Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Silat on July 26, 2003, 01:27:18 PM
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Great exchange between AKAK and our resident ww2 p47 ace:}
To the best of your knowledge, was it common practice to throttle up or
down one engine to increase manuverability? The reason I ask is that I
came across this article written by a P-38 pilot that says it wasn't but
I seem to recall guys like Lowell and McGuire throttle up or down one
engine to increase manuverability. Was there a significant gain in
manuverability in doing so? I know it's not real life because it's a PC
game but in AH I used a dual throttle for a few months and I myself
never really saw that much of a significant increase in manuverability
other than my hammerheads looked really sharp and have since gone back
to my old Pro Throttle.
Here's the link of the former P-38 pilot's article.
The rest of the posts are an interesting read themselves, maybe you
could comment on some of those points as well.
ack-ack
EARLS REPLY:
The thought never occurred to me when I flew it. It was my philosophy
to go full bore when attacking enemy aircraft. I
wouldn't want to reduce power arbitrarily. Only a P-38 pilot
sitting in an office chair and staring at a screen monitor
would have time to do all that kind of maneuvering, in my
judgment.
If I were engaging an enemy aircraft, there sure wouldn't be any
"throttle up". The throttles would be up as far as they could go.
earl
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nice reading
hail the lightning :)
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The problem is the P-38 pilot in the article he (AKAK) posted the link to is not a P-38 pilot at all, but rather a wannabe fraud. And the guys in the Pacific units DID use differential throttling, as did Erv Ethell and others in Europe. The guy being quoted in the article is NOT Col. George Cueleers who really WAS a P-38 pilot in World War II. WideWing exposed the guy as a fraud sometime ago.
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So it basically boiled down to the pilot? Because at least in Earl's case, he never used differential throttle when he fly the P-38G in the MTO.
Ack-Ack
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Originally posted by Ack-Ack
So it basically boiled down to the pilot? Because at least in Earl's case, he never used differential throttle when he fly the P-38G in the MTO.
Ack-Ack
Yes.
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Originally posted by Captain Virgil Hilts
[B WideWing exposed the guy as a fraud sometime ago. [/B]
This sounds interesting, tell us more! :)
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The impression I get from reading books and talking to old pilots who were there is that once they got in a fight situation, it was full power all the way at least 90% of the time. And when they did reduce power, it was almost always only as a last resort to force an overshoot when they were about to die, not to gain an offensive position.
Granted, this ain't a big sample size so the above assessment could be wrong. Still, I can see very valid reaons for it to be true and not many for it being false, so I'll go with it.
IIRC, in WW2 something like 80% of fighter kills of other fighters were scored against non-maneuvering targets in surprise BnZ passes. Actual dogfights against alerted nmes against whom you maneuvered for some time, which is our constant diet in AH, were apparently very rare in WW2. Once surprise was lost, most times formations went to pieces and both sides withdrew in disorder to reform or land, rather than stay and fight as a bunch of individuals.
That being the case, I can understand wanting to stay fast. If the biggest threat to you is not seeing the nme coming, then the best defense (apart from having a lot of friends around helping you scan the sky) is to stay as fast as possible, so geometry and relative speed saves you from some of the potential swoops and run-downs. "Speed is life" and all that.
It also seems a nearly universal human trait that when real bullets are flying, you're way more concerned about personal safety than with killing the nme. So in most cases, I'd expect guys to NOT sacrifice speed for angles to get a shot. This in turn would all lead in WW2 to the relative lack of kills in non-surprise situations, the prevalence of HOs due to not using aggressive maneuvering, and the tendency to run for home when you lost contact with your buddies.
That's not to say there weren't individuals who worked the throttle(s) constantly. But I'd expect they were a very small minority. From at least 1943 on, most pilots on all sides were products of wartime mass training programs, not long-service professionals. And in the US at least, many of those who survived were taken off operations after only a few months anyway. So most guys would have been doing things the quick, easy, and safe way, with a few masters among them getting into the real finesses of ACM. But even those guys wouldn't have found much opportunity to practice their art in the usual WW2 situations.
