72"

[x39crazy]

Which rare ones? I haven't seen any TA-152s or P-47Ms yet.

Edit: furthermore I've not really noticed issues with the cooling system during normal operation. In combat I open oil and water rads manually to cope with high stress/low speed flight. Hasn't failed yet.

Edited July 1, 2016 by x39crazy

[Captain Orso]

We, our group manually opens the to 100% before we take off. The auto system doesn't work correctly and it's one of quite a few things that I hope they fix, even if its just in the more appropriate European P51 they are bringing us.

 

I'm always wondering this too; why is the system is so crappy? Is the simulation true to life, or is it not working correctly?

 

It seems to me, a simple thermostat controlling a servo which controls the door should not be so difficult to build.

 

I could understand that if you get too far outside a median range, it might not be as accurate, but the current system isn't really working at all. While climbing at about 220-240kt/h. I hit the oil radiator door open for 3-4 seconds, and within 20-30 seconds I'm in the green again. Why doesn't the system to this automatically?

 

If this is just the way the technology was at the time, okay; that's life. If not, a fix would be in order.

 

On a side note, it baffles me that all this time and work is spent on rare WW2 aircraft instead of more common ones.

 

+This!

 

I think ED started with the P-51D/TF-51D because they could readily get their hands on all the information they needed, AND because it's simply a very popular aircraft, especially in the US.

 

But it appears they've never considered aiming specifically for a gaming environment, and if my observations are correct, they haven't influenced the 3rd party developers to do so either. There are too many 'eye-candy' projects coming out, but very little to build a viable gaming environment.

 

Even the Normand map is a non-fit. By the time of the Normandy invasion most of the Luftwaffe was banned from the air over Normandy already, so what exactly is supposed to be happening there, which might be interesting to simulate?

 

If ED had skipped the Dora and the Kurfürst and started out with 1940's era British and German, maybe even French aircraft, with a map of southern England, they would have had a superb environment which would have lent itself to some great, realistic battles.

[Solty]

I'm always wondering this too; why is the system is so crappy? Is the simulation true to life, or is it not working correctly?

 

It seems to me, a simple thermostat controlling a servo which controls the door should not be so difficult to build.

 

I could understand that if you get too far outside a median range, it might not be as accurate, but the current system isn't really working at all. While climbing at about 220-240kt/h. I hit the oil radiator door open for 3-4 seconds, and within 20-30 seconds I'm in the green again. Why doesn't the system to this automatically?

 

If this is just the way the technology was at the time, okay; that's life. If not, a fix would be in order.

 

 

 

+This!

 

I think ED started with the P-51D/TF-51D because they could readily get their hands on all the information they needed, AND because it's simply a very popular aircraft, especially in the US.

 

But it appears they've never considered aiming specifically for a gaming environment, and if my observations are correct, they haven't influenced the 3rd party developers to do so either. There are too many 'eye-candy' projects coming out, but very little to build a viable gaming environment.

 

Even the Normand map is a non-fit. By the time of the Normandy invasion most of the Luftwaffe was banned from the air over Normandy already, so what exactly is supposed to be happening there, which might be interesting to simulate?

 

If ED had skipped the Dora and the Kurfürst and started out with 1940's era British and German, maybe even French aircraft, with a map of southern England, they would have had a superb environment which would have lent itself to some great, realistic battles.

So... 1943 and 1944 nothing happened? Why is everyone so keen on BoB? You have a game called Cliffs of Dover for that. Why again Spit Mk1 and Bf109E3? Why?

 

Battle of the Bulge comes to mind for a good late war battle with tons of equipment.

 

Ardennes forests and mountains. Lots of Belgian countryside. Massive ground and air assaults. Operation Bodenplatte!!

 

All airplanes we will have in the game would fit that map perfectly. (If they just switched K4 for G14 and we had additionally P38L, Tempest and Fw190A8 it would be perfect)

Edited July 1, 2016 by Solty

[Racoon]

So... 1943 and 1944 nothing happened? Why is everyone so keen on BoB? You have a game called Cliffs of Dover for that. Why again Spit Mk1 and Bf109E3? Why?

