Stalllll

The most maneuverable WWII aircraft in history
Cherokeepilot19
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Stalllll

Post by Cherokeepilot19 »

Stall buffet is kinda harsh, even when unloaded. Is there a way to make it a little more agile, it stall on slight turns at times, otherwise, this is a masterpiece! :D

Cherokeepilot19
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Post by Cherokeepilot19 »

Someone please respond to this, its been 10 days... :?

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Scott - A2A
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Post by Scott - A2A »

The FW190 had a harsh stall - it could depart flight and enter into a spin with almost no warning. The P47, for example, is much more forgiving than the FW190.

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Post by ICDP »

Sorry Scott but that is a myth started by USAAF and RAF pilots who test flew badly maintained captured Fw190's. If the ailerons were allowed to become uncalibrated they created quite a few handling problems such as less stall warning. When calibrated correctly by mechanics trained on the type they would give ample stall warning. The Fw190 according to LW sources had very sensitive ailerons that required correct calibration. Ailerons on captured aircraft were badly out of adjustment exhibiting aileron flutter and reversal leading to premature stalling in the turn

This is noted in this translation from Hauptmann Gollob´s report for Rechlin on the tactical trials of an FW-190A2 and a Bf-109F4.

http://www.terra.es/personal2/matias.s/aleirons.jpg

I simply cut and pasted the above from another forum, I hope they don't mind.

The Fw190A should not be stalling as easily as it does with the WoP version. I still love flying the WoP Anton though :)

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Post by Scott - A2A »

This is well documented by Luftwaffe pilots who spoke about it during the war and also with the few 190 pilots still alive today. Just look at the airframe - that tells a lot in itself too.

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Post by danjama »

On the contrary, It is also said by luftwaffe pilots that it was one of the easiest planes to fly (many preferred it to the 109) and one of the most maneuverable.

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Post by SD_Research »

I guess it all depends on who you choose to believe. Our research clearly showed that the plane had a much more sudden, and vicious, stall departure than the Mustang, for example. As for this being a myth, that's the first we've heard of it. Captain Eric Brown, of course, is firmly on record as stating the plane flies in this manner, along with many others. Are there those who disagree? Certainly, but we have to go with the preponderance of evidence here, not with the iconoclasts. If the ailerons were overly sensitive and contributed to this condition, it would be more realistic to model this into the aircraft, since it is unlikely that planes with a lot of combat hours on them would have perfectly balanced ailerons. Regardless of the cause, the plane was known for its unforgiving stall departure and to omit that from the flight dynamics would be remiss.

Could we make it easier to fly? Sure, but why? If you can fly the Mustang, you can fly this one. Each WoP plane is set up to reflect the manner in which the vast majority of pilot reports state it flies. Thus, the Mustang is more of a handful than the P-47, and the Fw 190 is more of a handful than the Mustang. Our Mustang was reviewed by pilot with a lot of hours in the real thing and we got very high marks for the flight model, so the added difficulty of the Fw 190 is not out of line. One can always adjust the realism controls for each aircraft if desired.

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Post by ICDP »

SDresearch,

I am not saying it should be easy to fly, I agree it had a fairly bad stall characterisitics. I am merely stating that the WoP 190A is too far in the extreme. It is also unfair for you to assume that it would be normal for aircraft with high combat hours to have poorly adjusted ailerons. The proper adjustment of these ailerons would not be a hard job and would have been done very regularly.

Read the text again, even the LW are warning that due to the inexperience of the new Fw190, units "lack the experience to correct the very sensitive ailerons". If the as of then untrained LW ground crews lacked experience on this issue how do you think the RAF/USAAF units would fare with captured versions. The text then clearly states that the result of badly adjusted ailerons was "aileron vibration at certain speeds and leads to premature stalling in turns". The Faber 190-A3 is a perfect example of how to get it wrong. They ran it at too high a boost setting (1.42 rather than 1.36ata) and they still managed only 389mph at its rated altitude, some 18-24mph too slow for a 190A at 1.42ATA. They stated that the engine ran very rough until they changed the spark plugs, this spark plug fouling was the result of using incorrect fuel. So a badly maintained Fw190A3 with the wrong fuel, badly aligned ailerons and a rough running engine is NOT going to give good results.

I never take into account what any test results of captured aircraft show. These captured aircraft are at best not correctly maintained or flown and at worst also repairs of crash landed specimens. The infamous A6M2 captured by the allies had the carbueretor installed upside down during re-assembly. As a result of this they incorrectly assumed that the A6M2 would cut out under negative G. The cockpit of the Mig15 was said by USAAF test results to "mist up" during rapid dives. It turned out the Mig 15 they had tested had a faulty climate control and this was not a "feature" of the real Mig15. These are just some examples of how inexperience in the maintanence, repair and flying of aircraft will lead to erroneous data.

