Echo38

I don't understand; could you re-phrase?

Thank you.

It might, locally; I'm not familiar with that setup. However, it does leave the situation of the K-4 having the editor option of one of its better boosts, but not the P-51. It doesn't seem fair to the P-51--especially since the P-51 is not in need of such a disadvantage--in addition to it not being an accurate picture of the historical average. I'm not one of those guys who wants his favorite ride to dominate the other guy's. Some of you think I'm just a P-51 fan crying, but, in fact, I'm fonder of the Me 109 than the P-51--the real one, as well as in sim/games--and I have many times more virtual hours in 109s than in 51s. I simply want the aircraft to be well-matched, as well as being historically-representative. There are enough variations in configuration for that to happen. So it's possible to have both. I don't understand the resistance to this. If Yo-Yo doesn't have the time to create the 72" boost, then that's one thing, and I can understand that. He's a very busy guy, I gather. But it seems to me that there are a few people here who'd fight against the introduction of 72" even if it were already ready for inclusion into the sim. And I can see no justification for this attitude, given the points I've made previously.

It's got the worst WEP rating of all of the ones authorized for operational P-51Ds, to the best of my knowledge. Facing a 109K that is not using the worst WEP rating of any operational 109K, I might add. To be sure, there were worse examples of individual P-51Ds. Old, patched-up, battle-worn ones; poorly-manufactured "lemons;" examples with the rocket racks left on ... that sort of thing. But, as far as the horsepower rating goes, you can't find a worse official rating for combat P-51Ds. The only historical configuration I can think of that would be worse than what we have, is if the rocket racks were forced on (while keeping this lowest-used WEP rating). Hence my comment, "one of the worst examples." Since none of the birds are modelled in the sim as having quality variation (which is fine with me), I'm only comparing configurations. WEP ratings, mostly, because that's the major change between examples, when discounting variations in the condition of individuals.

What is the effect, exactly? The horizontal stabilizer provides downforce, right, so--when banked--I would expect that the force vector of that would be away from the direction of the turn, not into it. So what is it that causes the tail of some aircraft to swing into the turn, when not corrected with rudder?

This one puzzles me. While, of course, the greatest need for rudder while banking comes from adverse yaw, which only occurs while the ailerons are deflected, I was always under the impression that--while greatly reduced--there was still some need for corrective rudder after the bank was established and the stick neutralized. "To keep the tail from slipping into the turn." Something about the horizontal stabilizer and ... gravity? TBH, I never really understood the reason for the effect, but this is what I always was told, and the effect seems to be present in DCS. Anyway, it's quite possible that I'm wrong, but my understanding of the issue was that you needed a lot of rudder when rolling (to counter adverse yaw), and then when returning the stick to neutral, rudder should be brought towards center (because adverse yaw is decreasing along with the stick deflection), but if still in the bank, some slight rudder in that direction should be maintained even after stick is centered (and thus zero adverse yaw). The steeper the bank (up to 90 degrees), the more the rudder needed to maintain coordination. Is this inaccurate, then? Is there no effect--during a constant bank--by which the tail will naturally attempt to fall into the direction of the bank, causing a slight slip, if not corrected for with a small, constant rudder input, proportionate to the degree of bank?

Amazing. I'm not too proud to admit that this is beyond me. There's already so much to do when flying aerobatics, I just don't see how these guys can do it while cooking dinner, too (so to speak). I'm glad the 109 doesn't only have manual pitch control!

This, exactly. It took flying a real airplane for only an hour before I fully understood this, and it was immediately after my first real flight that I removed all curves & deadzones from my stick, ~15 years ago. Since that day, I have never used any settings on my joystick other than direct input. There's no doubt about the effect.

Right; my concern is primarily how the P-51 does down low, as combat altitudes are seldom above 15,000 feet in multiplayer. I myself favor "angels ten." The longer people spend climbing to get to a fight, the less time spent learning dogfighting. Ten to fifteen thousand gives some room for E fighting, while not taking prohibitively long to set up the fight each time. Which is a shame, yes, that few simmers experience high-altitude combat, because it is very different up at 30,000, with the wide turning circles and high TAS, but so close to the stall. It's very tactical and slower-paced ... time to think & predict the maneuvers, and E fighting is essential. I enjoyed it greatly on the few occasions I was able to engage in it. But, it takes so long to get there after each takeoff, and one can get in so many more hours of practice if meeting the opponent at low medium altitude instead. It is rare to find a fight up there at all, above 20,000, unless it is arranged. At any rate, my core concern is this: in multiplayer, most action is to be found below 10,000 feet or so, and at these lower altitudes, the P-51D suffers badly against the Me 109K, more than it should, because of lack of a 72" WEP rating. Hence the puppy eyes. : ) As the P-51 is outclassed at low altitude, where most multiplayer combat occurs, and 72" would make it less outclassed, and would not cause the 109 to be outclassed instead, and 72" is something that many real P-51s ran at, surely it is not such a bad thing to ask for?