 

Battle of the Bulge comes to mind for a good late war battle with tons of equipment.

 

Ardennes forests and mountains. Lots of Belgian countryside. Massive ground and air assaults. Operation Bodenplatte!!

 

All airplanes we will have in the game would fit that map perfectly.

 

:thumbup:

[Captain Orso]

So... 1943 and 1944 nothing happened?

 

No, nothing happened. Everybody slept through those years :doh:

 

Why is everyone so keen on BoB? You have a game called Cliffs of Dover for that. Why again Spit Mk1 and Bf109E3? Why?

 

Because it posses interesting situations for both sides, it was en epic battle, which could have changed history. Add the most common aircraft, and not some of the rarest and it will make at least most of the DCS-Players happy.

 

Battle of the Bulge comes to mind for a good late war battle with tons of equipment.

nea-yeah-maybe, but we're getting Normandy.

 

Ardennes forests and mountains. Lots of Belgian countryside. Massive ground and air assaults.

 

*em-hmmm* and thick ground fog, and cloud cover most of the time; sound fun...

 

Operation Bodenplatte!!

 

..and one day of mega-airquake.

 

All airplanes we will have in the game would fit that map perfectly. (If they just switched K4 for G14 and we had additionally P38L, Tempest and Fw190A8 it would be perfect)

 

There is not P-38, nor will there be for years. There maybe a new 'older' FW next year or the year after(??) IRCC.

 

Tempest?... do you see a Tempest?

 

It's not that BoB is my favorite theme, or even near it, but it could have been done, and with it done, you could almost take all of the aircraft off to a new map in North Africa and the Mediterranean with a completely new situation.

 

Bit by bit you could simply update old, and add new aircraft; no need to put out a whole slew of them all at once.

 

And if you were going to start from scratch, you could have started in the Pacific too, with like the Solomon Islands campaigns.

 

No matter, ED has obviously no effective strategy. I don't know if the 3rd party producers are completely such a-holes, or nobodies has ever tried to coordinate them, but regardless, the results are the same.

[Ala13_ManOWar]

So... 1943 and 1944 nothing happened? Why is everyone so keen on BoB? You have a game called Cliffs of Dover for that. Why again Spit Mk1 and Bf109E3? Why?

Perhaps a good and working one this time? :lol:

 

S!

[Kev2go]

No, nothing happened. Everybody slept through those years :doh:

 

 

 

Because it posses interesting situations for both sides, it was en epic battle, which could have changed history. Add the most common aircraft, and not some of the rarest and it will make at least most of the DCS-Players happy.

 

 

nea-yeah-maybe, but we're getting Normandy.

 

 

 

*em-hmmm* and thick ground fog, and cloud cover most of the time; sound fun...

 

 

 

..and one day of mega-airquake.

 

 

 

There is not P-38, nor will there be for years. There maybe a new 'older' FW next year or the year after(??) IRCC.

 

Tempest?... do you see a Tempest?

 

It's not that BoB is my favorite theme, or even near it, but it could have been done, and with it done, you could almost take all of the aircraft off to a new map in North Africa and the Mediterranean with a completely new situation.

 

Bit by bit you could simply update old, and add new aircraft; no need to put out a whole slew of them all at once.

 

And if you were going to start from scratch, you could have started in the Pacific too, with like the Solomon Islands campaigns.

 

No matter, ED has obviously no effective strategy. I don't know if the 3rd party producers are completely such a-holes, or nobodies has ever tried to coordinate them, but regardless, the results are the same.

 

No majority is only your perception thinking "everyone" wants BOB.

 

BOB is only an aerial battle. Normandy will allow for a better combined arms experience. Tank busting, interdiction, supporting ground units etc. same for later ETO operations like battle of the bulge. thats what makes it more interesting over BOB.

 

 

So... 1943 and 1944 nothing happened? Why is everyone so keen on BoB? You have a game called Cliffs of Dover for that. Why again Spit Mk1 and Bf109E3? Why?

