Kurfürst

I suppose the stick force model may be well fine but I have often found that the force limit for the pilot himself might be a tad too low. It would be interesting to learn our little virtual pilot's muscular capabilities...

Very briefly without getting into the itty-bitty details I refer to them because in DCS we will get a Spitfire variant that is good deal slower than the German birds we have in DCS, so it can't force engagements with them; the P-47 is very poor in turns or manouvering fights, albeit its fast; so for this reason I do not believe either of them would be a game changer. Of course with a good pilot they will be effective but I think they will be one of the tactically more challenging birds. Otherwise I agree with that this whole side discussion is very off-topic and the Spitfire stick forces have been already very well covered with historical documents and anecdotes, so Krupi can make the Spit stick of his liking. Its an interesting project and I hope he will post pictures of the results soon!

I am struggling to find a reason why any 'Kraut' player would complain about either the Slowfire or the Turningnaught if you catch my meaning. Both planes have serious tactical weaknesses and that any semi-decent pilot can and will exploit. I give it to you however that the present Mustang whining for super-fuels and the realization of wishful jerry-bashing fantasies will be nothing compared to the mad hysteria that will come after Spitfire's release and which will probably completely consume the last remaining bits of sanity in some. You don't need to look very far to see the first symptoms of this, and gosh, its not even in beta yet.

I am not talking about the 109 here at all. I am talking about the Spitfire's aileron forces (all marks up to the 20-series with the redesigned wing), which were heavy while the elevator was extremely light and sensitive. Also what I am trying to do is to open your eyes to that the metal ailerons did not improve on that heaviness much, if at all, but they improved on the ailerons effectiveness (=roll rate per degree of aileron deflection). Meaning that if you managed to arm-wrestle and deflect the ailerons on the later metal ailerons Spits, they actually had effect, unlike the earlier and poorly designed fabric ailerons (poorly designed because making the ailerons with fabric was not problem itself, many aircraft had them, including stellar rollers). Now as for making this personal, you started to go down on that road, remember? Maybe you should ponder on using in less disparaging remarks in your posts and we will be fine. ;)

Yada-yada-yada-baselessclaims-yada-yada-yada. Lets see your "metal aileron data" and then we can chat.

I am afraid its merely your opinion that constitutes 'utter garbage' so far, similar to your unsubstantiated claims about "tired etc." aircraft. Now, its understable, since you have shown to be extremely wishful about the Spitfires qualities, and you have been just shown several actual tests that show its actual aerodynamic qualities about aileron forces. I bet you do not like the reality, so you call it garbage and such. Since the NACA Spitfire tests are one of the most detailed and professionally done test available on the actual flying quirks and qualities of the Spit, its natural that some of the most biased Spit fans will try to dismiss it, ironically, as some sort of amateurish rubbish which I would rather use for their opinion instead. :lol: Now, YoYo have been already provided and found very detailed documents on the actual qualities of the Spitfire and as a true professional I have no doubt that he will base the Spitfire on his professional understanding of these documents, rather than the amount of cherry picking and whining in DCS:Spitifire threads. This was the case in the past. BTW, this extract of the paper I have posted is not, in fact, from the NACA tests of the Spitfire VA from 1941, but a later British tests of a much later mark from 1943, which should be obvious from the fact that the plane's aileron qualities are being compared with a Mustang. In summary, we have your totally unsubstantiated opinion that the metal aileron Spits stickforces were somehow light, against the trials made by professionals at NACA, RAE and Boscombe Down... Providing matching ailerons is again something that should have been done on Spitfire production, but like many things, it just wasn't. It was a well recognized quirk of Spitfire production, whether was an early fabric aileron or a later metal aileron and the problem kept persisting later in the war even with Griffon powered variants, as the below excerpt from a late 1943 Spitfire trial shows. ...........4.21 Controls and general flying. The type of fin and rudder incorporated in this aircraft caused a decrease in the change of directional trim with speed compared with JF.319. Rudder forces were of a similar magnitude. The ailerons, despite an absence of reflexing, were noticeably heavier. Variations in the weight of ailerons on Spitfire aircraft are common and are due to manufacturing differences between individual sets. This aircraft presumably had an inferior pair of ailerons; it is desirable that such ailerons should be rejected during production testing. Balancing Frise type ailerons was not an easy thing any case, they are sensitive beasts. To the unreasonable man, perhaps it might sound unbelievable, because he might want to believe in a fairy tale instead of reality, which was that no less 71 lbs stick force was required to produce about 10 degrees aileron deflection, which was about 1/3 at 400 mph (compared to 23 lbs force on the Mustang), certainly not a very good thing. For comparison to the abhorrent aileron forces experienced on the early Spits with fabric ailerons (see below curve). 71 lbs on either metal or fabric ailerons is a very considerable sideways force by most reasonable men, especially if its accompanied by very little fore-and-aft force on the elevator (i.e. for a normal sustained turn, only about 10-15 lbs force). Hence why Jeff Ethell decribed the Spit controls as the following: "The elevator is very light while the rudder is stiff and the ailerons even more so. Every Spitfire I've flown takes a bit more muscle to roll than most fighters. As speed increases both rudder and ailerons get heavier, resulting in a curious mismatch at high speed...one has to handle the almost oversensitive elevators with a light fingertip touch while arm-wrestling the stiff ailerons. Pilots had to keep this in mind during combat, particularly when going against the FW 190 which had a sterling rate of roll and exceptionally well harmonised controls. That being said, the aircraft is very well balanced and delightful to manoeuvre. Whipping a Spit around the clouds ranks right up there at the top of aviation's great experiences." I very much hope the FFB joystick owners can fully experience that quirk, i.e. mismatch of lateral and fore and aft forces by the proper adjustment of the force curves. It would be a first for DCS - Il-2 for example did not model it because of gameplay reasons.

