I guess I still prefer to have some idea where one fighter can outperform the other, but I guess that's why I'll never get over the charts. Off course, nothing beats experience :) .

Having that knowledge gets you started I feel. It's good to know your opponents potential... but if that potential is exploited is another story altogether, isn't it?

Back when I first started getting online plus about a year this new game came out, Red Baron 2. I got it in Feb 1998 and while searching for info I found the Flight Sim Forum at Delphi and so began my entry into the Flight Sim Community that had been going on for years already.

One of the old terms in the community was "Spit Dweeb". I think it originated in either the Air Warrior or Aces High, or both, community.

A Spit Dweeb is a player that grabs the "best plane" and expects to always have the upper hand. Then when they get out-flown or out-anything especially if they get shot down, they go up on a forum and say the game is wrong.

Charts are great. I love them. But I don't have steady enough hands or the 'flying skills' to make them so that leaves me knowing that plane X under my control is not going to do as well as a better flier in plane X.

Hey Horseback,

Thanks for your work on this. As a crap plane enthusiast, your exercise for me is academic at best - I'm always going to end up in the slower, lower airplane. ;-) But I do appreciate your work on actual in game data.

Cloyd

But wait--there's more!!!
 

Okay, here's the final installment in the 100m series: late war USAAF, Mid war Spitfires and the Mid war Bf 109 series.

I added the Mustang III and the P-47D (Late)to the USAAF fighters out of curiosity; I normally avoid the 'pumped up' stuff unless I feel that the original offering was less than accurate. I must say that the rankings of the US fighters seems a bit off; the P-38 should be the champion at all altitudes, at least from start (170mph) to about 350 mph indicated, so the L (Late) sort of restores the natural order. Every resource I have says that this was the case, and that the P-47 and the Mustang were neck-and-neck once the Jug finally got a propeller worthy of the R-2800. The P-47M was supposed to be faster to accelerate than the D/K Mustangs (when it worked). Bear in mind that both the Lightning and the Jug used turbosuperchargers, which allowed them to use every bit of the engines' horsepower from the ground right up to around 30,000 ft, so their performance in terms of IAS was fairly consistent.

Note also that the D model Mustangs are significantly superior to the razorback versions (less the Mustang III) at low levels; this is consistent with the fact that the earlier models were optimized for high altitude, so if you're going to take it down in the weeds, a bubbletop is the better choice.

As for the Bf 109s, I should point out that for the G-2 I experimented with closing the rads once I reached about 400 kph indicated but left them in Auto for the G-6. The G-6 rarely overheated, but the G-2 would overheat pretty quickly once the rads were closed--the payoff is that you will get faster sooner. Note that in every case, the automatic transmission of the LW fighters makes them initially slower to accelerate than their Allied counterparts, but once the transition is made, the speed can pick up quickly.

One of the things this project has helped me with is to identify not only which aircraft have the better response in terms of power (and where), but which ones handle better, i.e., which ones require less trim or have the more reliable instrument displays (critical for flying level or in proper trim). Being aware that the 'ball' has to be offset a bit to one side or the other in some aircraft in order to be properly trimmed is a handy thing to know. I'm probably a much more effective pilot as a result.

Next stop: 5000 feet or around 1500m.

cheers

horseback

Please... Check the ACCELERATION chart made by HORSEBACK. (page 6, post # 44) It clearly shows the insane advantage of the FN over the F. For example, 270 to 500 km/h takes 56 seconds for F, and 36 seconds for FN. Thats 55.5% better performance.

JtD already pointed at something important in post #100 of this thread,I'll repeat it again.

Keep in mind that the last ratio is between La5 being near to zero climb at 2 m/s and La5FN at 7 m/s. The absolute differences all down the curves run La5FN as from 4/ms to 5 m/s more even though the ratios change so greatly.

Besides, the real shock is when the La5FN can still climb while the La5 has to fly a shallow dive to keep the same speed.

Compare a FW190A-3 to a contemporary Spit VB. Tactic for the 190 is to force the Spit to higher speeds. Tactic for the Spit is to force the FW to turn.

Does someone have to walk through how acceleration, distance and time relate?

I can't promise you'll get it. If you're lost at ratios then squares and roots will look like tricks.

Sorry but I stuck with math for years to understand how I do, what I do. It's not an insane advantage that you're seeing. It's to be expected and understood and have tactics made on.

Last time I felt like this the 'issue' was over dive accelerations and the inability to dive beyond guns range from 100 m or less in a few seconds.

You are making the mistake of assuming acceleration to be constant, but it changes with speed, and changes differently with each plane.
Use the ROC vs speed diagram in Il2compare and I bet it will fit the data okay.
Very rough comparison: La5FN flies 420kph at half time(18s), so lets compare acceleration at 420 to La-5F, ~15m/s to ~10m/s, so 50% better is okay.