Hammerhead

[Ghosth]

Unholy flip turn, p38 still does it the best though.

Secret is to keep it straight up till airspeed drops to 0, then full Rudder kick and down the other way.

Is it easy in a 109, heck no, doable, I'd say so.


As to why, if your higher, faster than the guy behind you, and you pull up into a hammerhead, and if you've judged the E states correctly. He will try to follow you up, stall, & flop, at about the same time that you do the hammer head, flip, and have him 400 below you, in your sights, full plan form shot. Ping Ping Ping BANG no more bogey.

[Oleg]

Originally posted by Ghosth
Secret is to keep it straight up till airspeed drops to 0, then full Rudder kick and down the other way.

Dont work for me. I used hammerhead often while flew in WB and know how to do it. But in AH plane dont flip, it fall tail down and spin eventually. I dont check every plane though.

[Gumbeau]

Originally posted by Benny Moore
I wanted to do a hammerhead because someone complained that the vertical stall modelling was unrealistic, and I was trying to prove him wrong.  That, and it's fun.

Thats an excellent reason

[Oleg]

Ghosth, can you post a film with hammerhead (in any plane except p-38) please?

I tried it today once more and still cannt do correct. Best i can do is wingover that close enough to hammerhead, but not hammerhead yet.
Ever in p-38 hammerhead is quite slow and hard to do.

[Ghosth]

Oleg, I will try to take this project on in the TA when I have time.

Starting with the RV8 is I suppose cheating eh?

[Oleg]

Originally posted by Ghosth
Starting with the RV8 is I suppose cheating eh?

Sure Better take something with guns

[Ghosth]

Well it appears your right oleg. According to Widewing, there is no P factor modeled, so the rudder doesn't bite as it falls. Thus forceing the plane to fall off to top or bottom instead of side.


Val comes closest, but even it likes to roll half turn before heading back down

[HomeBoy]

Originally posted by Ghosth
... According to Widewing, there is no P factor modeled, ...

Ah!  I knew it!   I'm so smart.  

I'm telling you, I know how to do this in a real airplane and AH (or any sim I've ever tried) just doesn't have the "feel."  It is definitely a modeling issue.

[Oleg]

Originally posted by Ghosth
Well it appears your right oleg. According to Widewing, there is no P factor modeled, so the rudder doesn't bite as it falls. Thus forceing the plane to fall off to top or bottom instead of side.

Thanks for trying.
Hammerhead is very nice and effective maneuver, sadly it impossible here.

By the way, looks like Benny going to loose

[TimRas]

Originally posted by Ghosth
According to Widewing, there is no P factor modeled, so the rudder doesn't bite as it falls. Thus forceing the plane to fall off to top or bottom instead of side.

And according to Hitech:

Sigh, some days I feel like we should have a section on physics 101.

Roll Torque on the plane is very easy to calculate it's simply current HP / prop rpm.

What most people refer to torque, the stuff on take off that makes your plane yaw,has nothing to do with Roll Torque, it has every thing to do with the slip stream/prop wash.

The 2 other forces that produce yaw do to the prop/eng they are gyroscopic (this only produces yaw if you are changing pitch) i.e. when your tail lifts. The final force is PFactor, it only has much effect at high speeds and hi aoa's.

AH Models all 4 prop forces, 3 of which I'm confidant we are with 5% of the real plane.

I'm not happy with our slip stream effects, we have been doing more research into calculating the slip stream, and it will change in some later version.

HiTech

That quote is from 2001 btw.

[HomeBoy]

Though I've already stated that I think all these prop sim games miss the mark with respect to 3D maneuvers, I do think AH has the best modeling of the three I have the most experience with.  IL2+++ comes in next but I believe over does the effects to the point that  the planes are way more difficult to control than I think they really should be.  The worst of the three by far is MS FS2004 (haven't tried X) which is disappointing since that game is all about just flying.  The third party pay planes improve the flight modeling some what but FS is horrible (IMO) in this department.  I never tried Xplane but I've heard people say that the flight model is not too bad.  I used to play Fly! years ago and that wasn't half bad; certainly better than FS.

I have long ago accepted the fact that these are just games and the developers are forced to choose what they think is important to model and have to let the rest go.  If you want to experience REAL flight then you will have to REALLY fly!

..grain of salt

[Mace2004]

I've mentioned this before but does anyone have any proof that WWII airplanes were capable of true hammerheads?  

Aerobatic airplanes are considerably different from combat planes.  They usually have symetrical airfoils, very high thrust to weight ratios and exceptional control power.  Besides this, they tend to be relatively  less stable aircraft requiring quite a lot of pilot control.  Fighters have many of these same attributes but to lesser degrees.  They have non-symetrical airfoils, high thrust to weight ratios but less than a pure aerobatic plane since they have to drag around a bunch of junk (guns and armor for instance), and while they typically have good control power the controls have to be a good balance between maneuverability and stability.  Same for basic airframe stability.  Aerobatic planes don't have to land on aircraft carriers, don't have to deal with wide CG ranges and don't have to be able to maintain a guns tracking solution.

I'm not saying combat aircraft can't (or shouldn't be able to) do hammerheads, I just don't know for a fact they can so we shouldn't get too wound up about this unless someone can prove they could and, if so, which ones.

Mace

[Benny Moore]

Originally posted by HomeBoy
I do think AH has the best modeling of the three I have the most experience with.  IL2+++ comes in next but I believe over does the effects to the point that  the planes are way more difficult to control than I think they really should be.  

I never tried Xplane but I've heard people say that the flight model is not too bad.

The IL-2 series is a joke.  It does not have a dynamic stall model as Aces High II does.  In IL-2, either you're flying or you're spinning.  There's no in between, and you cannot stall any airplane without dropping a wing (except for the airplanes with slats, because somehow slats magically prevent that).  Since we have United States Army Air Force training videos still easily available today, we can know how various warplanes should stall.  For example, the P-51B should have a wing drop tendency even with power off, but the P-47 should not, and the P-38 should have no wing drop tendency in any stall unless the gear is down or external stores are loaded, disrupting the airflow.  But IL-2 doesn't figure any of that stuff, according to them all airplanes drop a wing when they stall and, if held in the stall, will always spin.

Actually, I must make a slight retraction; after having enough data shoved down their throat (about half a dozen good sources) they finally changed in one of the later patches the P-38's power off stall.  This kept it from dropping a wing.  How did they do this?  They simply lowered the effectiveness of the elevator with power off so that the airplane is unable to pull a high enough angle of attack to actually stall.  The stall model is still drastically wrong (as proved by the P-38's power on stall, which still results in a spin every time).

The folks over at Maddox don't feel that stalls are important.  The player base largely agrees, judging from the heated attacks on me when I pointed out the problems with the stall model.  Proof via videos certainly didn't help, nor did the opinions of me and many others who have stalled real airplanes.  IL-2 is a joke through and through, and the stalls are only the largest problem.  I wasn't very impressed with X-Plane, either, although that was certainly better than IL-2.  Really, Aces High is by far the closest thing I've seen, judging by my real stick time and from the videos we have of World War Two fighters stalling.