fw 190a5 flight model

[Gaston]

Well since the FW-190A was an excellent aircraft, and did out-turn any mark of Spitfire, but at at low speeds and in prolonged sustained horizontal turns only, NOT at high speeds, I guess it finally dawned on the development team just how absurd their flight model was...

My guess is they still did not go far enough. But the straight-line comments I hear underline the absurd lengths to which they thought reality would slavishly follow their grade-school math...

And the FW-190A was crap at dive and zoom, and was never used that way... But I guess the're only so much reality simmers and sim-builders can take at one time...

Gaston

[CWMV]

Prove it, I mena its one thing to say "its this way!" but another to show data.
EDIT: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I just responded to a necro thread. Go me.
But while Im here:
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.o...0/ptr-1107.pdf


Sounds REALLY close to what we have in game really.

[lonewulf]

I tend to agree with "Beginner". I think the FM on the A series is at present poorly executed and has more in common with a free falling brick than the real world aircraft.

Despite such issues (eg a too great a tendency to stall, very poor acceleration and the complete absence of any sort of instantaneous turn), I don't agree that the 190 should in future be morphed into something that it was not (a turn fighter). One thing is sure, the FW 190 did not have a particularly good sustained turn rate when compared with the opposition. It was and shall always be, an energy fighter. If you want to dog-it-out with Spits down on the deck riding the edge of a stall with your flaps extended, well good luck. But no real world 190 pilot would ever consider such foolishness unless of course, he had no other option. All I can say is, you'd really want to be bloody confident that there were no other E/As in the vicinity because if there are, you'll very soon to be dead.

The real world 190 was very nimble with an exceptional roll-rate. This roll-rate issue is very important because although everyone seems to know and talk about it, few 190 flyers that I have seen actually take advantage of it. Roll rate is not about spinning the aircraft around on its axis as bad guys stand-off your six and shoot you full of holes. Roll rate is used as a means of very quickly changing the direction in which your aircraft is pointing. In essence after entering a sustained turn you quickly roll your aircraft through approx 180 degrees and pull the stick back towards you. If you do that and you are being chased by something like a Spit, you will find that he can't follow. If you're at altitude and he has a relatively low energy state you may even find that you manage to escape.

[IceFire]

I admit I'm super confused right now. I'm a big fan of the FW190 and first started flying it when it had a crippled FM in Forgotten Battles 1.0. For a long time it's never had a very good turn. The stall was fine IMHO as the FW190 was described in many tactical trials and evaluations as having a brutal stall (a fact that killed many pilots early on). I always felt the turn rate was a little low... Not as good as it should be. That was until 4.10 when the turn rate was improved... But it sounds like some think it was made worse? What?

It is much better now. I suspect it reaches near historical sustained turn rate values now (although I haven't tested).

[Gaston]

Originally Posted by CWMV

Prove it, I mena its one thing to say "its this way!" but another to show data.
EDIT: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I just responded to a necro thread. Go me.
But while Im here:
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.o...0/ptr-1107.pdf


Sounds REALLY close to what we have in game really.

It sure does...: The conclusion of these "Geniuses" was that: "In general [the FW-190] is an interceptor-type aircraft that is at a disadvantage against airplanes designed for the purpose of "in fighting""...

But these US Navy "Geniuses" were at least smart enough to recognize the FW-190A HATED high speed turning and high speed combat in general (putting them far ahead of all simmers since apparently), as was widely known to the Russians:

From the same US Navy report (identical to another one for an earlier FW variant):

"It [FW-190A-5] has a no-warning stall which tends to reduce its efficiency in combat against airplanes, which can force it to fly near the stalling speed"

My God! They actually figured out the FW-190 preferred low-speed fighting!

Yipeeeeeeeeeee!

That must have been a strain... Yet their conclusion is "excellent interceptor-type aircraft"... Hmmm...



But you are right: If THIS Russian evaluations:

http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/t...bat-fw190.html



says "Being very stable and having a large range of speeds, the FW-190 will inevitably offer turning battle at a minimum speed." that apparent disagreement in the final outcome on how to use it can only be because the US NAVY has much more combat experience with the FW-190A, and knew how the FW-190A should be flown far better than those poor brain-washed Germans...

Of note is that the Russian found the FW-190A to be equal to their excellent Yak-7 in left turns, but the FW-190 is apparently easily beaten in right turns:

" Yak-7 will easily outturn a FW-190 in a right turn; both planes have equal turn rate in a left turn."

