climb rate / data.ini: units ?

[Sokol]

Hi,

yesterday I was unable to catch a F-80C with a MiG-15bis. looking into their data.inis I found strange climb-rate-values:

 F-80C:    247   (real 35 m/sec)

 MiG-15:  242  (real: 51 m/sec)

 F-86F:     238  (real: 46 m/sec)

So I need some help concerning the units in which some aircraft parameters are measured in the respective ___data.ini:

CruiseSpeed=   meters per second ?
ClimbSpeed=  ????
CornerSpeed=  meters per second ?
MaxSpeedSL=  meters per second ?

thank you for your help.

cheers

sokol

[+Gepard]

All values in SF2 world are metric.  All speeds are given in meters per second. The climb speed in the flight model has nothing to do with real values. It is set approx 10 - 20 % below cruise speed. If you would use real life values the AI would not be able to handle the plane.

[Sokol]

if you look into the climb-speed of various stock-aircraft made by TW  things get very strange:

• B-52D:    249
• F-4E-72: 268
• F-15A:    268
• Lightning:       348
• MiG-21PFM:  268
• MiG-23MLD:  378
• P-51D:              77

some third-party-aircraft offer the following data:

• B-47:  268
• FW-190A4:   192
• MiG-29:  181
• ...

1. climb speed does seem NOT to be connected to cruisespeed (or cornerspeed), most of the time it is higher than either of them
2. the value-units are still unclear: they are most probably metric, but certainly not meters per second.
3. so, which units are used ?
4. what does climbspeed reflect if not real-life data ?

cheers

sokol

 

[pvince]

It is not the vertical speed, I guess it is the airspeed when climbing, and it is in m/s.

[+VonS]

On 8/1/2020 at 1:26 AM, pvince said:

It is not the vertical speed, I guess it is the airspeed when climbing, and it is in m/s.

This - it's the airspeed when climbing, in m/s as are most of the values in the TW data inis. Rough, general rule of thumb for climb speed is about 80% of top speed (full military power) when on the level (MaxSpeedSL). (I use such a rule for my FE2 tweaks.)

Testing vertical climb speed on the other hand (rate of climb) requires tweaking of climb/alpha numbers for wing/tail sections - and then actual testing of climbs within the TK sims (yes the slow, hard way - as I've had to do with my FM update packs for FE2). Usually you can "guesstimate" a proper, vertical rate of climb after a few tweaks of the airfoil sections - and always test rate of climb first before tweaking any of the airfoil sections, just in case it's fine without tweaks.

Will not give suggestions on ave. climb speeds or rate of climb for jets since I'm no specialist for that - more of a linen and wood type where we're happy to climb even at 2 m/s.

Happy flying,

Von S

Edited August 2, 2020 by VonS
Added info.