I think I hate this thing

[percivaldanvers]

Between the Anton and the Dora, I have 300 hours in DCS flying Fw-190s. I regret them.

I get it, you have to boom and zoom, as if barely squeezing a 5kph speed advantage on the  Mustang that's somehow always on your tail constitutes "zoom." Yes you can roll, you can do scissors to force the Mustang to overshoot only for him to just climb up and then get back on your 6:00 again.

You've got an engine that is somehow always just shy of overheating no matter how carefully you baby it, no matter that the radiators are always all the way open. The moment you think you might be having fun with this thing your RPMs cough and whaddaya know, the engine is dead. And there's no getting around running the engine hard. Low energy fights are totally out of the question, and everything you do other than flying in a straight line or diving will hemorrhage your energy down to nothing. So you just kind of sit there, with your engine on the verge of death as you hope the Mustang that's clawing its way towards you will just go away, but it won't. You can't turn, you can't climb, and eventually you run out of altitude to dive with.

I want to love this thing so much. Every history book I read on the subject makes it out to be this amazing, revolutionary aircraft. Pilots on both sides are unanimous in their love (or dread) of the "Butcher Bird" but it's just so frustratingly lost on me when I try to fly it. It really makes me genuinely sad.

UPDATE: Thanks to the advice of people on this thread I am doing much better with the Dora and having a lot more fun with it! Thanks to you guys I no longer hate this thing.

Edited December 19, 2023 by percivaldanvers

[Tzigy]

Definitely agree especially when it comes to Anton and would be so nice to have a few more versions. Dora i can manage well these days but it was a big struggle initially... once you fly the engine to its max and watch so it doesn't overheat, it can do pretty well and if you start with enough energy you can get away from anyone and regroup. I think in some ways easier to fly in mp

[Mr_sukebe]

The first 190s were faster than their contemporary Spitfire Vs and the Soviet aircraft of 41/42’, which is where it got it’s reputation from.

The Spit IX redressed things.

By the time the Dora arrived, the Luftwaffe was already in deep poo:

- The southern and Russian fronts had most of their fighters withdrawn to Germany to defend against bombers.

- Fuel availability was marginal

- The Luftwaffe pilot training was never enough.  The numbers being trained were initially not enough, then as the war went on, fuel shortages cut training time down.  There were also numerous examples of training units being scraped for crews in knee jerk responses to new threats (eg Torch landings in Tunisia).  The result being that as attrition worsened reducing the number of experienced pilots, you had a far higher number of relatively inexperienced pilots.  That’s demonstrated in the massive increase of aircraft lost to “non enemy action”.  It’s very similar to what happened to the Japanese airforce and why the Marianas Turkey shoot happened

- The pilots were told to focus on the bombers and try to avoid allied fighters

- aircraft were setup more to destroy bombers, eg the 30mm canon, which added weight and reduced their turn rate

- Once long range fighter escort was available, the allied fighters would typically massively outnumber them.  I read an example recently of a massive USAF raid, that was intercepted by a squadron of just 5 Luftwaffe aircraft, two of the pilots being straight out of training

- The allied aircraft continued to improve, eg the newer versions of the Spit, P47 and new aircraft, eg Tempest and Mustang

So yes, the 190 was a great aircraft at at inception, better than allied aircraft.  By the time of the Dora, it had got faster, but was facing massively more allied fighters, which were as fast and had better pilots.

 

[Art-J]

^ It's all correct, of course, but... mostly off-topic and irrelevant for OP's issue. Which is - how both 190s, as equipped and simulated in DCS can (or cannot) be used against its AI or human adversaries in DCS. Whatever happened in real life about front lines, fuel, pilots training etc. in '44-'45 doesn't apply here.

The intermittent engine failures problem of Dora is being investigated in its own thread in bugs section. The only thing we can do is more testing, posting tracks and hoping for the issue to be looked at by the devs. Same about AI simplified FMs and weird damage model symptoms.

[Doughguy]

I fly the dora a lot and got pretty good with it.

Yes its no turn fighter. If you wanna do this, this bird is not yours. She´s an ambush berzerker. I need to have the alt advantage especially over the Mustang.

