Saxman

Keep in mind about 50gal of that 237 is the reserve.

So tonight I went up earlier to do some testing on the blow-up flaps, but also spent some time doing some speed testing. At 22,000ft, trimmed for level flight, cowl flaps, oil cooler, and supercharger closed, full throttle, WEP switch to "on." I managed to JUST get to 250kts IAS. With a surface temperature of 28 degrees C and a calculated -15 degrees at altitude, that gives me a TAS of 364kts, about 418mph. That's a little faster than the F4U-1D is supposed to be. I didn't notice any real difference in speed between Auto Lean and Auto Rich.

Track uploaded to Dropbox here. There's also some general speed test stuff at the beginning. The flaps are at the end. Dive from about 20,000ft with flaps on the 20 degree (2nd) notch. Airspeed cleared 400kts on the dive, and at the end I still had to manually retract the flaps (it's possible it might have blown up from 20 degrees to 10 degrees on its own, (or I just missed the second notch and only had 10 degrees from the start) but I DEFINITELY had to retract the 10 degree notch manually, which should not have been the case.

Updates: Even with the fix to make them fighters, Ki-61s are broken. They have no hit box. That said, they're not particularly UFO-like that I noticed, so it's easier to get around on them, and if you COULD hit them they'd probably be fightable. The Ki-84 is also a UFO that can pretty much accelerate and climb at will under AI control, and can be incredibly annoying to get guns on, (especially with the Corsair being underpowered) but is actually somewhat easier to fight than the Zero (that said I got stuck for about 20 minutes with one I simply couldn't get out in front on who completely ignored my two surviving wingmen to superglue himself to my ass. I could run out on him, but couldn't get separation). I don't know if it was just luck placement or a bug, but two I shot down bailed out almost instantly when I hit them.

Which is more than you could say for the REAL Shinano.

That's not really true. Vought's own manual notes the stall has adequate warning in the form of tail buffeting, developing left wing heaviness, and an increasing need for right rudder. While the buffeting was less noticeable during landing, the advanced warnings still existed.

It's honestly hard to tell, because the mechanism for water injection IS also modeled (at the very least you can activate it and the 3-minute warning light will come on, and some people report gaining a couple kts of airspeed, though by far not enough).

Per the Vought manual, the first two notches of flaps on the F4U are designed to blow-up automatically under air pressure if you exceed a certain speed, (I believe it's 250kts IAS) and then redeploy automatically again once you fall under critical speed. However last night I entered a power-on dive with two notches of flaps extended, and even though I cleared that speed the flaps were never blown up again.

It actually is, depending on which version of the manual you're talking about. Some editions include charts for both the -8 (using Auto Rich on WEP, MIL, and Normal) and -8W (Auto Lean for all but takeoff).

It should definitely be more than just a few knots. The F4U-1A gained about 20mph at critical altitude, with similar improvements throughout its altitude range, once water injection was added. And it shouldn't be a separate keymap, either. I wonder if it's time to break out my CH utility and program a detent into my quadrant...

Haven't tested to see if the Ki-61s are working as fighters now, but the outcome on the Zero is...that made @#$% all of a difference. Acceleration is still ludicrous, and it can still catch a Corsair in a dive and even maneuver at speeds where the Zero's controls should be rooted in cement. I don't know if there's something elsewhere I'm missing or if it's a hopeless cause because of the AI.

Update: I went into the Ki-61's LUA file and added the missing mission types in. I'm also looking through the Zero's file. It looks like the Max G for AI pilots was set to 8. From what I can gather, the Zero was rated for 6G. It's also giving it 8000kg of thrust. That's as much thrust as one engine on the F-4 Phantom! So I'm going to try tweaking those settings on the Zero. I've set Max G (for AI) to 6, and I ran the horsepower at sea level through a converter to get about 582kg of thrust at SL. I'm gonna see what happens if I run those settings.

Looks like there's a glitch with the Tony: DCS thinks it's a bomber, so you can't assign it to fighter missions.

F4U-1D should be +/-410mph TAS at critical altitude. The 420mph figure is for an F4U-1A with water injection. The 1D loses about 10mph due to drag from the knuckle pylons.

I wish the actual downloads were easier to find than scrolling through the chat.

In the thread on PTO mods/assets it looks like the modded Japanese fighters like the J2M and Zero perform much more realistically if you use commands to increase their weight (by about about 2500kg and 1500kg, respectively) so I wonder if there's a universal thing that AI isn't reading aircraft weights correctly. So maybe try adding weight to those AI Corsairs in the mission builder?

Let's recap what I said: The -8W engine didn't use Auto Rich for MIL or WEP power settings, but the -8 (without injection) DID. And the F4U-1D used the -8W engine. So if you're having to turn on Auto Rich to get the documented performance the engine is modeled wrong for the plane we have. Period.

The F4U-1D had the 8W engine. It's not supposed to, or at least shouldn't need to, use Auto-Rich to get full rated power. That's what the injection water is for. The only time the 8W was to use Auto-Rich was takeoffs and landing. If using Auto-Rich gets the needed power the engine is absolutely modeled wrong, because that shows it's the WRONG ENGINE ALTOGETHER.

No, it is incorrect. The auxiliary wing tanks were only installed on the F4U-1 and 1A, including on aircraft that had plumbing for fuel on the center pylon. They were removed outright in the 1D because the tanks were almost never used in the field, so it just made sense to get rid of them. It and all subsequent Corsair models only ever had the fuselage tank regardless of which external tanks they were carrying.

It's important to remember the F4U-1D does NOT have the auxiliary tanks in the wings. It only has the fuselage tank. The wing tanks were only present in the -1 and -1A, and were seldom used in the field because they weren't self-sealing, (they only had a fire suppression system for protection) introduced maintenance headaches, and to reduce weight. They were ultimately removed altogether in the F4U-1D and 1C, and all subsequent models.

There would also be a question of whether they're modelling for the toothpick prop installed on the earlier production machines, or the correct broad-chord propeller tested by VF-17 and subsequently retrofit in the field and implemented on the production lines. That will make a big difference in acceleration and rate of climb especially.

It's possible that the water injection simply isn't working at all, and that could explain a lot. According to this chart: the F4U-1D at 18,000ft would have a speed of about 385mph TAS at MIL power, and just about 400mph under WEP. I would say that 385mph TAS falls within an acceptable margin of error for your test, varying on temperature and pressure conditions, as well as excess drag slowing your acceleration.

That was my point entirely; neither the pressure or temperature were in the screenshots or in your post commentary so I had to make a guess when filling out the calculator on my end.

I used the exact same calculator that you did, using what information you provided. If you failed to provide pressure and temperature data to feed into the calculator that's on you.

That's for the F4U-4, which has a different block engine and a four-bladed paddle prop providing substantially more power.