(This indicates flaps up for the FW-190A by the way: Clostermann reported that later in the war, around late '43 or early '44, appeared the novel use of flaps ("volet") on the FW-190A, which he described as significantly improving the turn performance. If turning was flaps down, the wing drop would be reversed and the aircraft would turn tighter to the right at low speeds, not the left)

http://luthier.stormloader.com/SFTacticsIII.htm

But the Russians claim the Yak-1 will outmaneuver it even better, though not specifying if that included the vertical plane (vertical maneuvers are of course very poor on the FW-190A)

You gotta love below how the "excellent interceptor" was used by those foolish Germans who knew nothing about flying their own aircrafts:

http://luthier.stormloader.com/SFTacticsIII.htm

"The following information about German tactics is derived from experience of our pilots that fought the FW-190.

Germans will position their fighters at different altitudes, especially when expecting to encounter our fighters. FW-190 will fly at 1,500-2,500 meters and Me-109G at 3,500-4,000 meters. They interact in the following manner:

FW-190 will attempt to close with our fighters hoping to get behind them and attack suddenly. If that maneuver is unsuccessful they will even attack head-on relying on their superb firepower. This will also break up our battle formations to allow Me-109Gs to attack our fighters as well. Me-109G will usually perform boom-n-zoom attacks using superior airspeed after their dive.

FW-190 will commit to the fight even if our battle formation is not broken, preferring left turning fights. There has been cases of such turning fights lasting quite a long time, with multiple planes from both sides involved in each engagement."

Gosh! That last bold quote couldn't be a clue that they held their own against "superior-turning" Russian fighters now could it?

Hey! That Me-109/FW-190 relationship sort of jives with this, thousands of miles away doesn't it?:

-Squadron Leader Alan Deere, (Osprey Spit MkV aces 1941-45, Ch. 3, p. 2: "Never had I seen the Hun stay and fight it out as these Focke-Wulf pilots were doing... In Me-109s the Hun tactic had always followed the same pattern- a quick pass and away, sound tactics against Spitfires and their SUPERIOR TURNING CIRCLE. Not so these 190 pilots: They were full of confidence... We lost eight to their one that day..."

But it must all be a coincidence you know...

But my favourite of all among all, has got to be my old RCAF friend John Weir, who obviously doesn't know anything about true wingloading performance, being just, you know, an experienced fighter pilot fighting for his life and all... (What the hell's that compared to being a glorious theoretically-correct simmer?):

http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/remembers/s..._101/SF_101_03

"A Hurricane was built like a truck, it took a hell of a lot to knock it down. It was very manoeuvrable, much more manoeuvrable than a Spit, so you could, we could usually outturn a Messerschmitt. They'd, if they tried to turn with us they'd usually flip, go in, at least dive and they couldn't. A Spit was a higher wing loading..."

"The Hurricane was more manoeuvrable than the Spit and, and the Spit was probably, we (Hurricane pilots) could turn one way tighter than the Germans could on a, on a, on a Messerschmitt, but the Focke Wulf could turn the same as we could and, they kept on catching up, you know."


Obviously the poor man remembers wrongly what actually happened, and the congruence with all the others who had to face it in actual combat is just a vast world-wide collective hallucination...

Or maybe it was just magical "pilot experience", always there to throw everything into confusion: We all know that Germans in those days were mystical-oriented, and thus gained levitation powers with "pilot experience": That could be it you know...

If they had measured the wing-bending of theses things in flight, they would know what the actual wingload of these things is (Ie: What John Weir meant by "heavier Spitfire wingloading": Actual in-flight observation, not theory)...

But they only bent the wings on the ground and called it "knowledge"...

And yes, if they had done that, in-flight (recording in-flight continuous stress-gauge info, which would have been real tricky before the late 40s at least), they would have found out that, unlike jets, even at the same exact amount of Gs during a turn, an old warbird's wingload actually varies with power during the turn, as reported clearly by many WWII pilots, and used routinely as a "trick" by 8th AF P-51s, FW-190 pilots and some Me-109 pilots...

But what do these guys know...

Gaston

[theOden]

Love your post Gaston, made my sunday breakfast haha

[JG301_HaJa]

+1 on that

[lonewulf]

Gaston, while I admire your revisionist zeal, your conclusions about the 190 are simply wrong.

Your analysis of the Al Deere incident is a case in point. There is no doubt that Al Deere was caught out by the 190s that day and in the resulting bloodbath lost a number of his squadron mates. However, it had nothing to do with 'turning circle'. On this occasion the 190s bounced his Mk Vs and then used their superior speed and climb to decimate the hapless formation. It is true that the attack was sustained in nature and that the pilots in the 190s demonstrated great confidence in their aircraft; but that was more to do with their ability to outperform the Spitfires (in everything BUT sustained turn) and to enter or break off the combat at will. The 109 Fs in use at this time were not in a position to do this, of course, as they had little or no performance margin over the Mk 5 and typically did not linger in combats with Spitfires for any longer than necessary. At this point is the war most of Germany's fighter force had been moved to the Eastern Front. With relatively few fighters left in France, the LW tried to offset their numerical inferiority in the west by strictly limiting the engagements between its fighter force and Fighter Command.