I also had a few engine bleeps however, these might have been connected to wrong engine warmup procedure. you can and should take off with about 80/90 deg on oil and coolant. no less.

Also check, if your mw50 is switched on especially on servers that have the mw50 off and the aux tank filled with fuel.. itll wreck your engine.

Personally i dont touch the rads. I climb with 3000 rpm and 10 m/s with 4000. You can also climb with 3250rpm at 15-20m/s with somewhere around 350 ish, i dont do this right after the start tho.

And on the contrary, the dora can climb. Especially with mw50. She´ll even outclimb the K4 easily.

She is no high alt bird. 6000 is about her performance ceiling imho. Shes a low to med alt fighter.

You have to fly her very conservatively and most of all patiently and with discipline. Extend if you do not have the advantage. Thats basically a general rule, but its even more important in the dora and even more in the anton.
Then reposition and reengange from alt and speed advantage.

The dora can turn with the spit with start flaps for about 1 full turn. Often thats enough to place few crippling shots.
You should fly alot of yoyos with her, and slashing attacks.

Pilot skills bein all equal, the most trouble youll face with the dora is against the mustang. they pretty much on even terms.

The spit is just a nuissance really as its pretty much slower. Yes it can turn, but if you stay high and yoyo up and down the spit cant do much.

Mossie is cannon fodder.

P47 can be tricky but generally is a pretty slow target, up high is where the p47 shines.

[percivaldanvers]

8 hours ago, Doughguy said:

I fly the dora a lot and got pretty good with it.

Yes its no turn fighter. If you wanna do this, this bird is not yours. She´s an ambush berzerker. I need to have the alt advantage especially over the Mustang.

I also had a few engine bleeps however, these might have been connected to wrong engine warmup procedure. you can and should take off with about 80/90 deg on oil and coolant. no less.

Also check, if your mw50 is switched on especially on servers that have the mw50 off and the aux tank filled with fuel.. itll wreck your engine.

Personally i dont touch the rads. I climb with 3000 rpm and 10 m/s with 4000. You can also climb with 3250rpm at 15-20m/s with somewhere around 350 ish, i dont do this right after the start tho.

And on the contrary, the dora can climb. Especially with mw50. She´ll even outclimb the K4 easily.

She is no high alt bird. 6000 is about her performance ceiling imho. Shes a low to med alt fighter.

You have to fly her very conservatively and most of all patiently and with discipline. Extend if you do not have the advantage. Thats basically a general rule, but its even more important in the dora and even more in the anton.
Then reposition and reengange from alt and speed advantage.

The dora can turn with the spit with start flaps for about 1 full turn. Often thats enough to place few crippling shots.
You should fly alot of yoyos with her, and slashing attacks.

Pilot skills bein all equal, the most trouble youll face with the dora is against the mustang. they pretty much on even terms.

The spit is just a nuissance really as its pretty much slower. Yes it can turn, but if you stay high and yoyo up and down the spit cant do much.

Mossie is cannon fodder.

P47 can be tricky but generally is a pretty slow target, up high is where the p47 shines.

I really want to agree. On paper everything you say is true, but extending when you don't have an advantage is much easier said than done. If you're up against a Mustang, you're going to need to fly perfectly or your tiny speed advantage will disappear, and it can take so long to extend away that you're halfway across the map from where you want to be before you're safe. 

I am starting to learn to not touch the radiator knob though. Back in the days of the first engine bug, I got into the habit of having them all the way open, which is definitely not good for performance, but at the time it was the only way I knew to keep the engine from breaking.

I'm curious how you're able to climb faster than a 109 in a D9 though. It seems like you need to maintain a high airspeed with the Dora to not cook the engine at high power settings, which rules out any but very shallow climbs. All a Mustang has to do is a spiral climb and then he can drop down on me whenever he wants because I can't follow him.

 

11 hours ago, Art-J said:

^ It's all correct, of course, but... mostly off-topic and irrelevant for OP's issue. Which is - how both 190s, as equipped and simulated in DCS can (or cannot) be used against its AI or human adversaries in DCS. Whatever happened in real life about front lines, fuel, pilots training etc. in '44-'45 doesn't apply here.