If you are going to rely on reports obtained using captured aircraft flown and maintained by personnel unfamiliar in the type you will get it wrong.

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Post by Osram »

ICDP, unfortunately there is no one source that is 100% reliable, you always have to check the reliability yourself, try to get several sources etc.

Factory tests often had self interest, combat pilots normally were not test pilots and comparing with enemy planes of course they would normally not know how good the enemy pilots are (IOW whether they see an effect of the plane type or the pilot), modern planes often are different in quite a number of aspects starting with fuel used up to complete different engines, kill numbers were wrong due to honest mistakes, they were wrong due to deliberate mistakes, loss reports were more reliable but even they in AFAIK all countries were at least slightly "beautified" etc etc. Bascially for any "known" fact about back then you will find at least one knowledgable guy saying the oposite. The job as historic expert on a flight sim is to be able to put all the information sources together to arrive at a very probably realistic picture.

Regarding the 190, I do remember reading an US pilot, I can't remember whether P51 or P47, who had been chased by 3 FW 190s and pulls up sharply and looking back sees one after the other of the 3 in quick succession flip over as they stall out, having pulled too much and of course by the time they regained control, they were no dangers for him any more. That's just one stone of the mosaic ;).

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Post by ICDP »

Hi Osram,

The US pilot in your story was flying a P38. He was referring to the fact that the P38 could get very slow without having to worry about torque. It wouldnt have mattered if the following fighters were 109's, A6M's, Mc202's or any other single engined fighter. They all would have flipped over due to excessive torque at very slow speeds. This was one of the P38's unique characteristics.

The quote I linked to was from a LW test between the Bf109F and the new Fw190A2. It was an independant test not linked to Focke Wulf (so factory exagerated resutls are not possible). I agree that it is better to have as much data as possible so we can start to see the complete picture but IMHO tests done on captured/repaired and badly maintained aircraft flown by pilots inexperienced on the type are not valid. All to often we see these types of reports and they fall far short of official tests (not factory tests which can be exagerated).

I have scans of an official Rechlin report that has the following quote regarding the Fw190A flight behaviour.

"(a) In stalls a vibration arises in the ailerons, the aircaft making a rolling movement corresponding to the movement of the ailerons. This phenomenon is harmless if the ailerons are correctly adjusted, for the forces which arise are not too great."

"(b) With high speeds (over 500kph on the indicator at 9000 meters, 600 at 7 km, 700 at 5 km 750 at 4 km) an overcompensation occurs in one part of the lateral movement of the stick (a "gap" in the control movement). Frequentley nothing is to be noticed in the middle sections. Then on the application of the ailerons the stick suddenly continues further of it own accord, although not as far as the stop. One counters this, gets into the overcompensatory sector of the other side. The aircraft at the same time makes the corresponding rolling movements. With a correctly flown-in aircraft this phenomenon ought to be only slightly noticeable at the above speeds. With extremely badly adjusted ailerons, however, overcompensation is already present in the take-off".

With the above in mind lets look at a qutoe from a USN test comparing the F6F, F4U and Fw190A5 (a converted Jabo).

"The Fw190 when in a tight turn to the left and near the stalling speed exhibits a tendency to reverse aileron control and stall without warning. Similarly when turning to the right it tends to drop the right wing and nose diving as a result"

As we can see the USN tests were obviously conducted on a aircraft that had very badly adjusted ailerons. The LW Rechlin test outlines that extremely badly adjusted ailerons will cause the kind of issues encountered in the USN test. It is for this reason that I tend to ignore test results carried out on captured, repaired, incorrectly configured and poorly maintained aircraft. Even the best pilots in the world (eg Capt Eric Brown) will not get an accurate evaluation in these circumstances.

The point I am trying to make is that when doing FM's for WoP aircraft you should rely mainly on actual official test dat from the relevent airforces. So using ANY USN/USAAF or RAF tests for modelling FM's on German aircraft is going to yield bad results due to the factors I have outlined. Fortunately the USAAF/USN types are still being flown very regularly so they don't run into this issue.

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Post by SD_Research »

We did use official test data.

