two days ago I was flying Lazy 8 with my student in a Piper Warrior. During the manoeuveur we gained 350 feet. The next day, same people, same fuel, same location, same alt, same tail number, we gained 200 feet only. Hummmm... that's almost 40% error. What's the lesson there?
I believe that you guys can't come in the general discussion and throw true test datas to people's faces telling : 'look I have the proof', like a policeman showing his badge and telling 'I am the law'.
Even the same aircraft doesn't behave the same days to days. So i let you imagine two different aircrafts who are not probably tested at the same time/condition. Was the wind the same at the testing altitude? Pressure altitude, density altitude? humidity level? temperature?
How about the pilot? We used to fly the Mooney. My god, people loved it, others hated it. 'you can't slow it down on final'...'what? off course you can!'...'I always ballon on short field landings'...'peuft, it sinks like a rock'...blablabl and so on. Every pilot as his own perception of an aircraft. Take 2 pilots, give them a test checklist, they will give 2 different reports, I'm pretty sure of that. Even the POH (pilot Operating Handbook) gives some data that I could never match in real life.
i really respect the tremendous knowledge that most of you have in aviation due to the tons of reading you guys did on WW2 books. But all this doesn't make you an expert on what should be what. At a Titusville airshow, I met 2 P47 pilots arguing on his turning ability, 1 telling it couldn't turn, other arguing it could dogfight w/out worries. If two WW2 pilots who actually flew the same plane in combat can't agree, I don't believe that we (most of us w/out a single flight hour in a real plane) can define how the planes should really behave.
I have a lot of fun in AH so far, like all flight sim, take it like it is. see the planes as they are modeled, learn their strenght and weackness and go have fun. Every pilot has his favorite plane and a lot of experience on it. As far as I'm concerned, I can't fly the FW190. Everytime I'm following one of those guys at slow speed in a Niki and this guy is rolling all over and turning and slowing and climbing and rolling, and Im sweating to remain in his 6, I ask to myself:' how is he doing this?!?!' It's because he knows the plane and moreover he feels confident in it. He is not cheating, his plane isn't over modeled, he is just better than me at flying this type of airplane.
Everyday, this message board will have a new message on 'it should be like this'. I know it, my message will change nothing, but I wanted to express that nothing in reall life works like in theory, test data have to be interpreted like the news on TV, it's probably true, but not exact.
Meet you all up there! <S> pilots!
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Olivier "Frenchy" Raunier
http://home.CFL.rr.com/rauns/menu.htm [This message has been edited by SFRT - Frenchy (edited 06-03-2000).]
