trotter: Krusty, maybe some of the oddities you perceive come from the fact that this testing was all done with the stall limiter on. Some planes (even assuming equal pilot skill) will ride closer to the stall better than others, with or without flaps deployed. Stall limiter keeps them all above that point, but of course that's not what one sees in game.
trotter, the key concept in this testing is understanding the difference between a "turning method used in real combat" and a "pure physical turn".
Real combat situation warrant different types of plane control and micro-management. Like you said, in many cases a plane can "ride closer to the stall", "mush through the stall", or even "tighten the turn using stall". These are all very practical methods of maximizing your plane's capability to turn,
but unfortunately it does not give you an objective comparison on how your plane can turn. In testings done by pure hand, when you tighten a plane's turn there are moments in which your plane might buffets wallow around a bit, perhaps even starting wobble a bit on the roll axis, indicating an imminent stall. Any pilot will have to counter it by adjusting his flight controls. The problem is, every time a minute change is made, the test results are more and more botched, as the turn process is effected by pilot input. On the other hand, if the pilot tends to avoid this from happening in the first place, his grip on the plane might be unconsciously affected - he might be loosening his turn a bit. In this case the results are also botched since the plane may not actually be pushed to its extremes.
In short, its the human factor. A good pilot may considerably better manage his plane during a turn, however, even the best of AH pilots aren't familiar with every plane there is... not to mention they are also prone to making mistakes in turning.
Thus enters the stall limiter method.
The stall limiter is basically a stick-pull limitation system which inhibits your plane to stop X degrees before the stalling AoA defined by the game. Every plane has its own AoA in which the plane would fall under a stall - and the stall limiter stops your stick effect at the set angle before that AoA. The beauty of the stall limiter(henceforth referred as "SL") testing method, is that the inhibition angle can be custom set.
The reason people misunderstand my testing, is because they assume the SL setting I've used for my testings, would be the same as the SL setting currently experienced in MA - which, it is not. The SL setting I've used for the testings are all individually tested out in each plane to the lowest point possible, so that I may be able to just ham-fist pull back on my stick in a turn and yet the plane would not wobble or destabilize, experiencing stall effects. The figures I've used are also recorded, in which case most of them are 0.05 - this means, the SL inhibition effect casted upon the individual tested plane, is merely 0.05 degrees before the stall AoA. If I'd pull 0.05 degrees more on my stick, the plane would stall out. In comparison, the MA SL figures are around 2~5 degrees IIRC, 40~100 times higher than the setting I've used in my testings.
In short, all the planes in my testings are mechanically geared to stop around 0.05 degrees before stall AoA by the system - which is practically about the lowest point a human pilot would also probably be able to stop the plane before it stalls. By all practical means, my tested planes are turning as about as well as any human pilot would turn his plane - except my testings are mistake-free, devoid of the human factor. They make no mistakes - the turns are constant, without worrying about the human factor in which case may sometimes pull harder, or weaker, than necessary. They don't "mush" through the stall, nor "ride" through the stall - all of them stop about 0.05 degrees before stall.