The advantage that the 190 had over the Spit soon to evaporate away with the introduction of the Mk 9.

[CWMV]

Ya I'm calling you info BS.
What the pilots say about their own and enemy aircraft ate of NO VALUE when discussing FM's.
Combat is a very emotionally charged event, and what you remember and what actually happened are two very, very different things. The fact that the body and mind are experiencing stressors unlike anything else in the annals of human experience make any recollection of combat events suspect from the get go.

Then there is the comparison to soviet fighters. You mean the same soviet fighters that are overmodeled in nearly every aspect? This has been accepted by a large percentage of the community since day 1. No point in the comparison.

Now compare them in a standardized test environment, against well known and documented competitors, and you get the best data. Hence the navy tests.
If it couldn't out turn a Corsair or Hellcat then it isn't much of a turn fighter.

So if you have something other than tests against air raft that we know are porked, or the recollections of old men, post it.

[Gaston]

Originally Posted by lonewulf

Gaston, while I admire your revisionist zeal, your conclusions about the 190 are simply wrong.

Your analysis of the Al Deere incident is a case in point. There is no doubt that Al Deere was caught out by the 190s that day and in the resulting bloodbath lost a number of his squadron mates. However, it had nothing to do with 'turning circle'. On this occasion the 190s bounced his Mk Vs and then used their superior speed and climb to decimate the hapless formation. It is true that the attack was sustained in nature and that the pilots in the 190s demonstrated great confidence in their aircraft; but that was more to do with their ability to outperform the Spitfires (in everything BUT sustained turn) and to enter or break off the combat at will..

No doubt?

Where's your evidence that the battle that day happened the way you claim? Do you have other accounts of that particular day?

My bet is that you don't, and that you simply placate a meaning that is not present in a single word in there...

The fact that he contrasts "a quick pass and away" 109 tactics with "never before did the Hun stay and fight it out as these Focke-Wulf pilots were doing" illustrates clearly what he meant: STAYING means you don't build up speed but fight at low speeds. And that means mostly staying on the horizontal.

If you want to ignore that, then you are just reading what you want into it: He clearly states the Me-109 tactics were a contrast to the FWs, in perfect concordance with the Russian observation of how they always interacted in 1943 (up to Boddenplatte in January 1945: Read any of the "Boddenplatte" accounts as well)...

Remember Rall's quote: "The Me-109 a floret (straight and edgeless), the FW-190 a sabre (curved and used in curved motion)"

He also said: "Rechlin told us the FW-190A out-turned the Me-109F, however, I could out-turn it":

Like many Eastern Front Me-109 pilots, he was clinging to a false concept of how they compared: By dropping the throttle it was probably true he could reverse the tables... But then the 190 could do it also, if the pilot knew about the counter-intuitive "trick" of downthrottling permanently in sustained low speed turns...

Another 109 pilot thought the same wrongheaded thing, just like simmers today...:

Quote from an Oseau demise witness (Jagdwaffe, "Defence of the Reich 1944-45" Eric Forsyth, p.202): "Many times I told Oseau the FW-190A was better than the Bf-109G........ Each turn became tighter and his Bf-109 (Me-109G-6AS) lost speed, more so than his (P-51D) adversaries. He was probably shot down near the ground"

(Implying this would not have happened with the FW-190A. BTW, period tests have show the D-9 was a much inferior fighter in horizontal turns to the A, and indeed the D was not used in the same way)

Rechlin quote: "The FW-190A out-turns and out-rolls the Me-109 at any speed"

General US 8th Air Force fighter pilot opinion was that the FW-190A turned tighter than the Me-109. Just ask any veteran P-51 pilot the next time you see one...

Osprey "Duel" #39 "La-5/7 vs FW-190", Eastern Front 1942-45:

P.69 "Enemy FW-190A pilots never fight on the vertical plane.---The Messerschmitt posessed a greater speed and better maneuverability in a vertical fight"

P.65 Vladimir Orekov: "An experienced Fw-190A pilot practically never fights in the vertical plane"

Weirner Steiz: "The 190 was a much better aircraft than the 109: You could curve it"

I don't know, is there something like a trend here?

Originally Posted by lonewulf

The advantage that the 190 had over the Spit soon to evaporate away with the introduction of the Mk 9.

You want side-by-side comparisons by pilot opinion of their own aircrafts?:

AFDU

Air Fighting Development Unit, R.A.F. Station DUXFORD

Report No 46 on Tactical Trials -SPITFIRE IX



From 26 April 1942

Manoeuvrability

20......... The Spitfire IX was compared with a Spitfire VC for turning circles and dog-fighting at heights between 15,000 and 30,000 feet. At 15,000 feet there was little to choose between the two aircraft although the superior speed and climb of the Spitfire IX enabled it to break off its attack by climbing away and then attacking in a dive. This manoeuvre was assisted by the negative 'G' carburettor, as it was possible to change rapidly from climb to dive without the engine cutting. At 30,000 feet there is still little to choose between the two aircraft in manoeurvrability, but the superiority in speed and climb of the Spitfire IX becomes outstanding."

