drgondog
Major
You are correct, I should have tempered the remarks.
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ah DG, ever the gentleman....why dont you say how you really feel....
I'm still trying to figure out why rudders don't seem to factor into Gaston's "calculations" - I'm sure I read somewhere that rudders might be important when it comes to helping many aircraft to turn circles. Maybe he's assuming the Fw 190 and Spitfire IX were flying wings?
I was "serious"....I thought you have excercised a great deal of restraint to be honest
I'm still trying to figure out why rudders don't seem to factor into Gaston's "calculations" - I'm sure I read somewhere that rudders might be important when it comes to helping many aircraft to turn circles. Maybe he's assuming the Fw 190 and Spitfire IX were flying wings?
Just for interest here's an account of a Typhoon taking on an Fw 190 at low altitude (Desmond Scott Typhoon Pilot p. 37):
"The FW 190s foolishly dived under us towards the sea....Within seconds I was firing directly down on an FW 190. He turned to port close to the water....Suddenly we were at the same level and locked in a desperate battle to out-turn each other.
I applied the pressure to get my sights ahead of him, but I kept losing my vision...; a little less pressure on the control column would bring my sight back into focus. I could see him looking back at me on the other side of our tight circle. I knew he was experiencing the same effects, and although I could feel my own aircraft staggering a little, I continued to apply the pressure...With my heart pounding in my throat I applied some top rudder to get above him. Just as I did so his wings gave a wobble and he flicked over and hit the sea upside down."
At low altitudes it seems that a Typhoon was capable of keeping up in a turning dual with an Fw 190, with the result that the 190 flicked into a stall trying to tighten his turn.
This is not only a combat betwen two machines but between two men, the typhoon pilot was clearly suffering from the effects of "G" forces, he was the hunter but struggled to keep the FW in his sights. The pressure is on the persued aircraft since one hit from a cannon at sea level is almost certain death, as is blacking out, stalling or just hitting a wave. He saw the wings wobble is that a stall or the pilot blacking out? The persuing pilot was losing vision, the persued must push harder he may have stalled or he may have just lost conciousness. These two men wernt playing a video game you can re load it was a fight to the death where the typhoon pilot had the advantage, if the positions were reversed the outcome would possibly be the same. Even in 1944 (and much earlier) a fighter could turn fast enough to render its pilot unconcious, flying on the limit was a skill learned by the lucky ones and it isnt a constant. The g forces a man can withstand arnt constant between men and with one man on different days it can vary.
To say the typhoon out turned the FW is reading something that may not be there, reverse the situation and the same may have happened since the FW190 certainly downed a huge number of allied fighters of all types (in the quoted engagement the typhoon started with height advantage). An ace pilot in an fw190 could out fly a novice no matter what allied plane they were flying and vice versa.
Having read the above and many other accounts like them I treat discussion of 15 minute individual turning fights as pie in the sky not only would the combatants be delirious and dizzy but since all aircraft had radios any friendly aircraft (from either side) within 100 miles could intervene with a free shot.
To resolve all the vectors on a turning aircraft is an impossibility, even with todays computer programmes aircraft and cars still have a test programme. Thrust is the pilots choice, weight is constantly changing everything changes with altitude and air pressure. If you use the same values you can approximate which is the better plane under most conditions but not all and factoring in pilot skill is pure guess work. I have read many times that during the B o B a hurricane was a better plane for a novice and spitfire was the better plane for an expert.
The turning performance of an airplane is the least significant and most readily sacrificed attribute of a combat plane. A plane turns better with no armour oxygen bottles radios ammunition or parachutes. Any plane of that era gave its best tuning performance with only one bullet left in its guns and on its last pint of fuel. The last models of the spitfire were almost 2 times the weight of the first but no pilot would want to fly a Mk I into battle in 1944, however many would like to fly a Mk I for the joy of flying it, it was by all accounts I have read the most pleasant to fly.
Since the poll is about a report compiled by people who forgot more than I could hope of knowing I agree with it.
Question to Gaston or someone who knows:
Why is it that the Fw 190 had such a poor ability to pull out of a dive in comparison to other fighters?
Was it ever remedied?
regards
Huey
Especially when some of the said "skilled" pilots mention reducing the throttle for long periods as being a key part of their success...
I did not reply for a while because I realized there were still areas of my theory, and the accepted theory, that I did not fully understand...
You could expand that concept a great deal by acknowledging there nothing about accepted theory that you understand.
I have done more calculations and graphics, and the full picture is much clearer now: It does look like aero engineers got the wingloading vs turn rate relationship fundamentally wrong for traction (and I now know why). They have been making for decades a rather enormous mistake that should be demonstrable...
And still the aircraft seem to fly in accordance with predictions based on engineering analysis... how strange that concept must be for you.
The idea that sustained turn outcomes all depends on mythical "pilot skills" is exactly what has kept things in the dark for so long, and in fact it is hard to see how it could do anything to clarify things...
One wonders what happens when you are substituted for a skilled pilot and now must manage the maneuver to survive?
Especially when some of the said "skilled" pilots mention reducing the throttle for long periods as being a key part of their success...
Unfortunatley reducing throttle also reduces airspeed, and one either re-establishes equilibrium or 'small things become large' and success is a simple factor based on either landing safely or bailing out.
See you soon...
Gaston
Seems that Boeing 747 is soon to fly with only one engine aboard. And the engine will be engaged only for take off.
...
I have done more calculations and graphics, and the full picture is much clearer now: It does look like aero engineers got the wingloading vs turn rate relationship fundamentally wrong for traction (and I now know why). They have been making for decades a rather enormous mistake that should be demonstrable...
...