Energy Maneuverability

[JG14_Josf]

I think this test could be re-created in game. Four pylon type objects set up in box pattern, equi-distant, as lying on the edge of the imaginary turning circle. Fly the circle, note the time of completion from 0 to 360 degrees and IAS. Deviation from the flight path is fail. Loss of alitude is fail. As per above, follow each successful completion with another test. Shorten the distance between the pylons by some incremental amount. Repeat until the test can no longer be completed without loss of altitude or deviation from the flight path. I don't even think you need g meter. But I guess it would be helpful while conducting the test to make sure you are flying constant g.The test I described before, I think that would give you the instantaneous value. So, if you think 109 v spit diagrams are similar to mig v sabre? Then I agree with you. You need to do both type of test, sustained and instantaneous turn rate, to get full picture. I think. Probably would need to use device link and make tracks of each test to ensure flight path is followed, altitude is maintained, full power settings, ...etc. If your at sea level, need for tas conversion may not be necessary. I guess it boils down to how accurate you want to be in this.

Before I try to respond to that welcome reply in this Forum I want to acknowledge the fact that I do not know for sure that the Korea Era EM by Boyd was based upon flight tests done by Boyd and or Yeager, my copy of BOYD was loaned out years ago and I think that that is where the idea that that chart was plotted on tests, NOT CALCULATED, came from.

I do not know it all, for sure, and as often as I can I maintain my links back to the specific information that I use to build up something that may be a poor excuse for knowledge. I know, for sure, that I make many errors, and there is no cause for me to deny such an obvious, and accurately measurable, FACT.

Why are the Accelerated Stall Lines on the Korea Era EM Chart decidedly favoring the F-86 over the Mig 15, and why is the Mig 15 decidedly superior in a much larger Positive Specific Excess Power Envelope?

Classic Single Superior Match-up?

Breaking down the welcome ON-TOPIC response:

Loss of alitude is fail.

That pylon type test with no loss of altitude is a Sustained Turn Performance Test and that is very easy to test in the game in normal use of the game. We have not done it yet, as a squad, for reasons that include the reasons of "it is in Beta" and subject to change, and there are rumors of a Russian version, which is fine with me so long as I get to fly 109s and 190s, Double Inferior or not, does not matter to me, I fly what I bring to the fight, unless I get tired of seeing too many very odd things happening where planes can fight in front of me while I am approaching at top speed, and then the guy fighting in a turn fight in front of me is now level with me, after turning and burning, diving and returning to my altitude, and then that same plane zooms up, turns around, starts shooting, while my plane is stalling and incapable of maneuvering from Top Speed in Level Flight on this odd plane that can turn and burn all day and still have enough energy to zoom high enough over me to then perform a pitch over, or who knows, maybe a turn at Corner Speed, and turn the tables at will.

Normal use of the game includes, often, the stuff we test as a Squad, when we start getting a little more serious about our Missions against worthy opposition. We each take turns flying Mock combat, just like all the Air Forces have done in history when they capture enemy planes, and we test, among many tests, the Sustained Turn Advantage Test. If Hertt can't turn inside me when I'm in a Spitfire, and I can't turn inside Hertt, Wotan, Saipan, Toten, Task, Badger, Cuzn, Jager, or whomever is matched up, and everyone concludes, unanimously, without any one of us managing to turn inside the other, then that is not only conclusive in an absolute sense it is, over time, a measured quantity of relative performance, since we all learn, more or less, how quickly the Spitfire will turn inside the 109.

Sustained Turn Performance with the Pylons, as you have described, could begin to quantify a Standard measure of physical distance relative to the ground, you are thinking in terms of making a Ruler, and this Ruler will then have graduations on it, like meters, so that one meter, on that ground is always that meter, not longer, not shorter, it is one meter in length, and the pylons are a known distance across the diameter, which is twice the radius, and the circumference is then a simple math calculation using pie (not apple).

That is the stuff that is ON TOPIC.

The test I described before, I think that would give you the instantaneous value.

Your description of that test sounds like the Loaded Deceleration Test that can be found on the Navair site, and that site describes why that test is done instead of the Windup Turn.

This:

If
you fly straight
at top speed
at sea level
with full tank of gas

That sounds like a Loaded Deceleration Test which is a test performed by Modern Pilots working to quantify Energy Maneuverability. The Windup Test is done to plot the Accelerated Stall line.

