Spitfire IX v. FW 190A

[Glider]

If I can add to Claidemore's posting these test results were supported by the combat reports I posted on Posting 96.

However to deal with the Fw 190 being outturned the following examples were in the link I did give you.

PO J Stewart 30th July 1942
I stall turned to attack the rear two Fw190, They broke and turned with me but I could easily out turn them and got several bursts at the rear one.

S/Ldr Watkins 19th August 1942
A FW 190 dived down to my height and swept around behind me, I easily turned inside the enemy aircraft and fired a short burst at 45 degree deflection



Flt Lt Manak 5th September 1942
One of them got onto my tail I avoided him by a left hand climbing turn

S/Ldr T Gaze 11th October 1942
Whilst the left one turned, I easily out turned him and fired a long burst.

So we have the test reports being supported by pilots combat reports that the Spitfire can easily turn inside a Fw190.

Against this we have a report from a Hurricane Pilot. Now lets think about his for a moment.
a) Did this pilot ever fly a Spitfire in combat? I don't know but the probability is that he didn't. Most Hurricane Squadrons were either posted overseas or converted to Typhoons. His comment makes sense if he was flying Typhoons against Fw 190, as there was little in it so the tactical situation and skill of the pilots involved would have a major influence on the result.
b) If he was only a Hurricane Pilot did he fly combat against Fw 190? Possibly as a Hurrie Bomber which adds another factor to the debate. The RAF knew that the Spit V was clearly outclassed by the Fw 190 and would not knowingly send Hurricane fighters against the Fw 190, as their chances of success were very slim, at best.

[Glider]

P.S Still waiting for those super-out-turning Me-109G combat reports... I mean by that, the Me-109G out-turning ANYTHING (Karhila's downthrottling to 160 MPH quote is the only one I am aware of: I eagerly want to find more...) G.

Gaston

I don't have any combat reports about Me109's turning tighter than other fighters but then again:-
a) As the Me109 would have won the battle the loser is unlikely to have been around to write the report.
b) I did post previously the advice given to his Pilots by Clostermann (someone you were keen to quote when you thought it suited you). I repeat it here in case you have forgotten it
I kept reminding my pilots to keep their speed above 300mph for Me109's could turn better than we could at lower airspeeds and you had to watch out for the 30mm in the nose as it wouldn't give you a second chance. The Best Technique was to do a spiral dive and work the speed up to 450 mph, do a straight climb and start all over again.
I think its safe to assume that he wouldn't have kept reminding his pilots of this advice without good reason.

Finally as you are talking about still waiting for things. I remind you (again) that my offer is still open re analysing the ten combat reports either side of one of your choice to see how common a sustained turning combat was.
I have no preference of aircraft type, Spitfire, Tempest, P51 or P47. The choice is all yours.
I was going to let this lie but you keep repeating this type of comment recently saying:-
There is not ONE instance of that in 600 reports (where sustained or near-sustained turning combat is almost always used).

So all I am asking you to do is support this clearly incorrect statement.

I await your reply with interest.

[DonL]

Some hints and thoughts.

The Fw 190A and Bf 109G were often compared by the LW in Rechlin.
There were some hints between the line. And the guys at Rechlin were not lying in their own jacket.

The Bf 109 was a true energy fighter, which was a real bitch to fly.The strenghts of the Bf 109 were in the vertical not in the horizontal, The FW 190 were much more easy for rookies and the FW 190 was built to fly high speed with easy controls. The Bf 109 was much harder to control at high speed.
The general comparation was, that the Bf 109 had much more acceleration, could climb better and turn tighter at low speeds with the slats. At high speeds the FW 190 had the edge, cause of the much easier controls. At a dive the FW 190 was faster and much easier to control. But with an very experienced Pilot the Bf 109 G was the better fighter, cause of the much better weight to power ratio (acceleration), and at the horizontal the Bf 109G could turn much tighter than an FW 190.
But that was said very often between the line's, the Bf 109 was in need of a very experienced pilot to bring out it's good's. The FW 190 was much much easier to fly for rookies and much easier to control at high speed.
No german fighter was an horizontal fighter (crossing at high speed at the horizontal), all had their good's at vertical maneuver, climb, dive, and acceleration.

