a) That the power rating was too high
b) That German pilots chose to fight with derated engines
c) That the aileron was not adjusted correctly
The following link has a number of Spitfire combat reports and its interesting how few of them involve the low speed turn fighting that you say was the bread and butter of air combat.
Spitfire Mk I versus Me 109 E
Here is another link this time for Tempests and again few had the turning fight you love, interesting on at least one of them the Tempest stayed behind the Fw190 at Tree top level and the Tempest isn't any great shakes as a turning dogfighter.
Tempest V Performance
I must admit that I got sick to death of your quoting pro disk loads as an explanation for turning and derating engines. I certainly could be wrong as its been 30+ years since my training but it had notihg to do with turning. Either support it or withdraw the quote and explain why you kpept using something that was wrong.
And you have to recognise that Test Pilots in the war, with combat experience, at a flight fully equipped test centre, staffed with experts in their fields have a lot better chance of being right than me or you.
Gaston
-- If that is so, these "sophisticated" types would at least know what is the 6G "Corner Speed" of a P-51D wouldn't you think?
Would you care to tell me what is the accepted 6G "Corner Speed" for the P-51D after WWII (and up to this day in ALL computer simulations), and then to tell me what it actually tested like when the P-51D was actually tested in 1989 by the "Society of Experimental Test Pilots"?
Answer: Post war theory to this day: 6G "Corner Speed" is 2.44 times stall. P-51D Stall 100-105 MPH...
Accepted answer: 240-250 MPH: MINIMUM Speed at which 6 G can be reached...
Actual 1989 test by the "Society of Experimental test pilots"? I kid you not: 320 MPH. They were at roughly "Normal Power" (maximum continuous power) or today's METO; this is clearly because of the unaccounted prop disc load traction, non-existent in jets, which accounts for this staggering 80 MPH difference...
IF they had tested the P-51D at full WEP, my bet is the wing depressing effect of the prop disc would have delayed the minimum speed to reach 6G until it might have been have been as high as 350 MPH or even higher...
Kurt Tank mentionned reaching 7 Gs in the FW-190A at 400 MPH, and you can bet that was the minimum speed too, perfectly consistent with 6 Gs in the P-51D at 350 MPH + (Society of Test Pilots report says of the P--51D/P-47D/FG-1/F6F-5: "Corner Speed is very close to maximum level speed", perhaps implying that they noticed the 6G "Corner Speed"
moves up with the Level Speed at increased power...
In any case, I seriously doubt Kurt Tank really carved REAL 7 Gs turns in the FW-190A at any speed: He mentions a control stick weight of 2 lbs per G, or 14 pounds for 7 Gs: Absurdly low for an aircraft that could have "heavy elevators" at high speed depending on trim...
Likely the control weight was so light because the FW-190A no longer responded normally past 5 or 6 Gs at high speed: It went into nose-up deceleration because of tail stall, resulting in abnormally light controls that still responded in pitch, increasing or decreasing deceleration by increasing or decreasing the nose-up/tail down attitude. The turn or pull-out he was carving then was likely very "elongated", yet still very hard on the pilot, hence the P-47D comparison stating "a tendency to black-out the pilot" DESPITE "a vastly inferior angle of pull-out"...:
http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/3950/pag20pl.jpg
You have to admit that if they don't even know the true 6 G "Corner Speed", they basically know very little of use for combat...
Quote: "I must admit that I got sick to death of your quoting pro disk loads as an explanation for turning and derating engines. I certainly could be wrong as its been 30+ years since my training but it had notihg to do with turning. Either support it or withdraw the quote and explain why you kpept using something that was wrong."
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-Let me put this way: The nose pulls ahead AND above the wing, the elevator, to tilt the nose up, pushes down on the opposite side at the other end of a fairly long tail... Can you explain to me how does this NOT push down harder on the wing if the nose pulls harder against the overall drag? Yes I know the wing keeps up by lifting more as the angle increases, but that doesn't change the fact that more power means
more-to-lift (Please don't start that the lift axis is 500 ft. above the aircraft: It is the wings that does the lifting, and one half of the prop disc has to go slower in a turn no matter how you cut it... To make one half of the prop disc go slower than the other half you have to beat ALL the thrust in that "inside turn" half: 00000.5% slower STILL requires beating ALL the thrust there. To lift 100 lbs by one micrometer you have to lift with 100 lbs+ of force, or the weight will not move by one micrometer)
When pushed from behind the wings, as in a jet, the thrust is still usually above the wing, but then the leverage for a downward push is ONLY that vertical leverage, and not augmented by a second lever which is the 10-12 foot lenght of nose leverage for being pulled from AHEAD of the wing... Tilting the nose up ahead of the wing means SLOWING DOWN the top half of the prop disc, which has yet another lever to resist: A THIRD lever which is the 90° lever of the prop blade itself, from a blade thrust center 2/3rds of the way up the blade I'm told...
So nose prop vs tail jet: 3 levers versus just 1.... To push down on the wing in turns...
And no, there isn't any way out of it... I have already argued with engineers, pilots, and none of them could explain why this wasn't so... One aeronautical engineer agreed with me about the prop disc effect but not its intensity, which was "unclear" to him...
And notice what is the biggest of the 3 levers: The lenght of the nose... Now isn't that a coincidence that the FW-190A has a much shorter nose and out-sustain turns lighter aircrafts like the Spitfire and especially the Me-109G?
Is it a coincidence that when the British evaluated the FW-190D-9 they found the handling vastly inferior to a FW-190A (as German pilots already knew and commented on, but still often preferred the much better climb of the D-9 which they felt they sorely needed)?
Also: The Ki-100 vastly outperforms the Ki-61-1 in turns despite being heavier... The La-5 vastly out-performs in turns the LaGG-3 despite being ALSO heavier... (The Ki-100 by the way was tested by the Japanese as so superior in maneuverability to the Ki-84 that one Ki-100 could defeat 3 Ki-84s and repeat the feat by exchanging pilots: Another nail in the coffin of existing maths predicting nose-pulled in-flight turn performance...)
Quote:
"a) That the power rating was too high
b) That German pilots chose to fight with derated engines
c) That the aileron was not adjusted correctly
a) In the report.
b)Whoever said that? At best a possible choice from above them in view of poor high speed handling and better durability. Who cares? Derating does indicate they did not hugely care about high speed performance however...
c) Pronounced aileron snatching described as characteristic: Sorry but the US Navy is all alone on this point at least...
Still waiting for those multiple 360° contest down on the deck, or at least level, slow speed and not too high, where the Spitfire wins versus the FW-190A... Something that looks like this for instance:
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/4716/jjohnsononfw190.jpg
Gaston
