Don't do THAT! or Do THIS!

[Digital Aura]

what's the best tip you can give me to help me turn faster and not lose control.

 

For example, do I use flaps? IF so, is it not possible over a certain speed? What speed should you dogfight? Faster is better?

 

Cmon. Lay em on me!

[ericoh]

Faster = Better.

 

On the P-51D never use both ailerons and elevator at the same time to turn. Settle in with Ailerons then only Elevator. Since both produce very fast wing tip stalls by design.

[Digital Aura]

what's a wing tip stall? Is that what causes me to spin out of control?

[ericoh]

Most likely yes. Wing tip stall easily said means, your wing tips do not create enought effective lift anymore, thats why they stall and your plane drops towards the inside of your turn. As i said this happens alot when mixing ailerons and elevator at the P-51D, try what i said to use em seperatly, you will notice a big difference in turning.

Edited May 27, 2013 by ericoh

[Digital Aura]

Will remember that! Thanks... maybe you can tell me if there's a trade-off between the RPM/prop and the throttle/press.manifold??

Is there ever a time to use them separately? If so, how do you generally treat these ?

[Echo38]

Faster = Better.

 

Technically, you don't want to go over corner turning speed while turning, but in practice, yeah, faster is better, generally speaking. It's much easier to lose speed in a turn than it is to gain it--I seldom find myself over corner in the turn and often find myself well below it (and wishing I were faster).

 

To the O.P.: if it weren't for engine overheating, I'd say go full War Emergency Power at virtually all times during the dogfight and use the combat flap setting (10 degrees) during the majority of turns. However, this'll burn out your engine in short order, so you need to throttle back whenever you can afford to do so in order to cool your engine. And whenever you aren't at WEP, be very sparing with the use of the flaps--at WEP, you can almost keep combat flaps down the whole time without suffering in your maneuvers, but when you're at military or less, leaving the flaps down for a significant amount of time will burn too much energy, even at the 10-degree setting.

 

Second point--back in the older sim-games which didn't model engine overheating (to speak of, anyway) ... you know, Warbirds, Aces High, and old IL-2, where you'd charge around all day long at WEP with no problems ... well, since that isn't how it goes here, I had to modify my way of turning. See, if it weren't for engine overheating, you generally want (in a duel, that is) to be turning most of the time at a speed just a bit above your best climb speed--not at the much-faster corner turning speed, unless you've got a ton of altitude to burn. However, again, in this excellent sim, flying slow at WEP like that will burn your engine; not enough airflow to cool it. So I usually keep my turns as fast as possible, to keep my engine cool, even though this means that I'm not turning as tightly and aggressively as I otherwise should be. This also means that when I started flying P-51D, I pretty much had to throw out my old stall fighting tricks--it's no good prophanging at WEP with a hot engine. (They still work fine in the A-10, though, if you dogfight in that.)

Edited May 27, 2013 by Echo38

[Digital Aura]

couple of things then... because thats a little confusing... you say, you keep your turns as fast as possible, but that it's not as tightly and aggressively as you could because you don't want it to overheat.

So.. what's the recipe to out turn your opponent? I engage WEP, throw down flaps and use some back pressure in my turn? How much stick to use?

 

edit: Also... man, that's tricky to try to use ailerons and elevators separately! It means you have to use only four positions on your joystick. LOL.

Edited May 27, 2013 by Digital Aura

[ericoh]

Brings me to another topic of dogfighting. "Energy Management". Generaly spoken IF possible you should enter a Dogfight Higher then your opponent.

 

Quick Reminder. Gaining Altitude burns Energy. Losing Altitude mostly Adds Energy.

 

As Echo38 points out, Flaps are burning Energy aswell. Its all these small details put together to a big picture that makes for good dogfighting.

[ericoh]

couple of things then... because thats a little confusing... you say, you keep your turns as fast as possible, but that it's not as tightly and aggressively as you could because you don't want it to overheat.

So.. what's the recipe to out turn your opponent? I engage WEP, throw down flaps and use some back pressure in my turn? How much stick to use?

 

edit: Also... man, that's tricky to try to use ailerons and elevators separately! It means you have to use only four positions on your joystick. LOL.

