F4U turn performance, flaps, the real plane, etc (discussion)

[Krusty]

I recall many years of learning to fly on the F4U before the airflow updates. Back then it was a pretty rare plane to come up against. It was okay but in the way a p51 is: It wasn't a turn plane. It COULD turn, but definitely not like the zeke/spit hybrid it is now 

Then the airflow change made the flaps super. I don't care WHO you are you have to admit it is a super easy plane to turn now. It can hold its own with spitfires and even some zekes in stall fights, and with no instability or adverse yaw or anything. It's got almost no chance to spin and a very docile stall in most cases.

Here's what gets me:

For 6 years folks were: "Yup, that's right"

Then with the airflow recode, a night and day change in how it flies, it fills the arenas now, folks are: "uh.. yeah, this is how it should be"

Historically speaking this was never the case. So what's up with this game community? Just double-tongued? Justifying the plane they like? You can't say it's right before and right after, because it is so radically different in how the before/after are modeled.

These flaps were only used for landing, to lower speeds for carrier approaches. It's a massive plane with tons of power and it was NOT easy to fly slow, so why do we have a super-F4U in this game? Several folks have chimed in that it doesn't nearly have as much torque forces acting on it as it should, especially at low speed. Folks who seemingly know a lot about it (I believe Widewing was one, Bodhi another, and a few more).

So why do we have this spitfire-like F4U in our game?

Chime in. Not intended to flame. This thread is intended to gather facts, details, and what-have-you and/or possibly get HTC to reconsider how it's modeled in the future.

[FLS]

I recall many years of learning to fly on the F4U...

You think it should be harder to fly after many years of practice? It seems difficult enough for the new guys.

[Krusty]

Now, it's fairly easy. Keep in mind at the time I was self-training, and was learning in the old HTH rooms because I didn't have a sub. I will admit I was super slow to learn even some basic stuff. I realized once I found a few HTH friends (I think "Warhawk" taught me a lot) that I was only retarding my own development by trying to learn by myself.

So, yes... I admit it took me at least a couple years to actually become something above "sitting duck".

This all starting back around 2000/2001 or so.

[RedBull1]

When I started this game I trained myself on the F4U and only the F4U for 6-8 months, I would say it is easy, but not TOO easy, and if it is remodeled to be more realistic and its too 'difficult for the new guys' then they can go back to their spitfires. Not every plane in the game has to be new guy friendly!

 

PS: Krusty, make 3 more posts 

[Karnak]

F4U flaps are one of the things I am skeptical of in the game.  Hurricane, A-20 and Bf110C agility are others.

[Fud]

I've always wondered if the cartoon F4U and the real one were modeled the same. When I flew the 4hog, I was always dinkin with flaps for turn and stall fights and if a pilot would have enough time to think of doing this in a real dog fight.

[hlbly]

F4U flaps are one of the things I am skeptical of in the game.  Hurricane, A-20 and Bf110C agility are others.

 The plane was notorious for its low speed bad handling  . Stalls with no warning . It was equipped with a light that came on when the plane was a few miles an hour above stall speed . Ours has a nice healthy buffet to warn before a stall . . When it stalled it quickly dropped a wing and corrective measures had to be fast or it went into a spin that was difficult to recover .I don't think I have ever spun a corsair . To get accepted the Navy had to relax it's 10 revolution maximum before recovery requirement . It could not be achieved without a chute being installed . As for prop torque it has a huge prop mated to an enormously powerful engine yet has little noticeable problems . Where I am really suspicious is the F4u-4 with a much more powerful engine has no more torque than any other model . It was called the ensign eliminator for a reason . Everything I can find shows the flaps being limited to 20 degrees during combat .

[Triton28]

I'm partial to the hog, and I'm not going to claim heaps of factual knowledge of the real bird, but the OP is a bit of an overstatement, IMO.

I've outturned a few spits in one, likely due to said spit pilot mistake rather than My/Hog awesomeness.  Zekes?  Keep dreaming.  I was forced to give it a shot one time.  Was towered in the second turn.   

It's a wonderful bird in my opinion, but I don't think its a super bird.  It's not that hard to screw up and get owned in one.  Especially when low and slow.

[nrshida]

This sequence of films might be pertinent to this discussion. One part describes the stall:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J0BYq3yevs

[Krusty]

I've seen the one you mean, shida. It's actually in part 2 of the series:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-PwTTQz6Zw&feature=relmfu

after 2 minutes. It's an abrupt stall with a pretty sharp loss of altitude and the wing totally dropping own.