We have a totally different situation in the MA, of course. Thus, we try to exploit all aspects of our rides, not just the top speed. I wonder if our behavior will change in AH2's TOD arena :)
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A few things to remember about combat.
About 10% of the pilots got about 90% of the kills. (Numbers may not be exact, but are close). Those in the 10% are in an entirely different group than the rest. Remember to factor in this difference when you are talking about what pilots did and did not do. With all due respect to the average combat pilot (And I have the utmost in respect for anyone who flew in combat and did his job, regardless of his score), what you hear from them is not what you hear from the guys at the top of the list.
The most successful pilots had certain attributes:
Aggressiveness. These are guys who said things like, "A Mig on your six is better than no Mig at all". Before you say "That was different war", the quote came from "Boots" Blesse, who was an ace in both World War II and Korea. These were pilots looking for a fight. They'd rather be outnumbered 3:1 than not see the enemy at all.
Marksmanship. Most, if not nearly all of the top scoring pilots came from a background that promoted marksmanship, and they were excellent shots with pistols and rifles.
Eyesight. The guys with the top scores had eyes that eagles would be jealous of. They could not only spot planes at greater distances, but also identify them as well.
Flying skill. They were excellent pilots who got the most out of whatever they were sitting in.
These weren't guys who'd make one pass and escape to safety, these were guys who'd stay in the fight until the other guy was dead, ran away, or until they lost all hope of getting the kill. These were guys who, when engaged by the enemy in a bounce, would immediately turn and try to kill their enemy if he ever made a mistake and surrendered his advantage.
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Captain Virgil Hilts said:
About 10% of the pilots got about 90% of the kills. (Numbers may not be exact, but are close). Those in the 10% are in an entirely different group than the rest. Remember to factor in this difference when you are talking about what pilots did and did not do.
Certainly. But these guys are also the ones who wrote most of the books afterwards. The pilots who only managed a few kills at most usually didn't write books. But they made up the vast bulk of the pilots in the war. So I think it's quite correct to say that in essentially all cases (I mean, look at the rounding you can do here), WW2 pilots on all sides were going as fast as possible all the time at the expense of maneuvering. But if all you did was read the available books, you might get a different idea.
Besides, even the aces got most of their kills against nmes who never saw them coming. If 80% of the kills resulted from blindside bounces, and if the aces got 80-90% of the kills scored, what else where they doing? I mean, that's what great eyes do for you. You see the nme first, you maneuver into his blind area before he sees you, and then you waste him. And you survive to keep doing this because you also see potential threats early and get out of the way before they become really dangerous, maybe before the nme even sees you. Then you can turn the tables.
Superior SA was, IMHO, the main divider between aces and average pilots. How many aggressive, skillful, dead-eye pilots bought it from a lack of SA? I kill several such guys every night I fly in AH :).
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there was a reason they kept those crates in the PTO - far far away from germany's best pilots :)
akak
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It will be interresting to see how the 38 will do in AH2. I find that in AH(1) the engines are basically holding the wings up at those incredably slow speeds, something Pyro has mentioned would be corrected in AH2 with the advent of a more detailed FM. I guess we all will have to learn how to fly all over again. ;)
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HEHE Gs was that you in that 152 when I was in my 38 hangin on the props for the kill, I think it was but not sure hehe <
> FBsmokey
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Yup :)
I was thinking "stall stall stall STALL STALL STALL!!! DAMMIT!! ... DOH!" :D
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Originally posted by Eagler
there was a reason they kept those crates in the PTO - far far away from germany's best pilots :)
akak
Not very often does a bf109 get away from me
ack-ack
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Originally posted by GScholz
It will be interresting to see how the 38 will do in AH2. I find that in AH(1) the engines are basically holding the wings up at those incredably slow speeds, something Pyro has mentioned would be corrected in AH2 with the advent of a more detailed FM. I guess we all will have to learn how to fly all over again. ;)
From Pyro's comments, it seemed that was more in relation on how they had modeled engine torque in the existing AH. Which is something that P-38 doesn't have to worry about, so I really don't think the revised flight model will effect the P-38 all that much. I do think the revised flight model will make the P-38 stand out more at probably as a vertical fighter because planes like the N1K2 will no longer be able to stand on their tails in the vertical without hardly any effect from their engine torque.
ack-ack
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Yes, it should fix one of the games biggest shortfalls.
