Hey TD can you look again at the Corsair..

[EJGr.Ost_Caspar]

I don't wonder about LaGG-3 - the series 66 is a beast in game. I don't know, if it is modelled realistically or optimistically, but I rather supect later.

I wonder about P-38. I aways thought it was a quite good plane in game (I love to fly it) and found speed and climb good as I expected it (never expected it to be nimble). Reading, that it should accelerate and climb faster, is well... surprising.

[horseback]

Originally Posted by EJGr.Ost_Caspar

I don't wonder about LaGG-3 - the series 66 is a beast in game. I don't know, if it is modelled realistically or optimistically, but I rather supect later.

I wonder about P-38. I aways thought it was a quite good plane in game (I love to fly it) and found speed and climb good as I expected it (never expected it to be nimble). Reading, that it should accelerate and climb faster, is well... surprising.

The P-38 had a lot of power, even with that big airframe, and the turbosuperchargers let you use all of those two Allison engines' power at any altitude. It was designed and built to the pre-radar era's definition of an interceptor, so it needed excellent (not merely good) climb to height capability, and as we all know, the better an aircraft climbs, the faster it can usually accelerate. If you consider that the prototype was an eyelash short of 400mph in August of 1939, you will begin to better appreciate what a technical achievement it was; in many senses, if the United States Army had gotten it directly into production immediately, it would have been superior to the Bf 109E and the Spitfire Mk I in many important ways.

I suspect that the Lightning's reputation was 'colored' in the same way the P-40's maneuverability was; it was most effectively used in the Pacific, where the Gold Standard for maneuverability was the Oscar or the Zero--by comparison to these aircraft, a P-40 or a Lightning was 'not' very maneuverable. They were, however, faster, more heavily armed and better armored, so in that theater Warhawk and Lightning pilots traded on those strengths. In North Africa, the Lightning's sustained turn and ability to instantly turn its speed and kinetic energy into a steep zoom climb shocked the LW pilots who initially encountered it. It took a while to notice that its instant roll rate was lacking, or that it could not safely dive from 30,000 ft/10km and successfully pursue a 109 or 190 the way the P-47 or the Mustang could.

The big reason that the Lightning was not more widely used was that it needed the same turbosuperchargers required for the B-17 and B-24, it required a lot of 'hand building', one special 'handed' Allison engine that rotated in the opposite direction for each aircraft and it was simply not designed for mass production in any case; as a result, it was not available in the desired numbers during 1942-43 and the USAAF instead developed the P-47 and (grudgingly) the P-51 to the point that these aircraft approached or exceeded the Lighting's performance and range. At the same time, the design appears to have been 'frozen' in some respects in a misguided attempt to keep the production lines moving. The P-38's control layout was an ergonomic disaster for a pilot wearing the cold weather gear necessary for its poorly heated cockpit; even in moderate conditions, it was less than ideal and just plain inferior to its contemporaries/competitors.

On top of this, these types both were safer and better performing at extreme high altitudes and could (easily) counter the LW's preferred escape method at high alts: rolling and diving at a steep angle. Even so, any model of the P-38 was well-known to be able to easily out-climb and out accelerate the Thunderbolt and the Mustang even after they had been 'improved' with the paddle-blade props & water injection or the Merlin engine and an overload fuselage tank.

In any case, had the P-38 been available in close to the desired numbers early in the war, the P-47 would have remained a short ranged point defense fighter and the Mustang might never have gotten a Merlin power plant; the improvements that created these aircraft as we remember them wouldn't have been needed in 1943.

The Lightning in Il-2, like the Hellcat, does not perform to data well-known and published here in the States; I suspect that looking at these aircraft and their weights, someone in Moscow decided that those numbers just couldn't be right, and used numbers from God knows where but more to their liking. Even the 'enhanced' Lightning version is short of the published performance of the type, and the 'compressibility' model it is subject to being extended below 6500m is simply not right, in both the factual and the ethical senses of the word.

