Hmm, I'm not sure if there's really anything wrong with the plane performance-wise ... I mean if you do fly it by hand, it climbs just fine** and all. IMO the problem is that its elevator trim is messed up somehow, or maybe there's some center-of-gravity related problem that makes the plane nose heavy or something like that. ** I recall that one could manually climb the P-38J/L models at a pitch angle of 20° above the horizon at a constant 120 mph IAS and achieve a climb rate in excess of 4,000 fpm and get from zero to 10,000 feet in no time at all. I'm talking about the game, btw, not real life.
wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_sound#Speed_in_ideal_gases_and_in_air It is modeled by decreasing of controls sensitivity depending on speed and it it is not an idea of latest FH developers, it had been modeled this way in original WB too. Stick force is main factor of roll-rate falling with speed growth, and the reason of p-38's boosters introduction. If we could move ailerons to full angle at any speed, roll rate could became only better with more speed, at any plane. And elevator is same surface as aileron with same principles of work. Elevator applies to H-stab force, needed to keep it at particular angle to the airflow, at the end this force comes to stick and pilot. So, the turn u'll make at particular speed depends on angle of attack and wingload (larger wingload requires larger angle of atack), and the force u need depends on angle of attack and H-stab area. So, the more wingload and the more H-stab area the bigger force u have to apply to H-stab for same turn at same speed. P-38 is at the top of both factors. Yep, compressibility related features work with TAS (M-number, but it's little difference), not IAS, but compressibility is not the only limitation for controls, including elevator. In fact, i think WB does not model compressibility wrong, it just doesn't model it at all. "During high-speed flight approaching Mach 0.68, especially during dives, the aircraft's tail would begin to shake violently and the nose would tuck under, steepening the dive." - Does it look like anything we have in WB? This depends also on wingload, the more wingload the worse for gliding (at speed below about 200 mph), i didn't tested such performance of P-38, so can't argue if it is right or wrong, just hope u keep this in mind. And P-38 is plane with one of the largest (or mb just the largest) wingload in the game.
The mention of P38's recovering from compressibility at lower altitudes happens because the guys who experienced compressibility throttled back the engines to idle and the more dense air encountered as they descended allowed the plane to decelerate. The guys who kept throttle forward did not recover and that's why they have no story to tell. If someone kept the throttles firewalled during compressibility and survived to reach lower altitudes, I am sure that the condition would remain terminal until throttle is reduced completely and that it might only take a small amount of throttle to induce this condition to the terminal state. Some planes had drag/power/weight conditions that made it impossible to go fast enough in a dive to encounter compressibility but I'm pretty sure the conditions that made the fastest planes of WWII truly fastest also contribute to reaching speeds at which compressibility is a factor. I also don't think warbirds has the core code to deal with any of this but anyone who takes issue is free to write the code themselves.
Yeah, I think it flies well enough as well but, these are observations that are really obvious once compared to other similar aircraft. I've grown accustomed to these characteristics. Nose heavy seems to be the primary evidence. I've flown other aircraft and always wondered why when keeping the nose at about 1ROC the 38 would slow down, or when rolling it would start to lose altitude unless you corrected it, which would slow it down too. Other similar fighters I've flown here in past would better maintain speed and alt while rolling/banking. In the game/sim we're using, real world conditions are all stabilized and at the best conditions so climbing wouldn't really be a big issue. In the operator manual and other reference books there was mention of the 38's potential but, recommended to not attempt such feats for danger of real world conditions.
I see alw's aliases -alw--, --alw-, and thefox but he seems to have forgotten to add the alias -drew- he also uses in the arena.
Put down the crack pipe man, you're losing it. That is incorrect for one, and irrelevant to the topic. %)
Oh ... alright then. I knew that sound travels much faster at low alt and air is much denser at low alt, so I wrongly concluded the latter was the reason for the former.
Anything changed in speed of ships? I have a feeling they r much faster now , it is harder to aim for them....
I swear that the ships sped up a few months before the 1.68 release. The wakes are longer and thier behavior when bombed changed.
One more question about 1.68: Should spit mark I, be faster than beaufighter ? With full tank , wep on , at 50m alt, beaufighter reaches 466 km/h. Spit 1 with full tank wep on , reaches 470km/h. Without wep , spit is again faster. With 50%fuel, wep on, spit1 is again faster for about 1-2km/h. In previous versions, beaufighter was one of the fastest allied planes when it comes out ...
I noticed that too. The Beau accelerated faster and got to 300mph at sea level MUCH quicker than Spit. Seemed to have a higher top speed too.
Meteor is interesting too, acceleration is terrible (262 is imo much much better). I had 3 sorties, 3x shooted dwn by 1x20. 1x cfuelfire, 2x vstab+rudder. Dunno if it was only my bad luck or some kind of rgreat's sabotage
