Brewster B-239 and the I-16

[Widewing]

With the beta out, I took the opportunity to wring out the Brewster and I-16.

Both are going to be fun.

Speed @ SL 50% fuel
B-239: 280 mph
I-16: 275 mph
A6M2: 270 mph
Hurri I: 262 mph

Speed @ 16k 50% fuel
B-239: 303 mph
I-16: 302 mph

Turn radius and rate, full flaps, 25% fuel
B-239: 329 feet @ 22.5 degrees/sec
I-16: 382 feet @ 21.8 degrees/sec
A6M2: 315 feet @ 25.1 degrees/sec
Hurri I: 364 feet @ 23.3 degrees/sec

The Brewster's sustained turn radius measures second only to the A6M2, and it's close enough to make it a very even match. While the I-16 doesn't turn as well, its agility is excellent, with slightly better acceleration and climb rate than the Brewster. Both aircraft have excellent outward vision, with the I-16 being as good as they come... No canopy frames.

In terms of guns, the four .50 cals in the Brewster seem more effective than the same gun package in the FM-2 and P-51B. This is due to having two of the guns in the cowling, with their natural concentration of fire. Typical of the .50 cals, they shoot flat. In contrast, the I-16 with two cannon and two MGs is more lethal, but the cannon's ballistics are not great. Plus, they have very limited ammo.

These two fighters will hold their own in the late war arenas, if flown to their strengths. In the early war arena, both will very tough adversaries. The Brewster will eat up the Hurricanes. As is the case with the A6M2, it would be a mistake to get into a turning contest with the Brewster if you are flying something like a Bf 109E or F, Spitfire, P-39, P-40 or F4F-4. All four of these will be hard pressed by the I-16 as well.


My regards,

Widewing

[BaldEagl]

About the results I thought I'd see after flying both today. 

I expected the I-16 to be a good little turn fighter but once I dropped the flaps on the Brewster I was in total awe.  I was glad most people in the beta arena hadn't caught onto the use of the Brewster's flaps yet.    The I-16 by comparison didn't seem to give an overwhelming edge with flaps use and felt a little unstable in the stall buzzer.  In fact I felt it's turn rate got slightly worse with the flaps out.

While the climb rate on the I-16 was clearly superior to the Brewster I thought the relative speed of the Brewster was better than what your test results show.

I didn't actually test or measure anything.  These were just my initial perceptions furballing in the middle of the main island.

[Guppy35]

Agreed on the unstable comment regarding the I-16.  Felt like the little rudder didn't help.  Brewster turned far better then I thought it would.  Both fun little birds.

[Strip]

I took a little time to look at endurance and climbrates which compliments your data pretty nicely...

I16...                   

2.0 Fuel Burn

16 minutes @ 100% (67 Gallons)
25 minutes @ 100% and  two 20.5 gallon droptanks

Guns                  Type 24       4x7.6mm ShKas 750 rpg
                          Type 28       2x20mm ShVak 90rpg + 2x7.6mm ShKaks
                          Type 29       1x12.7mm UBS 230 rpg + 2x7.6mm ShKaks

Hard Point Options        8 x RS-32 Rockets and 2 x 20.5 Gallon Droptanks

Climbrate 4234 lbs @ 130 mph

1k      3200
5k      3470
10k    2860
15k    2850
20k    2360
23k    2020
25k    1650


Brewster...         

2.0 Fuel Burn

42 minutes @ 100%  (160 Gallons)

Guns            Package 1        2 x M2 50 cals   400 rpg   
                                            1 x M2 50 cal    200 rpg
                                            1 x 30 cal           600 rpg

                    Package 2        2 x M2 50 cals   400 rpg
                                            1 x M2 50 cal     200 rpg

No Hardpoint Options

Climb Rate 5100lbs @ 140 mph

1k        3050
5k        2950
10k      2350
15k      2275
20k      1860
23k      1440
25k      1125
 
Disclaimer: Most of this data should be accurate to a couple percent and is intended to give rough ideas to the performance and capabilities of the planes. Climbrate was done with fuel burn rate set to zero and around half a fuel load. Accuracy is guaranted to be better than broad side of barn....

[gripen]

In terms of guns, the four .50 cals in the Brewster seem more effective than the same gun package in the FM-2 and P-51B. This is due to having two of the guns in the cowling, with their natural concentration of fire. Typical of the .50 cals, they shoot flat.

I'm too busy to test beta right now but there might be a different and little known explanation for the better fire power. I told about that to Pyro but I don't know if it's modeled to the new plane. Check if the wing guns have much higher rate of fire than the fuselage guns?

[Wmaker]

Brewster is pretty much exactly what I thought it would be. Those lively ailerons feel great! The speed on the deck agrees to the mile to my calculations. Only thing that was a bit of a surprise was the amount of slipping during turns...needs quite a bit of foot work to counteract that compared to most AH's fighters. In real life clean coordinated turns could be done using only rudder or ailerons.

