Mosquito Agility

[kraszus]

Maybe it's just me, but does the P-47D feel a lot more nimble than the Mosquito? Do pilots use different curves for these aircraft? Historically, was the P-47 more agile than the Mosquito? Or it could simply be that perhaps I'm babying the Mosquito a bit given its size compared to the Thunderbolt

[Mr_sukebe]

I thought that the Mossie was restricted to 3G?

I certainly wouldn’t be expecting a Mossie to have better manoeuvre ability than a fighter

[Bozon]

11 hours ago, Mr_sukebe said:

I thought that the Mossie was restricted to 3G?

I certainly wouldn’t be expecting a Mossie to have better manoeuvre ability than a fighter

It was not restricted to 3G. That silly statement gets repeated because there is a British evaluation report of the mosquito as a day fighter that complains about stick forces and that the balancing weight (whose purpose is to increase stick forces under G and dumpen oscillations) restricts it to 3 G.

Mosquitoes could pull enough G to rip their wings off - and it’s not that the wings were weak, quite the opposite. The statement of whoever wrote that specific report is a complaint - not a technical statement. He was probably used to the very light elevators of the Spitfires or Hurricanes and compared to that, more than 3G (at high speeds) likely required a very stern pull or the use of 2 hands. Other reports state that the stick forces are quite light at slow speeds and that the stick stiffens as speeds increase in the roll axis as well. The test pilot of rebuilt KA114 said in an interview that he uses 2 hands on the stick for the aerobatics.

The P-47 in comparison is much more nimble in the roll axis. At high speeds the P-47 had good stick forces, so it should be much easier for the pilot to throw it around. In terms of turning circles, the Mosquito should actually have a small advantage over the P-47 with lower wing loading and power loading.

[Ala13_ManOWar]

No way a twin engine aircraft the size of the Mosquito is more nimble than P-47.

The P-47 is a heavy aeroplane moved more than well enough by it's monstrous engine, that doesn't mean it's heavier or it would be nimbler than a twin engined twice the size aeroplane. Of course Mosquito moves worse. And size, and torque for two engines aren't adding to its nimbleness.

[Terry Dactil]

Remember that the Mosquito was designed to be unarmed.

Its speed was to be its main weapon/defence. It was not designed as a dogfighter.

[kraszus]

3 hours ago, Terry Dactil said:

Remember that the Mosquito was designed to be unarmed.

Its speed was to be its main weapon/defence. It was not designed as a dogfighter.

Granted I'm still on the learning curve with the Mosquito but I struggle to get her above 230 fully laden in level flight with boost at 12 and rpm set to 2650. The P47 i can easily whip up to 270 with a full load. Probably user error on my part though. Still, its an enjoyable learning curve

[Art-J]

^ Might be more of an expectations error than user one . Keep in mind we've got a single stage Merlin powered version, which was very fast for '42 standards, when it was introduced, but not so much for '44. At sea level, where you'll be spending most of your time in DCS, Mossie is borderline comparable with A8 (depending on whether it has its bomb rack on or off) and slower than everything else.

[Bozon]

4 hours ago, Art-J said:

^ Might be more of an expectations error than user one . Keep in mind we've got a single stage Merlin powered version, which was very fast for '42 standards, when it was introduced, but not so much for '44. At sea level, where you'll be spending most of your time in DCS, Mossie is borderline comparable with A8 (depending on whether it has its bomb rack on or off) and slower than everything else.

FB.VI entered service in May 1943. Initially with Merlin 23, but with Merlin 25 after the first few hundred produced (out of over 4000). The Merlin 25 was at the time the best Sea-level version, and was considered a big boost to performance. In comparative tests it was faster than any Spitfire version including the low-altitude hotrod Griffon powered Spit XII.

Until mid/late 1944 FB.VI intruders felt comfortable that they can out-run the contemporary 109 and 190 variants. This of course may suffer from survivors bias, as those that were able to out run the enemy came back to report it.

Around may/june 1944 they requested the use of 150 octane fuel and +25 boost for day operations, since they felt they no longer had the speed advantage. This is the time of the 109G14 and 190A8 I suppose. Our mosquito is limited to +18 boost.

In addition, there is some ambiguity regarding what was the sea-level speed of “our” version of the FB.VI. Within that range, our FB.VI is at the slowest end. It matches the performance tests of HJ796 which was shown to be underperforming. There is no official test of FB.VI in our exact configuration that is not HJ796, so some extrapolation is required from other tests (e.g. HX809). These give a sea-level speed estimate that is 15 mph faster than the DCS FB.VI, which is quite significant, though not entirely game breaking.

Real planes did have variance between individual air frames - we got a lemon one…