Originally posted by Agnus
Oh, and the Slats are modelled in AH, but without their disadvatages, which was slamming in and out at bad moments, throwing off the pilot's aim.
This could have been adressed by adjusting the slats. Germans knew how to do it. RAF could have informed themselves at Handley Page, but they did not do it. With the E series there was a minor problem that pilots could feel the opening on the stick. From the F on new slats mechanism were used and this problem was non-existent any more.
Originally posted by F4UDOA
Niklas,
Lift coefficient is lower?
Isn't that sort of after the fact?
The Spit V and IX had a lower stalling speed than the 109 of almost any varient if not all of them. If they had a lower Clmax what differance would it make? It's all after the fact. The stalling speed of these A/C are well documented.
In fact from an engineers point of view isn't a low stalling speed with a low clmax ideal? That would limit cdi as well.
As far as the leading edge slats go what was their effect on the stall. Everyone mentions them but nobody shows any documents diagraming the results. Wouldn't these slats raise drag (cdi) tremendously?
Do you know a stalling speed of a 109f with slats out and flaps out or in combat position? What stalling speed do you really know for the 109f anyway?
We don´t talk about landing speeds. The huge wingarea definitly produced a larger ground effect, so this would be a special situaion where a lot of wingare is helpful.
If i remember myself correctly, even a british pilot mentioned in a TV-documentation about the Spit that the 109 could turn tighter in the BoB.
In the Naca report the Spit has a max. Cl of only 1.2 or less in gliding, wind tunnel tests (also no engine on condition) of 109f show Cl of over 1.4 without slats or combat flaps.
What was the effect of slats? Usually wing tips stall first if you build a straight wing. Your airplane would get rapidly out of control when pilot looses aileron control. So you try to prevent the aileron section to stall first. You can do it by 2 ways:
- Washout, decreasing the AoA of the aileron section compared to the inner wing section. Thus, when inner wing section stalls, you still have control on the outer section. BUT when inner wing section is flying close to stall, at high AoA, the outer wing section flying at lower AoA is NOT producing much lift logically (The outer wing section of the Spitfire was thin anyway, 8% only)
- Slats, preventing the outer section to stall. This way the outer section can fly at the very same AoA as the inner section without stalling first. The whole wing is now producing maximum lift.
The Naca report clearly states that the marvellous slow speed handling of the Spitfire was achieved with sacrificing maximum lift coefficient. In a turn the outer section did not produce really much lift, a lot of wingare simply was wasted or invested in handling characteristics.
In AH you can fly at higher lift coefficients like a 109, this is ridicolous. But AH lives from Newbies too, and they need an uncomplicated aircraft for quick success.
Stalling speeds are given in IAS, this is not TAS. TAS depends also on tube design, it´s hard to know today what true stallings speeds have been. Furthermore speed indicator usually have a positive error at slow speeds.
The F1/F2 data sheets mentions takeoff with a fully loaded machine at 130km/h IAS, around 80mph - This is not a stalling speed of course, nor is a takeoff done with full flaps, maybe even no slats. However, it includes ground effect (probably).
The british test of the Emil speaks about approch speeds of 75mph with gear and flaps up, and 61mph down. This is lower than the stalling speeds of the SpitII (handbook).
niklas
