Bandy 3 Posted October 16, 2009 Hi, Been flying in the N17 off and on for a month now, especially in Peter01's winter campaign (Thanks Peter!), and am finding my AI pilots to be at a distinct disadvantage in late 1916. An anecdote. While leading a flight of 6 x N17's to intercept some bombers, we engaged I think it was 2 Fok DIII's. We had some altitude advantage so I set my wingmates after the Fokkers, while I left to go after the 2 Walfisch (who are just nasty bad at fighting back and generally maneuvering their crates like scouts...great fun to engage them!!!). I came back to find none of my AI N17's had survived and the two Fokkers came after me. They were named aces if I remember correctly. The bottom line is that I flew the SPAD VII in that same campaign just before, and managed to finish it. The N17 was not a bad aircraft at that time, it was super maneuverable. So I started to fly that campaign as German and discovered that the AI N17's seem to just "give up" and fly off in random directions (not always 'home') only to be chased down and finished off by German AI. I followed one N17 for miles occassionally holing his canvas to see if I could get him to fight back, and no go. Perhaps the AI N17's are not pushing their buses to outfly their opponents because of the G-restrictions and loosing wings (the N17 does loose them very easily in tight turns, when historically it was pulling out of a dive that was deadly). Maybe they are also running out of ammo and leaving, or perhaps they are not reloading (if lewis N17) or unjamming their guns. I'll look into it a bit and report, but thought I'd throw this observation out there to see if anyone concurs. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Tailspin 3 Posted October 18, 2009 Good subject BB. IMHO the whole MaxG thing needs to be looked at in detail. Some hard data from the period would be nice but that is scarce. Seems its mostly, "If you dive aircraft "ABC" too fast, "this" and "that" happens. It'd be nice to know just how fast "too fast" is...for each aircraft. How that affects the AI ? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heck 496 Posted October 18, 2009 (edited) The only "real" information I've ever read, from JM Bruce's profile on the Albatros DV, is that Von Hipple's DV lost its lower wing after a dive of some 3000' over Le Catelet. It's the only reference I've ever seen to concrete distance, etc. Perhaps that distance could be used as a starting point, since these single spar wings actually failed because of twisting and flutter caused by speed. I really don't think they should fail in tight turns, no matter how tight, because what was stumping designers at the time was that these wings tested fine in the sandbag tests used for static G testing. Maybe the Albatros DV's speed in a dive of that height could be used as a sort of starting point? Perhaps this would give them enough strength to survive tight turns, but fail after a sharp pull out from a high speed dive. Edited October 18, 2009 by Heck Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Tailspin 3 Posted October 20, 2009 Diving an Alb D3 from 3200ft., full power vertical, I'm getting around 215-220mph at impact. Climbing to a safer altitude..... Diving to 215mph and pulling full back and holding, the airframe hits about 5.8 - 5.9 G. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Heck 496 Posted October 20, 2009 Diving an Alb D3 from 3200ft., full power vertical, I'm getting around 215-220mph at impact. Climbing to a safer altitude..... Diving to 215mph and pulling full back and holding, the airframe hits about 5.8 - 5.9 G. One point landings aren't considered good testing technique, my friend. So, if you set these vunerable aircraft to about 4.8 g we might get break-ups on pull out, but not in tight turns, if these aircraft stay under 4.8 g in a level turn. The only place that might cause trouble would be diving turns and their associated pull outs. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
+Tailspin 3 Posted October 21, 2009 Thats the idea. The effect can be varied from hardly noticeable unless you yank the stick hard while diving way too fast to bringing the "danger zone" closer to more likely speeds at which you may find yourself in some combat situations. In the case of the Albatros you could set the max. closer to the 5.9 (maybe 5.5 or 5.6) maximum which would effectively penalize flying 215mph (the rather quick result of very limited testing) by limiting manoeverability at that speed due to a "weak" lower wing. G-loads that high shouldn't affect combat. You can put this type of "speed limit" on any airplane. The question is how do you figure out what those speed limits should be. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
