Kurfürst

Its somewhat of a mystery waht the 'fast cruise' refers to in that table and I fear all the people who could tell are no longer with us. Going by the figures given for the 109 though my guess would be that it's some sort of intermediate cruise setting between max. continuous and max. economy settings. BTW, I found this and this could help. Mk VIII and Merlin 66 figures by Australian tests, should be pretty close to our IX. It shows consumption and mileage for various cruising RPM and Boost combinations. I have but made brief calculations, but from a glance of it, for the 2600/+4 cruise settings you mentioned running out of fuel in the midst of combat doesn't seem that off after a 240 mile cruise, even in a purely theoretical case of cruise this would mean that only about 30 gallons (and in practice, with formation flying, warm-up, taxi, climbing etc. - even less). At combat, you can go through that rather quickly.. Best cruise for range is apparently 1800 / -2, albeit this is a very slow cruise at around 210 mph TAS that make you rather vulnerable tactically, in fact historical tactical memorandums I have seen advised against it..

We need a Jabo for the Luftwaffe +5 morale within a mile, eh? :)

I think it would be a huge step ahead if the current LW types would get their ground attack loadouts like rockets and more types of bomb ordinance.

Interesting and I think you are right - I just checked the P-51D FO Instructions chart and indeed it gives 211/215 US gallons per hour for 67"/3000 in low/high gear... I had some suspicion at first that this might be due conversion between US/Imperial Gallons, but the 150 Imperial gallons/h for the M66 reported on the Spit would be still just 180 US gallons/h, so definietely there was something different between the Merlin 66 and V-1650-7 fuel flow setup. Could be on account of smaller fuel capacity as you say, or perhaps difference in charge cooling (intercooling) capacity of the Mustang systems, I do not know. In any case, :thumbup: for finding that detail! :pilotfly:

That's what's your doing in fact. Claiming that a marginal top speed advantage will allow you disengage. It does not and it cannot. What actually allows the K-4 to disengage is its acceleration (=high excess thrust at all speeds vs low weight), not its rather theoretical top speed. At 250 mph it accelerates about TWICE as fast as the Mustang. It reaches higher speeds faster and thus travels at higher speeds most of time well before it reaches its top speed. It starts to extend range very fast because it can gain a speed advantage at the very start of the running contest, not at the end of it two minutes later. The why is easy to see if you look at for example the Pony's climb rate (=excess thrust at low speed) which is massively inferior, and power to weight ratio (which is also massively inferior). Their similar top speed means that the excess thrust/acceleration gets close/even as we are nearing the 370 mph top speed line, but the Pony is beaten in practical speed long before that happens. And the G-14 is at least equal to the K in this regard, if not superior (it climbs even better, P/W is similar), until they are near their top speeds. What would happen is that the G-14 would extend away/catch up with everyone else, including the K even faster at the start of the run and maintain that advantage for a good while. Eventually it would get slowly overtaken but its little comfort since it already had plenty of time to shoot you down / get out of gun solution from a hot situation and try something else. The only thing that can challenge the late 109s at this game is late Soviet birds, particularly the La 7, but those aren't in, aren't planned AFAIK and their magic disappears very quickly if you climb a bit, because their engines are only able to maintain their power output to about 2-3000 meters at best.

No, the Pony won't be able to disengage, because it would be shot down well before it gains enough speed and distance. The problem is that you are only looking at top speeds. It takes minutes to accelerate to that top speed, meaning that for much of the time in level flight, the plane with the better acceleration may be well actually travelling faster until its gets slowly overtaken near to the top of the speed envelope. And if they try to reach it dive, the guy who levels out first when trying to extend always looses, the other guy can just keep on diving or cut into his path and get a gun solution. And all that time you will be in guns range. 15 kph difference is like 4 m/sec which means just to extend the range by 400 meter to a safer distance the other guy has 1,5 minute to shoot at your plane. And any decent shot doesn't need more than like 10 secs. Anything under 40-50 km/h speed difference isn't making a perceivable difference in my book. 10-20 km/h is basically nothing, its good to drool over in the specs sheet but nothing else. It doesn't make a difference fast enough and thus cannot be relied upon. But, by all means, wish for a G-14, its your funeral after all. I'd love to see one, pity its not going to happen because in all likelyhood, nobody will model one just because two or three guys keep compaining about it on the board. Not that we didn't have such a 'slow' plane when the K-4's speed was bugged. I recall the whining was just as loud even when it was no faster than a G-14... in any case, getting a G-14 would practically doom the IX. Its still some 40 km/h faster than the IX, the only thing that will change is that the IX probably loose its only ace, as it likely not able to even outturn the G-14 while it will be still outrun and out-climbed. I will never get my head around why some people keep complaining about the K-4 and then essentially ask for an even deadlier low altitude K-4. :D

Sumtin sort of a timeline or even confirmation that its planned or not, would be nice though. It would chill the Boyz a bit - happy news of more dakka would help divert thoughts and choppa' tasty devhummies!

