Voyager

In a modern aircraft yes, but that test report was in 1953, and they were explicitly testing that, for plane that first flew in 1941, and on an aircraft that was likely built no later than the middle of 1945. Remember this is the era where you could stick a 400lb fuel tank behind the center of gravity and just tell the pilots not to do any maneuvering until it was drained. We're not quite WWII era, where the bombs are stored loos in a box under your seat, or the pilot is sitting in a wicker lawn chair perched on top of a gas tank, but NATOPS doesn't happen until the 60's. I've also noticed that both the P-51 and P-38 have reports of pilots using the flaps in combat (whether or not it was effective, there are reports that some pilots would do it in both planes), as near as I can tell, no-one even considered that on the P-47. Along with assorted weird comments in the training manual about when to deploy flaps during the landing patterns it leads me to the suspicion that there was something weird about them that rendered them a really bad idea to deploy during any sort of turns. Thank you, Harry Voyager

Those are quite a good watch. :)

One thing I've noticed is if you overboost the engine, it appears to have a boost dump and will drop power to around 30" suddenly.

Place holder for the third one, will be the P-47N Pilot's Training Manual. This is *not* the version we are getting, but it covers the full acrobatics (albeit iwth the N wing, so you'll need to make some adjustments), has the period instructions on using the K-14 gunfight, and has some rather interesting instructions on how to get maximum range out of the aircraft using "lean of peak" operation, that should be applicable to the earlier version as well. And should be available on DropBox here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ln847p37kfncp0g/P-47N%20Thunderbolt.pdf?dl=0 Let me know if anyone has trouble with the links. I have not done much open link sharing via dropbox before...

The second one January 1945 version of AN 01-65BC-1A for the British version of the P-47D-25 through D-35. This covers the D-30's we're getting, and includes the engine limits for 130 Octane gas, but does not have the acrobatics limits. Apparently it exceeds the forums upload limits so I'll see if I can find an alternative way to deliver it. Ok: Should be up on dropbox here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/014dmvj8awvkcez/P-47D-25%20through%2035.pdf?dl=0

Attached should be three P-47 manuals courtesy of the WWII Aircraft.net thread of scanned copies (https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/topics/other-mechanical-systems-tech.64/) The first is the P-47 AAF Manual No. 50-5. This one covers the late razordback and early bubbletop, with both 91 and 100 Octane gas. This one has the acrobatics descriptions and airspeed limits. I do not believe these change over the life of the standard winged P-47. However, the page covering loops, Immelmans and Barrel Rolls is missing. P-47 AAF Manual 50-5.pdf

Oh very cool. Was this done with condenser microphones or did you get to experiment any with contact microphones? Given the exhaust structure, I'd expect most of the sound the pilot would hear would be from bone conduction rather than pressure wave type one gets from the exhaust stacks. Note: my knowledge mostly comes from dealing with a family history of hearing loss (nerve deafness, so rhyme or reason need not apply) and some interesting things I've run into on the difficulty of micing a vibraphone, rather than any sort of profession study of sound engineering.

Very nice cockpit cam video of the P-47: We are not going to get the exhaust notes because of the turbo-charger system, but we should be getting the vibration and piston noise. I think that may be either not yet all in there, or possibly just running to low relative to the other noises. That said, the exhaust noise from the exhaust in aircraft where you've got near direct line of sight to them is *very loud* Compare the Kermi-cam of the F4F FM-2 with the over wing exhaust stacks vs the F4U with the underling exhaust stacks:

Link to the place I posted the chart originally: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=115584 This websight has both the 2675 and 2899 reports up: http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-47/p-47.html (Bottom of the page). As they are NACA test reports they are public domain materials. Apparently the P-47's flap systems had a weird behavior where one flap would drop before the other flap would. NACA TN 2899 documented the F-47D-30 they were testing showing the left flap deploying to 20 degrees a full two seconds before the right flap moved beyond a 5 degree deployment. Don't know if this is something you all were aware of or planned to model, or if it has since been fixed on modern surviving airplanes, but it would be really cool to be able to get this what the heck behavior of the plane in there too, if possible. Thank you, Harry Voyager

So provided you have six D-2 cylinders, and the oxygen gauge is reading 400 PSI, these are the durations at altitude we should be seeing. (Per An 01-65BC-1A, Pilot's Flight Operating Instructions for P-47D-25 through D-35, British Model, January 1945, Figure 44 pg 39)

I'll also add that it preferentially fills the auxiliary tank first rather than the main tank, which I would not expect to be normal practice, as the aux tank moves the CoG backwards when full.

