Level flight speed

[Sarge55]

Is there a link to an actual Corsair pilot making video tutorials?

[Saxman]

On 6/25/2025 at 10:37 AM, DSR_T-800 said:

These figures are on the faster side for the Corsair, but I believe they are well within reason considering we have 3 examples of the her hitting 365mph@SL and 420mph+@criticalALT.  320Kts at SL, overboosting the engine to 75"Hg/>3000rpm, fails to reach the 'Special'(65"Hg) F4U-1 at 327Kts is a tell - tale sign shes just too draggy. Not to forget to mention its somehow slower a F4U w/o water injection.

This should certainely help in BFM energy management. The Corsair should be faster, hold energy better(?) and turn tighter than the P-47D.

Its earlier access and I don't have the slightless clue on how to make a flight model, so I'm going to refrain from judging, even though its hard to think how you'd get the basics wrong. However, this was same case with the P-47 being released initially w/o water injection, and the Bf-109K4 was either too slow or too fast.

 

 

 

Those charts are for an F4U-1A. Note the serial numbers: 17930 and 50030. The F4U-1D began on BuNo. 50360. The 1D lost about 10-15mph of speed because of drag from the knuckle pylons (BuAer gives the 1D a top speed of 410mph at ~20,000ft).

Edited Sunday at 04:36 PM by Saxman

[captain_dalan]

8 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

I dont mind the fun and I’ve watched a lot of their tutorials, my gripe is that in many of them the instructor looks as if he learnt the craft or weapon the day before or even he is learning as he records the video .. honestly I prefer to learn from someone that is at least truly experienced on what he is teaching.

Eh, I never treat them as instructors. But then again, I am usually self taught, and like to learn by doing as much as possible

[captain_dalan]

My 20000ft test run from this afternoon. 75% internal fuel (11700lbs gross). 2550 RPM, water injection on, fuel mix lever all the way back, blower to high, manifold pressure 57. Managed almost 350 knots true speed and about 260 indicated before the water light went on. That's 646km/h. Pretty close to the cheat card numbers. Only 5 knots or 10km/h short. Might need to play a bit with it some more.
 

Edited Sunday at 10:56 PM by captain_dalan

[M1Combat]

nullKeeping her as level as I could for a while.  Started from the caucases instant action cold start.  Not sure how much fuel but I'd been flying for a few minutes.

As clean as I could get her.  All intakes closed.

The "yank the throttle with the mouse after setting the axis to slider mode" trick...  It works.  Don't touch the mapped axis after that (or just clear the map entirely) or it resets to the max the axis sets the RPM to or 2700RPM.  Also...  small chance you can set too many revs...  Will be testing that in a minute ;)...

 

null

[M1Combat]

Yeah I think we've got a problem :).  I'll pop in a bug report as soon as I find who posted about the mouse-rev technique.

[Katj]

On 6/25/2025 at 2:02 PM, felixx75 said:

Mixture "Auto Rich" (forward position) is only needed for takeoff and landings, for eveything else use "Auto Lean" (middle position)
 

How strange. Why did they run the Corsair at such low boost numbers? It seems to me that a rich mixture would increase knock resistance and allow higher boost. The sameish engine ran much higher boost in the 47.

[felixx75]

No, if you take the P-47 as a reference, you will see that the numbers are quite similar. In addition, it is not absolutely the same engine.

Edited Monday at 10:15 AM by felixx75

[Spurts]

climb speed starts at 130-135? man, to think I was leaving some climb on the table by climbing at 150-155

[Katj]

1 hour ago, felixx75 said:

No, if you take the P-47 as a reference, you will see that the numbers are quite similar. In addition, it is not absolutely the same engine.

If I look at the P-47D charts they are very dissimilar in that the P-47 is supposed to always run rich mixture except for lean cruise. Now, I realize that what lean and rich means does not necessarily translate between aircraft, but it still tells us something.

Also at WEP the P-47 could run 64" for around 2400 HP. Quite a bit more than 59 ", in my opinion. The turbo supercharger of the P-47 would help it maintain manifold pressure at higher altitudes, but I don't see why the Corsair would necessarily lag behind down low.

Anyway, I'm not saying the Corsair is awful or anything, I'm just curious what the reasoning behind this design decision was.

I'll have to compare to the hellcat charts as well.