Ive said before that there is no way in real life the Nikki could pull vertical and start sniping people 700 yards away vertically standing on the nose at 100 mph full throttle.
:)
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Originally posted by Ack-Ack
From Pyro's comments, it seemed that was more in relation on how they had modeled engine torque in the existing AH. Which is something that P-38 doesn't have to worry about, so I really don't think the revised flight model will effect the P-38 all that much. I do think the revised flight model will make the P-38 stand out more at probably as a vertical fighter because planes like the N1K2 will no longer be able to stand on their tails in the vertical without hardly any effect from their engine torque.
ack-ack
Pyro's comments on the new FM:
"One of the major changes we’ve made is how we model the forces on the plane. We wanted to increase the number of force points by about an order of magnitude or even more if necessary. For example, prior to this the wing was split up in large chunks with the applicable forces applied to each chunk. In level steady flight this is fine, but it shows its limitations when you get outside of it. Now we have it split up into a lot of small pieces. This allows us to closely replicate the stall progression characteristics of the different planes. It’s also led us to some oversights in the model. An example of this is the effects on the propeller vortex on the wings. We’re modeling the forces of the vortex and its effect, but we weren’t applying it exactly where it needed to be applied, thereby creating an inaccurate force moment. "
and ...
"One thing that I mentioned with regards to torque is that the propellor slipstream effects on the wings were being placed too far out thus creating an artificially large force moment. This effect counteracts torque to a degree, an overly large degree in AH until now. The propwash from a propellor comes off in a vortex that corkscrews back over the airplane. In a standard clockwise rotating engine, the vortex strikes the right wing with a downward component and the left wing with an upward component. This increases the effective aoa of the left wing and decreases the effective aoa of the right wing, hence more lift on the left wing and less on the right.
The slipstream continues to corkscrew back to the tailplane where it impacts the vertical stabilizer on the left side which pushes the tail to the right and the nose to the left. This is the main force causing the left yaw on your takeoff roll."
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Gee.. my head hurts..!
Somebody please translate that to the layman's terms !! :D
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Originally posted by Kweassa
Gee.. my head hurts..!
Somebody please translate that to the layman's terms !! :D
Prop slipstream effects on the wings and tail are to large.
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Um..
So, with such delicate improvements in AH2, what kind of changes can we expect? You mentioned some planes will not be able to keep their wings up near stall speeds, and Akak mentions the N1K2 won't be able to do the propr hang?? Why?
:confused:
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Kwe:
Pyro is saying there was an error in the way the slipstream effects were handled. This error countered the engine torque. Thus the torque effects that you would expect to see were cancelled by the error in the slipstream.
Fix the slipstream modelling error = more noticeable torque effects.
Thus all single engine aircraft will have more apparent torque effects in AH2 but P38 performance will be unchanged as the engines rotate in opposite directions. All other planes will have trouble hanging on their props.
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Just to add to what others have said. As Pyro mentioned, on a standard clockwise rotating prop the 'wind' or vortex generated by the prop, upon hitting the right wing would push it down while pushing the left wing up.
But currently in AH, this vortex is too far out, which is causing a greater force* on the wings than it should, thus negating most of the torque effect.
* Think of a small stone attached to a length of string, if you spin the stone using only a short piece of the string, the 'force' generated isn't that great. If you increase the length of the string, the 'force' increases in proportion.
Currently in AH, the 'string' is too long, generating a larger force than it should i.e. the push down/push up effect on the wings is too great from the vortex being too far out. They plan on bringing the vortex closer in to where it should be, which means less push down/push up on the wings from the vortex and resulting in torque being more prevalent.
Hope my example was right and that this makes some sense.