So after flying it, finally, what I'm see is that is it rather torque sensitive, and that the wildest hunting is either when the plane is below 150 mph IAS or the turbo is surging. I'm wondering if the feedback loop on the turbo is fully tuned yet? I've also noticed that if you fuel the plane it leaves the main tank partially empty and fills the aux tank which will mess up the center of gravity and should make the plane super twitchy in all the controls.

As much as I do enjoy the steam gauges from the Tomcat, I'm going to have to vote for the digital one here. Basically this is going to be the high fidelity F-15 for the forseeable future and should be as current with the C as viable. That said, getting both eventually would be interesting, but the modern one is probably more important to have. (Note: I am buying it either way... :))

Serves me right for not double checking the details lol: http://joebaugher.com/usaf_fighters/p47_12.html Apparently the YP-47M's were D-27's and were fitted with dive flaps at the factory, but the production P-47M's were D-30's. So it looks like in September they were still producing D-27's, but had shifted over to D-30's before December, and it does state that the factory can Refit the dive flaps onto the wings, but I think there's still open questions on when they started producing the dive flap equipment installed, whether it could be retro fitted into an existing aircraft, and some question on when they started entering combat units. Baugher mentions that the P-47M entered operations in December, but also that they were rushed to the front after the refit, so there's both probably son engineering time to Refit them, and some reduced logistics time to get them in the hands of the 56th. Cool :) It will be funny if we're able to rebuild a complete timeline of the aircraft.

Just to hard confirm, declassified US manuals dating from WWII are legal to post outright? I'm assuming this falls under the pre-1980 clause, but just want to double check.

Edit: let me hold off just a moment to check something. You know what they say about assumptions...

There's actually a number of important generations to be mindful off for that. According to what Greg's Airplanes and Autos was able to dig up, all do the C and A models were plumbered and certified for a 200 gallon belly drop tank Republic had developed, but the "Bomber Mafia" blocked procurement or use of it. I believe most of the P-47C and D versions were also able to mount the British 108 gallon tanks as well. The D-20 had the Universal Wing that was able to, among other things, mount the 108 gallon drop tanks the British were making. The D-22 was the first ones fitted with the paddle bladded propeller for improved climb performance. The D-25 was the first bubble top and was the first version with the 370 gallon internal fuel capacity. It did not have the dive flaps. At least according the Wikipedia, that's the version that starts showing up in May of 1944. The D-27 was the basis for the P-47M's and I believe it was the first one with the dorsal fin, but I don't think they were fitted with the dive flaps. The D-30 is the version we have here. It is the one with the dive flaps added. I can see the dorsal fin being a straight forward retrofit, but were the dive flaps something that could be fitted in the field? I would expect those to have non-trivial structural requirements, given the purpose. I just seem to see much about dive flap equipped P-47's, especially given the number built. It makes me wonder why? So to reiterate, the Bubble tops started at the D-25, not the D-30, so the dive flaps did not come in with the bubble tops; they came in half way through the bubble top production, and I still don't have a clean idea of exactly when they were built. Further, Bodenplatte was the last significant combat operation of the Luftwaffe. That was January 1st 1945. The was in the Pacific ended in August 1945, so we're looking at at least 8 months of full production after the end of air combat in Europe. Just back of the envelope, if the D-25 started showing up in May 1944, and we assume production stopped on August 1945, with about 7,000 bubbletop's produced, of which about 3500 were D-30+ units, if we assume that production is constant over that period, we're looking at 450 planes per month, which would mean that by the Operation Bodenplatte in January 44, they would only just start receiving the D-30 models with the dive recovery flaps. That would imply most of the D-30+ models ended up either filling ground attack roles in Europe or going to the Pacific. And, if you're correct about them Esme faring older models to ground pounding duty, that would imply that most of the new builds got send to the Pacific theater A's the European theater turned into a primarily ground war. I also expect a certain percentage of the D-40's to have ended up just sitting on lots when the orders for new units shut off at the end of the war.

To be totally fair it is an effect of having a refresh rate. We see it in cameras because of the way they capture images, and we see it in displays because of the way they project then linearly. The main reason we do not see this on film or in the human eye is because the sampling is not sequential. It is not something they added in; rather it is something that exists by default that they have not yet taken out. I do hope they do develop and implement a consistent way to do that though. It does look weird to be able to resolve blades the way you get on a digital camera. I would suspect if you do not have v sync on you could get some rather trippy effects.

As I recall, only the D-30 through D-40 had them. I don't recall whether the P-47M had them, but I don't think they did. As I recall the M's were really just modified D-27 airframes with the R-2800 'C' engine and the larger turbo installed. The P-47N deleted the dive flaps to make room for the wing tanks. While researching this, I was rather surprised at the sheer number of D-30/40 Thunderbolts produced. If I'm counting the planes right (http://joebaugher.com/usaf_fighters/p47_4.html) somethingike half of all bubble top planes were D-30+ aircraft. I suspect that they arrived to the front after the Luftwaffe had been largely defeated, but would need to do a lot more digging to trace when units actually got to the front. However, due to how many were produced, I expect the D-30 would be an excellent for for immediate post-war skirmishes, along with the F4U-4 and -7 and late model Mustangs, so it will be a good fit for DCS.