If the LaGG-3 (66) was modeled 'optimistically', then the P-38 was modeled pessimistically.

cheers

horseback

[gaunt1]

Thanks again horseback!

If you dont mind, I made a little primitive chart in Excel using your data, it is much easier to compare planes this way...

[fruitbat]

Originally Posted by gaunt1

If you dont mind, I made a little primitive chart in Excel using your data, it is much easier to compare planes this way...

Thanks, and thanks Horseback for doing this.

[Woke Up Dead]

Thanks again Horseback, this continues to be very interesting.

The results that surprise me and some other people are likely a result of us being unfamiliar with specific planes at specific altitudes.

For example, at first glance it is very surprising that the Yak 9 and the LaGG3-66 do better than the La-5FN, but in-game the 5-FN is a scary monster only below 2000m, and that's where most La pilots fly it; the experienced ones because they know it's good there, the novice ones because they don't have the patience to climb.

I suspect it's a similar situation with the P-38J vs the Mustang; without doing the kind of testing Horseback has done, I always felt the P-38J does really well on deck (that's where I go to if I need to run away from a 190), while the Mustang's worst altitudes are in the 3000m - 5000m range.

I also always thought the 109G2 can outrun and outclimb the MkV Spit anywhere so I was surprised that he Spit did a bit better in this test, but then again I believe 3000m is the sweet-spot for the Spit's performance.

[Treetop64]

A shame about the performance of the F6F. The thing is a pig in the game, nothing at all like it was historically. Believe it or not, it was actually worse in previous versions of the game!

[horseback]

Originally Posted by Woke Up Dead

Thanks again Horseback, this continues to be very interesting.

The results that surprise me and some other people are likely a result of us being unfamiliar with specific planes at specific altitudes.

For example, at first glance it is very surprising that the Yak 9 and the LaGG3-66 do better than the La-5FN, but in-game the 5-FN is a scary monster only below 2000m, and that's where most La pilots fly it; the experienced ones because they know it's good there, the novice ones because they don't have the patience to climb.

I suspect it's a similar situation with the P-38J vs the Mustang; without doing the kind of testing Horseback has done, I always felt the P-38J does really well on deck (that's where I go to if I need to run away from a 190), while the Mustang's worst altitudes are in the 3000m - 5000m range.

I also always thought the 109G2 can outrun and outclimb the MkV Spit anywhere so I was surprised that he Spit did a bit better in this test, but then again I believe 3000m is the sweet-spot for the Spit's performance.

Well, this was the '43 Spit V, not the '41 version that got butchered when it crossed the Channel. The Mk V was continually being improved until production ceased in (I believe) early 1943 in favor of later Marques. The later Mk Vs were still quite competitive below 17kft/5300m. Chances are that if we ran this test with an early Vb that its performance would be much less impressive, even compared with the 109F.

Regarding the P-38, it was faster accelerating than the Mustang (at least, any of the wartime versions) or the Thunderbolt at all altitudes, according to every reliable source I've found (and most of the unreliable ones as well; I'm tempted to make a clean sweep and hold a seance to get Martin Caiden's opinion). It makes sense; as I pointed out, it was designed for an exceptional rate of climb by the standards of the late 1930s, and after the advent of radar, climb rate became less important to the Allies than endurance/payload, speed and firepower. Nightfighters became the most important interceptors in the inventory after the Battle of Britain, and they didn't need to get to 20,000 ft in less than seven minutes.

We tend to conflate acceleration with speed to some degree, but I like to call acceleration being quick in the way that NFL Hall of Famer Michael Irvin defines it: "Fast is fast. Quick is being able get fast right away."

The Lightning and the Spitfire are quicker than the Mustang, but the Mustang is faster.

cheers

horseback

[gaunt1]

Made another chart in Excel.

The P-40 and the FW-190 accelerates very poorly, is this realistic? Even more interesting, that the F4U-1A and the 109G2 have almost exactly the same acceleration!

I added some missing data from the earliest tests, like 350-400 or 400-450, its just guesswork, but it fits nicely. You can see the added numbers if you drag the chart away, I highlighted them in red.