My spit14 costs too much thread.

[Stickman]

Historically, the P38 was, in fact, quite good in a turn. Not because of low wingloading, but rather because it's contra-rotating props gave it a great deal of stability, and also because of it's very gentle stall characteristics. It had no tendancy to snap roll at all, and the stall was very gentle, causing little or no loss in speed or altitude. A good pilot could bring the P38 into and out of a stall and effect a very tight turn rate, where a single engine fighter has to fight engine torque and be careful of a snap-roll all the way 'round. On paper, the Spit XIV should outturn the P38 quite handily, and in real life I doubt any but a reasonably experienced pilot in a P38 would be able to stay with the Spitfire. However, when you put an experienced pilot in the cockpit of the P38, he'll know how to take advantage of the stability and gentle stall and probably stay with the Spitfire through most maneuvers. The Lightning was widely known for it's ability to outfight any other fighter built down low at treetop level. It was it's stability and it's excess of horsepower that made this possible.  Unfortunately, I don't think any sim models the P38 with a stall resembling the real thing, and allowing a P38 to outturn a Spitfire by sheer turn rate isn't really fair; but by the same token, the P38 has never been modeled with the dive acceleration and zoom climb, or even the correct sustained rate of climb it had in real life, so I suppose it evens out, at least a little.  

BTW, the Spit XIV didn't have much greater wingloading than the IX or even the Ia, and most testing showed all Spitfires had pretty much the same turn rate, give or take.

[Vermillion]

Where does everyone get the idea that the Spit XIV turns bad?  No, it won't outturn zeke's and Spit V's, but what do you expect?  It will easily outturn anything that is even close to it in speed.  

I think it is Karnak that describes getting jumped by a F4U and trying to dive away? Why?  Proper tactics would have been to turn into the attack, and keep up your speed.  The Spit XIV turns well and retains E very well. After several passes, you would have equalized energy, where you could have chosen to go to an angles fight (which the Spit would win), or had several opportunities to disengage and run since the Spit is much faster.  Nothing personal Karnak, but it sounds like you panic'd when jumped by the Corsair, and made a bad judgement call.  We all make em.

And getting "forced to turnfight it in the furball", as someone else describes, is just an excuse.  That is plain and simple a failure in tactics and SA. A few rules to live by.  Always try to be one of the highest planes in the fight. Set a hard deck and stick too it, above 5k the Spit XIV is one of the fastest planes in the game.  Never ever follow a plane down into the "fur", unless you side has overwhelming numbers and local air superiority, or you will get jumped by follow on enemies and die.  Use vertical moves to reverse, and always bank that E after a gun pass. Learn to make snapshots, and not have to "lock on" an enemies six to get a kill, the Spit has excellent guns.  Never turn more than 90 degrees to follow an enemy. Patience.  Did I mention Patience? And never ever forget to be patient.

[Turbot]

Originally posted by Wlfgng
people keep saying how perking should/shouldn't be done because this/that aircraft has such and such performance in RL.

again, the perk system isn't about RL performance but more about game play/balance.

It's more likely that it was perked because so many people wanted to fly it... personally I agree.  I'd hate to see the arena dominated by spit14's.

He is right you know.   ENY/Perks etc isn't about how "good" a plane is.  The intent (from HTC posts) is to promote a certain arena mix.  Thats all.  One can reasonable assume HTC doesn't want alot of Sp14's flying around, and I guess to that extent the system is workign perfectly?

To get perks at a reasonable rate means you have park your low ENY planes (the planes HTC wants you to fly less) occassionally and and fly high ENY planes (The planes HTC wants to fly more).  Do time in this fashion and you will not care nearly so much about the cost of those perk rides.  

[Vermillion]

Too put my money where my mouth is, I just flew two combat sorties in a Spit XIV.  Around 4:00 PM to 4:45 PM EDT.  Up around A44 against the Knits (I was a Bish) and in fact Thrila was there with me.

I flew it just like I fly the Yak.  E fighter, engaging semi-conservatively, but not being too up tight about it using the tactics I described above.

Yup, the perk tag draws enemies like flies to stink. But I gotta say....

This plane is a beast !!!  I ended up with 3 kills, 2 assists, and I had another kill on a La7 when I disco'd that isn't showing up in the stats. Eventually I disco'd with half a tank of gas on my second sortie.  And I never used up more than 1/3 of my ammo.   The fights ranged from 20k down to the deck.

6 seperate planes jumped me with alt advantages.  A Spit V or IX (not sure which), two seperate La7's, a Typhoon, and a winged pair of P-51's that acted like they were using Vox.