Edited Monday at 12:01 PM by Katj

[felixx75]

18 minutes ago, Katj said:

If I look at the P-47D charts they are very dissimilar in that the P-47 is supposed to always run rich mixture except for lean cruise. Now, I realize that what lean and rich means does not necessarily translate between aircraft, but it still tells us something.

Also at WEP the P-47 could run 64" for around 2400 HP. Quite a bit more than 59 ", in my opinion. The turbo supercharger of the P-47 would help it maintain manifold pressure at higher altitudes, but I don't see why the Corsair would necessarily lag behind down low.

Anyway, I'm not saying the Corsair is awful or anything, I'm just curious what the reasoning behind this design decision was.

I'll have to compare to the hellcat charts as well.

The biggest difference is the 4.5 MP difference @WEP (which is not really much). The rest is very close. In fact, the continuous power of the P-47 with 42 MP is even lower than that of the F4U with 44 MP. Therefore, it is simply not correct to say that the MP of the P-47 is significantly higher.

Why is it so? It is not the same engine. This means different specifications and different limits.

[Saxman]

1 hour ago, Katj said:

If I look at the P-47D charts they are very dissimilar in that the P-47 is supposed to always run rich mixture except for lean cruise. Now, I realize that what lean and rich means does not necessarily translate between aircraft, but it still tells us something.

Also at WEP the P-47 could run 64" for around 2400 HP. Quite a bit more than 59 ", in my opinion. The turbo supercharger of the P-47 would help it maintain manifold pressure at higher altitudes, but I don't see why the Corsair would necessarily lag behind down low.

Anyway, I'm not saying the Corsair is awful or anything, I'm just curious what the reasoning behind this design decision was.

I'll have to compare to the hellcat charts as well.

To reiterate what felixx said before: They're not the same engine.

The F4U-1s used the R-2800-8 or 8W (the only difference between the two being the 8W has water injection).

The P-47D-30 has the R-2800-59.

They have completely different tunings, configurations, and power bands.

Edited Monday at 01:28 PM by Saxman

[DSR_T-800]

22 hours ago, Saxman said:

Those charts are for an F4U-1A. Note the serial numbers: 17930 and 50030. The F4U-1D began on BuNo. 50360. The 1D lost about 10-15mph of speed because of drag from the knuckle pylons (BuAer gives the 1D a top speed of 410mph at ~20,000ft).

Thanks for the correction. Althought if 300kts is the maximum speed we can achieve on the deck, she is still on the slower side. I found the F4U-1d with and without Pylons.

With/out

With


8-12mph difference from SL - Critical ALT.

It would be nice to have a F4U-1 on more of the figther/inerceptor end of the spectrum, as the one we have in DCS is clearly for a figther - bomber role. The P-47 has the ability to remove pylons, so I don't really see an excuse for them being permenately on. I'd take 18kt+ on the deck any day of the week.
null

[Saxman]

8 minutes ago, DSR_T-800 said:

It would be nice to have a F4U-1 on more of the figther/inerceptor end of the spectrum

An FG-1A (Goodyear Corsairs were usually delivered denavalized, shaving off about 1500lbs dry weight) with water injection and the paddle prop (after VF-17 tested them on their Corsairs they were retrofit on many others in the field) would be AWESOME.

[DSR_T-800]

1 hour ago, Saxman said:

An FG-1A (Goodyear Corsairs were usually delivered denavalized, shaving off about 1500lbs dry weight) with water injection and the paddle prop (after VF-17 tested them on their Corsairs they were retrofit on many others in the field) would be AWESOME.

Do you have any perfomance figures?

Considering it took them so long to produce the 1d, I don't think we'd ever see another Corsair unless it was a F4U-4 by another party.

[Saxman]

35 minutes ago, DSR_T-800 said:

Do you have any perfomance figures?

Considering it took them so long to produce the 1d, I don't think we'd ever see another Corsair unless it was a F4U-4 by another party.

The performance curves you posted are for a 1A. So 420mph at altitude on WEP would be typical, with some potential for as high as 430. Rate of climb would be about 3500fpm at SL, down to about 3000fpm up to 5000ft. I can't provide specific numbers for a denavalized Corsair, but you're probably looking at gains in turn rate, rate of roll, and rate of climb with the reduced weight (roll especially because the removed weight would be coming off the wings).