The Windup Turn is another test we have done as a squad, but not often, and I think, if we are going to get more serious about CLoD, or whatever the next best World War II Combat Flight Sim will be, since IL2 has run it's course, then this Windup Turn Tests may become more valuable to us as a Squad.

Instead of doing a Windup Turn alone, the idea is to get two of us on-line at the same time and we fly nose to tail and the one in front does a Windup Turn and the one behind follows and we both see who can stay at black out in the tighter turn as the plane in front leads the plane behind. Then reverse planes. Then reverse pilots.

What can be learned?

A calibrated (as in making a Ruler with Pylons and a Standard Measure of Length) Corner Velocity won't be learned but a Relative Corner Velocity will no longer be a mystery.

In an informal test on-line with IL2, for example, I remember clearly a case of me following Task in a 109 or 190, I can't remember, and I was in a P-39 at the time, we were both at maximum turn performance and I asked Task on TS if he was at Black Out, which he was, and I was easily able to pull back on the stick, no Black Out, pull lead in that very tight, very fast, maximum performance turn, where Task was at Black Out, and I could happily shoot parts off the plane Task was flying as Task was at his useable Corner Velocity and as I was far from it. I know my air speed was higher because I was closing the distant between Task and my plane before I started pulling lead. If you understand Energy Maneuverability then you understand, based upon that test data, that the P-39 PILOT could tolerate a higher g load than the PILOT modeled into the plane that is flying at a lower speed, at Black Out, and the turn radius is larger for the Blacking Out Pilot, there are few possible explanations, the most obvious one is a lower g tolerance for that pilot.

If I am going faster in a tighter turn there is little left to conclude if the slower plane has a pilot fighting black out, while the faster plane is no where near black out, other than a very low tolerance for g force modeled into the one plane compared to the other plane.

That example was not a formal test involving 2 planes starting out in level flight and the lead plane performing a Windup Turn (or Loaded Deceleration as your test idea appears to be describing) where the following pilot matches the lead pilots maneuver, so there is some room to doubt the conclusion based upon how much the game "builds" up g tolerance in time, the variables in the informal test did not quantify how much Task was turning before I turned in for the impromptu Test on him. In time, with formal tests, it will be UNAMBIGUOUS as to which plane and which pilot is better and why; however there would not necessarily be a Standard Measure for better-ness, not without track files, and some method of quantifying precisely the actual g loads, turn rates, turn radius, and air speeds.

If you know Turn Radius and Turn Rate, you can get Air Speed (true), and g load.

No doubts, no wiggle room, black and white FACTS.

I don't even think you need g meter. But I guess it would be helpful while conducting the test to make sure you are flying constant g.

If it is a Windup Turn Test with one plane in front of the other plane then it will be obvious to the following plane whereby either pilot is not flying a consistent flight path and this is the point. The Maximum Performance Turn isn't the lesser Performance Turn, so the TARGET of the TEST is to find which Pilot and which Plane turns tighter, and the limiting factor in a Windup Turn will be higher g load (fighting the games black out feature) at the lower speed - that is the point.

The result is a relative measure of Corner Velocity.

Who can demonstrate the absolute tightest turn, recorded on a track file, and witnessed by someone attempting to out perform the best attempt to date.

If it turns out that one plane on one computer always is flown by that one pilot better than anyone else then the obvious question to be answered by those who are not quite up to speed is WHY?

What is done better to perform that Maximum Performance Turn?

You may find, if you try your Loaded Deceleration Test, or a Windup Turn, as I have, often, that it is not easy to be the best that you can be, and so that is the point, yes or no?

So, if you think 109 v spit diagrams are similar to mig v sabre?

Not at all if you use the available EM Charts. The Spitfire is all over the 109 in both Sustained and Corner Speed Performance according to the World War II Era EM Charts, which are based upon Spitfire flight data, according to the British reports, and then calculated for the 109.

Those Charts may not be very accurate. The 109 was running on British gasoline, not the German Synthetic stuff, as far as I know. The 109 was complained about concerning aileron snatching which may have been an indication of mechanical defects, or lack of proper maintenance on those leading edge slats. The 109 was out climbing the Spitfires and Hurricanes due to a steeper climb angle. All of those variables are indications of less than precise measures of Maximum Performance or Energy Maneuverability to which the State of the ART has become when people work to record the relevant facts that determine which plane is superior to the other plane UNAMBIGUOUSLY.