--------------------------

So the Spit Mk IX doesn't out-turn the Spit Mk V, by the reckoning of its own pilots....

Furthermore, I have it directly from a mechanic at the "Planes of Fame" flying museum that the Spitfire Mk V they have been flying for decades always turns faster than the best the Spitfire Mk IX can do: Exactly what I would expect...

Despite those contradicting Russian turn times (17.5 to 18.8 sec, but all of these Russian figures don't seem very indicative of anything to me), there is no evidence the Spit Mk IX turns any faster than the Mk V, and considerable evidence to the contrary...

In the above AFDU quote, the emphasis is on Mk IX vertical performance, diving and zooming, and in actual combat the Spitfire Mk IX could do sharp high speed turns, but could not survive in close-in slow speed dogfighting, just as John Weir says, and if you've read actual combat accounts you will see the Spitfire IX always use dive and zoom, while the FW-190 always used horizontal turns...

The Mk V was such a poor turn-fighter in Russian hands they removed the outer guns to try to lighten it, but it had little effect:

Russian opinion of the Spitfire (Mk V): It is unsuitable for prolonged horizontal combat (meaning short unsustained horizontal combat is probably better), and it is excellent at combat on the vertical plane... In "Le Fana de l'Aviation" #496 p. 40: " Les premiers jours furent marqués par des échecs dus à une tactique de combat périmée dans le plan horizontal, alors que le Spitfire était particulièrement adapté au combat dans le plan vertical."

Translation: "The Spitfire failed in horizontal fighting, but was particularly adapted to vertical fighting"

In that same article, the Soviets even tried to remove the outer guns to improve the Spitfire's turn performance, to no avail...

Even the Spitfire Mk V was completely hopeless in prolonged low-speed turns against the FW-190A (just like John Weir says), and bear in mind it DOES turn faster than the Mk IX (same thing or even worse vs the Mk XIIs and XIVs):



Quote: "Opposite sides of an ever diminishing circle... I asked the Spitfire for all she had... It was just a matter of time and he would have me in his sights..."

Also, Johnny Johnson opines here the FW-190A turned better than the Me-109... Hey, this article was just after the war, and I wasn't there to wisper in his ear you know!

Gray Stenborg, 23 September 1944 (Spitfire Mk XII): "On looking behind I saw a FW-190 coming up unto me. I went into a terribly steep turn to the left, but the FW-190 seemed quite able to stay behind me. He was firing at 150 yards-I thought "this was it"-when all of a sudden I saw an explosion near the cockpit of the FW-190, upon which it turned on its back."

S/L J. B. Prendergast of 414 Squadron recorded in his Combat Report for 2 May 1945 (Mk XIV vs FW-190A): "I saw my No. 2’s burst hitting the water--------The E/A being attacked by my No. 2 did a steep orbit and my No. 2 being unable to overtake it broke away."




Just for laugh, try finding ONE counter-example without steep high speed dives just before a single harsh 360° turn, or not above 20 000 ft....: Try counter-examples with multiple turns down low... Good luck!

And there is a very easy way to prove me (and almost all WWII pilots) wrong: Show me in-flight wing-flexing strain gauge data that shows the wingloading really does match the "calculated" values... So far I have found only wing bending tests on the ground...

The reality is that for these old machines it was never done in-flight...

You guys are simply incapable of seeing there is virtually no first hand combat experience that things work the way theory (and thus simulations)says they do: I have hundreds of P-47 combat accounts where the P-47 at low altitude and low speeds reverses in horizontal turns a tailing Me-109 in 3-4 360°turns or less: A big fat ZERO the other way around: Just how many to ZERO would it take?

Can you find ONE example here of a Me-109 out-turning a P-47?:

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.o...r-reports.html

In right side turns they were more equal: One account does show some P-47/Me-109 parity in late 1943 against probably a sleeker G-2 in a prolonged right hand diving spiral. The P-47 then wins in a left hand diving spiral...

I defy anyone to find in this link above (600+ P-47 combat accounts) a single 1944 account of a P-47 having the slightest trouble beating in any kind of sustained multiple 360 turns the Me-109G, or even taking more than five 360° turns to reverse a tailing 109...

Yes at very high speed there is one Me-109 that briefly beats the P-47 in turns at very high speeds: The Me-109's wings then immediately break off... Not low-speed I would think....

Read these accounts, and see the obvious nothing you are clinging to... I think a six year old could see the light...

Gaston