Echo38

Um, I take it that the moving of this thread to the Wishlist section amounts to an answer of, "No, that rumor is not accurate"? It wasn't actually a wish thread, but rather a request for information, but okay...

I heard from an acquaintance who uses multiple flight sim/games that DCS is supposed to be getting a mouse control update. As some of you may know, I no longer fly DCS for the sole reason that I can no longer use joystick or pedals (due to joint pain). A proper virtual-joystick mouse-control mode for the high-fidelity modules would have me screaming back to DCS faster than you can say "fighter pilot." However, "a mouse control update" is ambiguous, and doesn't necessarily imply virtual joystick. Is anyone able to provide me with a link to any news about this?

Are you sure you're thinking of the right airplane? I've never come across anything like this during all of the reading I've done on the P-38, and I did a lot back in the day. You got me curious enough to investigate this a bit now; both of the P-38 manuals I have say that the brakes use an entirely different hydraulic system from the rest, and mention nothing about needing to be pumped with the hand pump (and they do mention the hand pump for the backups for the main system). Is it possible that you've misread something, or did that info come from another source, rather than the "Pilot Training Manual for the P-38 Lightning" or the "Pilots Manual for Lockheed P-38 Lightning" (sic)?

That pretty much answers my question(s), thank you. Skimming through the P-47 and P-80 manuals also helped cast light on the subject. For example, the P-47 had a hand pump which could supply emergency hydraulic pressure to both gear or flaps. The P-80's landing flaps were electrically operated, so no engine power needed there.

Does the pressure deplete over time, regardless of whether you're operating things? Or does it only deplete while you're e.g. lowering/raising your flaps/gear? Do jets work similarly to props in these matters? In an airplane with hydraulically-boosted ailerons, such as the P-38L, would there be any way to save the hydraulic pressure for flaps, beyond simply not deflecting the ailerons?

Knowing little about engines & such, a question about hydraulics in real aircraft: when a WWII fighter's engine quits, is all hydraulic pressure immediately lost? Or can you (for example) lower your flaps before it "runs out"?

Back when I was at my peak of skill, I actually extrapolated the real-life P-38 best climb speed chart (IIRC, the speed went up with mass, up with power, and down with altitude) for the masses and power ratings I was using, and memorized it. I utilized this to great effect in the old sim-games. People often wondered how I got my P-38 to climb so well, and that was the answer.* I didn't always have it exactly spot on; indeed, I tended to habitually climb about 10 MPH slower than the chart recommended (at the mass and power setting I was flying at, that was ~165 MPH instead of ~175, below 10,000 ft). I still don't know if this was an impatient mistake, or if my gut feeling was correct about the lower figure being more effective in the (often erroneous) sim-game. It's also possible that the original chart was wrong (or at least an "overly-gross approximation"), given that the real-life manual it was taken from had multiple errors. I also, of course, had to guess my mass, but I did know my masses for various states (for example, when nearly out of fuel, and when taking off clean with a hundred gallons, and when I'm carrying drop tanks). This allowed me to guess with a reasonable degree of accuracy. "Close enough," while still giving me an advantage over anyone using a single figure for all cases. So, I don't know about real fighter pilots, but given that at least one serious competitive simmer memorized one of these charts, I would assume that at least the more responsible of real fighter pilots, whose lives were on the line, memorized glide speeds as well as climb speeds. * Over the thousands of hours I played old IL-2: Pacific Fighters, back in the early 2000s, I only met exactly one Zero pilot (a guy from Japan who went by the handle Sennbei) whom I could not out-climb over the course of five or ten minutes. Unlike all of the others, he kept up with me all the way to ceiling, and our protracted duels thus resulted in draws, with neither of us being able to touch the other. I was quite surprised when I first encountered him, because I'd always assumed that the P-38 out-climbed the Zero. Instead, I then realized, none of the other Zero pilots were climbing at their best climb speeds, the way he and I were. The difference was pretty drastic. I'm not sure if it would be so pronounced in DCS, because the older sim-games had less sophisticated drag models, which may have affected the results.

