Bozon

Assign keyboard keys to control the fuel valves and never look back. Literally and metaphorically.

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From what I’ve read, the Israeli air force did not think much of the Syrian Mig-23MLD that defected as a dog fighter. During the test flights program they were very impressed by its power, the systems it carried and how reliable it was. In a drag race it noticeably out accelerated and out run the F-16A. However as a dog fighter they thought of it as in the class of the Phantom II, and noted that it had a rather poor views from the cockpit. Someone above in the thread mentioned that this specific Mig-23MLD was more akin of MLA - I can’t say anything about that, but I highly doubt that adding some fins transformed the Mig-23 into something that could rival the F-16. The Israeli air force had some “good” experience vs. the older models of the 23 during the 1982 Lebanon war, and there it was food for the F-16 and F-15s.

Awsome guys, thanks!!

Yep, RPs and delayed fuses will kick mossie action up a notch

The diagram is symbolic so the length of a line in the drawing does not indicate anything about its actual length. However, reasonable design of an electro-pneumatic actuator is to place the electric valve as close as possible to the actuator’s piston. The way electro-pneumatic systems are usually designed is that there is a main valve that compresses the lines to the actuators, and each actuator has a two-way electric valve built into it - the valve directs the pressure to one side of the piston and vents the other side (or switches upon electric command) to move it. Therefore, the lines all the way to the actuator are kept compressed and only the volume of the piston is filled/vented in every actuation. The amount of work that needs to be done per actuation determines the piston volume (pressure times volume is energy). This includes extra kinetic energy so that the cannon mechanism will really fly and slam backwards quickly - this is how you design the desired actuation time. The pressure line must be able to supply air fast enough so the time to compress the piston volume is shorter than the desired actuation time - this is usually easy to achieve with thick enough lines going into the actuator and buffer volumes if needed). So I can’t see why it would be so poorly designed to include a very long response time.

I would also like an explanation of this. The trigger on the stick is electric, there are no pressure tubes going through the control column. My guess is that the cannons are un-cocked before firing - when the trigger is pulled a pneumatic piston is used to cock the cannon, after which it fires and uses the Hispanos return gas tube and blow-back to pull the bolt for the next shot, repeatedly. Maybe after firing the cannon ends up in a un-cocked state again, so next time we pull the trigger we start from the same state? Maybe. I know other planes with other cannons either had their guns cocked on the ground, or cocked them once in the air (Like the guns on the Mig21) and then the guns will remain in a cocked position when stopped firing. Why would the mosquito be different than every other plane in this regard? If my guess is correct more or less, then the delay is cased by the time it takes to pull back the bolt by pneumatic pressure to start the continuous firing sequence. The command from the trigger on the stick to the valve of the pneumatic piston is electric and takes no time. There are 2 relevant valves in the schematic below: [17] "E.P. firing valve", and [16] "Cocking valve". The cocking valve leads pressure into the [15] "Dunlop hose" - I don't really know what that means, it seems to lead to [13] the "reload mechanism", which sounds like the belt-feeding mechanism. The [17] valve leads to the [14] "20-mm canon firing control mechanism". This sounds like the mechanical trigger. If so, it does not require high pressures or long piston movements to operate. The electric pneumatic valves themselves also should operate very fast - the (modern) ones I am familiar with operate at ~100Hz frequencies, i.e. time scales of ~ 0.01 seconds. Anyway, during auto-fire Hispanos bolts are blown back by the remaining pressure in the barrel VERY FAST - the rate of fire is > 700 rpm, which is < 0.083 seconds per round and the bolt travel time is a fraction of that. Why would a pneumatic piston driven by (potentially) 200 psi take a second to pull back the bolt and cock the gun?

I didn’t work it out, I’ve read that +25 boost was used with 150 octane fuel, which FB.VI started to use for day ranger missions - at some point (I don’t have a date for this, maybe late 44?) the crews felt that they had difficulty in out running the contemporary LW fighters, and so the use of 150 octane and +25 boost was approved (for these missions at least). Wasn’t 130 octane the “normal” fuel for allied fighters in mid 1943 and later? edit: I vaguely recall that 150 octane/+25 boost applied to Spit XIV too.

Key binds should work from any seat - you don’t get different key binds set for each seat, so I can’t see the sense making some keybinds seat dependent. Mouse clicks may be seat-dependent.

+18 boost limit suggests that it’s 130 octane.

This does not provide the needed information. Also, I can't find anything on the web on how the pneumatic charging system of the Hispanos worked. I have my guesses, but I don't want to follow guesses. How is this system different between the Spitfire and the Mosquito? If I may take a wild guess, perhaps someone applied the delay of the pneumatic braking to the firing of the guns, following the logic that both are operated by pneumatic pressure, so both should have the same delay.