The G-14 question is already done to the death. It would be like 15 kph slower than the DCS K, which is hardly significant, especially as in practical speed terms it would accelerate probably just as well (548 HP/t vs 550 HP/t) - and would turn, climb better, with a long range 20 mm. Up to about 5000 meters its arguably better than the K-4, the latter's primary strength is that is a high altitude fighter. Details and performance curves here. https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=173645

Excuse me, but the Boyz are askin', when there will be enough dakka on the K-4? Meaning the wing Shootaz are missin', and there is the wing Rukkets that ain't there yet. Now that this big ole Furtrez is comin' outta the Warp, ze Boyz probably keen on handling out those skullz to Khorne, but the dakka is not there yet. You know, all the dakka. There should be (almost) enough dakka, yes? When more dakka on Khorne 4, soon, yes?

I have learned today that having 400 extra horsepower under the hood is meaningless in a dogfight.

Excellent, thanks for finding and fixing this so fast Yoyo! Just don't forget to spray some nail polish on that naughty screw :)

Please. Give them what they want, that G14. Just for week. Just a rough FM, with the same 3D model. I mean if the T-800 is already out there, things can only get better if we add the Predator as well, right.

23 minutes @18/3000 would defienetely point to the consumption being too high... or there is too little fuel. If its true, its like 221 gallon/h, its even higher than historical +25, which was 197 imperial gallon per hour. And we have 18, which was iirc 150 gallon hour.

I wonder if its actually so, or its just a very detailed model of the fuel gauge.. some car fuel gauges I drove tended to do the same thing, i.e. When the tank was full the needle barely moved, then it seemed to consume fuel increasingly fast.

Note that 90 gallon drop tank was not practical on the Spit IX LF though. I suppose the 109K is somewhat of an improvement over the 109G in range, given its cleaner lines and higher engine compression.

Probably, because by that time all participants will be well in their 80s. :D

Looks like to me this historical source says the P-51D is plenty fast as it is. Of course one can simply cherry pick the best results (like Solty does) and say it doesn't reach it (with the wrong testing methods and wrong engine settings), but it appears the current results fall well in middle of the available historical test data, closer to the more 'optimistic' high values in fact than the lower values. Worth of note that in the real test they found the coolant temperatures 'excessivively high' during the testing. This seems to be another point of complain Solty makes, but apparently its correct and aligns well with historical sources.

Honestly, now that we have bomber targets on the horizon, I would really like if ED would finally finish the anti bomber loadouts for the K-4, which are still not in for 2 years... meaning the 21 cm rockets (they were jettisonable btw!) and 2 cm cannon gondolas. Lets give those B-17s some love ;) Edit: started a separate thread for that.

Wrong on literally ALL accounts. Nice achievement, Solty, impressive even for you. In fact we have the weaker K-4, and its a bit slower than even than it should be. The difference is, nobody looses his mind over that, well, except you and Krupi. :p

That's the beauty of it. You don't need to know anything at all. All you need to keep saying is your opinion, and that you have been cheated by the planeset somehow. I didn't know that the Mustangs never or only rarely met in combat Lufwaffe 109K's either. Was the 109Ka rare fighter or some kind of prototype ? Interesting opinion there, CHDT. Yes, perhaps you are right and this als supports why we should replace the P-51 with a P-40 after all, it was the most produced US fighter. I have seen the same arguement for the G-6's case, so it must be equally valid for the P51.

No, I was referring to a P51D (Delta) test, with a 'stronger' V-1650-7 that did 354 Mph at 67". You are referring ONLY to the best P-51D test possible, that achieved thr highest speed and complain that YOU cant achieve that cherry picked best-case historical data. Of course there is a wide range of data, both lower and higher because planes varied in finish quality - and a 360ish speed fits nicely in the middle of the data range anyway. Heck even NA calculated its own plane's top speed with 67" as 368 mph. The plane that did 375 was quite simple far better produced, perhaps even specially prepeared that your typical Mustang. Btw neither the 109K achieves its historical sea level top speed in DCS either, its about 5-10 mph slower yet I can't see people loosing their mind over it.

Future of the DCS P-51D Yeah that's the other 50% of the Solty posts. :D Replace the late war P-51D-30 with an honest P-40. Most produced US fighter you know.

Because there is nothing to refute. Solty is just re-posting (aka as spamming) his old posts from old bug report threads which have been already marked as 'resolved'. That's actually againts the rules, bringing up stuff repeatadly that has been acknowledged in one way or another, yet still inciting the board to make the same unfounded bug reports and put pressure on the devs in a matter that's already RESOLVED. In brief, he does what he always does every two weeks. Complain that the P51 must be better. Or that the opposition should be weeker. Doing the exact same nonsense over and over and over again and again and again and the funny part - He is actually expecting different outcome every time.

Future of the DCS P-51D And I Just like how you struggle to come to terms with reality and keep whining about P-51 performance being not being good enough for you all the time. The only one getting bothered by real life data is you. You are bothered by P51 data if its not the absolute best, you are bothered by P51 boost it its not the best, heck you are even bothered by modules you do not even own. Just deal with it finally...

While other data shows the Mustang doing Just 359 mph under same conditions... You already have the Mustang modelled after or at least very, very close to the absolute best possible data there is, I don't know what more you'd want, really.