On a different note, how is the production and supply situation going? Been a while since the last update and was wondering. Thank you, Harry Voyager

Did you pre-order the Super-carrier? I initially had this error, but after I installed the super carrier it resolved itself for all of my modules.

Cool. Was this not in there before, or is this just additional refinements to existing flap jam logic? I recall early on when I was trying manual flaps that I did manage to jam one of them in the deployed position. I actually thought it was fun trying to figure out how to RTB with one of the onboard flaps jammed in the down position, but haven't run into that again.

Right now I'd price out a 10th gen Intel part, 32Gb ram, and get a used Radeon 480 or 580 16Gb off of Ebay or Craig's list, pair it up, at most, with an Occulus Rift S, and absolutely positively wait until Fall and the impending releases of the next gen GeForce and Radeon cards. The new mid range/low end Intel CPUs finally added multi threading so they're a potentially good buy, depending on price an availability, and the Z490 boards are looking to be reasonably priced. An I5-10600K should be quite capable for DCS with a 6/12 core/thread set and a 4.8 Ghz boost clock. I haven't actually benchmarked my Zen 2 chip on DCS, but I know on the other VR flight sim there is a performance penalty over the Intel parts. That said, the Ryzen 3 3300X delivers 4/8 core/threads at 4.3 Ghz for $120 USD retail and should be a solid budget entry. The Radeon 7 3700 gets you the same thing, just with an 8/16 core thread layout. One does end up running a silly amount of peripheral programs for DCS so more threads could be handy. Don't get any Zen 1 or Zen 1+ parts; they lack AVX2 instructions that flight sims use heavily so they run the game very slow. Known issue. Also get a SSD big enough to hold your OS and the game files. The Intel i660p is more than good enough and was cheap, though prices vary. I'd have to check my game files to see if you could actually get away with 256Gb, but 512G would be nicer. (1-2TB is even nicer still, but price loves to climb with capacity...) For VR you need all the GPU and all the CPU you can throw at it and now is the absolute worst possible time to buy a new GPU of any sort. Any GPU you buy now will be obsolete in six months so get the cheapest thing possible that can get you airborne if you must build now. No it's not going to be a super pretty experience, but given that nVidia is about refresh their line up in order to one-up the consoles you do not want to be spending money on the GPU before then. AMD should be releasing RDNA2 around that time, and based on what's coming out of the consoles, it is looking competitive with what is expecting to arrive with the nVidia parts. We may see an actual price war with this generation. Once the new GeForce cards release you can look at the prices and figure out how much card you can afford. These are my thoughts, take them with the appropriate amount of salt, but should be a useful starting point for research.

He got rather aggressive later in the war. He was downed and captured because he clipped the ground with the prop while strafing He-111's on the ground.

The other issue is, how do you validate it when none of the pilots are still alive? There is a large debate that recently popped up on flap usage. At least according to the listed flight profiles, the P-47 flaps generate ridiculous amounts of lift, that when combined with the additional excess power and relatively benign stall characteristic appear to allow the aircraft to do some rather bonkers turn rates. Yet, there is absolutely nothing in the historical accounts mentioning this at all. What gives? Is the flight model wrong? Yet, if you drop the flap lift, the landing speeds go up by 20+mph, and you certainly can't land with the engine on idle like the manual directs you to: you'd fall out of the sky like a brick, yet it sure a anything wasn't a turn fighter either. Turns out there are a couple of missing pieces of info. Post war dogfight testing turned out that the P-47 could actually effectively do prop-hang nuttiness much better than other US fighters. (Very clean wing with an even lift distribution apparently helps, ala Spitfire) It also turns out that one flap always drops to 20 degrees, before the other one drops beyond 5. Drop flaps in a turn and you spin. Always. So of course, no-one every thought of using PO-47 flaps in combat because that would be stupid. What I haven't been able to determine is, if it is always the left flap that drops first, if it changes from plane to plane, if it is dependent some factor of your flight attitude at the moment, or if it is a truly random function driven by some race condition in the mechanisms. Interestingly enough, the Pilot Handbooks do mention that there is something squirrelly about the flaps, but they don't actually say what. They just tell you to only lower them on final, and that you shouldn't do it earlier until you have enough time in the plane. What I can tell you is most sim developers aren't likely to go into the baseline engine development with the baseline assumption that an aircraft would have a random function generator for a heavy lift device...