I am speaking out of ignorance of the details of this system in the mosquito, but a pneumatic system that is already under pressure is not supposed to create any significant delay. Some large missiles use pneumatic actuators to control their fins and have no major issues, and this is at command frequencies of 100 Hz or more (time scales under 10 ms). The pressure changes travel through the tubes at the speed of sound for the pressurized gas. Unless there are a few hundred meters of tubes between the firing lever in the cockpit and the guns 1.5 meters below, there should not be any significant delay. Unless the system is not pressurized and every time I pull the firing lever it starts to build pressure again from atmospheric? That sounds very odd to me.

The Giro-compass: Isn't it rotating the wrong way? I mean, the compasses I remember rotate the opposite of the plane - by this I mean that when you point northward, the dial should read (I think): 30---N---300 While in the mossie it shows: 300---N---30 It could be right, it is British after all, but seems odd to me. The Magnetic compass and its remote indicator: These seems to be off in their directions. I aligned myself with the Manston runway 112: - The Magnetic compass Compass reads something like 080 (very hard to see due to its location). - The remote indicator reads 135 So they don't agree with each other nor with the ground direction. I know about magnetic deviation, but over 20 degrees? In addition, the axis of the remote indicator's needle seems off center. It is noticeable that the point of the needle and the butt of the needle don't indicate exact opposite azimuths. This may be a perspective illusion, but it persists when I move my head around.

Good point about air speed due to propeller “suckage”. By “air speed” I meant for the whole plane. When standing still, the airflow due to prop sucking air into it is perpendicular to the prop disc (barring ground and airframe interference effects on the flow), hence the blades experience the same local AoA regardless of rotation position and there is no P-factor.

+25 boost was only used with 150 octane fuel. With 130 octane the max allowed was +18 boost. That +25 boost must have been a hellovalotof POWA!

Without airspeed there is no P-factor, regardless of angles. When you rotate for lift off the AoA is pretty high (you are slow) and the P-factor change is quick - from zero when running with the tail raised to a high AoA with a bit of speed, and may require rudder input. Though as I mentioned there are several other secondary effects involved, especially when rotating for lift off.

@FlyingTaco21, thanks that is interesting about the BFO. IIRC, last night I used the Caucasus map and tuned to one of the RSBN frequencies, and had BFO on. It did give a whistle until I fine-tuned the frequency and then I got a clear and clean morse code beeps from the station. kudos to ED, that is pretty fine modeling! EDIT: Tried again with/out the HETI (BFO) switch and it seems to have no effect.

The magnitude of the P-factor depends not only on AoA but also on speed. It is zero when the speed is zero and very small until the speed builds up, but at that point the rudder is already effective - so for the most part it is not significant on takeoff runs. It’s most significant effect is supposed to be when you rotate, but then it is also mixed with other effects so it is difficult to separate.

I was wondering the same thing. We also can’t cage the artificial horizon to reset it like in the other warbirds.

I had this thread about other, less famous mosquito stories: You can find there stories about a Coastal Command raid on Norway, day ranger mission across Germany and into Poland, a patrol over the Normandy beaches against FW-190s, a Coastal Command interception of a Ju-88s raid, and the post war adventures of a PR mosquito in the Israeli air force.

The Mossie is full of these toys. Last night I was playing around with the DF and R1155 receiver, following the various transmitters in the Caucasus map. There are instruments scattered all over the cockpit in hidden nooks and crannies - I keep discovering new switches every day…

If the tutorial missions are any indication, our observer is going to be “Archie”.

Torque is rotation force applied through the shaft, in our case the plane is torquing the prop in one direction and in response the prop is torquing (trying to rotate) the plane in the opposite direction around the prop axis. In the mosquito the props rotate clockwise from the pilot pov which means torque is trying to roll the mossie counter clockwise (left). P-factor is when one side of the prop disc is producing more pull then the other side. This creates a yaw tendency on the frame of the plane. P-factor is created when the plane is pitched (usually up) relative to the direction of the air flow. In that case, the blades traveling down have a higher angle of attack relatively to the blades traveling up on the other side of the disc. In the mosquito this means that increasing the pitch relative to the airflow will create left yaw tendency. Inducing a pitch up/down movement (pull/push stick) makes the nose swing sideways a bit as a secondary effect. Increasing/decreasing throttle at a high angle of attack (slow speeds usually) also creases some yawing motion by changing the yaw force from the P-factor, even when the engines are perfectly synchronized. There are also other effects involved in the final result of secondary effects.

I remember ED said somewhere that fire extinguishers are still WIP.

So, can we use this in multiplayer as a primitive TACAN to get a bearing to my wingman? I mean, my wingman transmits a continuous signal with the T1154 and I tune the R1155 to his freq. in DF mode, then point my nose at him using the pilot’s DF indicator?