Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: BnZs on November 01, 2008, 02:36:12 PM
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Say you have two airplanes. One is a relatively heavy but aerodynamically slick design with moderate horsepower-your classic zoomer. The other is a lighter and draggier design with a lot of horspower-your good climber. At what kind of speeds (high or low) does one design have the vertical advantage over the other? What about pitch angles? Is one design better for hanging nearly vertical and the other more likely to perform well at a more slanted angle?
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Zoom beats sustained climb. The faster the zoomer the bigger the edge. At slower speeds the zoom wears out sooner and the sustained climb equalizes and gains quicker....but even at 165 mph an A-20 can top out a spitty from a stall fight. Now it might not top out the guns and the spitty can stay low and then climb up thru the A-20 with ease but zoom always beats climb from an equal start initially. As a general rule low and slow favors the sustained climb most and high and slow favors the boomer most...