Edit:
Erich Hartmann could bring down 4 USSAF Mustangs in 10 min. with an very classic boom and zoom (from high altitude with the much bettter position) tactic and later on, could turn tighter than 7 Mustangs (the Mustangs played it fair). That's shows in real life, what an ordinary Bf 109 G6 ( without MW50 and GM1) could manage to do, whith an outstanding Pilot.. After that it was more a standof, cause of the high respect from all sides.

[Gaston]

If I can add to Claidemore's posting these test results were supported by the combat reports I posted on Posting 96.

However to deal with the Fw 190 being outturned the following examples were in the link I did give you.

PO J Stewart 30th July 1942
I stall turned to attack the rear two Fw190, They broke and turned with me but I could easily out turn them and got several bursts at the rear one.

S/Ldr Watkins 19th August 1942
A FW 190 dived down to my height and swept around behind me, I easily turned inside the enemy aircraft and fired a short burst at 45 degree deflection

Flt Lt Manak 5th September 1942
One of them got onto my tail I avoided him by a left hand climbing turn

S/Ldr T Gaze 11th October 1942
Whilst the left one turned, I easily out turned him and fired a long burst.

So we have the test reports being supported by pilots combat reports that the Spitfire can easily turn inside a Fw190.

Against this we have a report from a Hurricane Pilot. Now lets think about his for a moment.
a) Did this pilot ever fly a Spitfire in combat? I don't know but the probability is that he didn't. Most Hurricane Squadrons were either posted overseas or converted to Typhoons. His comment makes sense if he was flying Typhoons against Fw 190, as there was little in it so the tactical situation and skill of the pilots involved would have a major influence on the result.
b) If he was only a Hurricane Pilot did he fly combat against Fw 190? Possibly as a Hurrie Bomber which adds another factor to the debate. The RAF knew that the Spit V was clearly outclassed by the Fw 190 and would not knowingly send Hurricane fighters against the Fw 190, as their chances of success were very slim, at best.

Less slim than the Spitfire V and its lack of superior Mk IX climb rate, and thus boom and zoom ability on the vertical... (The only way the Mk IX will gain an edge over the Mk V, as we have seen in the British test: Remember that math-noxious conclusion about turn rates, with 15% more power-to-weight ratio(!) on the Mk IX side?... +15% in power-to-weight = +0% in turn rate)

After all, we all agree the Hurricane DID out-turn the Spitfire in sustained turns, do we not? Thus they likely did better vs the FW-190A than a Mk V at least....

The whole reason the myth of superior Spitfire turn rate got established, it seems clear to me now, is because of the Spitfire's superior turn RADIUS...

It is also clear to me the mistake in procedure test pilots do is to consider a dogfight won when they get a sight picture and hold it for a few seconds... This allows clearly silly and outrageous statements like "The Spitfire V out-turns the FW-190A" to be pervasive in such tests...

The problem is that the gun hit rate in actual combat is around 2% (Luftwaffe study), and this is what changes a large part of the picture...

A very long burst of 50 rounds per gun: around 5 seconds of continuous firing throughout a full quater circle continuously(!), will yield from a tailing Spitfire a likely TWO 20 mm impacts and about FOUR 7.7mm bullet holes...

If the pilot is lucky... Now he will be firing about one eight of a circle every full circle if he is not wasteful, so ONE 20 mm hit and TWO 7.7 mm bullet holes for every full 360° circle while in tailing position...

This follows the number of circle it took to get in position... (Hopefully against the FW-190A not more than one and half turns, or it's likely a lost cause...)

