Lose Energy Fast in Turns?

[dresoccer4]

Is it just me, or does the F-5 feel to lose all of it's speed incredibly quickly when turning? I was just flying both the Mig-19 and F-86 and I can whip those dudes around a tight turn and really keep my speed up with high g's and aoa.

I try to do the same turn in the F-5 and before you know it I'm getting plunging speed with buffeting and loss of control.

Just wondering if anyone else experience this extreme energy loss when comparing to other jets in DCS?

Edited February 2, 2022 by dresoccer4

[Fusedspine33]

When you say same turn:
What is your speed at entry,
What is the equal G you are sustaining,
What is the turn in degrees
Did you apply afterburner before entry (lag in spool up)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Baaz]

47 minutes ago, dresoccer4 said:

Is it just me, or does the F-5 feel to lose all of it's speed incredibly quickly when turning? I was just flying both the Mig-19 and F-86 and I can whip those dudes around a tight turn and really keep my speed up with high g's and aoa.

Talk about comparing apples to oranges to coconuts.

Of those you mention, the F-5 also has the lowest TWR due to its relatively weak engines.  

if you keep your speed =>350, you can pretty much do what you want with her. 

Many pilots like to keep flaps in auto mode, which in my opinion is a bad habit.  If you're not prepared, the auto deployment of flaps will bleed your speed fast.  

[Exorcet]

The F-5 is low thrust with a small wing. It does a bit better at high speed than low, 350 + indicated. The MiG-29 will completely outperform it on all fronts due to engines and aerodynamics and the F-86 is better optimized for low speed flight.

The F-5 also can carry a lot of payload for its size and because it's so small, that's going to hurt it more than a similar weight would hurt other planes.

[Tiger-II]

Small wing = higher wing loading = must fly it faster.

It's that simple.

I do think (know, but I don't have solid data to prove it) that the F-5 as modelled has too much drag. It's slow to accelerate in level flight at max power, and doesn't have the climb performance it should have. It can easily go supersonic in a shallow dive (M 1.4) but ours struggles to get above Mach 1.1 in even a steep dive.

There is a nice cockpit video of a civilian F-5 doing an airshow routine and he's pushing 600 kts without afterburner without trying.

If they could address this, the F-5 would be awesome. For some reason though the flight model has been pretty much abandoned since release. It took years for them to fix the problem of engine performance being linked to groundspeed (they only fixed this last year I think it was).

It's definitely under-performing in the turn fight due to the way it bleeds speed.

There are some other aspects to the flight characteristics that would be great if they could be addressed, but at this point I think we can forget it.

[Bucic]

On 2/2/2022 at 3:54 AM, Baaz said:

Talk about comparing apples to oranges to coconuts.

Of those you mention, the F-5 also has the lowest TWR due to its relatively weak engines.  

if you keep your speed =>350, you can pretty much do what you want with her. 

Many pilots like to keep flaps in auto mode, which in my opinion is a bad habit.  If you're not prepared, the auto deployment of flaps will bleed your speed fast.  

Is this kind of flaps use recommended somewhere in the real flight manual or is it just a DCS trick?

[=475FG= Dawger]

4 hours ago, Bucic said:

Is this kind of flaps use recommended somewhere in the real flight manual or is it just a DCS trick?

DCS trick

[Scotch75]

DCS trick

However, isn't this the technology that led to current F-18 F-16 and onwards flight control systems? Why wouldn't you use it? As long as you stay fairly fast in the F-5, the LEFs and flaps won't schedule to deploy. I believe the system was designed to protect the very high loading (physically small) wings from early stall.


Sent from my SM-G998B using Tapatalk

[GGTharos]

You wouldn't use it because you believe you're better at optimizing your flight characteristics than the automated schedule for the flaps is.   This may or may not be true.

