Can you answer this question?

[humble]

Bingo Vulcan, I put a clip on other post different but same question. I'm not questioning tactics, mine or his, except as it relates to his E state.

[wells]

Sounds like both aircraft kept a pretty constant E state.  He dove and gained speed, you climbed and lost speed, but he started higher than you with possibly more E.  

[Tac]

exactly vulcan.

I was in a tiffie with 5k alt trying to run to kill a reported m3 at one of our fields. Lo and behold, I see a single n1k 1k below me coming for a HO.

My already fast tiffie, I decide to blow past him at high speed, planning to leave the n1k behind and get the m3 before the n1k would catch up. So I make a dive, pick speed past the needle (around 420mph I believe) and fly past and under the n1k (which had also dived a bit to pick speed).

Im now 2k from the dirt, at 420mph+... I see the n1k behind me fly away to d2.5+ or so.. then it TURNS and dives... and before I could REACH the field, the n1k was already at d1.1 and closing in quick.

Now, hell, I kept straight with wep on in a TIFFIE and here comes this THING that flies past me, TURNS and then catches up with me in no time.

If a friendly m16 hadnt pinged the n1k off my 6 im sure it wouldve gotten to spray range and nailed me.

I also remember the fight I had in a n1k vs Vulcan's tiffie. I stayed on his 6 for a mighty long time at high speed fights.. and my n1k gained on him easily.

Besides this n1k thing, the tactic humble describes is basically diving before a merge, then pulling up in a turn after the merge and catching the other guy on his climb or his turn. What I find very interesting on this is that if one of the planes in the merge goes straight UP in a hammerhead attempt, you will always look down on your 6 and see the guy that dived, TURNED hard and is now coming up to you.. at high speed.. and catches up before you manage to flip your plane over.

If my 380 mph 38 goes into said hammerhead and a spit dives like 5k to get speed and then turns and comes up after my 38, it WILL catch it. I do not understand how this is possible, I would think that the spit had to burn E TURNING, then CLIMBING those 5k back and then Climbing after my p38, which has better zoom up and is by then, much high than the initial merge.

So i've learned to become the guy that dives first  

[humble]

Wells, clip is up on my other thread thanx to hooligan

[Jigster]

Only thing I could think of is something seems odd with momentum...some of the planes don't seem to resist direction changes at speed by either drag generation or to some extent, stick forces/drag very much.

Oreo, maybe it's a placebo thingy...

[darling]

I remember hating the N1K's guts to hell. Now I'm pretty indifferent to it's flying abilities, though it sometimes does weird stuff. I'll give you a fun example. I'm at 18k after a swoop on a Spit9 (might have been V, but probably not), doing 400mph TAS or so, since the Spit didn't want to die right away. I'm just flying along observing a fight going on below me, looking for a hapless victim at the top of a hammerhead or other vertical maneuver. I look north to see a N1K heading to the fight at 15k or so. 3k or so lower than me. I casually head in his direction, climbing slightly, at 350mph TAS. Here comes the nice part. He passes under me, and does an Immelman to me, after passing under me. He ends up at about d2.0 behind me. I think he's slow, but he starts closing the distance. So I simply do a lazy wave of my wings to him, pull into a shallow climb, and watch as Outlaw rips him apart, coming from his 6 oc, firing at d400, doing 550mph, after a dive from 25000. We have a good laugh and move on  

Rope the N1K or bring friends  


------------------
2nd Lt. Hogni "Darling" Gylfason
332nd FG "Flying Mongrels"
143rd Pursuit Wing
 

[This message has been edited by darling (edited 05-13-2001).]

[Toad]

 

Originally posted by humble:
there's an awful lot involved in Win/Loss ratios beside the planes involved.

I agree with that.

Perhaps I should have said it this way:

In the last 3 tours I've had 31 conclusive engagements with the N1K2. I won 19 and lost 12. I flew 6 different aircraft in these engagments, all in the "average" part of the plane set.

I can recall no instance in any of these fights where my opponents were able to do something or some maneuver that I considered beyond the capabilites of a high performance world war 2 fighter. Nothing they did that left my mouth hanging open and a big question mark hovering over my head.