 

Battle of the Bulge comes to mind for a good late war battle with tons of equipment.

 

Ardennes forests and mountains. Lots of Belgian countryside. Massive ground and air assaults. Operation Bodenplatte!!

 

All airplanes we will have in the game would fit that map perfectly. (If they just switched K4 for G14 and we had additionally P38L, Tempest and Fw190A8 it would be perfect)

 

 

I also concur.

 

 

early war is overdone. COD and BOS exist. Albeit not full sim fidelity but still fill the early - mid war Flight sim needs more or less on FC3 level. There haven't been later war Sims since ol Il2 1946/ I myself from all ww2 era happen to like late war era higher performance pistons anyhow.

Edited April 5, 2017 by Kev2go

[Pandacat]

I don't understand why people are fixated on European theater. Why not pacific? From 1942 onwards, there were pretty much constant air battles. Also the pacific map should be so much easier than Normandy to make. Instead of fields, roads, cities etc, you just have miles of miles of ocean, occasionally dotted by a few islands. You'll have carrier ops in addition to everything else you have in land theaters. It'll be a lot more fun.

[blkspade]

I don't understand why people are fixated on European theater. Why not pacific? From 1942 onwards, there were pretty much constant air battles. Also the pacific map should be so much easier than Normandy to make. Instead of fields, roads, cities etc, you just have miles of miles of ocean, occasionally dotted by a few islands. You'll have carrier ops in addition to everything else you have in land theaters. It'll be a lot more fun.

 

While that would take like almost no work in map design, current carrier ops implementation is weak and there are like Zero naval WW2 aircraft in the sim. On 2nd thought in order for the map to really be adequate you'd need the Hawaiian Islands, Japan, and maybe at least Southern China.

[BuzzU]

Miles and miles of ocean are part of the problem. zzzzzzz

[saburo_cz]

I don't understand why people are fixated on European theater. Why not pacific?

 

Answer is simple, no one player want real simulation of WWII air war...

They only want fast, as fast as possible, air quake. And it is the main reason way they want 72 so much.

No one will ever try 3 hours flight from Iwo to Tokio Bay an half hour air battle and, if survived, 3 hours long fly home, even if it is possible.

 

They do not want to fly 10 minutes to targets, but every one has full mouth words about historical reality...

[Echo38]

Answer is simple, no one player want real simulation of WWII air war...

They only want fast, as fast as possible, air quake. And it is the main reason way they want 72 so much.

No one will ever try 3 hours flight from Iwo to Tokio Bay an half hour air battle and, if survived, 3 hours long fly home, even if it is possible.

 

They do not want to fly 10 minutes to targets, but every one has full mouth words about historical reality...

 

You say that as though it were unreasonable for us to want realistic physics, accurately-modelled aircraft, & historical fighter matchups, but not historical time-to-target.

 

Why would wanting to fly the real airplanes in realistic mock-combat equate to also wanting to spend historical-like amounts of down-time between fights? That doesn't compute.

 

Speaking for myself, I do not want a realistic simulation of air war. I want a realistic simulation of dogfighting. Why do you judge me a lesser simmer because of this? I am no less serious of a simmer than you. (Indeed, I suspect that my passion for hardcore simulation greatly exceeds yours, given how earnestly I dedicated myself to mastering the virtual dogfight.)

[Pocket Sized]

Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I just don't see why 72" manifold clearance is that big of a deal.

 

If the change is simply adjusting the supercharger to give a bit more pressure along with higher octane fuel, you'll get more power, but you'll still run into pretty extreme issues with cooling. Even then, wouldn't the power increase be hardly noticeable anyway?

[Jumbik]

You say that as though it were unreasonable for us to want realistic physics, accurately-modelled aircraft, & historical fighter matchups, but not historical time-to-target.

 

Why would wanting to fly the real airplanes in realistic mock-combat equate to also wanting to spend historical-like amounts of down-time between fights? That doesn't compute.