[PL_Harpoon]

On 6/25/2025 at 5:37 PM, DSR_T-800 said:

These figures are on the faster side for the Corsair, but I believe they are well within reason considering we have 3 examples of the her hitting 365mph@SL and 420mph+@criticalALT.  320Kts at SL, overboosting the engine to 75"Hg/>3000rpm, fails to reach the 'Special'(65"Hg) F4U-1 at 327Kts is a tell - tale sign shes just too draggy. Not to forget to mention its somehow slower a F4U w/o water injection.

This should certainely help in BFM energy management. The Corsair should be faster, hold energy better(?) and turn tighter than the P-47D.

Its earlier access and I don't have the slightless clue on how to make a flight model, so I'm going to refrain from judging, even though its hard to think how you'd get the basics wrong. However, this was same case with the P-47 being released initially w/o water injection, and the Bf-109K4 was either too slow or too fast.

 

 

 

Did a quick test myself.

Sea level, 15 deg C, Standard atmosphere, fully fueled, all coolers, cowl flaps, canopy etc closed.

MIL (2700 RPM, 54 MAP): max speed 297 kts, average was about 294kts vs 304kts from the chart above (converted from MPH)

WEP (2700, 58.5 MAP - looked more like 60 to me but the needle was shaking): max speed 314kts, avg about 310kts vs 317kts from chart.

In conclusion: a bit slower but not much.

[Saxman]

27 minutes ago, PL_Harpoon said:

Did a quick test myself.

Sea level, 15 deg C, Standard atmosphere, fully fueled, all coolers, cowl flaps, canopy etc closed.

MIL (2700 RPM, 54 MAP): max speed 297 kts, average was about 294kts vs 304kts from the chart above (converted from MPH)

WEP (2700, 58.5 MAP - looked more like 60 to me but the needle was shaking): max speed 314kts, avg about 310kts vs 317kts from chart.

In conclusion: a bit slower but not much.

Also keep in mind that graph is for an F4U-1A, which is going to be about 10mph faster because of pylon drag on the 1D.

[Razgriz10]

My Testing at 22400ft, 29.92inHg, 20 degrees Celsius, 50% internal fuel, 54.9inHg manifold pressure and 2700rpm yielded a maximum level flight speed of 240kts indicated.  Calibrating that using the manual is 246kts, then plugging that into an online calculator for TAS i got 385kts.  then converting to mph i got 443mph which is 18mph faster than the real plane and is in fact closer in speed to the -4 variant with a maximum level flight speed of 446mph.  Attached are screenshots from my run (ignore the slight rate of climb, i bumped the stick while pausing and it was less than half a second of climb) and of the manual and calculator used (the conversion from Knots to mph i did on my phone).

[mntimbuktu]

It's a bug. There's no way the RPM's are supposed to go that high.

 

The Vought F4U-4 Corsair, equipped with the Pratt & Whitney R-2800-18W radial engine, has a documented maximum RPM of 2800 RPM. 

[Hayrake YE-ZB]

3 hours ago, Razgriz10 said:

My Testing at 22400ft, 29.92inHg, 20 degrees Celsius, 50% internal fuel, 54.9inHg manifold pressure and 2700rpm yielded a maximum level flight speed of 240kts indicated.  Calibrating that using the manual is 246kts, then plugging that into an online calculator for TAS i got 385kts.  then converting to mph i got 443mph which is 18mph faster than the real plane and is in fact closer in speed to the -4 variant with a maximum level flight speed of 446mph.  Attached are screenshots from my run (ignore the slight rate of climb, i bumped the stick while pausing and it was less than half a second of climb) and of the manual and calculator used (the conversion from Knots to mph i did on my phone).

 

20C is extremely hot at 24000 ft. Was that the tempature you set in the mission editor at sea level? 20C at the ground should reduce by 2C per 1000 feet above SL. Your OAT at 24K would be around -28C. With your indicated speed of 240, the true would be 350 knots/403mph.

[Razgriz10]

7 minutes ago, Hayrake YE-ZB said:

20C is extremely hot at 24000 ft. Was that the tempature you set in the mission editor at sea level? 20C at the ground should reduce by 2C per 1000 feet above SL. Your OAT at 24K would be around -28C. With your indicated speed of 240, the true would be 350 knots/403mph.

20 degrees is what was in the mission editor settings so yeah you're probably right about that.  I'll check again tomorrow and get the actual temperatures.