[Wmaker]

Comparison between few Ah fighters with F4F-3A and F2A-3 thrown in:



Those speeds for the I-16s are speeds for the production planes. Pyro seems to have modelled the speed on the deck after pre-production Type 24. The series aircraft were found to be slower than that according to Yefim Gordon & Dmitri Khazanov. The speeds listed for the I-16s on my table come from Yefim Gordon's & Keith Dexter's I-16 book.

Brewster speeds I extrapolated from Finnish flight test which was flown at continous (850hp) setting:



Currently Brewster does not have it's WEP-setting but it seems to be doing the WEP-speed on the deck with Take-off setting (AH-continuos, 950hp) only.

[Rich46yo]

So far I must say I like both airplanes. Best of all they really duel each other out really well. The Historical recreations including the two should be awsome. We'll see how it works out. I'll say this already however and that is I like the 235 more then the FM2. I think the 235 handles better.

[moot]

9
239

I think the I-16 is great.  Exactly what an early war tool should be... Wings and guns, nothing else to spoil it.

[Wmaker]

Sorry I screwed up the weight of the F2A-3 in that table. That weight is for F2A-2, not -3.

[alskahawk]

 Found both planes to be fun. Brewster is a fun little plane. I 16 is great on the verticals. Now a Hinkle biplane for a good threesum.

[moot]

I-16 firing times (for anyone running without ammo counters):
4x 7mm : wing guns 30", cowl 17".
1x .50 + 2x 7mm : 14.5" + 17"
2x 20mm + 2x 7mm : 6.5" + 17"

I-16 weights breakdown:
25% of fuel  =  100 lbs
DT + their fuel = 52 + 188 = 240 lbs.  No extra weight over a clean cfg once DTs dropped.

4x7mm ammo =  176 lbs.  Empty = 3649 lbs
1x50 + 2x7 ammo = 74 + 58 respectively = 132 lbs.  Negligible weight, no use dumping either ammo as ballast. Empty = 3642 lbs
2x20 + 2x7 ammo = 93 + 58 = 151 lbs. Empty = 3781 lbs
So the 4x7 and 2x7+1x.50 are essentially the same plane, as far as weight goes.  The 20mm package adds just 140 lbs or so.

[Krusty]

Had the chance to play around with the I-16 in the beta arena, in between bursts of lag.

It seems the ultimate beginner plane. Sure you may not get kills, but you can evade death until you run out of fuel, and it's literally a point-and-click (or "point-nose, go-there") plane.

So I wanted to read up a little on it. Found half a dozen different resources on line, some differing info, wanted to pick folks' brains.

What's our in-game deck speed? Top speed seems to be 9.8k historically (???), so what do we have there?

A number of sources list the Type 24 top speed as 304 mph at 10k, a lot list it as 326mph at 10k-ish (9,845 ft). One reference breaks it down, listing M-62R engine, 1000hp (many Type 24 had 900hp M-63), as 326 @ SL, 304 @ 10k, 286 @ 14,765ft.

Doing a bit more reading, I really think the E-retention in-game is out of whack in a big way. It's basically a flat surface slamming directly into the wind (look at the nose!) with short, stubby, inefficient propellor blades (only 2, at that), and yet repeatedly I've seen it dive well past 400mph in the beta arena (4-5 occasions, separate planes/pilots) and hold that speed for a very long time. Found a reference referring to fights with Bf109Es that stated among other things: "In combat, the Bf 109 could escape from the I-16 in a dive since the stubby fighter had a terminal dive speed of 530 km/h (330 mph)." I don't know about that terminal speed... Can anybody confirm? I'm sure it has one, and it's probably less than the 450mph they've been diving in the beta arena. I'd really like to point that out to HTC, if it's the case, but need better info.

Supposedly: "The cannons adversely affected performance with the 360° circle time increasing from 15 seconds in Type 5 to 18 seconds." I wonder if that holds true in-game... I only tried out the 20mm version, naturally hehehe, The one time I took 4x 7mm I ran out of ammo with no kills.

I found a couple of references to the Type 5 being the most produced with 3000+ built, but this is a very early type, and probably most of those were during/after the Spanish Civil War. What was the most common type in WW2 (1939+)? One webpage listed the Type 24 as having just under 1000 built, and the Type 28 being a Type 24 with the wing guns changed, so I don't know if they are counted in that total or separately.

[PFactorDave]

I got into a very long turn fight with another Brewster (<S>  Santaana), had my flaps waaay out and was having a blast.  Then I got rammed by somebody trying to pick me, knocked my tail feathers off.  Plane pitched up, I kept the throttle full...  Floated down and landed like a helicopter, plane settled right side up pretty as you please.  I think I fell at least 500 feet, maybe more!   

[hubsonfire]

I had a spectacular low speed crash in an I-16- some Finn took a wing off, and I tumbled in, ripped off the tail, then the other wing, then one gear strut, and rolled over on the canopy, sliding to a halt in a stand of trees. It's interesting to fight at speeds low enough to survive unscheduled departures.