The A2A Simulations Community

I wasn't sure whether to post this in the P-40 or P-51 forums. Anyway, now that I got my TrackIR working optimally, I decided to take a break from some things and fly the warbirds. I have noticed on the P-51 that the torque when using approach throttle settings is quite signifigant. I can dial in 100% right rudder trim, and I -still- have to be on the pedals and the ailerons to keep it from rolling left at approach power settings. The plane almost seems to want to do a forward slip all the way down to the ground.

Then I flew the P-40. I know that the Power/Drag settings are currently in a state of disrepair, but even when they weren't before, I didn't experience anywhere near as much torque. Once the rudder is trimmed, and I'm lined up, I can pretty much fly it straight down to the pavement without having to do much work on the rudder pedals or ailerons at all.

I'm curious if this is correct? The reason I ask is that I always was under the impression that the P-40 was far harder to fly and required a lot more input than the P-51. As it is, the P-40 seems like a pussy cat by comparison. Much easier to land, no problem hitting the center line. Easy as hell to trim in all configurations and flight regimes. Is this just because the P-40 is a little off right now, or is the torque over done in the P-51

I'm curious if anybody else has noticed any of this?

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2)i7 2600k, Gigabyte z68x, gtx 285s sli

I find that they do vary from one to the next, but all are managable, although I do need to trim the 40 a little more.

Something occurred to me about all this, that may or may not be worth noting re: the discussion about rudder input, general handling.

I've flown three different French Robins, and to all intents and purposes these are/were the same aircraft type, yet each felt a little different in handling - one moreso; Which required a boot full of right rudder to keep tracking straight during ground run, and rotation, in fact I could go almost as far to say; that I could've taken my foot off the left pedal altogether, and when balancing a left turn simply eased off pressure to the right pedal.

I understand that this was most likely an adjustment issue, but I wanted to share that, as it illustrates that not all aircraft of one type will be exactly the same across the range. Totally different kite from warbirds I know, and a minor factor.

John.

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~ Make love to the sky, don't shag it.

That's strange, because I'm saying I have to trim the 40 signifigantly less than the P-51. With the P-51 I can have the maximum amount of corrective trim dialed in, and she still wants to roll left with the power set somewhere around 15 inches of Man. Press and ~120 mph on final. Fuel loading was symetric. The -51 seems like a torque machine to me, whereas the P-40 seems very tame.

I don't know the right answer of course, but it doesn't feel right to me that there is so much torque at such low power settings, on the P-51, that can't be corrected with Full right rudder trim. If I was gunning the power, sure, but I'm using almost no power at all. I should have opened this issue in the P-51 forum, probably.

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1)i7 980x 4.35 ghz, gtx 470s SLI, Matrox th2go, Creative x-fi
2)i7 2600k, Gigabyte z68x, gtx 285s sli

My comparison was with straight and level, the 40 would hunt a little, and require a little more adjustment than the 51. This I draw from before the latest core-update, as recent flights with both have been blatting around within 2000ft of the ground in anything but straight and level. So things may be different.

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~ Make love to the sky, don't shag it.

You know, it's possible the P-51's bigger prop has something to do with it. It has one more blade, each one is bigger, and it has cuffs so there's a lot more inertia involved, as well as possibly more prop wash.

I definitely notice what you're talking about, though. I was bringing the mustang in an hour ago, forgot to dial in rudder trim on final and ended up using 5º or so of right aileron trim plus a little more on and off on the stick. Still, it didn't ruin the landing, it just caught me off guard.

As for trimming and stability in general, I've found the pitch in the P-40 tends to wander up and down a bit whenever there's significant fuel in back. Trimming keeps it more or less centered where I want it but I still have to keep my hand on the stick to keep her steady. Conversely, the P-51 always feels solid in terms of pitch stability, regardless of how full the fuselage tank is.

-Dave

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You must have missed the 100 post, absolutely disastrous thread I started in the P-51 Tech Forum that ended up getting locked over a week prior to your post In summary, information sought out from 3 separate and reliable sources outside of the forums have convinced me that the effect is quite possibly a bit overdone in the current P-51 version. It never was a sure thing, or an accusation of incorrectness or anything, just an honest question about an issue which wasn't squaring away with me and was affecting my immersion...but I was apparently unsuccessful in arguing the issue was legit enough to be further looked into, and there was no official commentary from A2A, so I assume any issue with this is dead on arrival. The thread was locked before it got too testy. "It is what it is," as they say and I'm pretty sure it would be considered gauche to discuss it beyond my response to your post

Regarding the pitch stability of the P-51 versus the P-40, I have to be honest, I've never flown the Mustang with the Fuse tank filled to the brim because I've never bothered to cruise long range. According to the manual, when the P-51's fuse tank is topped up it -ought- to suffer from reversability during certain manuevers. Real manual says "with the fuselage tank full, the center of gravity of the airplane moves back so far that it is almost impossible to trim the airplane for hands-off level flight. Also, as soon as you enter a tight turn or attempt a pullout, the stick forces reverse." That leads me to believe it realistically ought to be even worse than the P-40 in longitudinal stability with the Fuse tank filled. If that isn't happenning on the simulated article, well then, don't know what to tell ya...

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1)i7 980x 4.35 ghz, gtx 470s SLI, Matrox th2go, Creative x-fi
2)i7 2600k, Gigabyte z68x, gtx 285s sli

No I hadn't seen your thread, thanks for the heads up.

Regarding pitch stability with a full tank it, isn't totally stable but from what I've seen it isn't as bad as the P-40 with a full fuselage tank. Like yourself I rarely fly with fuel there as well, more testing necessary...

-Dave

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I can say that I don't have any of the trimming and stability problems you describe bigjuicyspider
I can takeoff with the 6 deg right rudder trim with about 1/2 to a 1/4 right rudder. To keep the plane trimmed I put in -5 Aileron trim and put the rudder back to "0"
Landing is not a problem 40 flaps with IAS 120-140 over the threshold power off and straight every time 1/4 right rudder with keep it straight down the runway
Same with the P-40 no problems at all and it doesn't matter what fuel I have in the tanks

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Ron
B-17 AIRFRAME 710 HRS PLUS AND CLIMBING




GIGABYTE X58A-UD5 MB, INTEL I7 950, 12GB DOMINATOR-GT DDR3 RAM, WIN7 64, GIGABYTE SUPER OVER CLOCK GTX 560 TI 1GB GGDDR5 1000Mz, CORSAIR 850W PS, NOCTUA NH-D14,
TRACKIR 5 & TrackClipPro

Norforce the P-51 issue is DEAD. I only responded to r4y30n to be polite and inform him that the issue had already been argued elsewhere to the point of a flame war. As you can tell from the original post, this thread was actually opened up mistakenly in the wrong forum, and then re-opened in the P-51 forum where it died a horrible death, and regretably many new enemies were created. They even created a new user called "A2A Support" entirely for the purpose of locking that thread; So let us not discuss it.


Concerning the P-40 and CG: You don't notice any longitudinal stability problems with the P-40 and a full fuse tank???...YOU SHOULD, because it is actually modelled that way and is entirely realistic to be so. It would be wrong and innacurate if you don't experience longitudinal stability problems with a full fuselage tank.

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1)i7 980x 4.35 ghz, gtx 470s SLI, Matrox th2go, Creative x-fi
2)i7 2600k, Gigabyte z68x, gtx 285s sli