Ultimate World War II fighter discussion

[NitrousG35]

Originally Posted by EvilSardine

That was earlier in the war most likely. The carburetor didn't last too long though hehe. I can't remember any later war American planes using carbs.

That's probably one of the trickiest things to do. To dogfight in IL2 using a plane that has a carburetor.

American fighters used carburetors all the way through the war right to the end. Same goes for the Brits. Watch the startup of a Mustang or a Corsair for example, and they will often backfire and spit flames out the exhaust pipes because the carb is backfiring.

[Sirbelch]

Ahhhhhhh yeah. Second pic was taken at the Reno Air Races

[NitrousG35]

Originally Posted by Sirbelch

Ahhhhhhh yeah. Second pic was taken at the Reno Air Races

Man, do I love that plane. Twin R2800's. Talk about double trouble. Another great plane from the Grumman Iron Works.

[EvilSardine]

My mistake.

I jumped the gun and said they didn't have carburetors just because they didn't stall out when pulling a negative G dive. They DID have carbs but they added a special part to the carbs which stopped the fuel from leaving the engine when pulling negative Gs....

So, you are correct!

[NitrousG35]

Most beautiful plane of the Second World War, without question, the Supermarine Spitfire in all of its iterations:

[EvilSardine]

That last one isn't a spit. It's a Hawker Sea Fury. :)

Probably one of my favorite British planes. Too bad it wasn't used in WW2. There was an account of a Sea Fury shooting down a Mig-15 in the Korean war though.

[EDIT] Hey! You removed the photo of the Sea Fury! It was pretty

[NitrousG35]

Here is a plane that is not as well known even though 17,000 of them were made. It only weighed 5461 pounds empty and used a Klimov motor that made 1370 hp. It could outclimb, outmaneuver and outrun the P51 Mustang, Spitfire, Me109 and FW190. It had a power to weight ratio unsurpassed by any fighter whether it be Allied or Axis. It is the Yak 9:

[EvilSardine]

From what I remember due to playing IL2, the P51D can do around 420-430mph and the Yak9U (the rest of the yak9 variants are slow) can do around the same. So, I'd say they're dead even on their top speeds. Pfffttt, one of them having their radiators slightly more open causing more drag would make the difference between who's faster.

I am haunted by Yak3P's though. Those things are a nightmare to fight.

[NitrousG35]

Originally Posted by EvilSardine

From what I remember due to playing IL2, the P51D can do around 420-430mph and the Yak9U can do around the same. So, I'd say they're dead even on their top speeds. Pfffttt, one of them having their radiators slightly more open causing more drag would make the difference between who's faster.

I am haunted by Yak's though. Those things are a nightmare to fight.

Top speed isn't everything when it comes to dogfighting. The performance envelope includes climbing, diving, turning and rolling. The Yak, with its incredible lightness and high horsepower, had a power to weight ratio lower than any other fighter in the war.

I read an account of a flight of P51's that was jumped by a group of Yak 9's late in the war. The Yaks shot down several of the Mustangs before realizing that they were friendlies, not Me109's as the Mustang was often mistaken for.

I do agree that from a speed point of view, the two planes were similar, although the Yak's major advantage was at low altitude. At high altitude a Mustang would simply run away and hide from one.

Their real advantage over the German fighters was its ability to turn inside of them and get a tactical advantage. They were as you said a nightmare to have to fight against.

[EvilSardine]

I'd rather fight tie fighters than Yak3Ps.

Anyone who plays IL2 would probably say the same.

[aki]

I played IL2 (actually my face is used for one of the pilots and one of the pilot voices in Pacific Fighters lol), and the physics model and flight engine annoyed me. For one, it doesn't accurately model high altitude performance degradation. The degradation isn't gradual, and all of a sudden you hit the altitude ceiling. AI planes were blatant cheaters, which killed the fun of the game. I'd have Focke-Wolf 190s outturning me in my La-7 at low speed, which annoyed the crap out of me. Stalling characteristics were all cookie-cutter too--they all snap stalled at the threshold in the same exact way.