 

Haha! You dont have to see it liek that, you can use both. You just dont get the maximum turnrate out of your mustang when you use both, cause as you noticed yourself, you lose control.

 

A high G turn is better flown with elevator, if that works as a rule of thumb?!

[Konrad Friedrich]

DigitalAura,

the best advice I can give is: go online and ask experienced P-51 pilots if they take you with them for a flight training.

That will help to sort out lots of confusion.

What joystick do you use?

Do you have rudder pedals?

You should map elevator trim to an joystick axis - you need to trim the Pony all the time.

 

If you go online and see a buddy with the callsign 'Duc' you have found me.

Just ask - and I'll do my best to help.

You may find me on 'VirtualAerobatics'. (but not today - it's 2:45 a.m. here... time to go to bed ;))

 

Regards

'Duc'

[Echo38]

you say, you keep your turns as fast as possible, but that it's not as tightly and aggressively as you could because you don't want it to overheat.

 

Yep. If I didn't have to worry about engine overheat, my turns would be slower and tighter than they are now--perhaps 190 MPH, just above best climb speed. But since I do have to cool my engine, I try to keep it at 250 MPH or greater--which, I believe, is over even corner turning speed. Bad for the turn, but good for the engine.

 

So.. what's the recipe to out turn your opponent? I engage WEP, throw down flaps and use some back pressure in my turn? How much stick to use?

 

Ah, that's the question, isn't it! I've been doing virtual dogfighting for thousands and thousands of hours, and I still haven't figured the answer to that. As you practice, you'll slowly figure it out--but it can take a very long time, so you need to have the right mindset. I've seen dozens (hundreds?) of virtual pilots give up due to impatience.

 

The best guideline that I can give you is that you need to occasionally try to glance at your temp gauges (it's very easy to lose your opponent visually when you do this, however), and if you're pushing the redline, you need to throttle back, raise flaps, and try to loosen up your turn to regain some speed (instead of trying to pull max Alpha, as most pilots do during a turning fight). You might lose the fight because of this, but you will lose the fight if you toast your engine. I generally try to do something different when I have to throttle back, rather than trying to stay in the turn I was in; I may dive and/or try to throw off my opponent with some high-speed scissors. Then, by the time I (hopefully) gain an angular advantage in the scissors and want to start turning again, my engine has cooled off a bit so that I can go WEP again and perhaps use the combat flaps to cut into a lead turn.

 

Also... Ericoh says to use elevator and ailerons independently, but when I was in the controls settings.. I didn't even see how to operate the ailerons!!

 

I'm not sure what you mean. If your controls are set up right in the sim's menu, then you'll operate the ailerons by pushing your joystick left and right.

 

By the way, I don't think I agree with his advice about elevator and aileron--I never have a problem with stalling as a result of deflecting ailerons and elevator at the same time. If you are, you're at too high of an alpha, and likely flying uncoordinated, too. Keep the ball centered and give yourself a couple of degrees AoA to spare, and you should suffer no adverse consequences from simultaneous aileron and elevator inputs. By avoiding said simultaneous inputs, you're greatly handicapping yourself--and that flexibility is a much greater loss than a degree or two of Alpha.

 

I will say, however, that there is one situation where I do recommend taking great care to not pull too hard while rolling (or roll too hard while pulling)--if you're almost at maximum G, rolling can tear off the up-travelling (relative to Earth's gravity) wing. The rising (relative to Earth) wing is loaded with more G's than the falling wing, so if you're already near max G, you can tear a wing off just from starting a roll--even if you don't pull back any harder on the stick.

Edited May 27, 2013 by Echo38

[Echo38]

Quick Reminder. Gaining Altitude burns Energy. Losing Altitude mostly Adds Energy.

 

I'm afraid that's backwards. Gaining altitude gains you energy, and losing altitude loses you energy, all else equal. Energy is the sum of speed + altitude. When you're diving, you gain a "little" speed but lose a "lot" of altitude. But when you're climbing, you lose less speed for each amount of altitude gained than you do with the inverse. I believe the reason has to do with friction increasing exponentially with speed?

