horseback

I want a pair of Spitfire rearview mirrors mounted above my windshield! That would be the epitome of ETO authenticity... cheers horseback

Spit IX because it's the only aircraft in the current inventory that actually flew combat missions over Normandy in the summer of 1944. The Mustang, Dora and Kurfurst versions we have were all later war (or mixed) models; I can save them for a bit later. cheers horseback

It was my understanding that the 85 gallon tank was original equipment on all P-51D models; it was added to the P-51B/C in late 1943, and modification kits were sent to Britain to add them to the USAAF Merlin Mustangs already delivered there. On the issue of the Spit burning less fuel than the Mustang at similar settings, does anyone have the rates for the Mk XVI? That Mark used (I believe) the same Packard Merlin as the contemporary Mustang production blocks. As I recall, the Packard Merlin used a different carburetion system from the Rolls Royce versions. I would have expected the draggier Spit to burn more fuel at the same engine settings. cheers horseback

I think that you will find that rather than armored, most American warplanes were just structurally heavier; by comparison to European, and especially Japanese designs they seemed over-engineered in many respects, but correspondingly heavier and more bullet resistant from most angles. Also, because of the greater weight to overall size ratio, they tended to accelerate into a dive much faster than most of the competition (a source of great disappointment to many Axis fighter pilots). However, they (well, most of them) were designed to be flown in the wide variety of conditions found in the US; dusty western deserts, southern swamps and near-jungles, the cold northern states (both humid and dry) and everything in between. Also, the War Department of that era had an expectation that they would get "their" money's worth out of the aircraft in terms of hours flown and at various levels of pilot skill. As a result, by mid-war, American units tended to have a (often much) higher availability rate than most if not all other air forces. It wasn't because they were heavily armored so much as they were designed & built to go a bit further and with greater structural redundancies than was the European standard. Most standard European designs would not have lasted in the continental United States if operated the way the USAAF or NavAir normally operated and moved units & aircraft from place to place. This is not a condemnation of European or Japanese designs; it is a reflection of the shorter distances, lesser variety of operating conditions and more--shall we say 'elite' nature of most of their pilot selection processes, coupled with a general scarcity of some materials needed to build the numbers of a/c needed. cheers horseback

Experienced pilots with a long history with one aircraft type have serious advantages over pilots who have bounced from one aircraft type to another, or who have limited experience in even a 'superior' type; a guy who was a good friend when we were teenagers went to the US Air Force Academy and then into Phantoms for a few years before graduating to F-15s, where he spent most of his career. When I saw him last (about 10 years ago), he had just retired after close to thirty years, almost a quarter century as an Eagle driver. He had the classic fighter pilot's ego, but I believe him when he said that he rarely lost a one on one mock dogfight with any other type of aircraft after he'd flown the Eagle for five years or so; he was so intimately aware of what he could do with this aircraft that as soon as he ID'd his opponent he could choreograph (his word) the whole fight from start to finish. He said that if no artificial restrictions on his capabilities or 'State Department' rules of engagement were imposed, he figured he was a lock to win (but he did say that Typhoons and Rafales could sometimes make him work for it). I would not be terribly surprised that someone who had been flying combat in 109s for five plus years might have a significant edge over someone with less than a hundred hours in a Mustang, Thunderbolt, Lightning or Spitfire...or a Dora, if it came to that. A major part of the contest is knowing exactly what you can do and being able perform under stress. The real test comes when pilots of equal or near-equal experience in type face off, and in that situation, the qualities of the both the individual pilot and his aircraft come to the fore. cheers horseback

Well, I'm already obsessing about which controllers and buttons I will assign, so the most probable scenario is that I will (after making laborious charts of my assignments & spending at least 2 hours setting up my control assignments) spend about an hour in the cockpit testing my assignments and coming to the realization that I got it all wrong. cheers horseback

Better sustained climb generally translates into better acceleration. Getting faster sooner is more important in a low-level furball than top speed, which means that the same guys who loooove their 109K because they can easily win in a dogfight where the other guy fights their fight (instead of forcing the fight on their own best terms) may well be thinking about switching to the Spit. cheers horseback

I'm not sure how much the 1943 flavor of the Spit IX ED is giving us will be felt in online competition. It appears that most of the online combat will be taking place at altitudes where the Spit's (any '43 era Spit's) power to weight ratio and maneuverability will be most useful, unlike the P-51D's performance, which is at its best above 7km, compared to what the 190D or 109K can do. The historical trend was for combat to go higher and the results were affected by maintainability, pilot training and relative ignorance of the other guys' capabilities, which cannot be simulated. In any case, the real-life capabilities of any simulated aircraft cannot be fully depicted when the control layout is tailored by the player to his own taste which nullifies a given aircraft's superior ergonomics and pilot comfort and there is no, ah, for lack of a better word, "feel" for the responsiveness of the aircraft in the seat of the pants and resistance of the stick, which both the Mustang and the Spit were notable for. cheers horseback

Ahhh, where's the fun in that?

