Quote:"I forget who it was, but one of our virtual pilots interviewed Stigler and asked about flaps in combat. The answer was that they were only used for takeoffs and landings, never during combat."
This is exactly what I think: In the 109G-6 it was more important to use the trim tail than paying the unaffordable cost of extra drag.
Maybe when the 109G-6 got MW-50 (G-14) it could, in theory, afford the extra drag of lowering flaps slightly when competing against Merlin Mustangs... But then maybe the pilot could just trim it more tail-heavy, pushing all the time on the stick for level flight, and then simply pull harder on the stick with MW-50 engaged: Simpler than turning that trim wheel at the last moment!
The one problem the non-MW-50 Me-109G-6 had, when turning with the Merlin Mustang, was what happened when the altitude ran out and a downward spiral could no longer compensate for its inferior speed retention in turns (which seems contradictory with the G-6's better climb rate, but there you go)... The 109G-6 could turn in a marginally tighter radius than a P-51 at medium-low speeds, but the Mustang retained speed much better in wider turns, and thus could afford using flaps to tighten up the turn. Many other types actually turned significantly tighter than the Merlin P-51s, most obvious among those the paddle-blade Razorback P-47D and the P-38, but these gave pilots the feeling that any extra drag would lose them more in speed than what they gained in radius.
The FW-190A had such good low-speed reserve acceleration, it is one of the rare WWII fighter types I heard that used the lowered flaps as a standard procedure for turning combat. But it was a specialized low-speed turn fighter, and I doubt the flaps did it much good above 250 MPH IAS, where its sustained turn performance was poorer than most other fighters. At higher speeds, it needed clean aerodynamics and a downward spiral desperately to remain even marginally competitive in turns with the Merlin Mustang... At low speeds it could match or beat the P-38 and even the Spitfire (especially if the latter was not a Mk IX!)...
Quote:
I think the ability to sustain speed in turns, similar amoung many types, should determine the useability of flaps at higher speeds,
Why? We are talking modeling limits, nothing to do with L&D curves of flaps.
HiTech
-I think the link between Load and Drag and the use of flaps is that better-turning aircrafts can pull at a higher angle of attack, and thus turn tighter, in effect the whole aircraft IS the flap. This puts them at the limit of loosing speed in a simpler way by just pulling harder on the stick, rather than altering the wing profile in a more complicated, less easily reversible, action. They reach the limit of loosing a lot of speed in the turn by just pulling on the stick, in other words.
With an aircraft like the Merlin P-51, that keeps an unusually high sustained speed for a given wider turn, but is not capable of a tight turning radius despite a competitive turn RATE in a wider radius, then it becomes worthwhile to go to the extra complexity of deploying flaps to reduce the radius, IF the acceleration available in reserve is up to the task of compensating for the extra drag. It was sufficient for the Merlin Mustang, and for the FW-190A at lower speeds, but the trade-off was not worthwhile for many others fighter types, which is why it is so absent from so many type's pilot accounts.
Quote; "In reference to your post: Are you referring to your own experience online in AH, NACA flight test reports or other data, or do you have actual combat time in Ki-43s, 109s, P38s and P51s?"
- No. I re-designed an old boardgame (AH's Air Force) as a hobby, doing research over several years. I take much of my conclusions from cross-referencing pilot anecdotes and comparative tests, which is why some of what I say is not the widely accepted dogma...
The Ki-43-I vs P-38 flap/drag comments I made were from an absolutely fascinating, and very detailed, 1944 fly-off report with a captured Oscar. I thought it came from Mike William's site, but I cannot find it right now. I will try to post the link later.
Gaston