I don't recall ever seeing a source that says that it was, but then I spent the vast majority of my time examining the P-38 and not the P-51. However, I must ask: are you certain that it was never used, or have you merely not found a source that suggests or confirms its use? If the latter, then that would leave the matter in question. Or do you have authoritative sources which definitively state that 75" was never used on operational USAAF P-51s?

Well, that is the altitude where the P-51 suffers the most. : ) Dearest Yo-Yo, 72" MAP wouldn't make the P-51 a better dogfighter than the 109K, would it? It'd just help to narrow the gap between the two fighters' general combat capability. (Surely even 75" wouldn't allow the P-51D to match the 109K in climb or turn, much less 72"; am I right?) Please, and puppy eyes, 72" WEP? I should very much like a close match between equals.

Remember, certain "middle of the road" ratings were authorized even for 100/130. Not the highest, but still a few inches higher than the factory setting. Having the higher-grade fuel made the engines run smoother & last longer at the higher pressures, but someone up high in command made the (correct) decision that, in the absence of the 100/150, wearing engines out a bit faster--and even raising the risk of engine failure a bit--was worth the gain of having a few more inches of power in an emergency. That is, after all, the point of WEP in the first place. : ) This is why I don't understand how some people fight so hard against these officially-authorized, commonly-used, middle-of-the-road WEP ratings being made available to the P-51D, when the opponent aircraft also has a mid-range boost already, and is not in danger of being outclassed by the incorporation of the same on the other side. In this case, it's better for competitive balance, and it doesn't harm historical accuracy a bit. (I do understand how some of the highest ratings make people uneasy; as I mentioned before, I myself don't much care for the "arms race to helicopters," either, and believe that WEP ratings should only be raised for the "factory underdogs" to better match "factory overdogs," and only to WEP ratings which are historical, of course.)

I can't see any other way that the two aircraft could be reasonably well-balanced. Unless you take an extreme example, such as a super-high-boosted P-51, running a very light fuel load, versus a low-boosted 109 carrying gunpods, the 109 will always turn & climb & accelerate better, at normal multiplayer dogfighting altitudes. Thus, the only way I can see to prevent the match from being completely being one-sided, is to pick an example of a P-51 which is faster. Unless you go to extreme & unusual configurations, you aren't gonna get a P-51 that turns or climbs better, at least not at "normal" altitudes. For this reason, as far as I can tell, the only way (without historically-rare conditions, as mentioned in previous paragraph) to get a P-51D to be an ~even match for the 109 is to pick models/blocks/configurations in which the P-51 is faster, because at least then it has something. If the 109K is about the same speed, or even better (as is apparently the case now, yes?), and also has clear advantages in turn & climb, then it isn't an even match by any stretch. Things like diving ability & low stick forces & reliable firepower are nice, but they don't make up for having worse climb, worse turn, and a lower top speed. The latter's pretty much a death sentence for the P-51, unless the 109 pilot is green; the P-51 can't out-maneuver and can't get away, and so is clearly not a good match for our K-4. If what you say is true, then I can see no better choices than the two I've presented; either our lowest-WEP-rating P-51D needs to be matched with a 109G-6 (which is still a historical match that occurred more frequently than the current matchup), or else the P-51D needs to have one of the higher WEP ratings that were authorized toward the end of the war, to become closer in performance & fighting ability to our 109K. (This would also be a historical match, though perhaps not as common as P-51D vs. 109G-6, due to the relative rarity of pristine K-4s.) The only option other than those two, unless I'm overlooking something, is to remain with the current situation, of a factory-boosted P-51D being outclassed in maneuverability, and not possessing a speed advantage to balance it out, and thus being a poor match for our 109K-4 (which is, unlike our P-51D, running a mid-high boost rather than the lowest). That situation is neither balanced nor historically representative, since the real P-51Ds commonly ran at higher boost ratings (with or without the higher-grade fuel) than the one we have in the sim, and so were a better match for the 109K, on average (despite still being inferior in turn & climb at most altitudes).

Mm, about that--after my haphazard guess of "~2500 109Ks" in that post of mine, I spent ~20 minutes searching for an actual figure on how many 109Ks were produced. I could find nothing, so ... I have no idea how many 109Ks were produced; "2000–2500" is a figure I've heard tossed around, but the actual number seems to be a bit murky, at best. It seems clear, however, that the 109K wasn't a very common sight for the Allied pilots, at any point in the war, and the 109G would have been ubiquitous by comparison.

