what I do know is that the Bf 109G-6 climbed slightly better than the Spit IX, and this was one of the more anemic 109s too.  On the other end of the spectrum, the Bf 109K-4 was a climbing beast, and was practically the climbing King of WWII aircraft fighters.  Yet, according to AW data it is quite pathetic.  How is it that AW could be so wrong about their data, and yet never rectify it?

One last thing, Verm.  When AH is finalized I'm expecting YOU to make us all AH performance charts of the various aircraft represented.  And, yes, I'll test pilot for you too  


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129 IAP VVS RKKA

[ft]

I've been looking for the procedures used back in those days to test new planes. Sure could be put to good use in AH. I'm not having much luck finding that info though, although it must be out there somewhere (unless it's buried in some military archive).

We could of course work it out by ourselves, but I'd rather have tested procedures before I start putting in the hours to cook up data that might have to be discarded anyway since we made erroneous assumptions.

Anyone else interested? Other AE people? I'm an AE student myself, before you ask.

Cheers,
   /ft - AH test pilot?  

[spinny]

"When you get about 2 to 3k from him do a high yo-yo and bludgeon him to death with B&Z :-)."

How can you do a high yoyo if he's back there on you 6?

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Spinny, VF-17
8X

[Granger]

Mark,
I am not talking about a dive.
I am talking about strait and level flight.
Get to 5k, get a friend to pilot a 109 to 5k,level out and race for 40 miles..see who wins. I know the 51 can outdive anything in the game period. But that is not what is being reflected in the charts above. The charts are showing strait and level flight top speed, and in aces high at the moment the 109 will eat a 51s lunch and blow it away speed wise. The 51 is all i have flown for the last 3 weeks or so, and have been cought many times from 5k behind and below with the 109 not only being lower and slower when we start but climbing up co-alt with me and running me down. I usually take just 25% fuel and no rockets..its a clean ride.

Couple times at around 25k it seemed that the 109 was neither gaining or loosing ground on me. But under that altitude its a lost cause..the 109 will catch the 51 easy in level flight.

[JENG]

everything always depends on the situation...and the different E states of the relative planes ... but it's nice to have some clean stats to work from...  

Thanks vermilion

JENG
Virtus sola est at ove unica nobilitas

[Vermillion]

Leonid
The biggest question is what Spit IX are we talking about?   Are we talking about the 1942 Spit IX (which is most likely if compared to a mid war 109), or are we speaking of the late war 1944 version of the Spit IX.  The British have to be the second most screwiest country (the Russians being the first   just look at the Yak 3 (multiple aircraft designated this) / Yak 9 fiasco ) when it came to their aircraft numbering system.

There were at least 3 and I think 4 different engines (Merlin 60, 61, and 66 come to mind), 4 different "standard" armament packages, and clipped and non-clipped wing variants.  All of which fly significantly different. Jane's Planes of WWII has quite a good section on the Spit IX, illustrating the differences.

Now does this mean the AW data is right? Not necessarily, but that doesn't mean its wrong either.  We may not be comparing apples to apples here.

Reportedly, the AW chart data comes directly from NASM, NACA, and the AirForce and Navy flight tests. In most cases I have seen it is quite accurate in comparison to other sources. But since I don't have original copies of the data I present it like it is, and try to explain its source, but not to justify it. Hell, it could easily be screwed for all I know  

My bet is that the Chart and Aces High  (given in game performance) both are using the 1944 late war version of the Spitfire IX.

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Vermillion
WB's: (verm--), **MOL**, Men of Leisure,
"Real men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires "

[Vermillion]

Oh and one more thing for both Leonid and ft.

If you guys want to get together and combine flight testing efforts, I am all for it.

I had originally planned on doing it for all planes, but to do it correctly is very time consuming. (ie around 2 hours to test max speed for one aircraft alone)

The critical thing is to establish a set of standard testing parameters that we all follow.

I was also going to contact Fats and Funked to see if they are interested, you guys up for it ?


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Vermillion
WB's: (verm--), **MOL**, Men of Leisure,
"Real men fly Radials, Nancy Boys fly Spitfires "

[Flathat]

Diving away in a 51 is usually said to be a matter of unloading the airframe (zero G dive)...my problem is that I have a heck of a time holding the profile. It doesn't want to stay at 0G for more than a second or two, and then it bounces right back to 1 or even 1.5G. What am I doing wrong?

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Flathat
'Black Dahlia'
No10 RNAS "The Black Flight"
Angel on your wing, devil on your tail

[fats]

I can do Spitfire Mk.IX or perhaps Fw 190A-8 - that is if we _ever_ get it. It would be nice to have .alt, .fuel and .infinite_fuel for offline so you can get to specific alt with specific fuel and have that fuel constantly w/o it getting less.

I was looking at the AW charts and the K-4 seems totally screwed in climb, 3,600 fpm best it could do?


//fats

[leonid]

Verm,
I think you missed my point.  I don't necessarily disagree with the Spitfire IX climb per se, since I am aware there were many variants for the IX.

My point is the low climb rate for the Bf 109K-4 in AW.  This plane had a RL average climb rate of something like 5k/minute for the first 20k, or so, of altitude.  Hence, the K-4 should blow away the Spitfire IX in a climb.  WB implemented this discrepency correctly, but from the looks of AW climb chart, AW most likely doesn't.  Maybe, the Allies got a hold of some tired, old K-4, resulting in some less than average flight test results?

... as for flight testing let me know, and ft send me email (or I, you), so we can touch bases.  However, you might want to wait until the FM is finalized.  We should get word on that from Pyro, then.

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129 IAP VVS RKKA

[Mark Luper]

Spinny,
Just as the quote states, "When you get about 2 to 3k from him..." He is not right on your 6, that distance gives me plenty of room to do a high yo-yo and meet him head on with an altitude advantage unless he chose to go vertical too.

Granger,
If you both start out same level, same speed the 109 will out accelerate the 51 and gain some ground. At a certain point though it quits gaining and I have found the roles reversed and been able to gain on the 109. You are certainly flying a "clean" airplane if you fly it as you described, but I have found at times it is necessary to let auto-level clean it up even more. It works for me when it used to not. Took some practice but I don't recall being overtaken by a 109 since that time.


MarkAT