Besides the obvious "I wanna get a perk plane desperation HO's",  the Spit had one fleeting shot at me from around 750, but otherwise the only ones to come close were the P-51's.  And obviously they were the toughest because they had 5k alt on me, alot of smash, and cooperated very well.  

They each made 2 BnZ passes on me, as I equalized the E (only using the Spits very nice turnrate to mess up their shots at the last second), and by the third pass the E had equalized enough that I blew thru their next pass and ran for home, they switched to angles fight and dropped onto my six.  The #1 pilot never had a shot at me, but the #2 pilot was able to lead turn me, and dropped onto my six at around 650.  He took several shots at me (but never pinged me) and closed to 475 at his closest before I started to pull away again.  I simply then drug them back to a bunch of approaching friendlies and they were toast.

to the Pony pilots they were quite good.

But back to the point.  Yes the perk tags draw alot of attention, but the plane is very very capable.  And if it had more ammo, I think I would prefer it too the Tempest.  No its not, jump into the nearest furball, slay all enemies, and fly away untouched.  But fly it like an E fighter, and its a pure blooded killer.

No wait.... I've changed my mind.  UPERK the Spit XIV !!! I would love to fly it every sortie

[Karnak]

Verm, if I'd started to turn every other enemy in icon range would have been on me, and I would have been slow due to E loss from turning.  They would have then taken turns BnZing me and I would have died.

I dove to try to equalize my E state with the F4U so I could climb away, unfortunately he got me before that could happen.

You turn, you die.  Its as simple as that.  Never, ever turn a perk plane if there is an enemy within D3 of you and always run from a higher con.

I've read of Spit XIV squadrons climbing into LW attacks with the throttle wide open.  That'll never happen here because the price combined with the icon puts to much at risk and focuses the attention on you.

Perk planes (except the Me262 and F4U-1C) are forced to fly in overly conservative ways.

Do you really think that ~300 Spitfire Mk XIV sorties are where it should be?  That's half what the Ta152H-1 gets.

[Vermillion]

Karnak,

I hope your coming to the Con this year.

We'll fly a Spit XIV sortie together.  If we don't both make it home, and get at least 4+ kills together, I'll buy the alcohol for the night

[Urchin]

Oh oh.. I wanna go.. I won't have any money to buy alcohol with, so I need Verms money .

[Kweassa]

I think Spit14 is tougher in turn fighting because the sheer force of torque is sometimes amazingly overwhelming. Heck, I think even turn fighting with 109G-10s is easier than in a Spit14.

  It's a capable turner, and my guess is it would turn about like a La-5FN at mid-high speeds, little tighter than a Yak, somewhat better than a 109G-2, but not as good as a 109F-4. So, flying near the edge of the envelope and bringing out full turn potential at low-mid speeds is very challenging.

 Not that I'm complaining though. I actually like it that way

 My only gripe is wishing other so called 'turners' would also need careful management to bring out full turning rates. God would I love to see the faces of people flying Spit9s and 5s and N1K2s succumb to stall and torque when they just hard-pull the stick

 I know the torque isn't as big as Spit14s on the Spit9s and Spit5s, but shouldn't they at least have some sort of general simularity when they meet near stall conditions? Well, um.. as a matter of fact, shouldn't all planes?

[akak]

Originally posted by Kweassa


 My only gripe is wishing other so called 'turners' would also need careful management to bring out full turning rates. God would I love to see the faces of people flying Spit9s and 5s and N1K2s succumb to stall and torque when they just hard-pull the stick

 I know the torque isn't as big as Spit14s on the Spit9s and Spit5s, but shouldn't they at least have some sort of general simularity when they meet near stall conditions? Well, um.. as a matter of fact, shouldn't all planes?

I thought Niki's were the only ones that didn't have torque properly modeled at low speeds.  So the other fighters (except P-38) have this same problem?


Ack-Ack

[Karnak]

I'd like that Verm, but unfortunatley I  have been hit very, very hard by the economic bubble's popping.

I am fighting off bankruptcy month to month and coming to the con or paying my mortgage for another month was not a really hard choice.

Hopefully I will have found a stable job soon and be able to come to the 2003 Con. (I really, really want a job that pays enogh and is stable.  This constant financial anxiety sucks bigtime.)

[Kweassa]

I thought Niki's were the only ones that didn't have torque properly modeled at low speeds. So the other fighters (except P-38) have this same problem?