So all the successful Spitfire "out-turning" combats are those that gained a firing position quickly (within a 360° turn and a half at most, and not from a head-on merge. You'll note above one example of a FW-190A actually tailing and being reversed, and of course the FW-190A was diving into the tailing position... Tailing FW-190As being reversed (always very quickly) by Spitfires are always going at a pretty high speed IE: See P-47D comparative test comments for speeds above 250 MPH: http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/3950/pag20pl.jpg...) and also the Spitfires had the additional good luck to score fatal hits within the first 50-100 shots of a single burst... All of this you'll note is (what a coincidence!) exactly what all the examples thrown at me here show... No multiple consecutive 360° turns in sight...

What would be more indicative is a head-on merge at co-altitude and moderate speed with at least no previous diving... Like this for instance!: http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/471...sononfw190.jpg

The trouble is that more commonly, if the start situation is more even and as a face-to-face merge, as described in the Johnny Johnson encounter (rather than the Spitfire starting from somewhere behind already) then the time to gain plus the time to hit and destroy is often enough to evolve into the second or third 360°, by which time things start to get hopeless for the Spitfire (unless maybe it is a Mk IX which can make steep climbs out of the turn to shift the fight to the vertical, as it did in tests against the Mk V).

This is I think exactly why there is all this confusion on this issue...: Turn contests by test pilots do not involve actual shooting and hitting until smoke and fire comes out, so the turn contest is limited to gaining an approximate sight picture and calling it a win...

What is striking in this bias is that if we understand the bias of unsustained turn radius vs prolonged turn rate, all the test pilot conclusions vs front line comments make perfect sense: Test pilots note superficially the shorter turn radius, and combat pilot note (with guns firing which also slows down the aircraft noticeably in sustained turns) the prolonged turn sustainability...

In unsustained turn radius, the hierarchy is exactly what intuition would expect:

Spitfire Mk IX, Me-109G, P-51D, P-47D, FW-190A...

In sustained turns, to left at least, the real-life picture is completely different:

FW-190A, P-47D, Spitfire Mk IX, P-51D, Me-109G

This, plus the utter confusion over what full power does to the sustained turn rate (if you don't downthrottle throughout the successive 360° turns), when this power pulls from the nose as opposed to pushing from the tail, makes the overall "corrected" picture very coherent, right down to the shorter-nosed types having generally an edge in sustained turns, though maybe not exclusively for that reason alone...

More coherent than the pathetic notion of the Me-109G out-turning the Razorback P-47 to left for instance... (Let's have combat examples of THAT... Lol!)

Anyway, I don't know in how many different ways I can explain the same thing over and over...

Gaston

P.S. As for the Hurricane pilot being an inexperienced doofus, let's just say I don't buy it... After all, why do the Russians combat pilots "consensus experience" say: "The FW-190A will inevitably offer turning combat at a minimum speed"?!?

They, and Johnny Johnson, and many others, are all out to lunch, right?

Gaston

[Glider]

So in the end you believe that a Hurricane stands a better chance against a Fw190 than a Spit V. Priceless, simply priceless.

[Glider]

Please do not put words in my mouth. I did not say that the Hurricane Pilot was inexperienced, just that he was a Hurricane Pilot who probably moved on to either an overseas posting or onto Typhoons. Also if he did fight Fw190's in a Hurricane it was probably as a Hurrie Bomber pilot.

You have been shall we say, liberal in your interpretations of the evidence, which is your choice, I leave others to make their own deductions.
One example being the fact that sustained turns were the bread and butter of combat. This is patently wrong based on the evidence that you supplied. If this upsets you then take up my offer of reviewing the ten combats either side of one of your choice and I will apologise.
Another example is the one you have just made about the hit rate of 2%. I am sure that figure is correct, but to then assume that applies to all combats no matter what the range is a huge leap. Generally speaking the closer the range the better the chance of a hit. I have no doubt that at long range it was a lot less than 2% and at close range a lot higher. However quite what that had to do with the turn ability of the two aircraft is beyond me.

