**i got this from an aircraft performance site,talking about flight testing a p47
**** **Maneuvrability ****** No acrobatics were tried but rolling into turns and changing directions is very easily accomplished because of very light aileron forces. Rudder and elevator have somewhat heavier forces but not objectionably so. The radius of turn is large and the stick forces become very heavy in a turn requiring both hands on the stick. ****** The water control switch is objectionable because it must be held "on" by the pilot. This occupies the pilot's left hand and he cannot trim the plane or use both hands on the stick which is necessary to make a tight turn. ****** G. **Stalling Characteristics ****** There is sufficient warning to the pilot of a stall. Slight buffeting of elevators can be felt in the stick, especially with cowl flaps open. Landing is not recommended with cowl flaps open because of false warning of stall and buffeting of elevator. Another warning of a stall is a jerking of the stick to the left. It will snatch the stick from the pilot's hand if he is holding it losely. The stall is normal and the nose falls straight forward and normal recovery is easy. ****i
then add the chance of a bullet going through control surfaces,and a chance of a deflection shot on a passing aircraft,surely two hands on stick during combat ,
but could be wrong,im not a ww2 fighter pilot

BoB RAF Pilot Geoff Page (Spitfire)

"Fear became blind terror, than agonized horror as the bare skin of my hands gripping the throttle and control column shrivelled up like burnt parchment under the intensity of the blast furnace temperature. Screaming at the top of my voice, I threw my head back to keep it away from the searing flames. Instinctively the tortured right hand groped for the release pin. Fresh air suddenly flowed across my burning face. I tumbled. Sky, sea, sky, over and over as a clearing brain issued instructions to outflung limbs".

RAF Pilot Officer John Beard (Hurricane)

"The squadron leader's voice came through the earphones, giving tactical orders. We swung round in a great circle to attack on their beam-into the thick of them. Then, on the order, down we went. I took my hand from the throttle lever so as to get both hands on the stick, and my thumb played neatly across the gun button. You have to steady a fighter just as you have to steady a rifle before you fire it".

Lyle Shelton - Warbird owner (P-51d)

"At the top end, it gets to be a two-handed affair. If you use one hand, the controls get pretty stiff. At Reno, there are some times and places I’m using two hands on the stick. If you’re running a 450 mph race at Reno, one hand is ok. But you get up around 480, now you’re talking two hands on the stick to control the airplane. Then the throttle is always wanting to vibrate back, so you’ve got these various little elementary things going wrong. A lot of times at Reno, I’ve had the guys working on the throttle quadrant friction so that the damn throttle will stay where I put it, which is, in the final Gold race, all the way forward. You get to 480, 490, yeah, both hands - two hands. It'd be a pretty good aerobatic airplane. I’ve done aerobatics in it years ago. I did about three airshows in it; I had an aerobatic waiver. It basically is not a stable airplane: it's kind of like it looks - it's short and fast and wobbly and not very stable. But it handles okay".

I do also know that some British aces liked to push the throttle through the gate and leave it there, using 2 hands to shoot..

Like I said earlier, it would seem that 2 hands were used when shooting and when needed due to high speed and it seems to vary between pilots and aircraft.

For the purposes of the game they have to animate it with hand on throttle because if you change the setting it has to happen real time.

Haha yeah I know right. The fact that its a Spitfire mkVIII up against a Me109E is just plain wrong and later in the film you see both planes have a ammo counter which neither had in reality, although this is probably a neicesity for the film to tell the viewers what is happening without using words. But inside the cockpit the pilots are very believable. There is panic and fear, fight or flight stuff.

Thanks for the intersting info from those pilots winny, and Davedog. I think we will all agree that a WWII pilot would need two movable hands to be in different places at certain times. It would be amazing if BoS and WoPlanes could have pilots with movable hands to do all the controlls around the cockpit but i'm certain that is asking way too much. HOTAS is probably how it will be but i'm sure it will still look great.

On topic now,
Those new Korean war WoPlanes pics. They are beutiful!

Interesting combat reports, sounds like some of these guys coulda used a third hand (or an FO :P) An old Wildcat pilot once told me about the landing gear, how you had to rotate a hand crank something like 25 times to bring the gear up. If your hand slipped it would just spin back down, possibly bashing your hand in the proccess. Pretty heavy workload in some of these old birds.


Sorry for the threadjack Mac, guess I've had too much free time lately. I do like that cockpit shot of the MiG :cool:

They had a similar thing in the Spit MkI, seen a few quotes where the pilots could tell who was new by how much they bobbed up and down just after take off because they were pumping away at the hand crank for the gear. They called it 'porpoising' after the way porpoises swim.

I hope I can run this on my iMac, hell I'm excited it's even being made on that OS, wish more devs weren't so shy.

IIRC all multi-engine ac had yokes and SE ac had sticks. i could be wrong but that is what i remember.

Mac...those are awesome shots. love the cockpit view. its got a lot of visibility and seems to be positioned well for a dogfight

and a new trailer.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VTaz...layer_embedded

The Bf110 had a stick and so did the Fighter & NF versions of the Mosquito.

Great new trailer! That I-16 blows up in a rather hilarious way.

sorry, pope, i didnt clarify...i was strictly talking about US ac being fitted like this. and still could be wrong...lol