 Frankly ak, I'm a layman at these things and not sure what kind of stall one would expect from a fighter. But it seems the better turning planes are pretty easy to control in tight turn situations. Probably because they turn good in the first place, and have a low stall speed, but frankly all they gotta do is keep throttle full up, yank the stick and listen to the stall warning sound and keep the sound at that level. Better coordinated turns might be achieved with rudder input and careful yaw management, but basically it's pretty simple to bring out the 'edge of the envelope'.

 I'm not sure if this is all subjective bias towards Spits and N1K2s, but whereas many other planes generally need careful yaw controlling due to torque forces growing near the edge of stall, Spitfires and N1K2s seem to feel the torque only after they stalled, not before. Other planes would near stall, begin shaking in the yaw axis, and then flip over to the torqued direction. Spits and N1K2s seem to near stall, hear the stall sound get bigger, but still remain turning clean, and then the stall comes, and then flip over.

 As I said this could be probably all subjective, and maybe only I feel that way. maybe Spits and N1K2s would really be that stable even when stall is imminent. Just stop 1 degree before the stall AoA and all's fine, keep turning like that... I'm just curious, that's all. Really really no intent of whine.

 ....

 Maybe it's the way stall is modeled in AH. In IL-2 it's very different. When you meat stall, the plane flips over into a spin, and when not treated right, it quickly develops into a flat spin on the yaw axis, which is almost impossible to recover without humongous alt. I don't think I've seen something like this in AH, unless you were shaking the stick around and intently trying for a flat spin. Again, I'm not sure what's closer to the real thing. All I can say is IL-2 is harsher in stalls, and generally makes people think twice before yanking on the stick to a tight turn, whereas in AH, you could stall, recover in half a second, and then keep the turn. If anyone has a near-fatal stall experience(heavens..!), I sure would like to know which is modelled closer to the real thing!

[Kweassa]

Anyhow, what I was trying to say was Spit14 has about the best turn rate for any plane that goes faster than 400mph, but still it makes people think twice before going into a turn fight, because the torque, if not managed and countered properly, just shakes the Spit14 off balance violently.

 My first combat experience with Spit14 was in a testing in H2H.

  I wasn't aware of this when I first tried the Spit14, pit myself against a La-7 in a turnfight. The Spit14 ofcourse, outturned the La-7, but I missed a good shot, so the turn fight continued to low speeds. I began hearing stall warnings, but I thought to myself "hmm.. even if I stall momentarily, I can always recover in 0.5 seconds.. I'll continue at this rate" and kept pushing the Spit14.. and then came the shakings, and a very violent flip(compared to Spit9s and 5s, and N1K2s, that is) which I couldn't just shrug off! I let the stick loose, lessend the AoA, the stall sound went fade. Then I began pulling hard again. To my surprise, the Spit14 stalled even worse than before the moment I did that.

 Now, all my experience with trying the other Spits were different. When I would feel the Spit5 or 9 entered a stall and began the flip-over, I'd ease the pressure, and when the stall sound begins to fade, I could always pull as hard as before and keep turning until the next stall came.
 
 The result was I augered 2000 feet straight and crashed.

 This case was seen more clearly in a vertical situation. When in a tight Immelmann, sometimes the a Spitfire follows a con up, but can't keep the nose up enough to get a good distance at 700~800 yard distance. But before the guy who went vertical turned his plane nose down, the Spitfire turns momentarily level, gains about 150~180mph speed, and then noses up again and meets the guy head-on. I tried this with a Spit14 too. The toruqe was huge, the guy went vertical, I stopped the vertical around 120 mph and went level as my Spit started giving out stall warnings. Gained a bit of speed up to 180 mpg, gently pulled the stick to nose up again and then WHAM!. Stall. You can't do this in a Spit14.

...

 So, what I was curious about, was, yes, the Spit14 has immensely larger torque than the Spit9 or 5. Much powerful engine. But still, in really tight situations, shouldn't Spit9s and 5s act that way, too?

 As for N1K2s, I remember HTs comment on one of Mandoble's threads that he doesn't find anything necessary to fix on the N1K2 torque.

(ps: but ofcourse, that's what HT first claimed about Chogs and N1K2s, before their flight models were adjusted)

[ccvi]

Those plane identification icons are useless anyway. replace them with something better: the perk price of the aircraft. then "0" would show for most, and correct prices for all perked rides. oh yeah, and make it so you earn half of the perk points from the plane you shoot down

[Turbot]

Why mix and match? If you are going to have tags at all, why not make them all descriptive. SP1 SFIRE SP9 F4U1 F4UC etc etc.

[J_A_B]

Remember another reason the Spit 14's torque will feel a LOT different from that of the Mk 5 or 9 is the engine turns the other direction.

J_A_B