Skoshi Tiger

Couldn't help myself! ;) Will be a hard couple of months waiting!

Merry Christmas everyone and a Happy and prosperous New Year to all!

Definitely on my list of planes to buy! I will be keeping an eye on developments! Cheers!:pilotfly:

Oil dilution is where fuel is injected into the engine oil to make it less viscous on start up during cold weather starts. By the time the engine has warmed up the fuel has evaporated from the oil. Does anyone know if this practice has discontinued when flying these old warbirds in favour of a pre-oil system?

Over reving isn't the only thing that is going to damage your engine. If you leave the throttle in place and reduce the RPM your manifold pressure will increase and potentially damage the motor. In general you should use the following procedure with a constant speed prop. To increase power 1. Increase propeller speed by pushing the prop control forward. 2. Increase manifold pressure by pushing the throttle control forward. To decrease power 1. Reduce manifold pressure by pulling the throttle control backward. 2. Decrease propeller speed by pulling the prop control backward. There should be someone out there with a CSP endorsement who could explain the ins and outs in more depth. Cheers!

The 'E' wing ( 2 Hispano 20mm and 2 .50 Brownings) was introduced early '44 by my book (The Spitfire, Mustang & Kittyhawk in Australian service - Stewart Wilson). It states " As it's airframe was based on the Spitfire V, the Mk.IX featured a fixed tail wheel and all but the very latest models had the standard Spitfire canopy and fin/rudder design. Here is a picture of RK889 that was an IXe built in October '44. It has the E wing (stub with .50cal on the inside) and early fin shape. http://www.spitfire.dk/Grafik/RK889Edmonton2.jpg It does have the larger carburetor air intake for the 70 series Merlin.

My text, "The SPitfire, Mustang & Kittyhawk, in Australian service" (by Stewart Wilson) has the following passage. "The conversion of two Mustangs to Packard Merlin power in the United States occurred simultaneously, the first aircraft ( with V-1650-3 engine and 11ft 2in (3.124m) diameter Hamilton-Standard four-bladed propeller) taking to the air on the last day of November 1942, seven weeks after the British prototype had flown. Initially designated XP-78, these aircraft were soon officially known as the XP-51B. The American conversion differed from the British ones in several ways, including the deletion of the Mustang X's rather bulbus nose intercooler intake and moving that into an enlarged ventral scoop which incorporated both it and the main radiator. The XP-51B recorded a top speed of 453mph (729km/h) at 29,000 feet" Wikipedia says that the V-1650-3 engine (which is equivalent to the Merlin 61) was fitted with a two stage/two speed Wright supercharger. As horseback stated seven weeks isn't a long time, especially if the US was engineering their prototype for eventual production and Mustang X was a quick and dirty, slap in a Merlin and see what happens. I don't know when the first production V-1650-3 were available but my book states that the proto types XP-51B were tested over winter of '42/43 and the first production P-51B's were delivered in June '43, That's only seven months between prototype and delivery which is fairly impressive. I expect there were engineering examples and prototype engines available before they went into production. Maybe the XP-51B used pre-production engines I don't know???? Cheers! Horseback sorry for coming over as being 'patronizing' in my previous post. I was trying (Obviously unsuccessfully) at being funny and a bit controversial (that bit worked at least). The P-40 (all marks) are one of my favorite aircraft. ("Damned by words but flown to glory" Gen. Scott USAAF) it being the backbone of the RAAF's fighter strength through out the war. But it did have it's limitations and it was generally accepted by our fighter pilots of the time that they had to accept the enemies initial attacks in order to engage them at the P-40's best height for performance.

Cheers! thanks for posting the link!

And just to throw fuel onto the fire, ;) ...what the British wanted was a stop gap fighter plane to fill in until they ramped up Spitfire production. They were after all under constant attack by German bombers. No matter what is future potential, the Mustang I they were given was practically useless in this role and was relegated to army cooperation and ground attack. Still it did free up more capable interceptors for that role. It took British desperation, ingenuity and drive to turn the Mustang into the snarling Merlin powered beast that it became. I'd put it in the "British" column. To be fair the plane that they initially asked for, the P-40, was similarly outclassed by the time the Mustangs were delivered. I'm just sad we won't have a Mustang III with a Malcolm hood. The "best" looking and fastest Mustang! :)

Just a quickie to the people dumping their kickstarter pledge and getting onto Paypal instead to save on postage. If you look at the definition of "Pledge" which comes back as "A solemn binding promise to do, give, or refrain from doing something" although your not doing anything that is technically against the rules, it's still going back on a promise and working the system. This is, as the kids in Australia would put it , "Gay!" (this has nothing to do with homosexuality by the way) Remember any money that you 'save' from postage comes straight out of the funds needed to develop the sim. Just a thought!

FYI, anyone who is a student or member of staff at an educational institution can obtain a free copy of the latest (or older versions) 3DSMax (and a whole range of other Autodesk software). All you need to do is register and give your school/uni/college details. Cheers!

Best update yet as far as I'm concerned. Looking really good for the development to come.

Yes That was my intent.

Personally I don't mind the prospect of an accurately modeled Me262. It's a bit of a two edged sword. If flown correctly it has a lot of definite advantages. Hopely these would be balanced out by it's historical limitations. Fragile engines, slow acceleration, vunerability on takeoff and landing. It would be an interesting opponent and a difficult bird to master. Does anyone know what the best glide ratio for a Spitfire is? At it's narrowest point the channel is only 20.6 mile wide. If we have a very optimistic ratio of 10:1 the spitfire at 25,000 feet should be able to glide at least 47 miles. If you go for an unoptimisticly lower ratio of say 6:1 it would be 28 miles. Even the Space Shuttle with a 3:1 glide ratio would make about 14 miles from that height. Still to make it you'ld be going fairly straight and slow, and be easy pickings for the LW finest. So the answer would be "It depends on a lot of factors"

Obviously you are a sceptic, and you sound as though you have made your mind up already, so maybe you should wait until you get given the base sim for free and decide about buying additional content at that point. It's up to you and basically the only thing you loose out on is the sence of satisfaction that you had done you best to suport the niche gaming genre that is flight sims. (I am assuming that that is something that you might value) For me Oleg and then later on Luthier has defined the last 12 years of flight siming for me. Their vision, dedication and inspriation is evident in all the work that they have done. People rave about the efforts of community modding groups like TD and TF, but none of their efforts would have been possible without the framework laid down by Oleg and Luthier when they made IL2 and Cliffs of Dover. For me my support is based on over a decade of seeing first hand what these guys are capable of doing. It's just that simple.