[Gaston]

Originally Posted by Herra Tohtori

Well, I'm just pretty sure no pilot flying ANY PLANE would have ever wanted to enter a prolonged turning fight with any fighter, if they had alternatives...).

How come then most of the time they did dogfight, and even more so if they were flying a P-47D or a FW-190A?

When they avoided dogfights was when they flew Spitfires... I've never seen any aircraft type that avoided dogfighting as consistently as the Spitfire...

In fact the avoidance of dogfighting by the late Spitfire marks is so consistent and so extreme I had a hard time believing it, thinking as I was that the weakness of guns forced turnfighting even on 1944 pilots: Because only 2% of shots are on target, the target has to be peppered for a sustained time to be brought down, which doesn't help diving and zooming...

It turns out the Spitfire's 20 mm are really long-range and powerful, and allows the Spitfire to avoid turnfighting where it is at a disadvantage compared to most types, except the Me-109G or P-51 which are roughly equal or slightly inferior to it...

Originally Posted by Herra Tohtori

To be sure, I personally think IL-2 does not sufficiently model the control forces required to maneuver at high speeds. An FW-190 would very likely out-turn a Bf-109 if the pilot in 109 could not use full control deflection due to excessive control forces. Same applies to P-51.

The Me-109G easily out-turns the FW-190 in unsustained high speed high G turns, despite much heavier elevator controls (which the trim does lighten, but not that much).

Same with the P-51 vs the P-47D, despite the P-47 having much lighter high speed elevator controls and the P-51 being described "as a real two-hander"...

So heavier controls are here inversely related to high-speed turn performance... Just because it is counter-intuitive doesn't mean our eyes have to be glued shut to what actually happens...

The FW-190A easily out-turns the Me-109G at low speeds sustained turns despite a much higher wingloading...

My theory explains perfectly well why those counter-intuitive things are the way they are.... And that includes how reducing the throttle reduces the wingloading...

Originally Posted by Herra Tohtori

The pilot makes an incredible difference in these birds. Especially in Bf-109 where not only pilot's skill but physical constitution and strength would definitely affect the aircraft's turn performance at high speeds. Just as A6M would roll better when pilot could exert higher force on the control column. .

Even at high speeds the pilot strength differences would actually be small compared to the enormous leverage forces acting on the aircraft, which actuall pre-determines what the pilot's strength actually is... In many cases the lightness of controls still results in poor high speed performance, which means the available leverage is sometimes way beyond what the airframe can do... It is leverages that matter, not pilot strength...

At high speed in a FW-190A, it might have better paid to have a light perceptive touch to avoid having the aircraft drop a wing or slip tail forward, if the aircraft's high speed turn/dive pull-out performance had not been so poor...

However the constant vibration in the FW-190A's control collumn killed the pilot's hand sensitivity to pressure anyway (like in the controls in the Black Hawk helicopter today), and this happened to a more or lesser extent on many types, and so the fine touch was just not available to a FW-190A pilot hoping to survive on this delicate touch at high speed: Better to fly at low speeds where the aircraft performance was far more capable of compensating the numb hands of the pilot...

Originally Posted by Herra Tohtori

The actual physics of the matter are not exactly up for debate, though. The comparative weighs, lift capabilities of the wings, thrust from the propeller... all these factors are well documented and can be modeled quite well, physical testing notwithstanding.

Well if they are so well documented, can you point me to the actual wing bending tests made during flight of WWII fighters aircrafts?

As far as I know nada... And if they had done any, the relationship between engine power and wingloading would be well established: The fact that it isn't shows it was never done in flight on big-engined nose-driven low-wing monoplane types...

Originally Posted by Herra Tohtori

Fact of the matter is that the 109 had lower wing loading, better thrust-to-weight ratio, and very similar wing chord profile as the FW-190. That means at similar airspeed and angle of attack, the Bf-109 wing would be able to produce better centripetal acceleration, reducing in better turn rate and (at same airspeed) smaller turn radius..

How come then the Me-109G is always out-turned by everything in sustained turns (except sometimes the P-51), unless it drops its throttle?

Originally Posted by Herra Tohtori

To me that tells that when flown to their capabilities the 109 would probably have no problems out-turning FW-190 in a prolonged horizontal plane turning fight, and moreover would have no problems controlling the engagement in vertical plane due to better turn rate. The FW-190 pilot would be insane to offer such fight when the plane is faster anyway (at low to medium altitudes).

How come Rechlin test conclusions are the opposite for the horizontal plane, and general pilot opinion, both friend and enemy, was usually the complete opposite?

And how come KG 200 unequivocally states "The P-47D (Razorback needle prop) out-turns our Bf-109G"?

And when they don't bother specifying the "turn", is intended to mean sustained low-speed, not short-lived high speed, where the term "radius" is used instead...

You just have to close your eyes on a lot to cling to more intuitively easy concepts.

More often than not, reality defeats intuitively easy ideas...

Gaston