On the other hand, if his notation is correct, he's referring to a mountain 30,000 inches, or approximately 2500' (feet), or about 760m. The only place I've been where people call dirt piled only 2500 feet high a mountain was central Texas but that was only because people in Florida can't even conceive of anything that high. cheers horseback

There seems to have been a gradual move to the finger four and then line abreast in the RAF; in Malta, they seem to have used a string formation well into 1943, and I believe that a similar formation was most often used in N. Africa. The RAF doesn't seem to have had the informal (or formal) dissemination of tactical info that the US Naval and Marine aviators did in the Pacific theater, where the Thach Weave became well-nigh universal after Midway (or after only the second major clash with the IJN). Of course, that may be because there were only so many bars along the Waikiki strip, the favored liberty area for guys pulling into Pearl Harbor to rest, rearm and refuel. Army Air Force units in the Pacific took quite a bit longer to adjust their tactics, in part because their bases were so spread out and they weren't in a position to compare notes. In any case, from my reading it seems to have been a very gradual change, and 8th AF fighter groups in Britain were experimenting with their formations long into 1943 as well, after coming to the (belated) conclusion that a P-47 formation couldn't recover and react the way a Spitfire formation could. cheers horseback

You'll see it more often on gun barrels that are flush to the wing leading edge, which German aircraft didn't have a lot of; many photos of island-based Corsairs show tape over the barrels (and in a few cases, an extra set of tape coverings over the wing edge to 'fool' a potential opponent into thinking that the F4U had a fourth pair of guns that the pilot had not armed yet for 'get-me-home' insurance. US aircraft more often had white or light grey/tan tape (many photos I've seen of P-47s show tape over and around the muzzles of the protruding barrels). It may have been a valid means of protecting the guns or simply a means for the ground crew easily detecting that 'their' aircraft had done some shooting (or both). In any case, the covering the Brits used was reddish brown, and it may have been a case of whatever type of adhesive covering was most easily at hand. cheers horseback

By hyperbole, I mean BS. Film and TV people have to be watched like a hawk and clubbed unconscious a few times before they can resist the temptation to 'improve' reality, even in so-called documentaries (and even after the requisite clubbings, you should still watch them closely). cheers horseback

Three things: The controls in the P-51, as in most aircraft of its generation, are all mechanical--every control surface was moved by muscle power. Every mechanical interface outside of the cockpit or the engine compartment would get extremely cold by the time he reached his maximum altitude, so greases and lubricants good at 25K might well have acted differently, and any water vapor inside the airframe would turn into frost or even ice somewhere. It is possible that this had some affect on the controls resistance to movement. As for electronics, I would assume that the wiring in the aircraft have been replaced a few dozen times in the 60+ years since that aircraft was built. 1940s era wires were usually cloth covered over a kind of insulating putty--I ran into this sort of stuff several times while I was in the Navy in the 1970s, doing rework on early type plan position indicators (analog radar scopes). I saw conformal coating of the sort you describe arrive with solid state electronics, but I don't recall it on tube type circuitry, which would have been the original equipment on a Mustang. Finally, the Mustang wasn't designed to reach and operate at that height, even assuming that the North American Aircraft design team in the LA area (was it Pasadena or Long Beach?) made allowances for that level of humidity at normal operating altitudes; I am reminded that a lot of the P-38's teething problems were due in part to its being designed and tested in Southern California, where the sorts of cold and humidity found in northern Europe are a nasty rumor and a little hard to believe while you're sipping an iced tea and savoring a guacamole dip on your tortilla chip. It's a desert here, folks, and the only reason it isn't brutally hot is that the ocean we're sitting next to is running a current down from Alaska. cheers horseback

Just watched it; classic History Channel hyperbole. Taking off from Florida at any time of year introduces a great deal of humidity to the equation, so my best guess is that any water vapor inside the airframe would condense and freeze at some point, possibly affecting some moving parts. Some of my work involves working with liquid nitrogen and even in the dry air of southern California, the amount of extra frost that accumulates with just 10% more humidity is noticeable. Florida seems to me to spend 24 hours a day at 100% humidity (and parts of Georgia are even wetter--only the high art of barbecue practiced there justifies human occupancy), so I would imagine several gallons of water would have been contained in the aircraft as it reached 38,000 ft. This, combined with a bit of ah, dramatic license and the extreme discomfort of an unpressurized cockpit could result in stiff controls and (speaking as a man in his sixties myself) even stiffer than usual hands and joints which could especially in front of a camera, result in the impression of very stiff or "frozen" controls. cheers horseback

I'm not sure I'd go that far; we don't use it in its natural element and the opposition is more practiced, skilled and knowledgeable about the relative strengths and weaknesses than the average wartime LW pilot was compared to the average Allied pilot (plus, the LW aircraft modeled are a year later generation compared to the wartime P-51D, which entered production about 5-6 months before it arrived in-theater--it's a long way by boat from Fort Worth to East Anglia). However, there are multiple occasions where Mustang flights caught at low level did very well against apparently skilled opposition, so some important part of the equation is either not making it to the computer screen or is not being used by the community in general.

