Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Geophro on October 01, 2008, 09:52:43 PM

Title: FM2 Flaps
Post by: Geophro on October 01, 2008, 09:52:43 PM

I was trying out the new F6F in the TA tonight, identified my flap points relative to my P-40E, then upped a few other aircraft to compare those 2 sets of data points.  I ran across something that seems weird to me in the FM2.  All 5 notches of flaps are available below 175 IAS.  Why is this?

Here are some other aircraft for comparison:

IAS for Notches of Flap Deployment

Aircraft   1st   2nd   3rd   4th   5th FM2       175   175   175   175   175 F4U-1     250   225   200   175   150 F6F-5     250   225   200   175   150 P-38J     250   250   250   200   150 P-40E     400   275   225   180   165 109F-4   195   185   175   165   155

Title: Re: FM2 Flaps
Post by: Geophro on October 03, 2008, 04:32:41 PM

Well, the F4F-4 also gets all 5 nothces at 175 IAS, so it is definately on purpose.

I found this, although I can't verify the accuracy from http://www.fantasyofflight.com/aircraftpages/wildcat.htm (http://www.fantasyofflight.com/aircraftpages/wildcat.htm):

The Wildcat has an interesting flap system that is activated by the vacuum system in the airplane and is also used to spin the gyro instruments for instrument flying.  Instead of using positive pressure to operate the flap cylinder, this aircraft uses negative pressure or suction.  A large tank in the rear of the aircraft stores the negative air pressure.  At higher speeds, the negative pressure does not create enough force to overcome the air loads to lower the flaps.  It will not hurt the system, as in some aircraft, to put the flaps down at high speed.  They just simply won’t come down!  Pilots could use this to their advantage in a dogfight and could select the flap handle down before engaging another aircraft.  If during the dogfight the airplane happened to slow down below a certain speed, the flaps would creep out.  The more the aircraft slowed down, the more flap would creep out.  This gave the Wildcat a tighter turning radius, which was a major advantage in a dogfight, as they could potentially turn inside their opponent and get on his tail.

Still no comments from the peanut gallery?

Title: Re: FM2 Flaps
Post by: Saxman on October 04, 2008, 10:03:53 AM

The F4U could do that as well as I believe the F6F.

I'd LOVE to have that option on my Hog in the game. :D