However don't try to say that I have said things, that I didn't.

[claidemore]

Are you kidding me?

Originally posted by Gaston:
The problem is that the gun hit rate in actual combat is around 2% (Luftwaffe study), and this is what changes a large part of the picture...

A very long burst of 50 rounds per gun: around 5 seconds of continuous firing throughout a full quater circle continuously(!), will yield from a tailing Spitfire a likely TWO 20 mm impacts and about FOUR 7.7mm bullet holes...

If the pilot is lucky... Now he will be firing about one eight of a circle every full circle if he is not wasteful, so ONE 20 mm hit and TWO 7.7 mm bullet holes for every full 360° circle while in tailing position...

This follows the number of circle it took to get in position... (Hopefully against the FW-190A not more than one and half turns, or it's likely a lost cause...)

Do you actually expect anyone to believe that every time each pilot fired his weapons at an enemy plane only 2% of his rounds hit? The 2% figure is an estimated average for ALL pilots, and has no applicaiton to any individual encounter. One pilot (or several) will miss completely (0% hits), and another pilot may have every round hit it's target (100% hits). Your example is completely misleading and useless.

By the way, in 5 seconds of firing, the four Browning .303s in a Spit V will spit out 96 rounds each, not 50. The Hispano cannon will fire 50 rounds in 5 seconds.

I don't think anyone has agreed that a Hurricane has a better sustained turn than a Spitfire, and one pilots opinion certainly doesn't prove it. The TsAAGI test show an extremely slim difference between the Spit and the Hurricane, certainly not enough to see a difference in combat.
Against an FW 190 any Hurricane is so completely outclassed in every performance area that turn ability is completely moot. Climb, speed, accelleration, dive, roll rate, firepower, all favor the 190. The Hurricane cannot catch an FW (except by surprise) and it certainly cannot outrun one.

As for downthrottling to improve a turn, if the Spit Mk IX has a 15% greater thrust to weight ratio, why doesn't the Mk V turn better? It's definately putting out less power, but turn rate is identical?

[Gaston]

Are you kidding me?





Do you actually expect anyone to believe that every time each pilot fired his weapons at an enemy plane only 2% of his rounds hit? The 2% figure is an estimated average for ALL pilots, and has no applicaiton to any individual encounter. One pilot (or several) will miss completely (0% hits), and another pilot may have every round hit it's target (100% hits). Your example is completely misleading and useless.

By the way, in 5 seconds of firing, the four Browning .303s in a Spit V will spit out 96 rounds each, not 50. The Hispano cannon will fire 50 rounds in 5 seconds.

I don't think anyone has agreed that a Hurricane has a better sustained turn than a Spitfire, and one pilots opinion certainly doesn't prove it. The TsAAGI test show an extremely slim difference between the Spit and the Hurricane, certainly not enough to see a difference in combat.
Against an FW 190 any Hurricane is so completely outclassed in every performance area that turn ability is completely moot. Climb, speed, accelleration, dive, roll rate, firepower, all favor the 190. The Hurricane cannot catch an FW (except by surprise) and it certainly cannot outrun one.

As for downthrottling to improve a turn, if the Spit Mk IX has a 15% greater thrust to weight ratio, why doesn't the Mk V turn better? It's definately putting out less power, but turn rate is identical?

-The "balance point" at which more power helps the airframe, or doesn't, in sustained turns, is not something I claim is predictable for all airframes...

In any case, I would expect the Spitfire Mk IX to out-turn itself in sustained turns IF it downthrottled, but this might indeed not be the case if it generates an unusual amount of drag in sustained turns, and happens to be one of those airframes that needs more power to maintain speed through level turns at low speeds...

If both the Mk V and the Mk IX downthrottled, I could not tell you which one would beat the other then, but I would suspect they would both improve on their own turn times, unless, again, they happen to have a greater low-speed high angle of attack drag that gets in the way of this improvement...

