New Spitfire Comparison

[Gianlupo]

Originally posted by Mosq

Could we get a chart or comparison chart with the ki-84 and the spit 8?

Secondly, is there a way to combine charts of the same plane but no flaps, 1 notch flaps, 2 notch flaps....ect.

I'd like to have a Hayate chart, too, but, most of all, Badboy, I'd like you to tell us what is the way you gather the data to draw the chart... so we can make the work for various settings without bothering you... I'd like to make some charts by myself (well, I'd like to try! )

[MOSQ]

FTJR and Karnak,

I've found info on the internet about pilot praise for the Ki-43's manouvering flaps, which I believe were carried over to the Ki-84. But again, they never mention the speeds they would deploy them at.

There has to be some pilot memoires of Ki-84 pilots discussing the use of their flaps, just wish we could find them

[Virage]

Originally posted by Badboy

The performance is very similar, the XVI being slightly faster, slighter better Ps performance and climb rate. The difference is very small as you can see, but combined with more than a 50% improvement in roll rate means I agree, given equal pilots, it should win the majority of duels.

Badboy

Thnx Badboy!

Anyone know the wieght and H.P. of the spit8 and 16?  I assumed the 16 would have a worse sustained turn due to the modified wing.

[Karnak]

Originally posted by Virage
Anyone know the wieght and H.P. of the spit8 and 16?  I assumed the 16 would have a worse sustained turn due to the modified wing.

They have pretty much the same engine, so the power should be the same.

The Merlin 266 in the Spit XVI is just an American built version of the Merlin 66 in the MK VIII.


It seems to me that the Spit XVI may be climbing a bit too well or the Mk VIII not well enough and that the Mk VIII is not rolling as well as it should.  It rolls 10 degrees/sec slower than any othe rmetal aileroned Spitfire in AH, even the Mk XIV which has the same ailerons.  The clipped wings on the MK XVI widened the turning circle by abiut 40ft at sea level, getting worse the higher it goes and reduced the climb rate by about 200ft/min.

Weights:

Spitfire F.Mk VIII (with Merlin 61):

Tare: 5861lbs
Normal Load: 7831lbs

Spitfire Mk XVI:

Tare: 5607lbs
All up weight: 7549lbs

The increased weight of the Mk VIII should be due to the lead edge fuel tanks, full span wings and retractable tail wheel.  There may have been some strengthening of the structure as well, I'm not sure of that.  I also don't know what the weight difference between the Merlin 61 and Merlin 66/266 were.

[Urchin]

Originally posted by MOSQ
Badboy,

Good work on the Spit 16 chart.

Over the years I have collected as many of your charts as I could find. They've been a great reference and I'm really glad to see your making them again.

Two questions:

Could we get a chart or comparison chart with the ki-84 and the spit 8?

Secondly, is there a way to combine charts of the same plane but no flaps, 1 notch flaps, 2 notch flaps....ect. Assuming the flaps are dropped at the first available speed. For instance the Ki-84 has a remarkably different turn capability at 150mph depending on whether you have flaps out. I am imagining that such a chart would show the far left stall line not as a smooth curve but as a series of notches as the flaps come out.

I ask this because I'm sure if we compare a Ki-84 standard chart with a Spit 8, the Ki-84 loses. But if we include the Ki-84 pilot using his flaps, the Ki-84 will win the sustained turn fight, even if the Spit uses his flaps too.

Of course the Ki-84 pilot has to survive the initial turn rate advantage the Spit enjoys before the Ki-84 is able to get his flaps out. Against a good Spit pilot that is unlikley since HTC has modeled the Ki-84's flaps to deploy at an [editorial comment] unrealistically low speed.

Thanks again for your performance chart additions to the AH2 community.

My experience with Ki-84 vs Spit 5 is several months and probably a couple versions out of date, but in my experience that is accurate.  The Spit 5 has a marked advantage off the merge, but the Ki-84 can eat away at that advantage unless it dies on the 1st/2nd merge.  Against a decent shot, it will die on the 1st/2nd merge 100% of the time though, because even if you pull as hard as the plane will go, you still leave the Spit with an incredibly easy planform shot.

[Silat]

Originally posted by MajWoody
The new cockpits seem WAY too fat & wide to me.

Woody that will make you look slimmer and the chicks dig slim spit pilots...

[kudzu]

Just a Huge salute to the mention of Boyd--his OODA loop--and the depth of research here. The man was a hero in the strictest sense of the word. he fought (and won) many battles in the Pentagon for a fighter pilots plane--not the one-size fits all most military contractors and some high brass wanted (ie F-14--variable geometry wings will NOT work--for a fighter plane--ever) his opinion of the F-111: paint em yellow and use them for line taxis. Needless to say--we can thank him for the F-16, F-15 and many other victories that have saved lives and won fights.
 Bravo Zulu--Badboy <<>>

Kudzu31

P.S. The book, his unofficial bio is a great read. A real eye-opener on how aircraft procurment and systems testing is really done--usually to the the tune of the contractor with the biggest knee pads and fattest wallet!

