Ye Gods... I thought P-47 was monster...

[-ammo-]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_XP-72

[BnZs]

. Both k-4 and d-9 have lousy turn rates.

19.6 degrees per second isn't too lousy on the K4's end. I'd love to have that turn rate in a Pony with one notch of flap. Also the full flaps radius of the K4 shrinks to 534 feet while still maintaining that 19.6 DPS. Compared to late-war planes of similar engine performance, it is fairly maneuverable.

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?cid=4F7912F19B484B3B&resid=4F7912F19B484B3B%21761&app=WordPdf&authkey=%21AH41epN2ncdKKcg&wdo=1

[tunnelrat]

You know what is a lot of fun?  Shooting down guys that think they are hot to trot in their He-162s in my La-9.  (Okay, I was just a bullet shield, but my sacrifice allowed my other La-9 buddies the opportunity to shoot down all He-162s)

The whole "it never saw service" thing is pretty outdated.  Me-262s never saw service against Bf-109K4s either, doesn't mean the end result doesn't still equal a hell of a lot of fun.

[BnZs]

*drool*
Anyone else ever feel a slight twinge of wistfulness because prop planes in service never quite reached their zenith. Too bad jets couldn't have come along just a little later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_XP-72

(Image removed from quote.)

[PJ_Godzilla]

19.6 degrees per second isn't too lousy on the K4's end. I'd love to have that turn rate in a Pony with one notch of flap. Also the full flaps radius of the K4 shrinks to 534 feet while still maintaining that 19.6 DPS. Compared to late-war planes of similar engine performance, it is fairly maneuverable.

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?cid=4F7912F19B484B3B&resid=4F7912F19B484B3B%21761&app=WordPdf&authkey=%21AH41epN2ncdKKcg&wdo=1

It is, but I compared it to the Spit. When I use the g-14 against the Pony, the trick is to slow him down and get him into a turn fight. When I use the K-4, the Pony doesn't have a lot of advantage outside of his high-speed handling and ballistics.

Generally, all I worry about with Ponies is getting picked - same with the Typh (only worse - those damn Hispanos). It's the Spit, imj, that is really the best pure air-to-air fighter. It's good at everything, pretty much: climb, speed, firepower, lateral turn.

Mind, I don't dislike either the d-9 or k-4, though I spend most of my flying time in the g-14. I just don't do that much turnfighting in it. Mostly, it's dive, fire, climb, roll, reverse, dive...Sometimes, I'll saddle up, mainly because I'm not that great of a shot. Yesterday, for example, I saddled up on a P-38. There were only 38s a nd LAncs in the neighborhood so I said wtf and went fangsout. Generally, I'd call this dangerous, since, in the 109, it is safest/best to retain that alt advantage so that I can always climb away. Those 38s were so poorly flown that dispatching the hapless pilot was relatively easy, then  I just extended away from his hapless remaining mates and landed my kills.

BTW, I tried the "porpoise" maneuver Saturday and evaded about 4 bad guys with it. It bought me time to run to ack. Whilenboth the maneuver and the run to ack may be game'y, so was the mix of baddies (Yak, La-la, Spitties).

The Porpoise: an Ace move...

Thanks for providing the link to this chart. It's very useful.

[pangea]

The whole "it never saw service" thing is pretty outdated.  Me-262s never saw service against Bf-109K4s either, doesn't mean the end result doesn't still equal a hell of a lot of fun.

I agree with this.  I know there needs to be a line drawn at some point as to what should or shouldn't be in the game, but I would like to see some of the aircraft included that almost made it into the war, like the Do-335, F-8F, F-7F, P-63, P-80 and others as long as there is enough data available to model them accurately.  No drawing board fantasy planes mind you, just those that were actually built and were reasonably close to becoming operational or seeing combat in WWII.  If its fun who cares if its not absolutely historically accurate.  Much of the game is not historically accurate as it is, so I don't see that as a defining criteria for whether any plane should be included or not.

[PJ_Godzilla]

For about the first 4 feet out from the fuselage. The wing leading edge is a semi-knife edge, then blends to rounded. You also notice there is a very small amount of filleting at the fuselage wing joint.

Does the knife edge have a relationship to influencing the airflow through the 90 degree shape created by the fuselage and wing with minor filleting?

I wonder a little about the stall characteristics of that portion of the cross section. Early root stall is certainly prefereable to tip stall.

My reco on some of these knife edged sections, going back to Aero grad school (about thirty years back) is that the peak pressure decrease is really, really senstive to that leading edge geometry. You can get crazy peaks off of finer leading edges.

[PJ_Godzilla]

This would be an interesting late-war unflushable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_XP-58_Chain_Lightning

[Rich46yo]

A 1946 LWA arena would be a huge coup and bring back players in mobs. Most of all when powered by a new engine.

[Brooke]

What is the Superbolt?

XP-72

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_XP-72



"designed around the Pratt & Whitney R-4360 28-cylinder air-cooled radial engine with a supercharger mounted behind the pilot"

"The order included an alternate armament configuration of four 37 mm cannon."

R-4360 and 4x37mm!  Ye gods.

[Brooke]

*drool*
Anyone else ever feel a slight twinge of wistfulness because prop planes in service never quite reached their zenith. Too bad jets couldn't have come along just a little later.

I'm with you! 

[Brooke]

I agree with this.  I know there needs to be a line drawn at some point as to what should or shouldn't be in the game, but I would like to see some of the aircraft included that almost made it into the war,

Not me.  They are very interesting planes, but a bunch of them don't have much performance data, so the modeling would be based on guesses.  Also, it would suck a lot of the player base away from the aircraft that really did fight in WWII.

I like HTC's criterion:  it had to be in service in WWII.

[moot]

I agree with this.  I know there needs to be a line drawn at some point as to what should or shouldn't be in the game, but I would like to see some of the aircraft included that almost made it into the war, like the Do-335, F-8F, F-7F, P-63, P-80 and others as long as there is enough data available to model them accurately.  No drawing board fantasy planes mind you, just those that were actually built and were reasonably close to becoming operational or seeing combat in WWII.  If its fun who cares if its not absolutely historically accurate.  Much of the game is not historically accurate as it is, so I don't see that as a defining criteria for whether any plane should be included or not.

Not merely about what to include, but priorities, so long as HTC is such small team.  Along with above reasons by Brooke, it means those fringe WWII birds ought to be done after models that were the actual meat of WWII.  You really have to have a model that was within AH gameplay and/or within general WWII performance envelope, and be a lot of fun and be very popular to survive inclusion filter.

[Ardy123]

(Image removed from quote.)

the young lad looking at that plane was about 190cm tall at that time... 

I dig the pajama pants!

[Ardy123]

Generally, all I worry about with Ponies is getting picked - same with the Typh (only worse - those damn Hispanos). It's the Spit, imj, that is really the best pure air-to-air fighter. It's good at everything, pretty much: climb, speed, firepower, lateral turn.

Agreed, I have only felt that Ponies were a threat when one had to fight them along with turny planes like ki-84s... The ki-84s would force a turn fight, Ponies would dive from 20k above and pick you.