190A vs SpitVB

[Furious]

Originally posted by Toad
BTW, the area below 60K is far from a vacuum, so toss out that red herring. It's already smelly.

Airplanes DO NOT operate in a vacuum.

... oh, and thrust is "that other force" that's acting.

Don't get all snooty, even the R/C guy you quoted used an "airplane with no motor" to make his point.

And that point is that two "airplanes with out a motor", one light and one heavy, that have identical drag coeficients and angles of attack will accellerate at the same rate.  The terminal velocity will be higher for the heavier plane.

As soon as you put  different motors into the equation, it becomes alot more tricky.

[Toad]

Originally posted by Furious
As soon as you put  different motors into the equation, it becomes alot more tricky.

Which is exactly what I said. Thrust is the difference that makes the heavier one accelerate faster.

[Toad]

Originally posted by GScholz
Well first get the argument right. We're not arguing the accelleration, we're arguing the top speed.

Well, first Hazed will have to frame it right for me then.

When somebody says "why the D9 cannot keep up with a fully loaded P51D in a full speed dive" then I'm thinking that in the dive portion the P-51 is opening the gap. Given an equal start, initially that would be acceleration until max diving speed was reached.

Catching up eventually is the question, isn't it?

It is a red herring.

The D9 should be the fastest of the two. But a race depends on a lot of things. What speed was the P-51 when this dive started? Was he significantly faster than Hazed's D-9 right at that point? Did he have a "headstart"?

There's probably a bunch of factors like that to consider but I'm not going to sit here and try to convince the unconvincable.

This seems to me to be like the "cheater" argument you hear in the MA every so often on Ch 1. Particularly when guys use the old "geometry cheat" to kill a new guy.

I have often wondered if ord. drag is correctly modelled in AH.

Drag is suspect in A LOT of areas of AH to me. It's also one of the toughest things to "get right" I suspect. If there's any part of the FM that makes me wonder, it's the various aspects of drag.

Ever notice how in a turn fight your E bleeds down to zip in a flash? Motor redlined, WEP engaged and bleeding E like a slit-throat hog.

Then you go back to the field to land and you've got gear and flaps hanging, engine at idle and full cross control in to slow down and it just won't slow down?

Or you get shot up, lose your engine and other parts and start to ditch and the thing just glides forever?

I don't think it's just ord. I'm hoping the addition of more lift reference points in the new FM... with corresponding attention to drag, improves this area.

[GScholz]

Well if drag modelling is fishy then dives will never be right. If AH2 is better this whole problem may be solved. If there is a problem that is.

[Toad]

Well, you must have experienced some of these phenomena, right?

Do you think airplanes slow down for landing a bit "differently" here?

[GScholz]

LOL ever tried to land a deadstick Dora? The thing will never stop. Perhaps the windmilling prop drag is a too great a portion of the total drag modelled. If you turn down the rpm and shut down the engine you can glide entire sectors in some planes with 10-15k alt.

[Toad]

See? We agree. And it's not any one country's aircraft.. it's all of them. (Although I hate to blow a good conspiracy theory... they're so entertaining!)

[GScholz]

LOL! Well if the LW planes had too little drag modelled I don't think it would be the LW guys crying bloody murder. I can see it now "WTH! the Dora outpaces my Spit IX even with the engine out!"

Anyways the 109s seem ok in that this aspect (in contrast to other planes in AH that is, I have no idea how a real 109 should glide), it feels like it bites more into the wind and need that powerhouse engine to get anywhere fast. I've also noticed that the Mossie has some fantastic drag modelled. If you cut the throttles it will almost stop dead in the air, contrary to what I've read. It was supposed to be a very aerodynamic design, and its weight should carry a lot of momentum. When I tried the Mossie out a bit after leaving the JB's I felt it was too poor in vertical zooms. The 110 is surprisingly good in vertical zooms due to its weight and power, but for some reason the Mossie is not, despite being a bit heavier, having more power and being aerodynamically cleaner. I think that is a bit strange.

I'll stick with my 109 until AH2 comes along, then we'll see.

[hazed-]

Originally posted by Toad
See? We agree. And it's not any one country's aircraft.. it's all of them. (Although I hate to blow a good conspiracy theory... they're so entertaining!)

Its like i said not so much a conspiricy vs the planes but vs anyone who asks questions about a LW plane. I suspect you can get more response and a swifter model correction if you happen to be asking about a non-LW plane. This may be a distorted view in that MOST of the time i ask about LW planes and I dont know maybe it is just a 'general' lack of response which i think we all agree seems to be the case more and more. BUT and this is a big but, only LW fans are said to be whining when they ask without any 100% research with corresponding documents and some form of AH testing lasting several hours. When people question other planes they seem to get a civil response and often others do tests who have a greater knowledge of the dynamics involved.

Apparently if you ask about LW you had better be a physics-professor with a perfect understanding of aerodynamics or you will be accused of basically trying to cheat or whining. It gets old fast and it does annoy when the people calling you it do not even attempt to answer the question.Its even worse when its the developer doing it.