Let us just state for the record that the Fw 190 is more vicious in a stall, even with perfectly adjusted everything, than a P-51. How much more vicious might be a matter for debate, but the Fw 190 has been widely reported to be a tougher plane to control post-stall than just about any other fighter we've heard about. We don't think ours is overmodeled by any stretch, we tested it very thoroughly and it is quite controllable if the pilot takes some time to get to know the plane. There is adequate warning if you don't horse the stick around and develop a fine sense of control. We use force feedback, and clearly someone not using force feedback and rudder pedals is going to have a lot more trouble with this plane than someone who does have this setup. To be honest, trying to recover from a stall using a twistgrip is not going to work out very well with this kind of plane. We set our planes up for the best systems, and expect folks to spend a good deal of time getting acclimated to them. That's what "Absolute Realism" is all about. If we made it easy to fly, someone else would be complaining because it wasn't snapping over and spinning post-stall. We can't please everyone, but for those reading this thread, we stand behind the flight dynamics of this aircraft and recommend a good period of getting acquainted before coming to any conclusions about what's accurate. Being as there aren't any Fw 190s flying at the moment (and if there were, the pilots would NOT be pushing them as they would in combat), it's a bit hard to make a statement of "fact". So we are going with our best assessment and stand by it. The Fw 190 is the toughest plane in our hangar to control post-stall, followed by the Mustang. The Bf 109, Spitfire, and Zero are much more forgiving by comparison.

Our Fw 190 is a "hot" airplane and demands attention and we wouldn't have it any other way.

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Post by Point-man »

Excuse me if I'm out of line here but I personally think that the FW-190 is a great plane to fly and if you don't watch it, it will bite you in the butt so to speak. As far as the documentation goes, anybody could write something down and call it "true" or whathave you. That fact of the matter is going straight to the source is the best way, the pilots that flew them. Unfortunatly we are losing more and more vets everyday. Of course the factory is probably going to over state what the plane is able to do. I mean heck if you had Hitler coming after you wouldn't you tell him what he wanted to hear... hehe If you want to, look at the differences in the wings of the planes and tell me you think a plane with half the wing surface is going to be more stable. I'm not saying the 190 was a bad plane, looking at history shows it was a good plane. Germany just didn't have enough experienced pilots to fly them. That's just my opinion though. Keep up the great work guys.
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Post by ICDP »

I get vibration prior to a stall in the 190 (force feedback). My minor issue is that it is stalling slightly too early (IMHO). I am not dissputing that you didnt use official data, I am trying to get accross the point that pilot reports from people like Capt Eric Brown are TOTALLY INVALID when it comes to captured types. If 10 pilots claim the 190 had a vicious stall but they all flew a cuptured and badly maintained specimen then their opinion is not valid. If official test pilots claim they gets aileron vibration prior to a stall (as the official report shows) then that totaly invalidates any information taken from captured 190's. I have never seen one single allied test report that didn't claim the 190 they had ran rough (wrong fuel) or had no stall warning (badly alligned ailerons).

So if you used any of the testimonies from allied test pilots who flew 190's in this condition then you are using incorrect data. I am not blaming the pilots, I am merely making the point that no matter how good the pilots are they are not getting the best out of a broken 190.

It is all open to interpretation I suppose. Please don't take my opinions as negative critiscism, I actually love flying the WoP 190A's. I look forward to your every release in the Wings of Power series. Keep up the excellent work.

Regards.

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Post by Osram »

ICDP wrote:Hi Osram,

The US pilot in your story was flying a P38.
Oooops - I have to admit it has been fairly long ago I read that story. :oops:
He was referring to the fact that the P38 could get very slow without having to worry about torque. It wouldnt have mattered if the following fighters were 109's, A6M's, Mc202's or any other single engined fighter.
My point is not whether the German pilots would have been able to directly follow - my point is they pulled too much and I am sure they did not want to stall. IOW, they did not notice the onset of stall (early enough).

Also - but here my memory is slightly hazy - I think he said the 190s flipped over completely onto their backs, and I doubt a stall would have that severe consequences in say a 109.

I do agree with you that Rechlin data / reports is one of the best sources of information on German WWII aviation data.

I admit ;) you make a good case that that the USN 190 had been badly adjusted. I further admit I am no 190 expert and that for basically any bit of "general knowledge" someone knowledgable says the oposite. But my "feeling" after reading about WWII aviation for 30 years is that the 190 does have more issues with stalls than say the 109 and a quick google for "fw190 stall" seems to confirm that.

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Post by ICDP »

Agreed Osram, the 109 had a very docile stall and spin behaviour and the 190 wouldn't come close to this behaviour. I have read that P38 pilots used this tactic well against even A6M's and Ki43's in the PTO. It was a last ditch ass to the wall, balls in a vice type maneuver though :)

I also agree that the 190 did have vicious stall characteristics but my point was/is that allied reports of "no stall warning" are exagerated due to poorly maintained captured 190's. The net result of the allied tests would be a 190 that was seriously dissadvantaged in turn. In essence the test pilots would be expecting no warning or vibration when approaching a stall. The pilot would then be taking it easy during maneuvers to avoid this uncharacteristic behaviour.

Unfortunatley with so few survivors who flew these aircraft we are incresingly having to rely on sometimes inaccurate data to model FM's. This is why FM's gurus have to be carefull what data they use.

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