Just thought this would be a fun exercise.
You have to design the fighter of your dreams based on the ones already in Aces High. Keep it reasonable if possible (so no turbocharged R-2800 in a 6500 lbs airframe, for instance), and let's see what do we get.
So say, I want to design a pure fighter:
Engine:my take on WW2 air combat is that you must have a fast plane with high dive/zoom, good high speed maneouverability and as much firepower as you can bear on target. Acceleration and climbrate are desirable but not indispensable. Range is also a concern but second only to the priority considerations already mentioned.
If I want a fast plane, I'll need a powerful engine. As a side effect that will result in a good powerloading, giving me power for climbrate/acceleration, which is never bad to have. We also have to decide between radial and in-line.
Radial engines are rough, can handle battle damage, but are less power/weight efficient than the best in lines. Inline engines have a weak point: the coolant radiator. However we can minimize the chances of a radiator hit by going the same way the germans went with some of their radials: putting an annular radiator in the cowling resembling a radial engine: the radiator will still be a weak point of the engine, but it will be much less exposed than what it would be if placed under the fuselage or the wings: an annular cowling means the radiator will be very hard for all shots coming from the aft hemysphere. Aerodynamics will suffer a bit as streamlining of the nose won't be possible with a blunt radiator there, still the engine mount will be more aerodynamic than that of a radial engine.
So we decided for an in line engine as powerful as we can. We also need to know if we want it turbo or supercharged, and the engine's performances at different altitudes.
Having a turbocharged engine would be desirable, they maximize engine performance for all altitudes and is superb for high altitudes, but undesirable for the weight of the instalation and the cost. On the other hand supercharged engines have irregular performances as the plane goes up and aren't as good as high altitudes with few exceptions, but weigh much less and are cheaper.
However there's a series of supercharged engines with maximized power output for all altitudes, the DB60x. In the game there's no plane with DB603, the engine I would like to use, but the DB605DM is there. roughly 2000hp at sea level, variable speed auto-regulated supercharger, respectable high altitude performance and good output for it's weight.
So the engine will be the DB605DM, cooled by an annular radiator, the installation will resemble that of a radial engine.
Cockpit:All-around vision is a must for a very good SA, and a good distribution of gauges is needed for easily assess the flight conditions the plane is in. So I would want a cockpit with high all around vision and good gauge distribution. The Fw190 has a great panel distribution but the overhead bar impairs vision directly up. The P51D's bubble cockpit on the other hand has an impressive view and it still has a very good panel layout.
So I'd want a cockpit similar to that of the Pony-D
Wings:It's tempting to go for the laminar flow wings, but here we deal with something that might have some serious side-effects with the weaponry. Of course if we plan to put all the weapons out of wings, there's no problem, but I'd want to have at least two wing cannons, so, for instance, a P51's wing is out of the question, it won't take any 20mm cannon without serious modification/bulging, thus killing the laminar flow effects which make that wing so efficient.
The Tempest wing is also laminar flow, and can house 20mm cannons. Still, it's got too big wingspan and it's got a lot of wing area: roll inertia will suffer, and probably roll rate too. Given we want to get a plane fast and maneouverable at high speeds, the tempest wing is also out of the question.
Looking between the wing profiles of AH's fighters there's only one that will give us good weaponry options while retaining very good high speed maneouverability properties: the one of the Fw190. So I'd go with that one. It will have a cost in low speed maneouverabilities but we are aiming for a high speed fighter. The wing fits in perfectly.
Weapons:Now we decide which will be the plane's main weapons. I want to have a mighty snapshot power while retaining as much nimbleness as we can. In other words: I want 20mm cannons in the plane, MG-only weapon sets don't fit in the plane I want. As we want very high roll rate, and to avoid convergence issues, we want weapons as close to the center line as possible. We have the 190 wing which can take up to four 20mm cannons without problems. we have the 109K4 engine, so we can mount a cannon firing through the prop hub. In theory if we have enough space between the engine and cockpit, we can even mount two cannons in the cowling. So we have seven potential spots for 20mm guns. Of course we can't mount that many because of weight consideration, so we have to decide how many and where do we want them.
One of them is a granted, as the installation has only advantages, the one in firing through the prop hub. easy to aim, no convergence issues, no syncronization problems. That one I am going to install no matter what.
Of the other six, the cowling guns offer some advantages but a lot of drawbacks aswell. They offer good fire concentration and easy aim, but cowling guns of that size are hard to mount, and if installed may require the cockpit to be displaced aft. Mounted so much forward they may cause CoG displacement problems, the ammunition space they take could be used for the centerline gun instead, and they must be syncronized.
So, no cowling guns.
The outter wing cannons offer no syncronization problems, but some serious convergence issues instead. Being mounted that far out the wing, they might affect roll rate and ammunition storage won't be as big as if the cannons were placed elsewhere. So no outter wing cannons.
the wing root cannons must be syncronized, but offer very good fire concentration and almost no convergence issues. They potentially have a lot of space for ammunition, which is also good. so we'll mount two wing root cannons.
As for the model: in AH there are several brands of 20mm cannons:
Hispano MkI - too big, too heavy, hard to syncronize-out of the question
Hispano MkV- same as before, even while a bit lighter.
MG151/20 - relatively light ,easily syncronized with low ROF lost. Good contender
ShVAK - relatively light, a bit worse than the MG151 when syncronized. Doesn't make the cut
MG FF- Low ammo, drum fed, bad ballistics, hard to syncronize, out of the question. Same with the japanese version
HO-5 and type 99: hard to syncronize- out of the question.
B-20: Very light, bit less of RoF than the MG151/20 when syncronized but the save in weight more than compensates for it, we have a winner here.
So we'll mount three B-20 cannons. one in the engine, two in the wing roots. Given that we have the 190 wing and that the B-20s are really light, we can add a field modification adding two more 20mm guns in the outter wings for straffing or bomber attacks.
external ord:We have a fighter and we are designing a fighter. External ordinance needed is, basically, drop tanks. So we add a rack under the fuselaje for a DT. For land attack purposes (secondary priority given that we want a fighter and not a ground attack plane) the rack should also load a bomb. As we want a pure fighter we don't need a huge bomb...250kg will be enough (550lbs)
Tail unit:we want good rudder control and good elevator control aswell at all speeds. Many planes give you this, but I can't think of a plane with a higher rudder and elevator authority than the Corsair's...so is chosen.
final planeDB605DM engined plane with Fw190 wings and an annular nose radiator resembling the appearance of a radial engined plane. 3x20mm B-20 cannons (option to mount up to 5). bubble cockpit similar to the P51D's one, tail unit similar to that of the F4U corsair. Optional ventral rack for one DT or one bomb of up to 550lbs.
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So, that's the ideal plane I'd like to fly in AH
. Comments?...and of course, input for your own favorite plane composition?.
S!
