Lomcevak tumble in AH?

[Kingpin]

Hello all,

In reading about the P-39, I encountered reports of it performing a tumble described as essentially a Lomcevak.  In further looking into that maneuver, it would seem the CG on the P-39 could make that possible, although I imagine it would be an unpleasant, uncontrolled sort of event.

Are there any AC in Aces High that can actually perform a Lomcevak tumble -- especially a controlled one?  I imagine this requires a very large power to weight ratio -- perhaps far more than what any AC have in AH?  Can the RV-8 perhaps do it?

The controlled pitch-only Lomcevak tumbles shown in this video clip are pretty amazing (the one at :55 particularly):  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skfprThzUq4

Just a curiosity...

 

[Ack-Ack]

While the Lomcevak might look nice as an airshow maneuver, it really has no place in combat as it's really not effective as an air combat maneuver.





ack-ack

[bustr]

After watching the film I can say I've seen one spit16 and 2 P47 do that tumble on demand in the last year.

In both cases it left me and the players around me flying past and scrambling to get back around and slowed down in a position to shoot after the recovery. The spit16 would simply reenter the tumble holding off the inevitable for a few minutes longer. The P47's would recover, pull vertical back into the tumble causing you to miss your timeing on your aim and over shoot having to come back around or be shot at.

I've entered it by accident in spits while going vertical with 109's where we both stalled and tumbled together on numerous occasions. HTC should add a new message to the main web page.

Welcome to Aces High.

The premier syncronised airshow aerobatics with machinguns simulator in the World!!
 
Experience what might have been through the lense of todays aerobatics in player versus player combat arenas filled with the fighter aircraft of WWII.

[Babalonian]

Bustr is kinda on to something there.... kinda...

We are in WWII aircraft, not modern aerobatic aircraft.  Doing such a maneuver would likely result in a not so nearly elogent recovery as in those films.  At the least further tumbling/stalling would occur until enough speed was recovered for controlable flight.  My suspicion with the P-39 in AH and executing the Lomcevak is that it would quickly devolve into one of the P-39's infamously nastly flatspins at such a low speed unless you were ontop of countering the torque and recovering it from such a bad stall... both not very easy when at such a low speed and so suseptable to tumbling about your CG.

As bustr mentioned with his observations of a spit and a couple P47s doing the maneuver, they executed it but them tumbled/stalled much further until they recovered flight.  In that time, they were vulnerable to a pick and (what sounded like happened) extended the liberty to their foes of taking charge of the fight and setting up for a shot upon the targets recovery from the stall/tumble.... dogfigths have never been a good place for air show acrobatics - your enemy is not only flying to kill you and gain the advantage, but often working to keep all/any advantage they have.

[Kingpin]

Yes, I had intended to mention in my post that I don't see any value in this as an ACM either.  I see most people who try the famous P-47 "tail slide" ultimately die to the loss of E as well.  I'm sure it was an unwelcome occurrence in the P-39, along with the aforementioned flat spin.

I was more just curious if it could be reproduced in AH, by the P-39 or any other AC.

Thanks for the feedback gents.

 

[nrshida]

The aircraft can do these manoeuvres and you would like them to stop in the interests of greater realism?

[bortas1]

  i do this all the time just before i crash

[bustr]

I'd like each aircraft we fly to have an accumulative stress repository that gets zero'd begining of each tour. So every sortie during a tour say if you flew only a single ride. Somewhere in the tour you might have a stress fracture drop your wing off from doing these hinky aerobatics more times than your crew chief and the manual warned you about. War weary ment something once to the number of times you could get back alive from your own choices of how you chose to fly your aircraft.

We indulge the ideotic becasue the structure of our planes don't pay the cost that imposes things like 100 hour maintenace and regular structural checks. Could the WW2 aircraft perform some of the nonsense we do? Probably but, just as probably with the frequencey we indulge ourselves in it would have killed the pilots in WW2 with structural failures.

I bet some of our history buffs have lists of expected structural life time in war usage for most of our fighters and bombers. Weren't the La and Yak with semi wood construction looked at as 3 or 4 month constant action equipment befor the wood fell apart, glue debonded and rot took hold?

This is still a very salient observation:

Welcome to Aces High.

The premier syncronised airshow aerobatics with machinguns simulator in the World!!
 
Experience what might have been through the lense of todays aerobatics in player versus player combat arenas filled with the fighter aircraft of WWII.

[nrshida]

I'd like each aircraft we fly to have an accumulative stress repository that gets zero'd begining of each tour.

Doesn't sound like a very fun or realistic feature to me Bustr. How many aircraft don't get crashed or shot down during a tour?

Welcome to Aces High.

The premier syncronised airshow aerobatics with machinguns simulator in the World!!
 
Experience what might have been through the lense of todays aerobatics in player versus player combat arenas filled with the fighter aircraft of WWII.

I think you're a bit over dramatic.

What do you expect the players of this simulator to have come up with? Some of the 'realism' you seek stems from wartime pilots being nowhere near as experienced or knowledgeable about ACM or aerobatics (which is closely related after all) as some of the Aces High player base.

We push our virtual aircraft to the limit because it's what interests some of us. If some incorporate aerobatics into their ACM and are willing to put the time and effort to doing that why not?

[Soulyss]

In reading about the P-39, I encountered reports of it performing a tumble described as essentially a Lomcevak.  In further looking into that maneuver, it would seem the CG on the P-39 could make that possible, although I imagine it would be an unpleasant, uncontrolled sort of event.