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And this effect will also aply to the P38. IIRC the P38's left prop turns clockwise while the right one turns anti-clockwise. This means that the prop slipstream will generate lift on the outside of the engine nacelles while reducing lift on the inside. In normal flight this has little effect since the lift is not enough to make the wing stall and the downforce is not enough to cancel out the lift. However when the P38 is flying so slow that the wing is essentially stalled out except for the part of the wing that the prop slipstream is holding up, the downforce on the inside of the nacelles has no effect what so ever, because that part of the wing is already stalled. I.e. you're able to control the P38 solely by the lifting force of the prop slipstream. Now ... if Pyro reduces this lift the P38's über low-speed handling will suffer ... but other planes will of course suffer more since they can't counteract the torque.
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Originally posted by GScholz
And this effect will also aply to the P38. IIRC the P38's left prop turns clockwise while the right one turns anti-clockwise.
You have that backwards.
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Maybe the p38 will actually get even more gentle stall characteristics or at least stall at lower speeds.
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Originally posted by mos
You have that backwards.
Yup. The props holds up the inner wings instead of the outer. The rest is still the same.
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Originally posted by Kaz
Maybe the p38 will actually get even more gentle stall characteristics or at least stall at lower speeds.
Nope, don't think so. It should get worse ... like every other prop plane in the game.
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Well I can always hope :P
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Originally posted by GScholz
And this effect will also aply to the P38. IIRC the P38's left prop turns clockwise while the right one turns anti-clockwise. This means that the prop slipstream will generate lift on the outside of the engine nacelles while reducing lift on the inside. In normal flight this has little effect since the lift is not enough to make the wing stall and the downforce is not enough to cancel out the lift. However when the P38 is flying so slow that the wing is essentially stalled out except for the part of the wing that the prop slipstream is holding up, the downforce on the inside of the nacelles has no effect what so ever, because that part of the wing is already stalled. I.e. you're able to control the P38 solely by the lifting force of the prop slipstream. Now ... if Pyro reduces this lift the P38's über low-speed handling will suffer ... but other planes will of course suffer more since they can't counteract the torque.
Here's a snippet from a P-38 thread taken from various newsgroups. Most of the posts are from our very own WideWing. This should give you some idea of the low speed handling of the P-38. This is the story of Lowell's famous duel in a P-38H vs. Spitfire XV, where he managed to stay on the Spitfire's six position by stall fighting.
During the late winter of 1944 ocurred the famous dual between a
Griffon-engined Spitfire XV and a P-38H of the 364FG. Col. Lowell few the P-38, engaging the Spitfire at 5,000 ft. in a head-on pass. Lowell was able to get on the Spitfire's tail and stay there no matter what the Spitfire pilot did. Although the Spitfire could execute a tighter turning circle than the P-38, Lowell was able to use the P-38's excellent stall characteristics to repeatedly pull inside the Spit's turn radius and ride the stall, then back off outside the Spit's turn, pick up speed and cut back in again in what he called a "cloverleaf" maneuver. After 20 minutes of this, at 1,000 ft. altitude, the Spit tried a Spit-S (at a 30-degree
angle, not vertically down). Lowell stayed with the Spit through the maneuver, although his P-38 almost hit the ground. After that the Spitfire pilot broke off the engagement and flew home. This contest was witnessed by 75 pilots on the ground.
Ack-Ack
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Spit XV? that's a Seafire isn't it?
Anyways, I don't know what you're trying to argue here (if you are). I'm just saying that in AH2 the P38 will prolly be less forgiving at very low speeds, however every other plane will also be less forgiving, so the P38 will hold it edge. Just that speeds will have to be a bit higher for all.
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Just saying I don't think the low speed characteristics of the P-38 will change all that much. The only thing that probably won't be able to be done anymore will be nose up in the vertical while stalling out at 20mph. In RL, the P-38 was able to stay nose up with as little speed as 85mph (though it took a really good pilot to pull that off). But when it comes right down to it, we will really never know until AH2 comes out and we can check out the revised flight model. I just hope the low speed handling of the P-38 doesn't get nerfed all that much.
I always thought the Seafire was the naval varient of the Spitfire Vb, not sure though since I'm not really a Spitfire jockey.
ack-ack