again few more pics for illustrating of some VISIBLE defects/problems of some soviet planes in flight...

1 yak-9 with vk-107a and oil on windshield...

2 yak-9 (d?) with not closing shutters of tail wheel...

3 "Воспроизведение в полете разрушения верхней поверхности обшивки крыла самолета Ил-2. ЛИИ НКАП\ 1943 г." from "БОЛЕЗНИ 1943 ГОДА" (particularly impressionable or inadequate peoples - better not read:) - or at first time, read this)...

4 yak-9b with tail wheel (-8-10 kph by instruction), and, maybe, pilot just did not know about this, and not did recommendation like in la-5fn manual...

5 and example of field modification for specific weather conditions (lagg-3 of very early series)...


and, i accidentally invented joke, with funny game of words (like bad, mainly, prejudiced joke - лагг/lagg - лакированный гарантированный гроб/lacquered guaranteed coffin)...

Lavochkin - Gorbunov - Gudkov = LaGG...

but if...

Gudkov Lavochkin Gorbunov = GuLaG...:mrgreen:

Problem with the La-5/7 series is their overly high topspeeds which are partly based on the "etalon" production standard setting prototypes (of which no serial produced machine ever had hopes to reproduce performances)

La-5: 20kmh too fast at all altitudes (550kmh ingame @ SL vs 525kmh IRL, 600kmh ingame @ altitude vs 580kmh IRL)

This was the very first version of the La-5 introduced around the Battle of Stalingrad and was lacking a lot in performance, even the LaGG-3S66 was deemed a better fighter at the time! The first non slotted versions took 25s for a full turn, later slotted models needed 22s - putting them in a disadvantaged position compared to the Bf109s of the time (109F, early G)

La-5F: sea level speed ok, speed at altitude 20kmh too fast (620kmh ingame vs 600 IRL)

La-5FN: OK speed-wise for a '44 model, ingame it is labelled '43 and would thus need a 20kmh speed reduction

La-7: sea level speed ok, speed at altitude 25kmh too fast (685 ingame vs 660 IRL)

That all sounds pretty reasonable to me in terms of fixes for the series. I'm saying this uncritically as I haven't done the research myself but it does seem reasonable.

1984, what do you think? Russian sources suggest similarly? For a long time it's been that top level performance is what's accepted but serial level production top performance I would think is preferable to prototypes.

I've known this for a while but an additional La-5FN, 1944 to add to the La-5FN,1943 would allow for historical scenarios using the FN at different points in the campaign. So far as I know, no 3D model changes... just performances.

IceFire!

Check the previous page! NII VVS test results, the best, most reliable source you can find. Of course there are prototypes included too, but easy to distinguish them. LaGG-3 is also included, but no variant number.

What we need:

SN 37210444, 08.1942 for La-5
SN 39213050, 07-08.1943 for La-5F
SN 39210495, 09-10.1943 for La-5FN

Problems ingame:

La-5 is way too fast at any altitude
La-5F is too fast at low and high altitudes, but a bit slow at medium
La-5FN is bit too fast at low altitudes, too slow at medium, and way too fast at high altitudes.

Turn times are exaggerated ingame, difference is 1-3 seconds depending on variant.

La-5 and La-5F also have a bit too high climb rate.

Regarding La-7, Z1024 did a very good research, chech his thread.

So are the Soviet fighters getting there FM fixed/tweaked for 4.12?

Stop daydreaming, mate. Actually, I would not be supprised if they further "optimized" their FM.

No. It was planned, but we all want the patch to appear some time 2013. So it's on hold.

Yes we should definitely make them fly 9000 kph at all altitudes...:evil: :cool:

Missed that. Really interesting! I'd like to see the test values lined up with in-game much better than they have been. It's been a while since quite a few planes had a good looking over but as JtD said, it'd be great to have the patch this year and so maybe next patch there will be time. I'd rather them done carefully than rushed.

Bigger problem than small differences in speed or turn rate is a bug in flight model of La-5FN that is practically immune to stall and you can fly a cobra with it no problem, you can very simply stall La-7, La-5F or La-5, however La-5FN is different and you can pull the stick back as much as you want at any speed or altitude (without using rudder of course). It would be at least nice to have this FM bug corrected in 4.12 and tweak the performance of the whole breed to more realistic serial production levels for the next patch.