 

Speaking for myself, I do not want a realistic simulation of air war. I want a realistic simulation of dogfighting. Why do you judge me a lesser simmer because of this? I am no less serious of a simmer than you. (Indeed, I suspect that my passion for hardcore simulation greatly exceeds yours, given how earnestly I dedicated myself to mastering the virtual dogfight.)

 

 

Most people have about 2 hours per day to spend at computer to play games. If I would be retired lonely guy then yes I would want to be part of some realistic scenarios, but I and many people do not have such luxury.

 

I love the realism level of the airplanes in DCS because I can then imagine how it felt to sit in such plane and how hard it was to operate. Giving me the chance to learn what real pilot has to goes a long way for me.

[BuzzU]

Answer is simple, no one player want real simulation of WWII air war...

They only want fast, as fast as possible, air quake. And it is the main reason way they want 72 so much.

No one will ever try 3 hours flight from Iwo to Tokio Bay an half hour air battle and, if survived, 3 hours long fly home, even if it is possible.

 

They do not want to fly 10 minutes to targets, but every one has full mouth words about historical reality...

 

 

Big difference between 10 min air quake and 6 hour flights. Why simulate what the real pilots hated?

[Echo38]

Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I just don't see why 72" manifold clearance is that big of a deal.

 

That's a 7.5% power increase. The average pilot may not be able to notice it, but the good ones certainly can. To recycle the analogy I just used yesterday in another thread, ask an Olympic runner if he's cool with the idea of carrying a weight that weighs 7% of his bodymass, during the big race, while his opponent runs unhindered. You think he'll be agreeable to the notion that it isn't that big of a deal? I'll give you a hint: he won't be.

 

At the highest levels of competition, 1% can mean the difference between win and loss. I personally have been able to identify, in a "blind test," a 5% difference in an opponent's fighter mass, simply by observing how quickly I was gaining on it during sustained turns. While I can't determine a 2% difference, myself, even this "small" difference will affect my success, whether I realize it or not.

 

Conclusion: to any fighter pilot worth his avgas, 7.5% more power is a large improvement, more than noticeable to a good pilot. 72" is that big of a deal.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Echo38

[BuzzU]

It will take a good pilot to use it too. I'm sure it's going to overheat if used wrong.

[Echo38]

I personally have been able to identify, in a "blind test," a 5% difference in an opponent's fighter mass, simply by observing how quickly I was gaining on it during sustained turns. While I can't determine a 2% difference, myself, even this "small" difference will affect my success, whether I realize it or not.

 

I just realized that I made an error here. It was 5% more fuel mass that I was able to notice, not 5% more fighter mass. So, the actual increase in total aircraft mass increase was much smaller than 5%. In which case, I may indeed have noticed a 2% difference or less (depending on the capacity of the fuel tank). This strengthens my point: even small differences in aircraft thrust/weight are noticeable to highly-experienced fighter pilots.

[Pocket Sized]

I didn't realize the difference would be as much as 7.5%. I thought it would be like 3% at most. I guess the high octane fuel helps quite a bit?

[Echo38]

I didn't realize the difference would be as much as 7.5%. I thought it would be like 3% at most. I guess the high octane fuel helps quite a bit?

 

100 / 67 * 72 = 107.46

 

The high-octane fuel has nothing to do with the percentage of power increase from 67" to 72". 150-grade gasoline wasn't necessary to run at the 72" rating; it simply made it safer to do so. I don't remember, offhand, the exact situation for the P-51, but the P-38 (factory rating: 60") was officially cleared for 64" or 66" (I don't remember which, for sure) on 130-grade, with 150-grade being recommended for improved reliability (although, for the record, 150-grade fuel introduced reliability issues of its own, namely sparkplug fouling, if I remember aright—there was a simple procedure to deal with this, however).

 

For some reason I can't comprehend, many people here (even proponents of the increased ratings!) ignore this fact. The 150-grade fuel wasn't actually necessary for the higher-than-factory WEP ratings, and some of these ratings were cleared for use with even the 130-grade fuel. The 150 just made the high boosts more reliable than when using 130.

 

It will take a good pilot to use it too. I'm sure it's going to overheat if used wrong.