Whether the P-39 in fact tumbled was a bit of a contested issue, may combat pilots and recruits swore it would and that was the reputation is developed.  Bell test pilots on the other hand swore that it wouldn't despite thorough testing.  The only specifics I've come across on the matter in writing come from Charles King, who flew the P-39 with the 39th FS in New Guinea early in the war.  He, like many of it's pilots at the time was rather critical of the P-39.  Many years after the war he softened his view points a bit and had the following to say about tumbling.

The P-39's handling characteristics have also come in for some criticism too.  However, I am convinced that the fighter did not "tumble", as has been widely reported.  All tests to record a tumble were unsuccessful.  It was easy to stall the aeroplane on it's back, with a resultant flat inverted spin.  In that situation, retarding the throttle would allow the aeroplane to drop into an easily recoverable normal spin.  Loss of altitude in a flat spin was minimal, but to the disoriented pilot with a control stick that seemed useless, this was not apparent.  The aeroplane oscillated slowly and horizontally as the nose dipped below the horizon and then rose above it.  To some pilots this was interpreted as a tumble.

In the end we'll probably never know for certain, although the controls on the 39 were very sensitive and with the ammo in the cannon expended I've read several accounts that it could do some weird things.

[bustr]

Truth in advertising from your own lips Nrshida..........

Welcome to Aces High.

The premier syncronised airshow aerobatics with machinguns simulator in the World!!
 
Experience what might have been through the lense of todays aerobatics in player versus player combat arenas filled with the fighter aircraft of WWII.

[FLS]

Joe Foss, Medal of Honor winner at Guadalcanal, outnumbered and flying an F4F against Zekes, credits his extensive aerobatics experience for helping him succeed and survive.

[nrshida]

Truth in advertising from your own lips Nrshida..........

Welcome to Aces High.

The premier syncronised airshow aerobatics with machinguns simulator in the World!!
 
Experience what might have been through the lense of todays aerobatics in player versus player combat arenas filled with the fighter aircraft of WWII.

Bustr stop being such a grumpy, bitter old git! <slap>

Your version of 'realistic', where we all faithfully copy the typical ACM seen in the period footage really sounds very dull and boring to me. I believe I read somewhere that some of the BoB Spitfire pilots had something like 10 hours in type when the were thrown up to face Jerry. What would you like, that players stopped training after an arbitrarily low number of hours in the interests of historical re-enactment?

Aces High offers you the opportunity to engage in simulated combat against similar World War II era aircraft which stopped being made nearly 70 years ago! Your typical AH player is far far more knowledgeable about BFM, ACM and the exact performance of every aircraft you fight here than any real WWII pilot ever was. We are one of two groups still actively researching air combat in prop driven fighters. It's the Red Queen Hypothesis in action. We've just progressed the art. 

[bustr]

Then we are playing Quake Tourny or RoboMech by any other name.

Just remember not to fire the rocket down between your legs until you have used the jump key, or you will kill your character with the contact explosion between your feet and the ground. And the fast side turn key will spin you like a top so you can shower out additional rockets or other projectiles. If you are running fast enough and jump you can fire a rocket down to a side jumping up and over to an opposite vector to which you can fire another rocket down on the opposite side changing your inflight vector at least once confusing anyone tracking you with a plazma rifle at long range. That was a big problem in a custom space port arena tournament where everyone who could, hid off on an asteroid and used the plazma rifle to pick off rocket jumpers.

Or heavy Mech have slow regeneration times on their particle weapons and lockon for rockets, so light assault mechs with speed often survive battel feilds using speed and stealth to sneak up behind heavy mech and breach their armor weak spots. Light mech vs light mech is very often like turn fighting with WW1 kites. The weapons are more devastating or some heavy amuses himself at your expense by vaporising your opponent after he stood there watching the fun.

I used to refuel Knight Twister, N3TL,"Chutzpah" for retired Colonel Thomas Macadoo Love when I worked at the Bay Bridge Airfeild in Maryland. He taught aerobatics from the same feild giving me a few lessons and war stories. Love flew P51D late in the ETO escorting bombers and was credited with 7 air to air kills. After the war he spent his remaning time with the USAF as a test pilot before retiring as a colonel. Granted, things happened in the war that today we would call "airshow aerobatics". Nobody used them as their arsenal of tricks like we do. Getting home alive along with your government issue tool was part of your job description at that time and the rides had express limitations placed on them except under extream need. The more extream manuvers you subjected your tool to, the sooner it got war weary and would become a potential death trap when you needed it the most. In WW2 he never used the aerobatics as a primary combat strategy that he put me through in his Decathlon.

Welcome to Air Quake.


Knight Twister, N3TL,"Chutzpah"

[nrshida]

Surely the Air Quake faction is made up of those running around shooting at things and trying to land some kills by any means to get their names in lights?

The advanced ACM faction study and practice hard to incorporate elements of aerobatics to their repetoire and they aren't doing anything the real aircraft couldn't do, just arguably wouldn't be practical or sensible to do in real life without the enormous amount of practice hours we put in and multiple reinncarnations we have in our game.

I think you are being a bit hypocritical Bustr. You obviously don't want me, say, to do the equivalent of a Lomcevak in AH and instead fly in a way which more suits you, which is ironic because when one of your so-called 'elitists' tries to influence your '80% of ordinary players' activities you have a hissy fit.


I had to snicker at this comment:-

In both cases it left me and the players around me flying past and scrambling to get back around and slowed down in a position to shoot...

Just how many of you were on the poor guy? Were you all competing with each other to get the kill? 'In a position to shoot' and you have the audacity to call aerobatics Air Quake, lolz.