[MajWoody]

Hey Lew,

 I never thought of that:aok

[guttboy]

Kudos Badboy!


Thanks for compiling the info!!!  

Just how do you come up with the charts?

Regards,

Mike:)

[pitzz]

Are charts available anywhere for all the popular fighters?

Had a few fights with Badboy last night. I was in the VIII and XVI and BB in XVI. It quickly became apparent in the VIII that the 'small margin' on the chart can seem much bigger in combat!

pitzz

[Badboy]

Originally posted by pitzz
Are charts available anywhere for all the popular fighters?

Unfortunately, I haven’t done most of them. I have done quite a lot of the aircraft, and I zipped up a lot of the diagrams and posted them in a thread here once, but the diagrams were all pre AHII. I’ve done a few AHII aircraft but I haven’t been very active over the last year because I’ve been very busy at work. I think that busy period is behind me now, so I’m hoping to do more.

Fun fights by the way!

Badboy

[Simaril]

Originally posted by Gianlupo
Never mind my second question, Badboy, I found Boyd's writings: here's the link, in case anyone is interested.

A discourse on winning and losing

I think it's all he wrote, isn't it?

Gian,

The guy actually wrote a great deal. He was a teacher at the AF dogfighting school, and was a gifted natural who thought like an engineer. He put together what seems to be the first manual of air combat, the Air Combat Study. Although not classified, it is VERY hard to track down -- fortunately, because he wrote out the move, countermove, and counter-countermove for almost every situation adn its permutations.

He also invented the concept of EM diagrams, as a tool for explaining flight envelopes to Air Force brass that seemed pretty clueless to the pilots' reality.

He then spent a great deal of time and thought to the nature of combat, and the philosophy of conflict. This is the portion of his career that produced the OOAD loop -- which he explored in extensive detail and subdetail, so the actual briefing took hours and involved complex subroutines.

Towards the end of his career as a theorist, he thought abotu the nature of knowledge and reality... not bad for a fighter jock.

Unfortunately, the guy was a Class A jerk. Despite (or because of?) his brilliance, he was shunted around in the bureacracy and was generally a pain to everyone around him -- including his friends and acolytes. He loved to bait incompetents, even if they were his superiors, adn woudl brag about having "hosed" (as in sprayed with tracers) big wigs in an argument.

He was a pain to his family as well, with damaged relationships and bad behavior in general. For example, when watching the The Blue Max in its original theater release, he got so worked up during the ACM portions that he talked louder and louder -- until he finally stood up and shouted "Hose the F***er!! Never seemed to get the idea of how he looked to other people...

Consequently, he's not well known in the Air Force.... but he's a hero to the Marine Corps, where his OOAD loop became the foundation of the USMC philosophy of battle. He is, to my understanding, the only Air Force officer to have a "globe and anchor" placed on his coffin as an official act of respect from the Corps.

Boyd: the fighter pilot who changed the art of war is a good biography and history.

[Kweassa]

Just a little tid-bit.

 Badboy's measurements on the Spit8 turn radius is 533ft with 25% fuel. My figures are 560ft with 75%.

 His figures for the Spit5 with 25% fuel is 516.0ft, mine is 515.1ft at 75% fuel.

 ...

 I'm just glad my own figures aren't totally off.

[Gianlupo]

Thanks Simaril, nice write-up. A pity I couldn't find much more of his writings... guess I have to dig deeper on the net.

Btw, talking about A2A tactics, I recently found at Simhq (I don't browse it often, now that Mr Bush and Badboy don't write new articles )this PDF file (8 Mb) of a book written by another USAF pilot, Frederick C. Blesse, after the Korean war. I didn't read it yet, but you may want to take a look at it.

[pitzz]

I have often wondered about the usefullness of trying to do things 'by numbers' by which I mean if the target does 'a' then you do 'b or c or d' or whatever. Ever tried using this method for sex?

Way back in my second youth when I was flying aerobatics I read books with diagrams and associated spiel but when I was up there I forgot it all and found that looking out the window, keeping your eye on a spot or line and flying the aircraft accordingly worked better.  I've read loads of stuff about ACM but, thinking about it, I can't remember a word of it except for 'lose sight, lose the fight' and relative performance data. I suspect that 95% of flight sim fights between equal opponents that know their aircraft and can use them are lost due to losing sight or taking on a superior plane under the wrong conditions rather than an in depth knowledge of ACM.

One of the best 'one on one' sim pilots I knew was 'lem' from Warbirds JG3. In an 'inferior' plane he somehow managed to stay just outside your envelope while gaining energy with no fancy manoevres. He knew exactly where you were, knew exactly what you were capable of and knew exactly what his aircraft was capable of.

Which is why I consider BB's charts more important than anything else except trying to eliminate blind spots from your view system.  Of course, as in real life, there are those aces who have studied advanced  ACM's and are able to perform them instinctively but they are a rarity I suspect.

After 20 years of sim flying, I've long since lost the competitive urge but flying around in AH is a pleasure this old boy would be very reluctant to give up.