In addition to the G-6 being the type of 109 most likely to be encountered by a P-51D pilot, historically, I presume it also would be a closer competitive match for our lowest-boost P-51D than our mid/high-end K-4 is. If you think there's a better such match, I'm listening. Perhaps, as I suggested earlier, one of the models/blocks between G-6 and K would be more appropriate? Which of them do you believe to be the most even match for a factory-boost P-51D? That is, being neither clearly superior nor inferior in combat? Any 109 which is--at multiplayer combat altitudes--significantly slower than the P-51D, but turns & climbs significantly better, should be a fairly good match. What commonly-used 109 model do you think best fits that description? Bear in mind that the disadvantage(s) should be similar in magnitude to the advantages. Being 2% faster doesn't make up for having 15% worse sustained turn, for example.

Are you using a force-feedback joystick, or a spring-centered one? If you're using FFB, and holding it in a constant position, then the trim tab should move but not the elevator. Only when you release the stick should the elevator move to the trimmed position. With a spring-centered stick, this behavior isn't possible, but if you're using an FFB and holding it steady when you trim, then what you're seeing (if I read you correctly) is accurate behavior.

That sounds about right.

I don't think it's quite that easy, but, yes, there's no doubt that adjusting the P-51's governor(s) and modelling the preferred fuel type would be less work than creating a G-6 (or whatever model in between G-6 and K-4 is best suited to face a factory-boosted P-51D). Even 75" might be overkill; 72" might be enough to do it. Hard to say. Did they ever fix the P-51's speed being ~30MPH too low for its WEP rating, at low alt? If so, then only a small increase in WEP rating might give the P-51 enough of a speed advantage (along with somewhat reducing the disadvantages in climb & turn) to be a reasonably good match for a 109K. Again, hard to tell. But it is imperative that care be taken to avoid reversing the disparity between the two fighters by dramatically raising the P-51's WEP rating. I don't want a P-51 that outclasses the 109, any more than I want the 109 to outclass the P-51 (and neither should anyone else who cares about this sim). There's enough variation between historical configurations to find a good match, even if the models & production blocks are set in stone. Hmm; interesting idea. Added weight and reduced drag don't quite balance each other out, though. Sounds like it'd end up faster than it should be, and with worse climb & turn than it should have. Weight can be reduced by taking a very light fuel load, but I wonder if there's some way for us to add a bit more drag to our K-4? Dropping a bit of flap would mess up the lift ...

I myself am uneasy about the "arms race" thing and feel that, rather than constantly upping boosts to try to match one or the other, it would be be far more ideal if we had something like a 109G-6 to match our factory-boost P-51D, instead. At the altitudes at which multiplayer battles occur, a factory P-51D should be a fairly good match for an ideal 109G-6; the former having speed and dive, and the latter having climb and turn. However, that's moot; the cat's already out of the bag, and so I have a difficult time seeing any other way of correcting the problem of the 109K being overly dominant, than to give the P-51 one of its historical mid-range WEP ratings. The highest ratings would probably be overkill, especially at higher altitudes (seeing as how our 109K doesn't have its highest rating, either); there's no reason to jump from extreme to extreme. The good news is that ED has, as you mentioned, several historically-common WEP ratings for the P-51D to work with, giving a number of options for picking a good match, and IIRC Yo-Yo did mention a possibility that such might be incorporated into the sim at some point. In reality, the two fighters were fairly well-matched against each other, on average, when there was a good pilot in the seat of each. It is my earnest hope that this becomes the case in the sim, as well, and ED has the means to do so. It is now, for us, a matter of waiting & hoping that they can allocate the resources to implement it.

What I'm trying to say, here, is this: The K-4 is indeed a P-51 killer in DCS, but this isn't an accurate picture of how the two aircraft compared, because our K-4 is much closer to the best K-4 that ever flew in combat, than our P-51D is to the best P-51D that ever flew in combat. Similarly, our K-4 is better than the average historical K-4, and our P-51D is worse than the average historical P-51D. It simply isn't a fair representation. The only reason I'm not screaming "developer bias" is because I understand why the choice was made to model the K-4, rather than a model more suitably matched (both in the "fair & balanced," and in the "historically-common") for the P-51D. Thus, I believe that ED is not biased; I agree with their choice to prioritize fidelity of the aircraft model over suitability of aircraft model, because I, too, desire the most accurate simulation of the real warbirds as possible. However, the fact remains that the match as depicted is neither fair nor historically representative. The only thing our P-51D vs. 109K matchup is representative of is the scenario of "what happens when you take one of the better examples of a 109K and pit it against one of the worst examples of a P-51D." Of course it's going to dominate! The inverse would be also be true, if you switch it around, with one of the best examples of P-51D versus one of the worst examples of Me 109K. This should be a no-brainer; I don't know why I have to point this out.