The actual drag generated while turning is dependent on complex overall shape and leverage issues, and this makes this drag unpredictable...

I have never heard of the Spifire downthrottling in sustained turns in 14 years of research: The examples that I do know of, that I know for sure were used with success in multiple 360°s, are for the Me-109G, Merlin P-51, and the FW-190A...

I also know the heavier, much more powerful but shorter nosed La-5 and Ki-100 were not inferior in sustained turn rates over their lower-power, slightly LIGHTER (yes, Lagg-3 and Ki-61 were noticeably lighter, 100-200 lbs, I've checked) but longer-nosed predecessors... It would seem the shorter nose more than offsets the extra power the radials had... But which ones would benefit the most from downthrottling? Impossible to say without tests...

There are complex shape and leverage peculiarities at play here, and they would have to be thouroughly tested to see what exactly happens on various airframe shapes with more or less power...

Note the longer-nosed and similar power FW-190D-9 was vastly inferior in handling and sustained turn rate to the FW-190A-8, as my nose-lenght leverage theory would predict...:

FW-190A-8 turn superiority over FW-190D-9 confirmed - Topic Powered by Social Strata

Quote: "1-The FW-190D-9, although well armored and equipped to carry heavy armament, appears to be much less desirable from a handling standpoint than other models of the FW-190 using the BMW 14 cylinder radial engine."

Any advantage this airplane may have in performance over other models of the FW-190 is more than offset by its poor handling characteristics."

Army Air Force Command, Memorandum on FW-190, D-9, AAF number FE-121. 20 May 1946.

The Spitfire and the P-47D are two types in which I would have expected to hear of a use of downthrottling in sustained turns, but never did... I have no idea why...

Yet in a German captured test, an underpowered P-47D Razorback with needle-tip prop exhibited such a pronounced superiority over the Me-109G that the German evaluators felt confortable with a blanket statement that said "The P-47D out-turns our Bf-109G" (On Special Missions, KG 200), ... NO speeds, NO altitudes, NO qualifiers: Just a blanket statement that certainly was not intended to mislead...

The fact that early 1944 P-47D Razorbacks, maybe with paddle blades most of the time, but surely with less power, seem to do a lot better than later Bubbletops in sustained turns, does seem to suggests that it too benefits from less power...

The Spitfire seems not to be the same... Is it the greater efficiency of the four-blade propeller? Again, without tests, there is no way of knowing how it would behave downthrottled in sustained turns...

Whatever the reason may be, the lack of difference in sustained turn rates between the Mk V and the Mk IX gives no more ammunition to the sceptics than it does to my theory. Maybe the opposite, in fact...

The fact that the sustained turn rate is the same at 30 000 ft., when the discrepancy in power to weight ratio is well over the 15% existing at lower altitudes (maybe as much as 20-30% at 30 000 ft.!), is pretty telling in itself... And the climb rate of the Mk IX is immensely superior there too, yet barely any difference can be detected in the sustained level turn rate...

This shows the perils of simplistic math predictions: According to those, a huge difference in climb rate and power to weight ratio SHOULD have yielded significant improvements in the sustained turn rate...

Little or none at all show... From the point of view of what I say, it is clear at least that this confirms that maths are not linearly predictive of nose-traction aircraft performance: There is no linear connection between power ratio, climb rate, acceleration vs the sustained turn rate...

So I would say the unpredictability of what gives the best sustained turn rate, at what power level, and with what airframe, is certainly very clear as long as we are talking about nose traction...

I would say the lack of difference in sustained turn rates between the four-bladed Mk IX and the three-bladed Mk V leans heavier in my direction, because at the very least the 15% (and more) difference in the power to weight ratio should have tipped the balance against me, and it didn't...

You see, I don't claim to predict relative performance outcomes based on my theory: I am merely trying to explain those performance outcomes as they are observed from real combat accounts, and why they do not remotely match what would be expected...

