109G2 - not a bad little airplane

[B17Skull12]

wierd thing happened sat.  was in fight with spit9 i just put a little bit of leftward rudder and started turning like a spit9 but losing alt like crazy. the spit9 without a doubt is one of the best planes in AH just that noone knows to use manual trim that is why so many die.

[Blue Mako]

Originally posted by B17Skull12
wierd thing happened sat.  was in fight with spit9 i just put a little bit of leftward rudder and started turning like a spit9 but losing alt like crazy. the spit9 without a doubt is one of the best planes in AH just that noone knows to use manual trim that is why so many die.

With your phenomenal k/d ratio this tour of 0.35, your impressive k/d against the spit 9 this tour of 13:35 and your even more impressive total of 0 kills in the Bf109G2, ever, you are the perfect person to instruct others in this thread.

I suggest, newbie, that you read and learn rather than try to teach what you don't know.

BTW Trim gives no performance advantage in AH, that is a fact that has been stated by HTC in the game help pages.

[Kweassa]

Don't go too hard on 'im , Mako m8 !

[B17Skull12]

i my self dont like G2's i never fly them i prefer the late war german planes over them. flew it once seemed to be mix between F4 with worse turn but more powerful engine than it. rather nice plane if you pratice it cause ive seen the way camo and llv34 work magic with it. btw dont know why but mako everyone says that trim can make the difference in the 262 can you prove this.  heard that from Wilbuz, Wldthing, and Fester so maybe it is a question of trim can make a difference but in which planes?

[Blue Mako]

Originally posted by B17Skull12
btw dont know why but mako everyone says that trim can make the difference in the 262 can you prove this.  heard that from Wilbuz, Wldthing, and Fester so maybe it is a question of trim can make a difference but in which planes?

It's a placebo.  The only time manual trim is an advantage is to get you out of compression.

This is taken from the AH Help section on the HTC web site.  I already told you where to find it but as you haven't bothered looking I'll post it here so you can't say you couldn't find it.

I also put the important bit in red and bold for the hard-of-understanding.

AH Help on combat trim
Combat Trim in Aces High

Use Ctrl-X to toggle the combat trim on and off.

Touching manual trim will always turn it off.

Under the Flight button in Setup you can set whether you want combat trim to always be on or off when coming out of existing auto pilot mode.


This piece was written by Hitech to explain combat trim in Aces High.
The first thing to understand about trim is that there is no way possible to make it work like a real plane.  The joystick interaction with the controls is a completely different mechanical setup.

In a real plane you would be holding the stick back to maintain level flight.  You would then turn the trim knob to relieve any pressure on the stick, without the stick moving.  With a computer joystick, this simply isn't possible.  When you let go of the stick it will always go back to center.  Even force feedback sticks do not have the ability of adjusting stick spring center.

The second problem is stick feel.  When Pyro and I originally did some early models for CK we tried setting real settings for elevator deflection.  For example, the spit's stick setup is capable of generating about 38 degress AOA, and the plane stalls at around 17 degs AOA.  This would equate to pulling the stick less than halfway back and that would stall the plane.

Now from a purely mathematical realistic point of view, that’s the way the plane was set up so it should be the same in the sim.  But if you step back and look at things another way, what did the plane feel like to fly and does it "FEEL" realistic when things change?  When flying a real aircraft I sense very little stick movement.  I perceive much more on how hard I'm pulling, how much I'm grunting, how much the stick is vibrating, than how much I’m moving the stick.

To accomplish some of this we use the stall horn, now the stall horn is NOT realistic by any means, but some method is needed to give you the same realistic feed back from the plane that you get in real life.  Therefore, you are forced to choose a method that works and gives the perception of reality.  We chose to setup controls that will let you stall with full stick deflection unless you are limited by control force.

Now comes the trim problem.  At slower speeds, where do you scale the stick movement from and how do you add in trim?

The method we have been using was to always give you x degrees of elevator travel than just add that degree to the current trim degree.  This leads to problems if you are slow with nose down trim, you could no longer pull the plane to the edge of stall.  This isn't how real planes fly in the slower flight envelope.  Very few planes could you not generate enough stick force to pull into stall at slower speeds.  This oversight is why people use trim in a slower turn fight and hence get an advantage by giving more up trim at slower speeds.

Under 1.04 we have changed the control setup slightly.  We now scale the elevator/stick deflection to the same ending angle no matter where the trim tab is positioned.

There is another misconception that trimming your plane perfectly gives you a flight advantage.  Trimming your plane or just holding controls and pressing rudder to center the ball is exactly the same thing, and the plane will fly the same under both methods.

Now on to how the combat trim works.  The best way to describe how it works is to take your plane and trim it constantly in a dive from slow speed to high speed.  Now make a table of trim positions at all speeds.  All the combat trim system does is use this table to set the trims based on your speed.  Everything else still functions the same;  you pull back on the stick you still get adverse yaw, you turn you still will need to add in rudder.  You change throttle settings the plane still rolls due to torque.  Add flaps trim settings will be completely different and the system won't account for it.  Drop gear you will again be out of trim.  If you’re climbing or diving your plane is still out of trim.  In the end, all the combat trim system does is keep you in a trim envelope that you can override with normal controls.

Use Ctrl-X to toggle the combat trim on and off.  Touching manual trim will always turn it off.  Under the Flight button in Setup you can set whether you want combat trim to always be on or off when coming out of existing auto pilot mode.