The intermittent engine failures problem of Dora is being investigated in its own thread in bugs section. The only thing we can do is more testing, posting tracks and hoping for the issue to be looked at by the devs. Same about AI simplified FMs and weird damage model symptoms.

22 hours ago, Tzigy said:

Definitely agree especially when it comes to Anton and would be so nice to have a few more versions. Dora i can manage well these days but it was a big struggle initially... once you fly the engine to its max and watch so it doesn't overheat, it can do pretty well and if you start with enough energy you can get away from anyone and regroup. I think in some ways easier to fly in mp

I do think that a lot of my problems come from flying sp a lot. My schedule is fairly irregular and I rarely have a solid hour or two to devote on an MP sortie, so I fly offline and do campaigns a lot. The AI FM's limitations are particularly hard on the 190. You're on your own in basically every mission since your wingmen will just try to turn fight spitfires and get killed very quickly.

Edited December 13, 2023 by percivaldanvers

[Doughguy]

11 hours ago, percivaldanvers said:

I really want to agree. On paper everything you say is true, but extending when you don't have an advantage is much easier said than done. If you're up against a Mustang, you're going to need to fly perfectly or your tiny speed advantage will disappear, and it can take so long to extend away that you're halfway across the map from where you want to be before you're safe. 

I am starting to learn to not touch the radiator knob though. Back in the days of the first engine bug, I got into the habit of having them all the way open, which is definitely not good for performance, but at the time it was the only way I knew to keep the engine from breaking.

I'm curious how you're able to climb faster than a 109 in a D9 though. It seems like you need to maintain a high airspeed with the Dora to not cook the engine at high power settings, which rules out any but very shallow climbs. All a Mustang has to do is a spiral climb and then he can drop down on me whenever he wants because I can't follow him. 

If youre caught low with low energy it doesnt matter which plane youre in anyway. Youre dead in the water. Its something that youll have to deal with. It can happen in any plane.

Yes it takes time to extend. But the dora can extend and at 4 to 6 km is the fastest unjuiced bird. Other birds have rather poor extending capabilites... or can only dive.... the p47 cant extend in level flight... in  a dive... yes... and you cant keep up with it in a dive or a mustang....so dives as defensive manouvers are a bad idea... the dora however can extend in a climb... 5 m/s ar full power are good enough. 10m/s if youre fancy. Just dont manouver alot just keep the dora away drom the nose of the oppo.

Theres really no need to touch the radiators flaps... they act as huge airbrakes.

Combat speed in the dora should be about 400 500. Slower and youll have problems extending from the spit and even the mustang has better stalling behaviour. Faster and the mustang also has better manouverability.

Yes you need a high airspeed as the dora uses a air cooled engine... just like the mustang.... and just as the mustang if you climb full power with slow speed youll fry the engine... the dora isnt as prone to overheatin as the mustang but can happen.

However youd really fight in the vertical with the dora.

Tactics with the anton revolved around dives and climbs. 

Youd drop down shoot and then pull up and readjust. If missed or target evades you pull up.

Basically you can apply the same tactic with the dora. High yoyos are your friend.

Chandelles can also be executed in the dora.

If you fly against ai mainly please keep in mind that ai basically flies perfectly and keeps its energy 99%....

If you want to we can have a spin together in the dora.

Edited December 13, 2023 by Doughguy

[Art-J]

^ I'm sure you meant and wanted to highlight airspeed impact on cooling system efficiency, but dear God, calling Merlin and Jumo "air cooled" engines is so wrong it hurts  .

[Doughguy]

Sowwy yes airspeed. But liquid cooled.

[percivaldanvers]

On 12/13/2023 at 5:56 AM, Doughguy said:

If youre caught low with low energy it doesnt matter which plane youre in anyway. Youre dead in the water. Its something that youll have to deal with. It can happen in any plane.