What sort of boom-and-zoom are we talking, exactly? Is it a single diving attack, followed by an extension and then a shallow, long-term zoom climb? This is the sort of long-term fight I called my "anti-Zero trick" (while flying P-38 in other sim-games); the idea was to slowly (but at high speed) climb while already out of gun range, keeping the horizontal component of your velocity just high enough that the enemy couldn't enter gun range. But I wonder if a more immediate fight is possible against Spitfire, if one has sufficient energy in the Focke-Wulf. Namely, a steep zoom climb that does not allow one to exit gun range, followed by a loop or even a stall-turn ("the flop," I called it; it's like a hammerhead, but on the pitch axis instead of the yaw axis). It's dangerous because, if the enemy already was at a high speed when you fired on him, then he likely can pull up as well, and get a shot at you before he stalls. It largely depends on just how maneuverable the target is, and I'm wondering if the DCS Spitfire is like the Spitfire in other (lesser) sim-games, which means is it so maneuverable that this kind of "tight" BnZ isn't possible to safely execute against a high-skill Spitfire pilot, no matter how much E you start out with? Again, assuming that he isn't already at low speed when you begin your initial attack, but that this is instead a one-on-one situation where a skilled opponent knew you were coming.

I've always assumed that best glide speed is about the same as best climb speed. I could be entirely wrong; anyone know?

Got a terrible case of the giggles right now. Thanks for posting that. : )

There's a concept called "corner turning speed," the exact definition of which I'm not entirely sure of, but it generally means the speed at which your airplane turns the best. It's different from best sustained turn speed, which I know to be clearly defined: the speed at which a 360-degree sustained turn (a turn that neither gains nor loses energy) takes the least amount of time to complete. This is the quickest sustained turn you can make, not necessarily the tightest. Corner turning speed, on the other hand, is about instantaneous turn, not sustained turn. In a WWII fighter, you can only keep up a "corner turn" as long as you have altitude with which to sustain a diving turn. If you dive too steeply, and your speed exceeds corner speed, then you turn worse. If you dive to shallowly, and your speed drops below corner speed, then you turn worse. You need to find the sweet spot, and that sweet spot is what pilots call "corner turning speed." This speed is always going to be higher than your best sustained turn speed. Also note that "unloading" (pulling back less on the stick, to reduce G-forces and increase speed) to maintain corner turning speed, instead of diving to maintain it, won't work; even though you're technically at corner turning speed, you won't be turning at well as you would be if you were diving (and pulling back harder) at the same speed. Indeed, if you aren't losing altitude, then you'll turn worse at corner speed than you would at best sustained turn speed. You can't have your cake and eat it as well; either you need to burn altitude for a corner turn, or you need to switch to a sustained turn. Trying to execute a sustained turn at corner speed simply won't work; the other guy will out-turn you even in a worse-turning fighter, by doing a sustained turn at his best sustained turn speed. In a "mirror duel," a fighter with a better sustained turn will beat a fighter with a better instantaneous turn, if the fight is prolonged or begins at low altitude. The instantaneous turner will initially do better in an energy-positive situation, than the sustained turner will do from the same position; however, it takes more gunnery skill to take advantage of superior instantaneous turning ability than it does to take advantage of superior sustained turning ability. If you get one shot opportunity in a sustained turner, chances are you'll get plenty of more opportunities if you miss. But if you get one shot opportunity in an instantaneous turner, chances are you won't get another opportunity if you miss that one. Here's a related post I wrote a while back, comparing sustained and instantaneous turns, in real life and in the virtual sky:

[facedesk] I see that you once again didn't bother to read my post on the "very rapidly" thing (by the way, the same problem Mslama is talking about with the "quantifiable" bit). Ahhh ... one can lead a horse to water ...

That comparison (P-51 turns slightly better, FW 190 rolls much better) is in line with everything I've ever heard about the two. My understanding is that this is also how it is in-sim, no? As for P-51 versus F4U in turns, you can't just look at wingloading. That'd be altogether too simplistic. Drag and powerloading aside, things like chord thickness and aspect ratio matter for sustained and instantaneous turns, respectively.

If you think the post I quoted wasn't constructive, then that's your problem. An explanation of the subjective nature of pilot quotes, with relevant example, is about as constructive as it gets.

Yup, real-life muzzle flashes don't obstruct visibility in the day (as OP said, because of extremely brief duration), regardless of caliber or barrel length. Even machine guns with recoil compensators which vent upward (across the sights) aren't a problem except at night. Haven't shot .50 cal personally IRL, but I've fired a number of smaller calibers and have seen .50 fired from a close distance.