When I lost I usually arrived at the conclusion that it was because I did something stupid or because it was simply an impossible situation (like a low, slow, shot-up -51 being bounced by a fresh Niki with alt.)

I'm certainly not saying that the Niki is perfectly modeled. Maybe it does have some E issues. Frankly, I'm not enough of an engineer or programmer to be certain in either case.

I just haven't seen the E problem. Maybe I'm just lucky.  

[humble]

Toad,

I know exactly what you ment and as a "plank owner" of AH your ACM is not anything I'd ever question. My two threads are simply putting out in the open an issue that continues to linger.

Since I'm an impatient angles flier at heart, I'm always dancing on the energy pinhead.

The clip on the other thread is clearly me pushing a pony where it really isnt designed to go. At the same time I truely believe that the nikki is not penalized for fundemental errors in ACM.

Truthfully a patient E fighter who flys with an attitude geared to reliving WW2 aircombat will encounter much less of this issue. You can simply factor in a performance envelope reflecting what you see and act accordingly.

Under a fly to fight, fight to win, break of when even philosophy this is a minor issue. I tend to a fly to find em, fight em as you find em, stay till it's over philosphy and it comes into play alot more.

The clips Hooligan posted happen to be 3 from same couple hours that reflect couple questions I have. I don't think the nikki is unbeatable, but it's clearly a remarkable plane as modeled in AH.

[Mr. T]

Dude... I gots one thang to say... Ki84... your nightmares have only begun.
-SW

[GRUNHERZ]

Yet another thread that simply resates what pretty much everyone allready knows, there is something odd in niki vertical performance. I saw and commented on this immediately on the first day of the 1.04FM, and now it seems more and more people are beggining to catch on every day. This plane's FM needs looking at with respect to its verical perfomance and E-retention!

[Mr. T]

 

Originally posted by GRUNHERZ:
I saw and commented on this immediately on the first day of the 1.04FM, and now it seems more and more people are beggining to catch on every day. This plane's FM needs looking at with respect to its verical perfomance and E-retention!

YEAH DUDE.. IF LIKE ONLY YOU HAD A LITTLE BIT OF MAYBE.. PROOF?... THAT THE N1K2'S FM WAS PORKED... THEN LIKE MAYBE MORE PEOPLE WOULD LIKE... ACTUALLY BELIEVE THE CRAP YOU SPEW... LIKE TOTALLY DUDE!
-SW

[MANDOBLE]

From the point of view of a 190/109 pilot, nikkis, Typhs, Spits and La7 are all in same no E loss category. Perhaps a Typh pilot may notice the difference in E loss between nikki and Typh, but for me that difference is negligible. I've experienced a lot of times the cases you all expose but against any of the planes listed above.
This is my list of UFO champion leage ordered by UFOness:
La7, Typh, nikki and, finally, spit/Hog.

[Jigster]

As it stands right now, it would be very hard to prove anything right or wrong about the N1K2 beyond calculations for power, wing area, etc which have been done to death anyway. If there is a problem it would probably lie within the airfoil's actual performance and how it's translated into AH.

[straffo]

 

Originally posted by MANDOBLE:

This is my list of UFO champion leage ordered by UFOness:
La7, Typh, nikki and, finally, spit/Hog.

Can you elaborate a bit more ? I don't see anything UFO in the Tiffi  

[MANDOBLE]

straffo, UFO relative to 190 or 109. That is, they loose very little E performing maneouvers that kill all the E with 190s or 109s.

In the case of Typh, it can build up speed at level even faster than G10 and loose very little E maneouvering even in the vertical. We can put an example with a very good climber, the G10. G10 will outclimb the typh in a substained climb, but will be defeated if starts maneouvering in the vertical with the typh. In the case of 190, the typh will not only outacelerate, outturn and outzoom all of them, it is able to roll with them also. All this is applicable mainly at lo and med alts.

Yesterday I tested the La7 in MA and I just cant believe what this monster is able to do, just incredible and cant imagine the nikki performing better. In the other hand, La7 3x20 has a very weak armament, at least to kill another La7. 3 solid bursts needed to set on fire the other La. Good aiming and snapshot, but poor punch. huh! And you have WEP forever in this plane.