 

This is true. You aren't going to want to use it in a sustained turning fight down low, 'coz at low airspeed, the engine'll pop in a matter of seconds (it already does at 67", under those conditions). The main utility for 72" will be in energy retention and in extending, not for turn-and-burn with flaps down.

 

Used properly, the extra power should "pay for itself," as keeping your speed high for longer means having better cooling for longer. It just isn't going to be a magical win button. The 109 will still have the superior turn at all altitudes (except for possibly near ceiling—unsure on this point). But the 72" will still be immensely useful in lessening the gap in overall maneuverability, and improving the ability to extend (which is the P-51's most important defense against the 109).

Edited April 19, 2017 by Echo38
factual clarification, phrasing, additional info

[otto]

ask an Olympic runner if he's cool with the idea of carrying a weight that weighs 7% of his bodymass, during the big race, while his opponent runs unhindered. You think he'll be agreeable to the notion that it isn't that big of a deal? I'll give you a hint: he won't be.

 

bad example.No tactics being involved .How about two soldiers with different advantages and disadvantages and one has the advantage of seeing further than the other certainly that gives him a tactical advantage.If you then introduce the team vs team scenario in mp than tactics , formations become even more valuable

 

when you were flying 1 vs 1 duels you could always see your oponent and no tactics involved.People in real life and in Mp most of the time get shot down becasuse they don't see the atack.

 

The p51 has much much better visibility and you should try to play as a team more .Concentrate on things that can be done at the moment and not complain about things that will or will not be available in years.

[rel4y]

I didn't realize the difference would be as much as 7.5%. I thought it would be like 3% at most. I guess the high octane fuel helps quite a bit?

 

Dont get confused, the percentage in boost increase does in no way linearly translate into speed. The actual level speed increase would add up to around 3%. Although the DCS P-51D already performs pretty close to a real life 80" test and almost on par with the aerodynamically cleaner P-51B at 75". The black line to the very right (~375 mph MSL) is what the DCS Mustang is modeled after at 67".

 

[Echo38]

the percentage in boost increase does in no way linearly translate into speed. The actual level speed increase would add up to around 3%.

 

3% more speed is nothing to sneeze at, and that's only part of it. 72" will also mean a significant reduction of the disadvantages in climb, sustained turn, & low-speed acceleration versus the 109. Because there's less drag at those speeds, the actual gain % there will be closer to the power increase % than it is in the high-speed regime.

 

Taken together, I would expect the improvements to make somewhere around a 10% increase in the average success rate of a good pilot. So, if he gets 5 kills per loss, maybe 5.5 kills per loss instead. (This estimate is based on my extensive experience with similar increases in fighter performance in other sim/games.) That'd be an extra kill every ten kills, due exclusively to the power increase.

 

Although the DCS P-51D already performs pretty close to a real life 80" test and almost on par with the aerodynamically cleaner P-51B at 75".

 

... in speed, perhaps. Not so much in climb etc.

Edited April 22, 2017 by Echo38

[BuzzU]

Yes, that will.

 

 

 

Now, about those .50's. :)

[rel4y]

3% more speed is nothing to sneeze at, and that's only part of it. 72" will also mean a significant reduction of the disadvantages in climb, sustained turn, & low-speed acceleration versus the 109. Because there's less drag at those speeds, the actual gain % there will be closer to the power increase % than it is in the high-speed regime.

 

I mainly agree with you here, but the whole success rate percentages are nonsense imo. You are using btw many of the same arguments you vigorously attacked me for on the 109 discussion recently.

 

But I wouldnt hype people too much for the benefits, they might be disappointed once its actually here. It wont change the tactics used in combat. The Mustang will still be faster than the K-4, it will still roll better at high speeds, it will still turn better at high speeds, it will still turn worse at low speeds, it will still climb significantly worse at all altitudes, it will still accelerate worse in level, it will still be about a ton heavier. Sure there may be a bit more room for error with more excess power, but on the contrary not so much in engine management.

 

Now comparing to the Dora, the Dora will have pretty much no advantages left except low speed roll rate.