 

And, of course, it's easier to convert altitude into speed than it is to convert speed into altitude, because of gravity. Let me try to put it this way--if you're at 20,000 feet and 250 MPH, you've got a great deal of energy. If you're at 100 feet and 500 MPH, you have much less energy--while you're twice as fast, you only have a tiny fraction of the altitude. You can easily dive down from 20,000 feet and reach 500 long before you descend down to 5000 feet, but you can't use 500 MPH to zoom up to 20,000 feet from 100.

 

I'm probably omitting a core physical reason why gaining alt gains E and losing alt loses E ... unless someone else here can help me out, you'll just have to trust me when I say that it does. ; )

Edited May 27, 2013 by Echo38

[Mike Busutil]

I'm pretty disappointed with how the Mustang handle's in a dogfight.... Stalls too easy in my opinion. I know I know, energy management this and stick input that. Maybe it's 100% realistic, I still say it stalls too easy.

 

Also I don't like how the AI aircraft can out perform my plane when they are exactly the same plane. I can be full throttle with him right behind me matching my speed. I will pull vertical nice and smooth, lose energy pretty quick and stall. The AI will continue to blow right past me with tons of speed, at the same time he is rolling and changing pitch with no issues at all...

[Echo38]

I'm pretty disappointed with how the Mustang handle's in a dogfight.... Stalls too easy in my opinion. I know I know, energy management this and stick input that. Maybe it's 100% realistic, I still say it stalls too easy.

 

Be disappointed with commercial gaming joysticks. I'd say that they're responsible for more of the discrepancy between sim & reality than anything else (well, barring the P.C. monitor, at least). Even the best sim-sticks I've handled felt like shit compared to a real aircraft stick. These things of springs, motors, and sensors feel absolutely nothing like airflow, cables, and balanced mass.

 

With that said--if you got to fly a real P-51, I think you'd be surprised at how few inches you'd have to pull back to get a stall at any speed. These birds were heavy. They weren't Boeing Stearmans or Pitts Specials.

Edited May 27, 2013 by Echo38

[Merlin-27]

Be careful with WEP. I believe the use of it kills the engine over time due to physical stresses on the internal components instead of overheating as was stated earlier in this thread. The advice is always to limit the use to 5 minutes and watching temps will not prevent the damage.

 

I'm pretty disappointed with how the Mustang handle's in a dogfight.... Stalls too easy in my opinion. I know I know, energy management this and stick input that. Maybe it's 100% realistic, I still say it stalls too easy.

 

Also I don't like how the AI aircraft can out perform my plane when they are exactly the same plane. I can be full throttle with him right behind me matching my speed. I will pull vertical nice and smooth, lose energy pretty quick and stall. The AI will continue to blow right past me with tons of speed, at the same time he is rolling and changing pitch with no issues at all...

 

I'd give it some time. The AI flies a very efficient flight path and it takes some time and practice to match him. Unfortunately, as humans we tend to make a few more errors :) Once you latch on a couple times and follow him close you will see that your Stang can do the exact same maneuvers in chase and even gain the upper hand.

[Digital Aura]

DigitalAura,

the best advice I can give is: go online and ask experienced P-51 pilots if they take you with them for a flight training...

 

If you go online and see a buddy with the callsign 'Duc' you have found me.

Just ask - and I'll do my best to help.

You may find me on 'VirtualAerobatics'. (but not today - it's 2:45 a.m. here... time to go to bed ;))

 

Regards

'Duc'

 

I would really appreciate that! I have the basics down... about 20 years ago I was big into Jane's as a jug pilot. Loved that machine because of the height advantage it offered. But I've forgotten a lot of the 'physics' and for instance, I have trouble determining where to turn in order to get the proper position behind my enemy even when I have the advantage.

 

I may come looking for you Duc! :D

[sobek]

maybe you can tell me if there's a trade-off between the RPM/prop and the throttle/press.manifold??

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=95145

 

That should cover it. If you still have questions, go ahead.