[=475FG= Dawger]

3 hours ago, Scotch75 said:

However, isn't this the technology that led to current F-18 F-16 and onwards flight control systems? Why wouldn't you use it? As long as you stay fairly fast in the F-5, the LEFs and flaps won't schedule to deploy. I believe the system was designed to protect the very high loading (physically small) wings from early stall.


Sent from my SM-G998B using Tapatalk
 

You are misreading this. The DCS trick is the practice of turning off the automatic flap scheduling in DCS in order to prevent energy bleed.

 

 

[Scotch75]

You are misreading this. The DCS trick is the practice of turning off the automatic flap scheduling in DCS in order to prevent energy bleed.
 
 

Ahhh... ok, many thanks for the clarification. I find turning off the auto flaps causes very early buffeting and speed loss anyway, as the wings become very sensitive to AoA. A partial auto deployment of LEFs and flaps seems to cushion this a bit. I'll try a bit with auto off.

Cheers!


Sent from my SM-G998B using Tapatalk

[Sarowa]

I tested the various flap configurations (Auto, no flaps, Auto with LE flaps disabled, Auto with TE flaps disabled) and found Auto is the best.

If you need to accelerate, just reduce AoA. They retract very quickly if you reduce AoA. If you're at a point where you need that AoA, they reduce your AoA compared to no flaps, reducing drag for a given turn rate compared to no flaps.

Don't overcomplicate things.

Edited March 1, 2023 by Sarowa

[=475FG= Dawger]

11 hours ago, Scotch75 said:

Ahhh... ok, many thanks for the clarification. I find turning off the auto flaps causes very early buffeting and speed loss anyway, as the wings become very sensitive to AoA. A partial auto deployment of LEFs and flaps seems to cushion this a bit. I'll try a bit with auto off.

Cheers!


Sent from my SM-G998B using Tapatalk
 

Turning off Auto is useful in certain situations, mostly fighting human opponents. I was flying with auto off a bit in Alpenwolf's server because the flaps coming out in a high G break would spike the G and snap the wings right off under certain conditions. Against AI or the average opponents to be found in the popular servers now, just leave auto on and call it good.

[Bucic]

Unless Belsimtek modeled it poorly, I'm pretty certain the engineers at Northrop-Grumman did a good job I'll be making both flap controls (lever and slider on the throttle) so I might flip those a little more often just to play with it. In any case, the only aircraft-side factor that matters is L/D ratio and here's where I assume N&G did their homework. The rest is pilot input. For reference:

[nairb121]

15 hours ago, Bucic said:

Note that this is for the manuevering flaps installed in the F-5E, E-1, and E-2, and the F-5F and F-1. The section on the AUTO flaps installed in the E-3 and F-2 is slightly different. I agree though that manually setting flaps up at best does nothing at low AoA, and at worst reduces the L/D ratio at high AoA, increasing speed loss rather than decreasing it, for a given turn outcome. The only times, in my opinion, that flaps should not be set to AUTO are in cruising or formation flight (UP or FXD depending on speed and weight), to avoid transient effects. Outside of emergency situations there is no need at all for any setting on the flap lever other than THUMB SW, as the flaps automatically reposition to FULL with the landing gear deployed.

Edited March 2, 2023 by nairb121

[Bucic]

2 hours ago, nairb121 said:

Note that this is for the manuevering flaps installed in the F-5E, E-1, and E-2, and the F-5F and F-1. The section on the AUTO flaps installed in the E-3 and F-2 is slightly different. I agree though that manually setting flaps up at best does nothing at low AoA, and at worst reduces the L/D ratio at high AoA, increasing speed loss rather than decreasing it, for a given turn outcome. The only times, in my opinion, that flaps should not be set to AUTO are in cruising or formation flight (UP or FXD depending on speed and weight), to avoid transient effects. Outside of emergency situations there is no need at all for any setting on the flap lever other than THUMB SW, as the flaps automatically reposition to FULL with the landing gear deployed.

 

:facepalm: Of course!