Now as to are we loosing sight of pleasing the realism crowd?  That is for you to judge.

At the same time we are adding combat trim, we are also adding things like icons now disappear if an enemy plane is behind a canopy rail, under wings, on your low 6, behind hills or under the nose, etc.

We have spent alot of time researching and changing pieces of the flight model that were not hitting real world numbers.  Now these changes really won't affect the "GAME" much, they will change tactics used.  Things like horizontal to vertical transitions will be much more effective.  Things like lead turns will be more effective because after a 180-deg turn you will have more speed left to take the shot on the b&z bogie.  But in the end, neither combat trim nor the flight model affects the game play in any way.  It's still who can fly the plane to the edge, knows ACM best, who knows his planes abilities vs. his opponents, who can shoot well, who can choose his fights or which plane to shoot first.  All these things still make the best pilots what they are.

[Blue Mako]

Originally posted by Kweassa
Don't go too hard on 'im , Mako m8 !

Just adding some chlorine to the gene pool in here Kwe.  

[GScholz]

That is not entirely true Blue Mako. I always trim manually in the 109. Let's say I'm in medium compression and cannot pull/push more than 3 G's. I trim the nose up approx. 2 G's and keep a constant forward pressure on the stick to keep level flight. Now I have -1 / +5 G instead of -3 /+3, much more useful in combat. This is something the LW pilots actually did.

[Blue Mako]

Read the above post Gscholz.  I'm sure that Hitech knows how he programmed his own sim...

[hogenbor]

Call me an idiot but the way Gscholz describes it WORKS. Still not a wizard with trim myself but slowly learning in 109's.

It might be true that max deflection is the same no matter how much trim you've got but why can I use trim then to recover from high speed dives? If just pulling the stick to its max deflection would yield the same effect? In this case I would never be able to pull out from 500mph dives in a 109 no matter what my trim settings were, so the manual trim would be useless in a situation like that. It isn't.

[Xjazz]

Hi Hogenbor,

We dont deal with RL stick controll forces in AH.

In high speed dive you can pull your joystick fully back but your virtualstick is sitting in cement.

Trim tabs are still usefull because trims are geared.

It wouldbe interesting to see which MA planes are in top ten if we need to deal RL stick forces.

Spits(?) had very light finger tip pitch controll force but roll needed much more controll force. 190 was famous concerning excelent balance of the controll force.

[jodgi]

It wouldbe interesting to see which MA planes are in top ten if we need to deal RL stick forces.

I wonder what AH pilots would be in the top ten if we were subject to RL G-forces...

naaaaah, I'm just trying to be a smartprettythang

[hogenbor]

Xjazz, maybe it was not clear from my post but I know that's the way high stick forces are modelled.

I a previous post it was stated that it doesn't matter how you apply control input (by stick or trim) because the effect is the same according to Hitech.

Point is, at high speed the game does not allow you to give control input via the stick in a 109, trim does.

[GScholz]

Originally posted by Blue Mako
Read the above post Gscholz.  I'm sure that Hitech knows how he programmed his own sim...

I'm sure he does, but I'm not sure you're reading him right. In a slow speed fight trimming makes no difference, however in a high speed fight the 109 is unable to reach maximum deflection of the controls because of compression. In this case trimming does give you an advantage. In high speed fights the 109 elevators for instance are unable to reach the "ending angle" HiTech talks about.

[Blue Mako]

What HT is saying is that whenever there is any deflection of the controls due to stick movement, trim does not offer any change to the final position of the controls, regardless of speed.  What you are talking about is outside the range of normal control where there is no deflection due to control stick movement.  Manual trimming is required to get out of this condition, however, as soon as your controls begin to work again, there is no difference in the position of your control surfaces for any given stick position with trim set.   When your controls no longer operate, CT is not hindering or helping, it is just keeping the plane trimmed for the current condition, that's why manual trim is required to pull out of a compressed dive.

HT is basically saying that if you trim your plane nose up, it will take you less back stick deflection to get to your maximum elev deflection and more forward stick deflection to maintain level flight.  However, in the end the scaling means that if you pull your j/s right back you will reach the same final elev deflection angle (as HT said "We now scale the elevator/stick deflection to the same ending angle no matter where the trim tab is positioned.") regardless of trim setting and aircraft speed.

P.S. Note that in my original reply I said "The only time manual trim is an advantage is to get you out of compression."  I acknowledged that there is one area of the flight regime where MT is needed.  

[TracerX]

Back to the topic before this thread got interrupted by a Combat Trim discussion.

Has anyone compaired the C205 vs. G-2?  I have found this to be an equally good matchup like Soda mentioned with the La-5.

It is good to know there are so many secret G-2 lovers around.  I fly it usually alone since none of the people in my flying circle like to fly LW planes.  It is easier to get someone to fly a P-47 than a 109.  If I have to choose a 109, I usually choose a G-2, then a G-10, then a F-4 and almost never a G-6.  Never take gondolas except for the F-4 and G-10 buff hunting.

I remember flying in the CT not too long ago when the Finland map was up, it seemed to be easy to turn with the La-5's and even Yaks.  I did not notice much of a difference at all in turning ability, and engaged with no hesitation almost any fight.

In the MA, I find that I have trouble avoiding the La-7/Spit type combos.  The faster planes can run you down, and the slower planes can then defeat you, but this is common to lots of plane types.

I wouldn't know, but I think I just came out of the closet.  Yes, I'm a G-2 lover!  Lets leave it at that.