Yes it takes time to extend. But the dora can extend and at 4 to 6 km is the fastest unjuiced bird. Other birds have rather poor extending capabilites... or can only dive.... the p47 cant extend in level flight... in  a dive... yes... and you cant keep up with it in a dive or a mustang....so dives as defensive manouvers are a bad idea... the dora however can extend in a climb... 5 m/s ar full power are good enough. 10m/s if youre fancy. Just dont manouver alot just keep the dora away drom the nose of the oppo.

Theres really no need to touch the radiators flaps... they act as huge airbrakes.

Combat speed in the dora should be about 400 500. Slower and youll have problems extending from the spit and even the mustang has better stalling behaviour. Faster and the mustang also has better manouverability.

Yes you need a high airspeed as the dora uses a air cooled engine... just like the mustang.... and just as the mustang if you climb full power with slow speed youll fry the engine... the dora isnt as prone to overheatin as the mustang but can happen.

However youd really fight in the vertical with the dora.

Tactics with the anton revolved around dives and climbs. 

Youd drop down shoot and then pull up and readjust. If missed or target evades you pull up.

Basically you can apply the same tactic with the dora. High yoyos are your friend.

Chandelles can also be executed in the dora.

If you fly against ai mainly please keep in mind that ai basically flies perfectly and keeps its energy 99%....

If you want to we can have a spin together in the dora.

 

Let me ask one other thing - How long do you run the engine in full power with MW-50? I know this question is asked all over the forum, but reading the manual and looking at different responses I'm still not clear on whether it's 3 minutes or 10 minutes at a time? It seems like I've been able to do 10 minutes myself but I'm pretty frantically checking the temps while doing that, which takes my eyes off the fight.

And yeah I've been flying a lot against the AI, which is just innately frustrating. I would definitely be up for some flights together! I've done a bit of MP flying but not much.

[Dragon1-1]

You have enough MW-50 for 10 minutes, but you're supposed to only keep it on for 3 minutes at a time, because of the engine temps.

[Doughguy]

47 minutes ago, percivaldanvers said:

Let me ask one other thing - How long do you run the engine in full power with MW-50? I know this question is asked all over the forum, but reading the manual and looking at different responses I'm still not clear on whether it's 3 minutes or 10 minutes at a time? It seems like I've been able to do 10 minutes myself but I'm pretty frantically checking the temps while doing that, which takes my eyes off the fight.

And yeah I've been flying a lot against the AI, which is just innately frustrating. I would definitely be up for some flights together! I've done a bit of MP flying but not much.

Your premise is wrong. Your engine can blow up after few seconds using mw50 because temps matter.

But for the sake of simplicity given we have enough speed and hence cooling the dora can run on mw50 up to 3 mins +/- depending on your cooling. After that she needs a bit of a cool down.

She can run on 3000 rpm indefinately and on 3250 for 30 mins. But i usually alternate rpms in a fight alot just to pamper the engine.

It still might have a bug or so which is currently being looked into but it seldomly appeared with me.

As long as the oil needle is in the bracket center and coolant on the marked pos of about 110 celsius she'll be good.

Id have time on saturday. Im central european time. Gotta be on the latest beta.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Doughguy

[percivaldanvers]

2 hours ago, Doughguy said:

Id have time on saturday. Im central european time. Gotta be on the latest beta.

 

Well timing might be a bit tricky because I'm on pretty much the opposite side of the world from you

 

3 hours ago, Doughguy said:

Your premise is wrong. Your engine can blow up after few seconds using mw50 because temps matter.

But for the sake of simplicity given we have enough speed and hence cooling the dora can run on mw50 up to 3 mins +/- depending on your cooling. After that she needs a bit of a cool down.

She can run on 3000 rpm indefinately and on 3250 for 30 mins. But i usually alternate rpms in a fight alot just to pamper the engine.

It still might have a bug or so which is currently being looked into but it seldomly appeared with me.

As long as the oil needle is in the bracket center and coolant on the marked pos of about 110 celsius she'll be good

 

Okay that's where I get confused a bit. So when you say 30 minutes at 3250 are you talking about high RPMS with MW50 turned off? Because normally don't get to 3250 without MW50 on.

