new planes

[teufl]

Finally some one has mentioned the I 16, which would be a must for barbarossa scenerios.  An early war fighter, it was the first operational monoplane fighter in the world with retractible undercarriage(1932).  Since I 'm at work I am quoting from memory.....speed 316 at 9k, operational ceiling 26, 000,  climb 2800/min...

[Soviet]

i wonder how the undercarriage would work in AH,  You had to manually crank it up and down,  you had to do like 10 different things and one of them was turning a reel like 40 times.

In fact this took a little while in real life so german pilots would fly around russian airbases trying to pick off I-16s which have pilots currently busy lowering gear.  The F4F was also the same way if i recall correctly

[Seeker]

Soviet, MKI Spits had also a hand pump to lift the gear; but we have those OK...

(It's said you could always tell a new spit pilot on take off as the nose would bob up and down as he franticalty pumped the gear up; the elevators are very light and sensitive)

[brady]

I am a big fan of the I 16 and have posted on it in the past, I will see If I can dig up the old thread for you.

[Shiva]

In fact this took a little while in real life so german pilots would fly around russian airbases trying to pick off I-16s which have pilots currently busy lowering gear. The F4F was also the same way if i recall correctly

If I remember the conversation with the pilot of the FM2 at the last airshow I went to at Chino, getting the gear down wasn't a problem. IIRC, the gear took fourteen cranks on the handwheel to raise, and if your hand slipped off the crank handle, you better yank it out of the way fast, because the crank was going to reverse very quickly as the gear came back down. Lowering the landing gear was much easier than raising it; if you were in a hurry, you could just let the gear fall into position and lock it, rather than cranking it down. It wasn't recommended because of the stress it put on the gear joints, but it got the gear down fast.