[Big Rat]

Krusty,  you really over state most of your points.  Getting in a stall fight with a good spit or zeke pilot, is still silly in this bird since they have a far superior power to weight ratio, and will end up over the top of you in short order, if they are any good. Plus either tends to get around the circle much faster then a Corsair, especially if the fight has gotten slow.  So a Hybrid of a spit/zeke turning? wouldn't it be somewhere in between, rather then worse then both?  Unless we are referring to high speed turning?  The N1K in game is actaully about the closest turning plane to our Corsair, I feel it's slightly better in both turning and stability in this requard. A slow rolling scissors is a different story, and a Corsair strong point. Spitfire flies like a completely different animal then the Corsair.  Completely different power to weight ratios, acceleration, and climb.  In fact, the spitfires strengths are mostly the Corsairs (1 series) weaknesses.  So spitfire like F4U, doesn't make much sense.  I train people in corsairs 3 days of the week, almost every week, for quite a few years now.  It's a very hard plane to master, and one of the busiest to fly correctly.  No goofy stalls or yaw problems? you're not pushing it hard enough.  Trust me they are there, if you push it hard enough.  Same with torque issues, they are there, maybe not historically correct.  The Corsair we have today is different from even the one we had 3-4 years ago or less, it was more stable before, then it is now. It's slowly being de-stabilized in what I'm seeing (and talking to other hog guys), either that or I'm getting more sloppy with it.  I'm definitely no expert on the real thing, but as far as the one we have in game, I think I'm a pretty good authority.   I'm all for making the planes as correct as possible, but also keep in mind we fly these things for the most part much harder then the real thing was normally pushed.  So you have to think of the games flight model as what is the thing capable of, versus what did it do.  For example, was it physically possible for this thing to dump 3 notches of flaps at 200mph? not that anybody ever tried it. If it was physically possible, shouldn't it be modeled?  If it wasn't possible, then it shouldn't be modeled in my oppinion. 

If someone can come up with some stall tests or turning tests with actual data that can be re-created in game to prove or disprove, I'm all for trying them out.  I've got a whole squad of hog sticks that would love to try this stuff out, so you have a large sample base if needed.  So lets keep this thread to actual facts rather then it turns with zeros and acts like a spitfire

     
 
BigRat

[nrshida]

I've seen the one you mean, shida. It's actually in part 2 of the series:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-PwTTQz6Zw&feature=relmfu

after 2 minutes. It's an abrupt stall with a pretty sharp loss of altitude and the wing totally dropping own.

Yup, interesting to contrast the stall with the P-38, the training film of which is also on that channel. The P-38 one states the stall is very docile.

Do you think the information in that film conflicts with Aces High's version Big Rat?


When fighting against the Corsairs, I find their biggest assets to be the very tight turn radius, and their ability to nose down when slow and then U-turn upwards, the momentum allowing a shot with the effective longer range armament. A formidable opponent.

[Big Rat]

Do you think the information in that film conflicts with Aces High's version Big Rat?


When fighting against the Corsairs, I find their biggest assets to be the very tight turn radius, and their ability to nose down when slow and then U-turn upwards, the momentum allowing a shot with the effective longer range armament. A formidable opponent.

I don't think it conflicts all that much.  A left wing stall at 88mph with 2 notches of flaps, and left wing stall at 97mph with no flaps.  Not too far off what I see in game, about as slow as I can keep level controlled flight is around 75mph with full flaps.  The speeds they mention reuired for certain manuevers seem kinda high compared to in game, but I also have to consider this is a training film.  I start students at higher speeds and work the speed down to the minimums as they learn the aircraft, no reason they would't be doing the same.  Eg. Immelmans start at 200mph to start off with then I can eventually work them down to 150.  One thing I do find odd in the game is the -1 seems to be the most agile stall fighter of the bunch, when there were some stalling corrections developed in the 1a.  Our game Corsair definitely has a tendency to have worse stalls to the left at high angles of attack then it does to the right.  If you try taking it nose up as if trying to rope someone, and get your speed down to about 125mph and try to rudder turn it right (nose falls off to right side), it normally does it fairly easily with some practice and throttle work.  Try to do the same thing with a left rudder turn and she'll tend to pancake spin, and takes a bit to get back under control.  I think in my time I've figured out most ways to get this thing to stall, especially low speeds with too much rudder application.   This wasn't much of an issue a few years ago, but getting the tail to wash out now can be done fairly easily.

A key to fighting against a Corsair is gaining the high ground against it early, and make it fight uphill.  Use the Corsairs alt as your hard deck and never let it get itself nose down.  Climb and acceleration are it's weak points (excluding the -4), So when you are piloting a Corsair in a fight it's critical to gain the high ground on your first merges while you still have the speed to do so.

 
BigRat   

[Krusty]

I think it conflicts plenty, personally. In that level, steady, 1G stall it drops so hard the nose automatically starts pointing down and the wing loses all lift to the point it's aimed at the ground.

In this game you get much more docile handling in a stall, even when pulling many Gs in a tight turn, and you can still maintain perfect aim on your target. As Shida said, you can still get your nose on targets with amazing E retention.

It doesn't match up to most historic accounts I've read about. It was a high speed fighter, and very heavy. It had a big wing so the wing loading was not as bad as some other planes, but it still was a massive plane with a great deal of inertia and a giant torque generating device on the front end. It needed a certain amount of airflow to remain pointed the proper way. Getting it slow was a recipe for death (yours, not the enemy's).

I don't think they were stating higher speeds Big Rat, I think they were stating actual speeds. Keep in mind any F4u pilots had already undergone flight training on advanced trainers. This would be a film for advanced pilots with many hours under their belts. Just not on this type.

[nrshida]

I don't think it conflicts all that much...

Interesting information and insight  

I find it an enigmatic aircraft to fly. Doesn't seem to be turning well from the inside, but when I fight someone like Fudmukkr he bends it like Beckham. But then I don't fight smart, I just try to manoeuvre in close with everything.