Edited May 27, 2013 by sobek

[ZaltysZ]

If you want to dogfight well in this P-51, you should take care learning about so called elevator reversal. Manual speaks about it, but in short: it is tendency of plane to tighten the turn by itself, and the need for the pilot to loosen the stick once desired Gs are reached. It is supposed to be a problem only with filled aft tank, but I feel this feature even in lightly loaded plane. It certainly can contribute to lots of stalls for an unaware pilot.

[TheDoctor]

You're not alone...

 

...this said I may direct you to my thread on the same topic:

Calls for ACMI,getting frustrated with quickstart mission

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=106637

 

With the help of Konrad Friedrich and gavagai I really improved my chance against THAT_DARN_AI.

 

Here a short list of what helped me:

- Get Tacview: http://lomac.strasoftware.com/tacview-en.php its basic version is free.

Have a look at what the AI is doing, what you are doing, what others did.

 

- Tune your controller setup to be less sensitive

I totally got rid of nonlinear setup and lowered saturation instead, to about 20% for elevator trim, 50% for rudder, 60-70% elevator and aileron.

This way you do not oversteer so much. This of course depends on your controller(s)

 

- Fly coordinated !

If the ball is not centered you almost certainly stall one wing when you use aileron while in an elevator-driven turn.

- Turn steadily, but do not go below 200Mph

 

Use Tacview to record one of your tries, then post it here so others can have a look.

 

If you have problems with using Tacview, or things I'm talking about, ask, I'll help.

Edited May 27, 2013 by TheDoctor
Typo

[Yo-Yo]

Most likely yes. Wing tip stall easily said means, your wing tips do not create enought effective lift anymore, thats why they stall and your plane drops towards the inside of your turn. As i said this happens alot when mixing ailerons and elevator at the P-51D, try what i said to use em seperatly, you will notice a big difference in turning.

 

It can be said about most of the planes because of this fundamental effect. Fast roll rate increases AoA at the wingtip that goes down so it can catch excessive AoA.

[ericoh]

I'm afraid that's backwards. Gaining altitude gains you energy, and losing altitude loses you energy, all else equal. Energy is the sum of speed + altitude. When you're diving, you gain a "little" speed but lose a "lot" of altitude. But when you're climbing, you lose less speed for each amount of altitude gained than you do with the inverse. I believe the reason has to do with friction increasing exponentially with speed?

 

And, of course, it's easier to convert altitude into speed than it is to convert speed into altitude, because of gravity. Let me try to put it this way--if you're at 20,000 feet and 250 MPH, you've got a great deal of energy. If you're at 100 feet and 500 MPH, you have much less energy--while you're twice as fast, you only have a tiny fraction of the altitude. You can easily dive down from 20,000 feet and reach 500 long before you descend down to 5000 feet, but you can't use 500 MPH to zoom up to 20,000 feet from 100.

 

I'm probably omitting a core physical reason why gaining alt gains E and losing alt loses E ... unless someone else here can help me out, you'll just have to trust me when I say that it does. ; )

 

 

What i mean is, to gain Altitude you need to use energy.

[TimeKilla]

The AI flies a very efficient flight path and it takes some time and practice to match him. Unfortunately, as humans we tend to make a few more errors :) Once you latch on a couple times and follow him close you will see that your Stang can do the exact same maneuvers in chase and even gain the upper hand.

 

AI Fly's using a Simple Flight Model as It could not handle the Advanced so the AI can do a'lot of things the player can't without being affected just thought I would clear this up.

 

So it's not that the AI can fly any better than you it's that it's unaffected by most things you are.

[WildBillKelsoe]

What helped me the most, besides flaps, was getting my hand accustomed to the controls. Look for the 'envelope' where you perform near stall maneuvers and get used to it. You will NOT become proficient in dogfighting overnight, not even if you read fighter combat tactics and maneuvering. You have to settle 'in'.

[Konrad Friedrich]

I may come looking for you Duc! :D

 

You are welcome - at any time :)

And prepare to be surprised what one can do with the Pony ;)

[Merlin-27]

AI Fly's using a Simple Flight Model as It could not handle the Advanced so the AI can do a'lot of things the player can't without being affected just thought I would clear this up.

 

So it's not that the AI can fly any better than you it's that it's unaffected by most things you are.

 

I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say here. What specifically can the AI do that you cannot?