And, for whatever reason the coolant temps are always to the right of 110 unless I manually adjust the thermostat to force the radiator open. Maybe that's because I always have the MW50 on but I'm not actually running it except when I dip into max throttle for brief periods.

[Doughguy]

yes the dora can run on 3250 rpms w/o mw50 for 30.mins.

Mw50 only engages with 3250 anyway.

I just push the throttle full forward.

Mw50 is only switched on when needed. But that can be handled diffetently.

Some servers have mw50 disabled.

[grafspee]

@percivaldanvers If you have mw50 off you can reach 3250rpm with full throttle, deference is only in MP, w/o mw50 it is about 1.6 ata and with mw50 it is about 1.9-2.1 ata.

w/o mw50 you can use 3250 rpm as long as 30min, if you engage mw50 this limit reduce to 3mins. Simple as that.

[percivaldanvers]

Ahh okay thank you! That has confused me for ages.

[Slippery Pete]

I'm glad I got being obsessed with online mulitplayer' pew pew score mentality' out of my system years ago, because that is the absolute wrong mentality to be having in such a complex sim like DCS. Imagine disregarding an entire series of aircraft just because you didn't get a few quick kills with them in some online server.  Good grief

 

[percivaldanvers]

1 hour ago, Slippery Pete said:

I'm glad I got being obsessed with online mulitplayer' pew pew score mentality' out of my system years ago, because that is the absolute wrong mentality to be having in such a complex sim like DCS. Imagine disregarding an entire series of aircraft just because you didn't get a few quick kills with them in some online server.  Good grief

 

I almost never play online. In all honesty I'm a big Fw-190 fan. I own a bunch of books about it and I love the engineering behind it. I just get demoralized that I can't make it perform like I've read in the history books. I mean you read about stuff like Jg 54 getting a 60:1 victory to loss ratio with the 190 over Kursk, or Eric Brown calling the D-9 one of the 20 best aircraft of all time, and it starts to really sting when you get shot down over and over.

All that said I've picked up a few tricks in this thread that are definitely changing that experience.

Edited December 15, 2023 by percivaldanvers

[Slippery Pete]

7 hours ago, percivaldanvers said:

I almost never play online. In all honesty I'm a big Fw-190 fan. I own a bunch of books about it and I love the engineering behind it. I just get demoralized that I can't make it perform like I've read in the history books. I mean you read about stuff like Jg 54 getting a 60:1 victory to loss ratio with the 190 over Kursk, or Eric Brown calling the D-9 one of the 20 best aircraft of all time, and it starts to really sting when you get shot down over and over.

All that said I've picked up a few tricks in this thread that are definitely changing that experience.

 

 

You're comparing real life German pilots who had 30-90+ hours more of flight time on average compared to their Russian counter parts over the Eastern front and are wondering why Russian's got slaughtered whole sale,  and you're asking why it was so easy for them to be shot down? Like you think the 190 was some sort of super plane instead of the amount of training and flight time German pilots had?   You do realize there is training before combat, yes?

You said you've read books, did you not take into account these facts? The amount of training involved?

 

You have the mentality of a child. Maybe warthunder, or IL-2, or ace combat is more your speed. 

[percivaldanvers]

3 hours ago, Slippery Pete said:

 

You're comparing real life German pilots who had 30-90+ hours more of flight time on average compared to their Russian counter parts over the Eastern front and are wondering why Russian's got slaughtered whole sale,  and you're asking why it was so easy for them to be shot down? Like you think the 190 was some sort of super plane instead of the amount of training and flight time German pilots had?   You do realize there is training before combat, yes?

You said you've read books, did you not take into account these facts? The amount of training involved?

 

You have the mentality of a child. Maybe warthunder, or IL-2, or ace combat is more your speed. 

lol what? I expressed some earnest frustration here, and people here have given me some advice and I have improved my understanding of this aircraft as a result. I would call this a pretty mature, successful discussion on the whole.

