High Altitude Fighter?

[Tree_Beard]

I often hear the P47 described as a superb high-altitude fighter.

I must be missing something, because if I launch a mission with a high-altitude air start, the plane feels like a boat drifting to the left and right and honestly feels terrible to fly, sluggish and hard to control.

Is there something wrong with the air start settings? Maybe something wrong with my hotas axis or something? 

I always exit the mission with the impression that that just didn't feel right. I am still a P47 noob though so I'm not sure if there actually is a problem here or not. The other warbird I have is the BF109, and that feels waaaay better to me, even at high altitude, where the P47 supposedly shines. 

[vgilsoler]

The P-47 is good at high altitude because the engine performance is very good due the supercharger. But she is still a brick, a high speed brick.

You need to trim her correctly and do not reduce speed. 

[Gunfreak]

The P47 for some reason starts terribly outtrimmed in airstarts, can take you some time to get her right.

Also high altitude fighter isn't the samexas high altitude dogfighter. To simulate why the P47 was a good air to air plane. You need at least 8 of them, and ideally you should pounce om a group of enemies from the advantage of height, attack them from above then use the powerful engine to zoom back up. 

Other things to consider.

1. AI is bad, the AI planes take more damage then they should, they are not effected by G forces, they are not affected by engine limitations. They will also not be taken unawares (which was when the majority of pilots got shot down)

2. P47 never really fought the K4, by the time the k4 showed up the 47 was almost completely dedicated to ground attack/support. 

3. The P47 was never an easy plane to fly, that's why most pilots who got the p51 after flying the p47 were happy just; less complicated, less huge, and easier to fly(tho some did comment that going from 8 to 4 guns wasn't that great)

Just be glad you aren't flying the p47 in that other sim, the p47 in that sim is probably the worst flight model made in recent time. 

[grafspee]

On 11/17/2023 at 7:47 PM, Tree_Beard said:

I often hear the P47 described as a superb high-altitude fighter.

I must be missing something, because if I launch a mission with a high-altitude air start, the plane feels like a boat drifting to the left and right and honestly feels terrible to fly, sluggish and hard to control.

Is there something wrong with the air start settings? Maybe something wrong with my hotas axis or something? 

I always exit the mission with the impression that that just didn't feel right. I am still a P47 noob though so I'm not sure if there actually is a problem here or not. The other warbird I have is the BF109, and that feels waaaay better to me, even at high altitude, where the P47 supposedly shines. 

K-4 is very stable in pitch and responsiveness is way lower then in P-47, at low alt at high speed K-4 will struggle to pull +6G but at high alt pitch responsiveness is at good spot, in P-47 you have no problem to pull +8G at high IAS but at high alt where IAS is low you need extra care when applying pitch it is very easy to stall.

Second thing K-4 improvement at high alt performance is very large comparing to earlier  like G-6s. So P-47D vs K-4 combat is not as easy as you may thought, but still doable.

K-4 production numbers were very low comparing to overall Bf-109 numbers so chances that allied pilot encounter K-4 were very slim.