The math formulas on the other hand, DO claim to predict relative performance outcomes on nose-traction fighters... And they DO demonstrably fail at doing that...

It is not always what we know that matters the most: We have to know what we don't know.

Gaston

[riacrato]

"1-The FW-190D-9, although well armored and equipped to carry heavy armament, appears to be much less desirable from a handling standpoint than other models of the FW-190 using the BMW 14 cylinder radial engine."

That is all it says and you are reading an aweful lot into it. Handling can mean a lot of things, turn rate or radius certainly being among them. But it can also mean trim or roll, two aspects I much more often hear about to have worsened due to the re-design.

[drgondog]

-The "balance point" at which more power helps the airframe, or doesn't, in sustained turns, is not something I claim is predictable for all airframes...

If you have the drag polars or enough flight test data to develop one, it is reasonably easy to calculate the drag at various bank angles and the thrust required to 'balance the drag' for a sustained altitude, continuous turn. Having said this, it was not easy for preliminary design engineers - WWII era- to perform the same calculations absent flight test data validation for Parasite drag.

In any case, I would expect the Spitfire Mk IX to out-turn itself in sustained turns IF it downthrottled,

If it was in a sustained, max G/min radius turn, 'downthrottling' would cause either an instant stall if the pilot maintained the same stick force/position, or a descending spiral..


but this might indeed not be the case if it generates an unusual amount of drag in sustained turns, and happens to be one of those airframes that needs more power to maintain speed through level turns at low speeds...

In a banked turn the Lift required is Lcos (theta) where 'L" is the total lift normal to the wing plane and theta is the bank angle. As that component increases with bank angle and the associated decrease in speed due to the induced drag (increase in CL) to maintain level flight, the CL will reach CLmax - at that point the aircraft is in minimum turn radius/max rate of turn -

In short, power being equal, the wing loading and aerodynamic efficiency (L/D) are the critical components to sustained turn perfromance.

If both the Mk V and the Mk IX downthrottled, I could not tell you which one would beat the other then, but I would suspect they would both improve on their own turn times, unless, again, they happen to have a greater low-speed high angle of attack drag that gets in the way of this improvement...

If they were at max power, max turn rate/minimum turn radius (Stallturn), they would fall out of the sky - they would have no reserve energy and cutting power reduces the trhust required to provide equilibrium

The actual drag generated while turning is dependent on complex overall shape and leverage issues, and this makes this drag unpredictable...

See above - 'leverage' as you define it is silly

I have never heard of the Spifire downthrottling in sustained turns in 14 years of research: The examples that I do know of, that I know for sure were used with success in multiple 360°s, are for the Me-109G, Merlin P-51, and the FW-190A...

If you could interview the dead guys you would find corresponding examples where they died while 'downthrottling' and gave their opponents the gift of superior energy in the fight.

' Down throttling' is only useful if you start with excess velocity and energy and you are willing to trade energy available for a tighter turn. When you do this, you will have to continuously 'upthrottle' as you approach CLmax

I also know the heavier, much more powerful but shorter nosed La-5 and Ki-100 were not inferior in sustained turn rates over their lower-power, slightly LIGHTER (yes, Lagg-3 and Ki-61 were noticeably lighter, 100-200 lbs, I've checked) but longer-nosed predecessors... It would seem the shorter nose more than offsets the extra power the radials had... But which ones would benefit the most from downthrottling? Impossible to say without tests...

Impossible to claim without stimulating laughter and intense giggling..

There are complex shape and leverage peculiarities at play here, and they would have to be thouroughly tested to see what exactly happens on various airframe shapes with more or less power...

What would give everyone a great deal of insight to your theories is for you to put your version of the physics up on the board and walk us through your thesis.