I think that the 190 versus the Spitfire is more similar to the F-86 versus Mig-15, for many reasons. The 109, as far as I know, is more like the Spitfire, more of an Angles Fighter, and I can offer one measure of that opinion I have as someone else wrote about that opinion and so you don't have to take my word for it, which I would advise against anyway, what good is my word?

No good. Look at how untrustworthy may Sraw Man has already become.

But, here are words, on that specific On Topic subject:

Source:

http://www.amazon.com/Wings-Luftwaff.../dp/1853104132

It was concluded that the Fw 190 pilot trying to "mix it" with a Spitfire in the classic fashion of steep turning was doomed, for at any speed - it would be out-turned by its British opponent. Of course, the Luftwaffe was aware of this fact and a somewhat odd style of dogfighting evolved in which the Fw 190 pilots endeavored to keep on the vertical plane by zooms and dives, while their Spitfire-mounted antagonists tried everything in the book to draw them on to the horizontal. If the German pilot lost his head and failed to resist the temptation to try a horizontal pursuit curve on a Spitfire, as likely as not, before he could recover the speed lost in a steep turn he would find another Spitfire turning inside him! On the other hand, the German pilot who kept zooming up and down was usually the recipient of only difficult deflection shots of more than 30 deg. The Fw 190 had tremendous initial acceleration in a dive but it was extremely vulnerable during a pull-out, recovery having to be quite progressive with care not to kill the speed by "sinking".

If you look at the Korea Era EM chart you can see where the Mig 15 is much better at Ps > 0 flying, or that area under that Sustained Turn Performance curve, but the Mig-15 is decidedly inferior at the Accelerated Stall line and the Migs Inferiority becomes much worse as g loads increase.

When Captain Eric Brown describes "sinking", perhaps, what is meant is that the 190 can be hamfisted well past CLMax, past the beginning of the Buffet zone, well into the Buffet zone, and instead of turning it "sinks" because, as described later in that book, the 190 becomes more unstable under load. I've read from another source that the wing twist on the 190 untwists to cause that instability under load.

Look here:
http://acepilots.com/planes/f86_sabre.html

Q: You're in the cockpit of an F-86, and you’re out after a MiG. Describe what’s going on in your mind and what you’re actually doing with your aircraft.

Mahurin: It depends on the circumstances of the combat. On several occasions, I dogfought, like World War I, with a MiG. Once we started fighting about 37,000 feet, went around and around down to the ground and back up to about 26,000, before I shot him down. So that hadn’t changed much since World Wars One and Two. It was very exciting and a lot of fun. On a couple of other occasions, we caught them when they didn’t know we were there. That was just a matter of going in and shooting down an unaware pilot. But we could outperform them with the F-86's slab tail, we could turn faster than they could, we could dive faster, and we could pull out quicker. We didn’t try to climb with them, because they could climb higher than we could. We tried to keep the combat on those elements where we had an advantage. Whenever they were gaining an advantage, we could always leave, we could always turn around and dive away.

When you talk to a pilot, especially a guy like me who has a lot of years on him, his stories get better by the moment. The next thing you know, his airplane was a dud, but due to sheer combat capability he was able to shoot down twenty enemy aircraft.

Just after the war, a North Korean pilot named Ro Kim Suk defected with a MiG-15 and landed at Kimpo airport just outside of Seoul. The MiG-15 was sent to Wright Field, and Chuck Yeager did the performance tests on it, which revealed that the F-86s was slightly faster. The Sabre had lots of combat capability that the MiG didn’t. Above all, it had the creature comforts that I talked about earlier. The MiG-15 wasn’t as good as the F-86, but all in all it was a pretty good airplane. A lot of them have survived, and once in a while, F-86s and MiGs show up at air shows, and it’s quite a sight to see them. Especially when you realize that one of them used to be an enemy.

If the Quake pilots don't like a Single Superior 109, what do you think they will be willing to do, as in deception, when they have to face a 190A-3 in a Spitfire V, or face an F-86 in a Mig-15, if the game codes the actual relative performance differences?

My Straw Man will become very ugly?

I'm the same guy, by the way, even as my Straw Man becomes a very ugly person, as the Quake Pilots construct that Man of Straw.