Thank you for posting it, it shows very clearly how quickly the high the stick forces become on the Spitfire with metal ailerons, here there is already 60 lbs stick force when rolling to the left at 145 mph IAS, and the same force at 160 mph IAS when rolling to the right. Finding matching pair of ailerons on the Spitfire tended to be somewhat of a random affair through the war. In any case, as far as control harmony goes it was a rather odd combination since applying the same force in pitch would likely overload the air frame. Some Spitfire pilots described this as handling the stick with a delicate fingertip in pitch, while arm wrestling the ailerons. I hope FBB controls will give some of that feeling back to our virtual pilots. This might also help.

Actually both are Mark Vs with metal ailerons. The first one was tested by RAE, and the figures they obtained were included by the NACA summary report - you can see the the max. aileron deflection was obtainable with 50 lbs up to 200 mph, ie. the straight part of the roll curve. Same thing with the second graph (Mark V w. metal ailerons tested in the US), only that it only shows with 30 degree stick force. Now as for the fabric ailerons, the stick forces per se do not seem to have changed much (no particular reason to think so unless gearing or aileron shape was considerably changed). The trouble with the fabric ones was that no matter how hard you deflected them, they lost their effectiveness at high speed. Since the metal ailerons did not balloon, their effectiveness (roll rate obtained for given deflection) did not diminish so rapidly with speed. Of course subjectively this would seem to the pilot that the ailerons were lighter, considering the same force now yielded greater effect in rolling. Thus the main limiting factor with later metal ailerons on the Spit were (i) high aileron forces limiting deflection (ii) wing twisting under the load induced by aileron deflection countering the aileron effect (so much so that some 65% of the roll was lost at 400 mph), since the whole wing started to twist and act like a huge aileron. Hence why the theoretical aileron reversal speed (at which point the twist would be so severe that the twist would roll the plane to the opposite direction) was rather low, 510 or 580 mph IAS. This required a complete redesign of the wing with the Mark 21 series.

How did metal ailerons "reduce" the stick forces Krupi? Why do the Spitfire roll curves (RAE figures) in the summary report NACA 868 show the break at 200 mph? Perhaps another NACA report will help you figure out.

Its a realistic handling feature so I would like to see it implemented.

4 lbs/g for pitch, and 50 lbs stickforce for maximum aileron deflection at 200 mph IAS and above for variants with metal ailerons. The former can be considered very, very light the latter is considered excessively heavy.

Such descriptions are probably born in the authors own mind since the actual trials in 1940, and in fact, common sense, comparing the two state the exact opposite characteristics. "Easy" and "difficult" are of course very simplified descriptions of complex control and handling characteristics. Which is a difficult, which is easy? A plane with heavy pitch control forces, high longitudinal stability, good but overall heavy control harmony, excellent stall recovery characteristics and mild stall, but rather high stall speed,low directional stability, or a plane with extremely light pitch control forces, poorly harmonized control forces, neutral at best longitudal stability, good stall recovery but violent stall characteristics but low stall speed, and medium directional stability..? Sometimes easy and difficult co-exist.

