Hey Shortround6,
You are thinking clearly. The numbers as presented in the translation do not work. Either the time is wrong or the speed is wrong or the radius is wrong.
At 205 mph IAS a 360° turn in 11 sec works out to a radius of 543 ft at a sustained 5.6 G, which was not possible for any aircraft in the WWII or Korean era.
At 205 mph IAS a 360° turn in 11 sec with a radius of 305 ft would generate a sustained 9.5 G, which was not possible for any service aircraft until the F-15 Eagle(?).
An Oscar II would never make
sustained speed turns at such a high speed, so yes the value is wrong, but is maybe it is a
starting value, allowing for a high rate of speed decay. 11 seconds is very low for sustained speed... Truly sustained speed was probably 13-14 seconds at 120-140 mph. It also would not normally sustain turns at
full power (like most WWII types except the maybe the Spitfires and Yaks, due to their peculiar wings and leading edges not dog-legging the prop spiral enough), sustained turning
radiuses were always at their best when making circles at massively reduced power, as much as 40-50% below WEP, and the effect on turn
rate of that seemed to have been small, since the turn radius was so much smaller.
The turn times were probably not much reduced by power cutting, but reducing power did massively cut the
radius, and the radius was
king to get
aiming lead... (By contrast the turn time hardly mattered: Even if you gained in the circle in
rate, you could not get aiming lead at a smaller radius and so you inevitably wound up in front, and
then the smaller radius
did get the aiming lead on you... So the better
rate was actually bad in this case... All WWII pilots ever obsess about is radius and cutting power to get it,
never speed or energy in turns... The only apparent exception to this was the Spitfire, which could do a controllable stall with 3-axis control and "shoot across the circle" towards smaller German radiuses, with wings rumbling. Spitfire pilots
do mention doing this, but it was likely not a stable target picture for obvious reasons. This was the crutch to the Spitfire's poor radius...)
Cutting power continuously 40% below WEP during multiple circles was virtually routine by 1945: Here Erich Brunotte mentions using only 0.9 ATA (Absolute Technical Atmosphere, a measure of manifold pressure) to 1.2 ATA, when his fw-190D-9 had available 1.9 ATA (!!). "We almost never used it."
This was so routine that he says, quite extraordinarily, that he hardly
ever got out of that 50%-60% power range during combat(!!!!), except to get away. This means that to him combat in 1945, in a D-9, is
synonymous with circles at half power...
-Erich Brunotte (YT interview, "The Fighter Collection/Eagle Dynamics": "Luftwaffe fighter
pilot Erich Brunotte meets the Digital Combat Simulator FW-190D-9": 12:15: "Engine
Power Management": "
We almost never used full throttle – We had it on normal power but
we pulled back even from that, as you did not need that much in a fight – You used WEP to
get away or get close [straight lines] but it happened rarely – The manifold pressure [in
combat] was usually 0.9 to 1.2 ATA." [The FW-190D-9 maximum was 1.7/1.9 ATA.]
View: https://youtu.be/kOuVqP89058?si=Z586Oup91Od5O2dk
A combat between 16 P-38Ls and one Ki-43-II went on for 30 minutes with no hits scored, and all 16 P-38s went home out of gas or ammo... One pilot described it such: "
He just made constant circles loafing at low throttle with his canopy open, going extremely slow, and we never managed a single hit." It is too bad I cannot source that one...
A Fieseler Storch obtained a similar result when the Germans made tests to determine how the Me-109G could attack the Soviet Po-2s. The problem of a slow target was in this case so extreme that despite repeated tests, the Me-109 never managed to even get a single frame of the Fi-156
ON FILM... I can source that one...
Because boomers historians have made such a mess of thinking that reality conveniently lines up with their expectations (the Zero avoiding low speed turns, per Navy doctrine, being probably the most shocking example), we now have not the slightest understanding of how extreme the problem is of hitting a slow target making circles at minimum speed.
An N1K2 pilot described surviving 15 minutes of passes by 8 P-51Ds without suffering a single hit. The method? You guessed it: "
I was making circles at such an extremely slow speed that they could not understand what they were seeing." They just continued to approach and then were unable to correct, swinging by at useless speed... He was doing this over a lake near his home. I can source it.
And now for the king of slow turners, despite being extremely mushy and clumsy,
with a uniquely extreme speed loss during the initial phase of the turn, the Razorback P-47D... (Not to be confused in this with the Bubbletop...) No late war design was more obsessed with turning at extreme slow speed than the P-47D (at least in left turns...) Dive and then zoom? I can't recall a single clear cut case in nearly one thousand Encounter Reports I read through (twice)...:
-William M McDermott, 25 May 1944 [P-47D Razorback, needle-tip prop (superior prop for
low speed turns if using full power)]: "
The enemy aircraft [Me-109G-6] and I both banked
to the left at the same time. After 3 or 4 climbing turns I managed to get into a position to
fire a deflection shot, using about two rings and observing no hits. [5000 ft.] We continued in
a climbing Lufberry using full power and indicating 140 mph. I used two and half rings and
observed a few hits on his tail surfaces. We continued circling for approximately another full
turn when he suddenly snapped and spun in."
Note that here the needle-tip prop would be equivalent to using
partial power. In May it very likely was.
And now our good old Rechlin and KG 200 Luftwaffe test pilots, like most
WWII test pilots with little front-line experience, with their
usual test pilot propensity to use full power in turns, against an underpowered (!!!) P-47D Razorback (!!!!), with needle-tip prop (!!!!!), they of course cannot help but come across as Captain Obvious:
On Special Missions: The Luftwaffe's Research and Experimental Squadrons 1923-1945.
Classic, 2003: Luftwaffe KG 200 evaluation: "
The P-47D out-turns our Bf-109G."
Well
duh you know...
Another random example of the period obsession with lowered power:
-Kyosti Karhila, 32 victory ace (Finland):
"
I learned to fly with the "Cannon-Mersu" (Me-109G-6). I found that when fighter pilots got
in a battle, they usually applied full power and then began to turn. In the same situation I
used to decrease power, and with lower speed was able to turn equally well. With lower
speed you got the smaller radius, then you got the deflection.--When the enemy decreased power,
I used to throttle back even more."
It was literally a
contest of lowering power... Does this fit well with your conception of how this worked?