Note the longer-nosed and similar power FW-190D-9 was vastly inferior in handling and sustained turn rate to the FW-190A-8, as my nose-lenght leverage theory would predict...:

If you would take a hard look at the relative wing loadings and L/D comparisons between aircraft of similar power you would find more validation regarding results of comparative manuever performance.


Quote: "1-The FW-190D-9, although well armored and equipped to carry heavy armament, appears to be much less desirable from a handling standpoint than other models of the FW-190 using the BMW 14 cylinder radial engine."

Any advantage this airplane may have in performance over other models of the FW-190 is more than offset by its poor handling characteristics."

I haven't found any 8th AF fighter pilots that would rather meet any FW 190D over any FW 190A in a zero advantage tactical situation.

My father flew both after WWII over when the 355th moved to Gablingen. Several other 355th command ace pilots swapped P-51D-25's and P-51B-15s in rat races (informal) with Fw 190d-9, Fw 190A-8 two seat, Me 109G-14 two seat (I think), maintained by former LW crews and plenty of spare parts.

They were ALL very impressed with the 190D.

The Spitfire and the P-47D are two types in which I would have expected to hear of a use of downthrottling in sustained turns, but never did... I have no idea why...

See they above - energy, WL, L/D, Power available, are the keys to a manuever flight

Yet in a German captured test, an underpowered P-47D Razorback with needle-tip prop exhibited such a pronounced superiority over the Me-109G that the German evaluators felt confortable with a blanket statement that said "The P-47D out-turns our Bf-109G" (On Special Missions, KG 200), ... NO speeds, NO altitudes, NO qualifiers: Just a blanket statement that certainly was not intended to mislead...

I submitted a direct quote from Hans-Werner Leche, Luftwaffe test pilot who was first LW pilot to fly the the first captured P-47D (YF-U) after Novemner 7, 1943. He said exactly the opposite and you have yet to comment on his evaluation

The fact that early 1944 P-47D Razorbacks, maybe with paddle blades most of the time, but surely with less power, seem to do a lot better than later Bubbletops in sustained turns, does seem to suggests that it too benefits from less power...

Not possible..

The Spitfire seems not to be the same... Is it the greater efficiency of the four-blade propeller? Again, without tests, there is no way of knowing how it would behave downthrottled in sustained turns...

see above

The fact that the sustained turn rate is the same at 30 000 ft., when the discrepancy in power to weight ratio is well over the 15% existing at lower altitudes (maybe as much as 20-30% at 30 000 ft.!), is pretty telling in itself... And the climb rate of the Mk IX is immensely superior there too, yet barely any difference can be detected in the sustained level turn rate...

Can you be more specific - too many generalities in that statement - first of all, no Merlin operated at peak efficiency at 30,000 feet and in fact a 1650-7 was at 6000 feet above Critical altitude which means it is at far less power at 30K due to the inability of the engine to compensate for the lower density of the air... I don't know what MK IX Merlin Critical Atitude was but sure it was below 30,000. For the same reasons, top speed and turn performance would be less at 30k, climb rate suffers terribly past the Critical Altitude of the engine. The Jug on the other hand had a turbo supercharged engine and power did not degrade at 30K - although turn and climb relative to an equal power/lower altitude/higher density would suffer in comparison.

This shows the perils of simplistic math predictions: According to those, a huge difference in climb rate and power to weight ratio SHOULD have yielded significant improvements in the sustained turn rate...

See above

Little or none at all show... From the point of view of what I say, it is clear at least that this confirms that maths are not linearly predictive of nose-traction aircraft performance: There is no linear connection between power ratio, climb rate, acceleration vs the sustained turn rate...

There is absolutely correlation between Power Ratio, density, W/S, CLmax, e, L/D, etc - some linear, some non linear but in ratios that are solvable.

So I would say the unpredictability of what gives the best sustained turn rate, at what power level, and with what airframe, is certainly very clear as long as we are talking about nose traction...