Its somewhat of an odd description and akin to describing a peg legged pirate (at best neutrally stable without the peg leg... :lol: ) having a so-called advantage in a knife fight due to that 'extra' stability the peg leg provides. On the Spitfire they simply used it as a band aid, since the aircraft's design had small stability margins to start with, and the managed to practically loose it as extra equipment kept creeping into the fuselage by mid war. It just makes a plane with neutral stability characteristics to behave more like a stable aircraft and handle more intuitively. Also, there is not much point to it if your aircraft is stable in the first place, as the bob weights had poor reputation with the pilots and some complained that it "destroying the feel" of the aircraft. Still, for most pilots, bar the most experienced ones it was more easy to control a more stable aircraft in pitch since you only had to hold it on the edge, and not literally bringing it back from it. It should be born in mind that neutral stability is not necessarily a bad thing, in a way it improves maneuvering reaction and would be for example useful for aerobatics, but for most applications, including combat flying it was un-preferred because of the less natural control characteristics and back and forth stick movements. Some planes with such characteristics could do wonderful things, trouble is that most of their pilots couldn't. Its neutral or negative stability is quite akin to oversteering in cars. Could be a blessing for racing and rally drivers but a serious inconvenience to the average driver who does not know how to properly keep the tendency in check.

I would love tanks and I believe you could do some very good matches even in a Normandy setting (for example, Cromwell/Sherman/Pz IV, or M18 Hellcat / Panther), but at the same time, I feel its just unnecessary, since it would not add much to the sim. What would tanks do in the first place? Just fight other tanks and occasionally get bombed down? If you want more you would need a lot of AI objects to shoot at/from as well, like AT guns, Flak guns, pillboxes, trucks, infantry (problematic in itself due to legal and practical issues, for example an absurdly high tank:infantry ratio etc. If you want to do a deep, DCS-level simulation, you will also need to model rather complex tank systems. Or would they have some kind of mission (like capturing airfields in a mini server war)? That would need mechanics, too. Also there are, thankfully a lot of good tank product that do all this rather well.So I believe while the idea is intriguing, it would seem to be impractical, unless a LOT of work is put into the thing, which means both that its both a separate purchasable module (and I am not sure of the financial viability of that) and that it would take away from the work being done on planes. Which takes quite a lot, if you consider how long it takes from beta status to the final release.

Adding more nonsense to this thread only serves to further nullify your credibility. Support your claims with something of substance and then we can start to take it seriously.

Entertaining fantasies about these imaginary Normandy +25 lbs Spits, but we are still getting the historically relevant +18 one. You may do wise to come to terms with that. Why re-discuss the same nonsense over and over again?

I would sell a kidney for a Yak 3. Can't sell the other, already has mortgage on it for the Me 410. :helpsmilie:

Uhm. The first V-1 strikes came after D-Day, Lovesey claims that the whole of ADGB was put on this fuel following D-Day. Secondly, the answer is pretty simple to the 'all Spitfire IX Squadrons of ADGB', since from the detailed primary sources we know that only two of the ADGB Spit IX Squadrons (1 & 165) were using 150 grade for operational trials, the rest being Tempest, XIV and Mustang III squadrons, all heavily involved in V-1 chasing. The 'whole of ADGB', even if true could be rathermisleading since there were very few units left in the ADGB by D-DAY as practically all of the operational Spitfire IX Squadrons were transferred to the 2nd TAF just before D-DAY and were flying on standard 100/130. Even ADGB reverted to 100/130 in the autumn when the V-1 strikes stopped with Allied advance in France. There was quite a bit ruckus about this, with Brits complaining about why practically all their limited supply 'British' 150 grade fighter fuel is used by the 'Muricans in the 8th AAF fighters and not British fighters. (Truth to be told, they never complained about gazillions of tons of 'Murican produced 100/130 grade that run the Spitfires and Lancesters, supplied via Lend-Lease). I have yet to see an occasion in 1944 when IX used 150 grade and +25 lbs in combat against Luftwaffe manned aircraft. This is a bit problematic you see, because they used this overboost precisely because the V-1 threat demanded it. When the V-1 threat stopped, and they could use these high performance fighters over the Continent, they reverted to 100/130 grade fuel for logistic reasons: supply was limited to begin with, and no aircraft fueled in Britain with 100/150 grade could refuel with it on the continent, as there was only 100/130 available. Yes, the 2nd TAF used 150 grade fuel, including in its Spitfire Mk IX Squdrons, but only from around February-March 1945. Not quite Normandy, not even 1944, is it..? On the contrary, its totally out of place of Normandy and 1944. You are asking for a boost that was never used in Normandy by Spitfires, and was used only for operational testing and briefly for V-1 chasing by a mere two Squadrons out of 30-40.