That can't be right. There were somewhere around 8000 P-51Ds compared to, what, 2500 109Ks? (... Off the top of my head.) Surely it wasn't the case that the great majority of P-51Ds were manufactured in the last few months of the war. And besides that, you're overlooking something: the P-51D as modelled in the sim (with the lowest WEP rating of any combat P-51D) was unlikely to be matched against a 109K as modelled in the sim (factory-fresh & without the crippling logistical defects). The much more probable scenario would be a slightly-higher rated P-51D encountering a 109G-6 or so, which would have been much more of the one-sided stomp that real-world sources often spoke of. Similarly, I would expect the average 109K to be more likely to encounter a higher-rated P-51 than to encounter a factory-rated P-51 (what with higher WEP ratings for the P-51 being common, later in the war, regardless of the presence or absence of the recommended fuel type). A 109K was a less-common, higher-end 109 than usual; a higher-than-factory-WEP P-51D, on the other hand, was a common, usual P-51D. See? It isn't an accurate depiction of the standard scenario, then, to be having a factory-fresh 109K encountering a factory-fresh P-51D. On average, the 109s were considerably worse than that rather-idealized example, and the P-51Ds were better than our low-end example (due to higher WEP ratings being authorized, even without the standard fuel type, recall). Which doesn't mean, mind you, that I believe that the P-51D was a superior fighter design to the Me 109K-4; I don't believe that it was, unless long range is a deciding factor. It's just that, the logistics of the war were such that examples of 109s like the one we have were relatively rare, ours being much better than the average example; and, to compound the discrepancy, examples of P-51Ds like the one we have are significantly worse than the average example. So, it's understandable that ED chose to model the 109K, because of information availability; however, from a "historically-common and/or fairly balanced" perspective, it was a poor choice. It's true that an idealized 109K was well-matched--perhaps more than well-matched--against an idealized P-51D, but pilot experience wasn't the only reason that the end of the war was a bloodbath. Logistics played a big role as well, and because of that, the average P-51D was more than a match for its average contemporary 109, even without pilot experience disparities. Perhaps more than a match for the average 109K-4, even (since P-51Ds were more likely to have their higher boosts than 109Ks were). In short, no one should be imagining that the representation of P-51D vs. 109K that we have in DCS matches what would have usually been seen during the war. What we have in the sim are cherry-picked examples: a low-end P-51D vs. a mid-high-end Me 109K. And that isn't a crack at ED. Good modelling data takes priority over an ideal choice for historical significance & balance. I'd rather have a well-modelled fighter that isn't the ideal choice, than a less well-modelled one (because of scarcity of data) that's a better match for the other aircraft. But, regardless of the reasons for the choice, do be aware of the historically-atypical nature of the matchup (even without pilot skill coming into play). You can't nod and say, "Yep, the current situation is an accurate depiction of how these two aircraft usually were." Quite the opposite ... (For the record, I do not wish to see our 109 crippled by logistical problems being modelled. Ugh!)

Steve Hinton being one of the two authors, the book ought to be good.

How did you measure it?

Take it easy, man. I'm quite aware that reliability was one of the advantages that the .50 had over cannons, and I'm not at all suggesting that the Brownings have gun jams but not the cannons. I would hope (given my posting history) that it's fairly obvious that I was referring to realistic jams not being in the sim at all, and hoping that they would be introduced to all weapons. As a matter of fact, my three favorite aircraft all use the Browning M2, so--though I am very fond of the 109 also--I'm hardly a "Luftwhiner" trying to get the fifties "nerfed." The reason I spoke of the P-51 specifically, and not the 109 & 190, is that I do not currently own the latter two modules (I've been unable to use a joystick since before their release, due to medical reasons, and so, thus unable to use them, I haven't been able to justify their purchase on my tight budget). I think you would do well to take a few deep breaths and try to approach this subject with less of a hostile attitude. Please don't assume that anyone who says anything that could possibly be construed as contrary to your position, is a P-51 hater trying to get the aircraft nerfed. I do not dispute that such people exist, but I think they are far fewer than you suspect.

[nod] Realistic gun jamming is one of the few things that hasn't yet been modelled in our P-51 (that and engine idle behavior).