Historically, the average Pony driver in late summer '44 and beyond had a huge advantage over his Luftwaffe counterparts in flight hours, experience and aircraft maintenance, not to mention numbers. Bear in mind also that a great many Bf-109G/K models were not in the peak of factory quality modeled here--there are certain drawbacks to using slave labor, if you know what I mean. In a one on one combat, especially at medium to low level, the '109 holds most of the cards because it is basically a hot rod--quicker off the mark, better climb, tighter turning and the guns fire straight ahead--none of that convergence nonsense for them! However, the key to any fight is making the other guy react to you, and forcing him to fight on your terms. The Mustang does some things that the 109 can't do, or do as well, in the right circumstances. Find those things and those circumstances, become skilled at them, and get a regular wingman and pick your fights accordingly. cheers horseback

I use an old force feedback driving wheel; without power plugged in, it stays where I put it and it gives me six or eight extra buttons. I mount it on a shelf next to my hip, approximately where it would be in a real cockpit. Works great.:thumbup:

Can't say I'm particularly concerned about the potential loss of an aircraft that that only served in the N. African & CBI theaters, and on the Eastern Front in limited numbers with the Soviets. I'll start worrying when they sell off all their Spitfires... cheers horseback

On the contrary, from my reading of various pilot memoirs, each pair of guns had its own circuit breaker and/or charger, I believe (of course, US pilots and groundcrews in the 8th AF were notorious for improvisations). You would simply turn off the desired breaker(s) or leave a given pair of guns uncharged until you needed them. Some units or individual pilots had the outer pair of guns removed early on, but the lesser weight apparently did not affect performance appreciably. I've read about the tracer round method myself, but I also read that the LW caught on to its meaning fairly early in the game, so that it was generally discontinued, because some of them were less than chivalrous when they realized that their opponent was out of or almost out of ammunition... Like the P-38, the P-47 was conceived primarily as a bomber killer first and a fighter killer second. Four fifties could be considered overkill against fighters --certainly the Poles who 'filled in' with the 56th FG in late 1944 found it so--but very useful against a bomber or a ground target. cheers horseback

But the pilot will be able to turn off a pair or two of his guns for 'getting home insurance', just like the real thing. Once his main battery has exhausted its ammo supply, he can switch the remaining guns' breaker back on and still be able to defend himself. cheers horseback

Cider is nice on an occasional basis, but for an Englishman who has been busting his arse all day, an Imperial pint (of beer) is what he really looks forward to at the end of the day. cheers horseback

You ignore the fact that when you are in an aircraft moving at approximately 400kph and looking for other aircraft also moving at similar speeds, the angles are constantly changing. Wartime pilots' reports and memoirs are full of references to this phenomenon--"I saw the sun flash off his canopy/wings at such-and-such distance and positioned my flight for the bounce." There's a video early on the Bf 109K thread. If you watch it, you will be struck by how often and how much the canopy glass reflects back to the camera (Allied fighter pilots must have loved the Luftwaffe's affinity for multiple large flat glass surfaces). I discount the glossiness of the paintjob, because while the colors are close to authentic, LW aircraft of the era used a paint that seemed glossy up close but had matte qualities at any appreciable distance. I live within a few miles of MCAS Miramar, and the low-vis painted F-18s from there are easily picked out on clear days from almost any angle at significant distances. When the wings are tilted towards you, it's almost like a spotlight, especially with the shadowed portions of the airframe add contrast. Of course, the Hornet is about the size of a B-25, but I was living here when the Navy ran Miramar and saw the same sort of thing from the A-4 Skyhawks and F-5 Tigers that the Fighter Weapons School operated back then. cheers horseback

On the contrary, it is a full-time daylight occurrence, whether the sun is ‘out’ or not. Any light will reflect in full off of canopy glass, and depending upon the available light, nearer objects (aircraft in flight) are generally ‘brighter’ than objects further away (like the ground, for instance). If you have been to an airshow at a military base where the aircraft all have low-reflectance ‘air superiority’ grey paint jobs, you will notice that they are far more effective in heavy overcast and much less so in bright sunlight, which is predominant at altitudes over 25,000 ft (at least over the continental US). From underneath, the shadowed undersides of any aircraft (even those painted white) contrast pretty clearly against a brighter sky, and from above and the sides, the sunlit surfaces contrast strongly with the ground and the shadowed portions of the aircraft, and the shadowed portions stand out against the lighter sky. Some of that depends on the clarity of the air (mist, fog, cloud cover, smoke, etc) but that affects the degree of brightness reflected and contrast combined with the background with the distance factor, but if there is a light source, there is always some reflected light, and it is generally brighter than the background to the human eye. In a simulation that takes into account the number of pixels your monitor is working with, I am just a bit disappointed that the idea that distant objects use the same number of pixels for high-density monitors as lower density monitors, which confers a marked advantage to the lesser display settings (with larger pixels). I would hope that the standard would be based on the size of the object relative to the display area in a simulation that operates in a world where distant objects are so significant. cheers horseback

There is nothing perverted about taking notice of a healthy pair of sweater puppies. But there again, we have changing angles and reflectances... cheers horseback