For the truly hardcore, there's a freeware sim community called Targetware that made their own online sim. Not sure if many ppl are online anymore, but the flight modeling and attention to detail is superb. So hard to find screens of the game. Here are two.

[EvilSardine]

aki, I've noticed that if you put the AI planes on veteran instead of ace, they don't "cheat" as much and they act a bit more human.

My friend and I have always picked Yak3P's and Spitfires set to Ace when we played and what they would pull at times was complete BS. At least it trained us big time haha.

Have you tried the very latest version of IL2? I think at one point after Pacific fighters the flight model was changed big time.

[NitrousG35]

One of the best and most realistic WWII computer games I have played is Jane's WWII Fighters. The planes seemed to fly quite realistically, especially in a climb or when rolling and turning. They absolutely have the sound of the Mustang down perfectly.

Another game that I have liked is European Air War by Microprose. This too had fairly good flight characteristics. I always have liked to fly the Me262 against bomber formations. Good stuff.

I know both of the games are old, but for the time, they were quite good.

[NitrousG35]

One of my favorite Japanese fighters is the Kawanishi George-aka Shiden Kai fighter. They had remarkable maneuverability and were said to be the equal of a P51 Mustang at lower altitudes.

Several 2000 hp variants came out just before the war and a 2200 version was made in prototype form, but was destroyed in B29 raids.

[aki]

Hmmm is that Shidenkai a screenshot from CFS2? I loved CFS2, still my favorite flight sim. I never played EAW, but I loved Pacific Air War. Was hooked on that for a long long time.

Interestingly, Saburo Sakai (top Japanese ace who survived the war at 62 kills) hated the Shidenkai and preferred the A6M5 Zero. Sakai was amazing--an SBD Dauntless rear gunner took out his eye, and he flew back fighting to stay conscious. He also ran into 15 Hellcats and got out unscathed, insane. Here's a quote from him on the Shidenkai.

Promotions in the Navy were based on what school you graduated from and who you knew, it had nothing to do with merit. Some guy could smash up 20 planes trying to learn how to fly, and then not shoot down a damn thing and he'd be promoted faster than me or any other successful pilot simply because he came from the right school. Those were the kinds of idiots we had leading us. How were we supposed to win the war with leadership like that? Take that idiot [Minoru] Genda. He could barely fly, but he jumped up and down about the Shiden-kai ["George"], so everybody else pretended to like it, too. That plane was a piece of crap, put together by a third-rate firm [Kawanishi].

After the war Sakai got to fly the Mustang, and said the A6M2 Zero was now his second favorite plane.

The Kawanishi Ki-100 was also supposed to be superb plane, and some pilots preferred it over the Ki-84 Hayate. It's basically the Ki-61 with a radial engine plopped in.



Oh and that Rare Bear looks a lot like a Hawker Sea Fury. Btw I think 5 blade propellers = awesome.

[aki]

Oh and the one plane I *really* wanted to see in combat was the Do-335. Such a mean looking plane. Was a really great performer too according to test pilots.

[EvilSardine]

Ahhh, the Dornier....

I hate to mention IL2 again but, that plane is interesting to use in that sim.

Sea Fury is pure sex. The end.

[NitrousG35]

Originally Posted by aki

Oh and the one plane I *really* wanted to see in combat was the Do-335. Such a mean looking plane. Was a really great performer too according to test pilots.

Right. Another great plane that just ran out of time to be deployed before the end of the war. Can you imagine if the war had gone on for just one more year? The piston engined fighters would have been close to 500 mph and would have had absolutely incredible performance.

[Sirbelch]

Any one play Aces of the Pacific an Aces over Europe? Way back in 3.1/DOS days.

[Gonzo]

Great thread.

I kind of like the P-39's. I don't know how they were as planes but they have a very slim streamlined design.

I also love B-17's. The plane is amazing as are the stories about them.