AI turns with full rudder
 

First I apologize if this has been posted before, but I did a quick search of the forum and could not find anything.

When flying hurricanes as a wingman I have noticed that the AI A/C leading turns with little bank but full rudder, flying a very uncoordinated turn.

It is funny to see how the other two A/C of the VIC formation ( the other A/I wingman and myself) fly in close formation with muche more bank than the leader.

Has this been reported as a bug already?? Because it is weird that AI A/C turn differently when they lead and when they fly as wingmen.

When I have access to the desktop PC I will post som screenshots of the problem.

cheers

This has been similar back in IL2 as well, but in all honesty it's not that uncommon when flying in formation (i remember years ago someone posting a wartime training video from a USAF flight school which emphasized the use of rudder for formation flying).

I think that it's a case of sacrificing some aerodynamic efficiency in exchange for keeping wings in a more level attitude to maintain visual contact, instead of banking in a sharper angle and losing sight of half the formation under the lifted wing.

I always wondered if more rudder would improve a turn. Any more info on the subject would be great.:grin:

it is true that rudder is quite used in formation flying, but mainly by wingmen to make small adjustments of the position.

Lead A/C must fly a full coordinated turn, with neither slip nor skid, in other words, the ball must be centered. And AI leading A/C turns are far off from being coordinated turns.

i don´t have so much experience flying small propeller A/C, where more rudder input is required for a coordinated turn. But I can guarantee you guys that in jets the leading A/C does not use the rudder at all, and all the turns are performed by a combination of bank+elevator.

No it wont. If you overuse the rudder, it will only make you skid more. The most efficient turn is the coordinated one. There are some combat maneuvers in which rudder is used to fly "uncoordinated" turns or even to bank the A/C under high AOA (when the ailerons loose efectiveness) such as the rudder reversal or the high G barrel roll, but these are not normal turns:

From what little I know, a good deal of prop aircraft need rudder input into the turn to stop the tail from dragging, in some WWI aircraft they had to lead into the turn with rudder, adverse yaw from lowered aileron on the outside wing trying to stall caused this problem and early on they didn't use aileron differential to counter it so often the rudder was the primary contol for turning the aircraft. I wonder also if jets would be different due to the fact that the thrust is coming from the rear of the airframe and effectively pushing the tail through the turn as against the tail being dragged by the prop up front, similar to a rear wheel drive cars tendency to power on over steer as against a front drivers power on understeer?

All of the above could be BS of course my memory is like a sieve at the moment but interesting topic!

Cheers
Craig

~S~

Here You go, a bit of theory for You:

http://www.av8n.com/how/htm/motion.h...udget-straight



By the way I hate theme AI as well, sometimes they are just acting suicidal, therefore I fly mostly online...