It might be done easily with a community effort. Native voices were done in this way in old Il-2 - the community, mostly squad members recorded the voices and then it was implemented in the sim.

Indeed that is how it works, I happy that it is not lost on everyone. I agree that the bar graph is technically the correct way to show monthly production, because these are all "per month" data points. I did experiment with that but the original idea to show how the production trends changed, how certain types got their share of production, and to simply see which was the major type and how they were replaced gradually by later types. These graphs were also made a while back, so originally making a comparison was not a target, just two easily readable separate charts with corresponding scales for the production - and in case of the 109s (for which "ready-to-use data was available for all types from the Lieferplan it did not make sense to cut off some of them) it would make a very tall chart if the scale would be the same. Hence the little numbers on the left. For the Spits the data has to manually analyzed from large poor of individual plane cards, so it was only done for "two stage fighter model Spits". It could be done for others, if needed, but its quite a bit of work. It is not that much a problem. In any case I had a ready table for 109s which also had K-4 production, and I also had for the Spits figther models with various two-stage Merlins. Its easy to read out the data that is relavant for the discussion for both - i.e. IXLF and K-4 production trends. Now as for G-8s, first there is no real comparison, since PR Spits were unarmed, G-8 and G-6/R2 were armed and something what you call an FR 109 under the Spit designation. PR Spits can be done of course but that is besides the point, since you can simply ignore the G-8s. Griffon Spits are even less of a practical concern, since the XII only amounted to 100, and half of these were modified from Vs the other half from VII/VIIIs, so they would double in charts. The Griffon 65 series, the XIV was only a small production, the vast majority of them built in 1945, and up to the end of 1944 you only have about 300 produced (the avarage montly production thus being in the order of 20 per month). Production was very slow and quite insignificant. What is a comparison problem now that we are getting into the details is that the 109 chart is only for "Neubau", i.e. new production 109s that were produced form scratch, and the modificiations, rebuilds are not present (since they are not present in Lieferplan either), while the Spit chart also shows the new production planes and those converted from older ones (primarly from Mark Vs). One of the pitfalls is that this mostly effect G-6s subtypes in early 1944 like G-6s with AS engines and/or MW boost, effectively G-14/AS and G-14 - early production and unit returns simply do not show this since the designation was not yet born and they were all lumped into the same category- Technically this was correct since most of the early ones were rebuild or modifications, for example in May 1944 250 methanol modiciations were ordered for G-6s, until they were re-named G-14-something in July 1944 by which time they received the modifications already in the production line.

True that, the whining would then be about the 109G. :lol:

It kinda opens Pandora's box when you consider that quite typically 5-10% of the USAAF's planes aborted their missions due to some mechanical trouble, and that's the USAAF with its well built planes. Imagine the RAF. The short answer to that is, as much as this thought irritates some, that the Germans had a lot of K-4s at the time which was a numerical contemporary of the Mark IX. You want historical balance? Then lets model another 109 and allow each server to have 1 K-4, 5 other (pretty similar) 109Gs, 4 190s a single Mark IX sitting on the tarmac and the pilot sipping tea and - when the Yanks spare you some fuel to fly around - doing ground attack missions around the airbase and drop some bomblets on Flakvierlings and Opel Blitzes, while the 40 Mustangs on every server duke it out with the 109s and 190s... I am not sure if that scenario would be more your cup of tea than having to battle late war 109s on 1 vs 1. Just look at the production graphs. By late 1944, the entire two stage Merlin production (of which IXc w. M66 amounted to 200-250 in the best month in 1944) barely matched that of the K-4 alone (200-300 per given month).

They can't bind them IMO, they would need speed for that, but they can make it more risky for K-4s to enter into a turning fight or exiting it via spiral climbing manouvers. However that's always a risk where there are multiple hostiles since one of them can definitely get a gun solution on you, provided he can close the range.

Did you try it at 3000 m and with 500 km/h ? Both speed and altitude has its effect on the max. rate. Increasing altitude also slightly increases roll rate (because of less dense air I suppose), though it cannot possible account for 50% difference in this altitude range. p.s. the devs already have this report in full.

In any case we will have a Mark IXc L.F. in DCS, so the discussion kinda moot. I am more concerned that it will have the full loadout i.e. for ground attack.