Poll for Hellcat pilots (or anyone who flies it)

[Am0n]

hellcat has 4 notches if my memory is correct. (in AH anyhow)

[F4UDOA]

Hmm,

IRL the Hellcat had Flaps that deflected up to 50 degrees. However they were one positional full up or down I believe. The F4U had flaps that could be dropped at 10 degrees per position with 5 positions. Also the F4U had Hydrolic flaps and the F6F had electric flaps.

[Soulyss]

I use flaps a lot in a fight the two most common situations are when I'm zooming up on the tail of a bad guy or trying to rope one.  By popping down the flaps as your speed bleeds and working the trim and rudder you can make that Hellcat stand on end with a fair degree of stability.  The other time is to stave off a stall when I'm low and slow I'll drop 1 notch of flaps to hang in there when I'm saddled up.  I look at them like this:  They're a control surface (so to speak) so try and take advantage of 'em.  

[214thCavalier]

Apart from take offs and landings its very rare that i use them, in fact when low and slow i have augered more times using flaps than without them.
Seems to me that the flaps stall with the F6 when manouvering is quicker and harder to control than flaps up.
Imo the trade off between lift and drag with the flaps is not worth prolonged use especially as the F6 is such a dog accelerating unless you got room to dive.
The day i can set auto climb then drop a notch of flaps and see a sustained increase in rate of climb is the day i will use them for sustained periods.
Until then on and off as the situation dictates and the lower it gets the less i will use them.
Good luck Mathman you have widely diverging opinions here to choose from  

[fdiron]

Hellcat has 1 position of flaps.  Check it out.

[AKcurly]

Originally posted by fdiron:
Hellcat has 1 position of flaps.  Check it out.

Fdiron, you must be thinking of the spit.  The Hellcat has at least 4 notches of flaps (maybe 5.)

curly

[J_A_B]

The F6F-5 has 5 flap positions in AH.


Whether this is historically correct or not, is a different matter.  The F6F-3 had flaps that were either full up or full down; was this changed with the F6F-5??

J_A_B