That statement is simply silly

I would say the lack of difference in sustained turn rates between the four-bladed Mk IX and the three-bladed Mk V leans heavier in my direction, because at the very least the 15% (and more) difference in the power to weight ratio should have tipped the balance against me, and it didn't...

You see, I don't claim to predict relative performance outcomes based on my theory: I am merely trying to explain those performance outcomes as they are observed from real combat accounts, and why they do not remotely match what would be expected...

The math formulas on the other hand, DO claim to predict relative performance outcomes on nose-traction fighters... And they DO demonstrably fail at doing that...

It is not always what we know that matters the most: We have to know what we don't know.

Gaston

Gaston - wouldn't you say that your credibility regarding a claim that the math formulas 'fail' for 'nose traction fighters' is suspect when you a.) don't know the math, b.) don't understand the physics, c.) don't understand boundary conditions and last - don't demonstrate that you know and can prove what you believe?

[Gaston]

I think on the contrary I have convincingly demonstrated that post-war math assumptions, where powerful nose traction on low-wing monoplanes is concerned, are utterly incapable of predicting sustained turn rate outcomes...

How many of you realized that a 15%-(30%?)+ improvement in power to weight ratio yielded ZERO improvements in turn rate in actual Spitfire tests?

How many of you were even aware that the FW-190D-9 had drastically inferior handling to the FW-190A?

I was first aware of that when in sustained multiple 360° turns, vs a non-downthrottling P-51B, the D-9 fell behind quite noticeably in combat. A shocking outcome for a FW-190 series aircraft if there ever was one...

A FW-190A-8 Western ace, versus a presumably non-downthrottling P-51D, described reversing a tail position by the P-51D, on the deck, in around TWO 360° turns: A gain of 180° for EACH 360...

Of course if they had both downthrottled it would have been much closer (the P-51 can occasionally gain on the FW-190A in low speeds level turns if it downthrottles, but likely only because the FW-190A did not), but it does illustrate the point...

The total lack of resemblance between math calculations and real-life combat is almost humorous... Sadly much more humorous than the widespread attempts to ignore it and erase historical accuracy by saying "you read a lot into this or that". There IS a lot to read into things that are clearly worded in an unambiguous way... For instance:

"The P-47D Razorback out-turns our Bf-109G". Educate yourself on the hundreds of combat accounts available out there, and you will see that for early 1944 Razorbacks, the sentence is quite an extreme understatement, especially in left turns...

It is amusing that you presume of my knowledge, when you obviously have not read one tenth of the combat accounts I have read... Do you really think "The P-47D Razorback crushes the Me-109G like a ridiculous peanut in prolonged sustained left turns at all speeds and all altitudes" is a conclusion I arrived at easily and found intuitively pleasing?

Gaston

[Milosh]

Your source Gaston.

How many of you were even aware that the FW-190D-9 had drastically inferior handling to the FW-190A?

I wasn't aware that you were a P-51B pilot who flew combat in WW2.

I was first aware of that when in sustained multiple 360° turns, vs a non-downthrottling P-51B, the D-9 fell behind quite noticeably in combat. A shocking outcome for a FW-190 series aircraft if there ever was one...

Here is another board for you to try your theories on Gaston. Make sure you post a link to your thread there.

Aerodynamic engineering Forum - Eng-Tips

As for a P-47 out turning a Bf109: (note this is a tooth-pick prop P-47)

[drgondog]

Milosh - surely you won't rely on a personal account in a Combat Encounter Report which highlights failure to out turn a 109?

[Glider]

"The P-47D Razorback out-turns our Bf-109G". Educate yourself on the hundreds of combat accounts available out there, and you will see that for early 1944 Razorbacks, the sentence is quite an extreme understatement, especially in left turns...

Gaston

Are these the same hundreds of combat encounters that you clearly didn't read or are there other combat reports that you are relying on?

Remember my offer is still open!!

[Milosh]

Oh dear, another P-47 vs 109 where the P-47 couldn't out turn a 109 even after down throttling.