And yeah, half the stuff you read about the Fw-190 pretty much does call it a super plane. Kursk was 1943, at which point the German pilot training hours were already noticeably fewer than they had been before, although not yet as bad as they'd be in 1944/45, and this was also no longer the VVS-KA of 1941 that had essentially no training, so no, I don't accept that mere disparity in training hours accounts for the difference. And, likewise, there were guys who had thousands of flight hours and hundreds of air combats who struggled to get to grips with the Fw-190. Gerhard Barkhorn was one such. 301 victories, but none of them with the Fw-190 despite being assigned to a Fw-190 later in his career.

Edited December 15, 2023 by percivaldanvers

[BIGNEWY]

Folks please keep the discussion friendly 

thanks

[jurinko]

Fw 190 suck since the old IL-2. Your whatever kind of advantage evaporates in the moment you pull the stick; the plane behaves as if deploying the braking chute, losing speed and getting into nasty one-wing fall. I like DCS Dora though: you can feel the 2000 hp, especially at the full power take-off and it got formidable looks.

Fly Bf 109 as epee and Fw 190 as steel maul. 

[MiGCap1]

I never got an overheating with the Fw 190D but once, when I forgot to disengage the MW-50. In combat I fly with full throttle and only use the MW-50 for short times to close in to the enemy.

P-47s or P-51s are no match for the Dora, I can win a turn fight against a Pony using t/o flaps. Spits are a problem, they turn tighter but are slower. I can leave the fight whenever I want and try to get a better position. Or just run away and survive.

The Dora is superior if You handle it right. But I admit that all the guys I flew with in MP are preferring the Kurfürst in dogfights. I do not.

Edited December 18, 2023 by MiGCap1

[percivaldanvers]

On 12/17/2023 at 4:04 PM, jurinko said:

Fw 190 suck since the old IL-2. Your whatever kind of advantage evaporates in the moment you pull the stick; the plane behaves as if deploying the braking chute, losing speed and getting into nasty one-wing fall. I like DCS Dora though: you can feel the 2000 hp, especially at the full power take-off and it got formidable looks.

Fly Bf 109 as epee and Fw 190 as steel maul. 

Yeah I recall Gunther Rall said the 109 was like a flueret and the 190 a cavalry sabre. It's a good way of thinking about it because it speaks to the comparative strengths of the two. You wouldn't duel with a heavy cavalry sabre, but a formation of cavalrymen charging can hit with astonishing force.

 

On 12/17/2023 at 8:58 PM, MiGCap1 said:

I never got an overheating with the Fw 190D but once, when I forgot to disengage the MW-50. In combat I fly with full throttle and only use the MW-50 for short times to close in to the enemy.

P-47s or P-51s are no match for the Dora, I can win a turn fight against a Pony using t/o flaps. Spits are a problem, they turn tighter but are slower. I can leave the fight whenever I want and try to get a better position. Or just run away and survive.

The Dora is superior if You handle it right. But I admit that all the guys I flew with in MP are preferring the Kurfürst in dogfights. I do not.

 

Thanks to the advice of everyone here I'm starting to see the advantages better. It takes a lot of effort to get into the mindset of using your roll rate effectively, but once you do it's a fantastic defensive maneuver, which has the advantage of not bleeding your energy down to nothing. Spitfires don't worry me at all. They're so slow, that, as you can say, you can just leave the moment things aren't working for you and just reengage on your own terms. P-47s do just about everything worse so they don't bother me at all either. Only the Mustang has really troubled me because it does most things the D9 does just about as well. 

WRT to the 109 I think that plane will always be my first love. It's the first one I was ever able to win a challenging fight against. Last night I did a mission where I replcade the mustangs in the D9 "Dogfight" scenario with K4s and it was a really interesting fight. I won with the Dora, but it was quite something. They were extremely maneuverable but fast enough to be hard to lose.

[stuart666]

I should point out, Greg of Gregs Airplanes and Automobiles (a site everyone should have subscribed regardless) did a pretty good primer on how to use the Dora in multiplayer.

He also does another one on the Anton, and his thoughts on whether its correctly modelled or not are really very interesting. Basically it is correctly modelled, but its going up against much later P51's. There is a case to be made for an early and late Anton.