Toad the situation with the p51D was as follows:

P51D was 20K in what appeared to be a level flight(although i guess its possible he was in a very shallow dive?) I was 21k022k at his 4oc position and i was closing as far as i could tell at around 350mph but obviously lateral movement could have been closing the distance even if he was faster i guess.
As soon as i had my nose pointed at him (slightly down) he plunged forward looking as though he had panicked as he saw me (looked as though he manually broke off auto level poorly trimmed) he began to accelerate, I seemed to continue to close but quite slowly, then he began to pull away as our speeds built up. I was full wep and id guess he was too. As i approached the 'shaking' part of the doras high speed the P51 seemed to be drawing away faster and faster. I had a slight tuck under of the nose and was shaking violently and had to use trim to pull out of what was id say 75-80 degree dive by this time i must have been at a guess 6-8 k?  I assumed as I find acceptable that this guy knew his plane and had used his superior dive characteristics to push the fight into the doras weak area, ie very high speed and i expected him to pull into level flight and extend. He kept going , kept leaving me behind (i was trying to use as little trim as possible to maintain a shallow angle to his dive but keep out of compression) Then i saw the smoke lines from the rockets! and then two explosions as 2 bombs hit the hanger at a base.

so basically at top dive speed in a dora on the limit of compression (600+) the P51 with full ordinance had left me behind. I will accept i may have missed some factor involved here but it appeared to be an error in the model to me. This was why i posted a question about it. Im not saying im 100% right but what i will not do anymore is spend 3 or 4 hours testing offline only to see it all ignored for over a year.Its now up to HTC to check it out on their own.To me it seemed rediculous that those 6 rockets wouldnt have slowed the p51D down even without the bombs.Maybe i should try diving the dora with a 500kg bomb in order to catch the p51d?

[Wmaker]

AH's G-10 has the DB-605DC engine according to the Werke Nummer and Claes Sundin's profile drawing of that particular G-10.

Of course it is possible that Natedog has done G-10 skin that he thought looked cool and Pyro has done the flight modelling based on something else but the performance is pretty much what I would expect too...

[GScholz]

Originally posted by hazed-
heres another quandry for you. the auto level. (X). Have you tried flying your aircraft in a 90 degree bank and hitting X to level out? have you noticed how fast all planes seem to settle? sometimes it even makes a stall buzz noise. Well hae you tried it with the 109? they take much much more time to level in pitch or roll and ive always wondered why this is.Same for the ju88 and same for 190s even though they have the fastest roll.anyone know why this is?

Well I can't speak for the ju88, and the 190 seems ok to me in that respect. The 109 on the other hand is another beast entirely. At low speeds you'll notice that the combat trim (if you use that) uses almost all it right aileron trim just to counter torque. This means that if you're in a left bank the autopilot has very little aileron trim left to work with and it will take ages to level out. However in a right bank the torque helps and the 109 seems to snap beyond level as the autopilot can't trim to the right fast enough.

Elevator trim is another matter completely, it is very effective in the 109, and technically the 109 was the only WWII plane I know with a tailplane that would be controllable at supersonic speeds (if the airframe would survive that is ). The elevators were of conventional design, but trimming moved the entire tailplane ... the 109 had a "flying tail" of sorts, and even if the elevators would lock up in compression at silly-speeds the elevator trim would be effective. As far as I know the 109 is the only WWII fighter with this trimming system.

In AH all planes can trim out of compression (true compression not just locked up controls) and I think this is not correct, because normal trim tabs just move the control surface, but when a plane is truly compressed control surfaces are rendered ineffective by local supersonic airflow that disrupt the normal laminar airflow over the control surfaces. When I started flying in AH I wondered why those Spit pilots that died in the high-speed tests done late in the war and immediately afterwards didn't just trim out of trouble, it's so easy here. As far as I can tell compression was a far greater danger in R/L and only by lowering speed somehow (diveflaps/combatflaps on the P38 and P47 for instance) could a pilot regain control of his aircraft. Was it the P38 that would suddenly nose over into a death-dive if going too fast before getting diveflaps?

As far as I can tell only the 109 should be able to trim out of compression because of its "flying tail" elevator trimming system, and only in the pitch axis, the rudder and ailerons would be just as ineffective as on any other plane.

I think AH doesn't even model true compression, just heavier control forces ... that trimming disregard.

[eddiek]

Also possible that your opponent in the Pony had a poorer connection than you did and was sending the server updates on his position slower than yours did.
I've seen all manner of planes that my Jug "should" catch in a dive seem to suddenly open the gap (not talking major warpage, just all the sudden the numbers start clicking upward, like he engaged afterburners).  Most times, I just pull off, pullout and wait and see what happens; several times, after the con pulled out and when for alt, as I closed in I noticed his movements kinda "herky-jerky", like he was having connection issues.
Just another thing to consider.

[DiieWankee]

Wmaker:D

[hitech]

Its like i said not so much a conspiricy vs the planes but vs anyone who asks questions about a LW plane. I suspect you can get more response and a swifter model correction if you happen to be asking about a non-LW plane.

Sounds like a conspiricy to me.

HiTech

[GScholz]

Yes HiTech, he said it straight out: "...not so much a conspiricy vs the planes but vs anyone who asks questions about a LW plane."