Owner's Manual(s). P-40B others?

[DonJasper99]

First please accept my aplogies, but I did search first.

Has someone compiled "something" - I called them Owner's Manuals in the subject - about flying characteristics of the various aircraft? To help out those that have zero confidence maybe :confused: ?

Here's what I mean. The P-40B is afraid of everthing it sees on the right. Straight take-offs require that I stomp a 'slight' right-rudder. You gotta do what you gotta do - but see the 'zero confidence' line above. I missing something? Has someone goofed-up the flight model of the P-40B? (I doubt it), or did I goof-up? Do P-40B's all take-off with a stomped rudder?

TIA.

[Rami]

DonJasper99,

The old joke about the P-40 Tomahawk / Warhawk was that you could spot a P-40 pilot by the overdeveloped muscles in his right leg. So, what you're experiencing is realistic. :costumes:

[Fibber]

It had to do with the torque of the engine. If power was added too quick the plane would go off to the left almost uncontrollably. It required a slow adding of throttle and slight right rudder to keep it centerline until airspeed was developed and full control effectiveness developed.
Boyington commented in his book "Baa Baa Black sheep " that the Corsair did the same thing. In fact one of his pilots in transition he declared he was going to decertify because of the amount of planes he unintentionally damaged. This was because the pilot couldn't fully comprehend the need for the gradual increaase of power. That pilot later became one of the stars of the "sheep".

[bearcat241]

Contending with torque....one of the pleasant experiences of a flight simulator versus an arcade game.

While you're at it, for the P-40, open the aircraft.cfg and increase the rudder effectiveness in [Flight Tuning] to a value between 6 and 10. This not only helps with torque on roll but also in aerial engagements when you want strong rudder response for an extreme maneuver. You also get the added bonus of better tail waggin' to spread your fire when strafing on the deck.

[DonJasper99]

Thanks all for your input. I guess the handling of the navy planes spoiled me. It's a challenge now. I'm not going to let some wobbly left-turning machine get the best of me.

I guess slowly opening the throttle would get air moving across the rudder when the torque is low, then the airflow and torque would be more-or-less in balance as the speed rises. Not exactly sure how one takes off from a carrier with a slow application of throttle

I now understand the affection the pilots of the Wildcat had for their adequate machines. And marvel of the accomplishments of the 1st American Volunteer Group.

[Allen]

I have the 1% Corsair it pulls like a :censored: to the left on take off. Carrier are hard to do but it can be done.

[bearcat241]

Don, all ww2 single-prop warbirds had some degree of torque to deal with, especially the naval planes on short T/O's and landings. Its not a design flaw, its just the laws of physics at work. Whatever direction an airscrew turns, that's where it wants to pull the body of the aircraft. Even the right-handed British props had this effect - creating a right-pulling effect instead of to the left as left-handed US props.

US naval pilots, especially Corsair pilots, set significant right rudder trim prior to takeoff roll and locked the rudder hard right to compensate for the pull on short runs at high RPM's. The Corsair's torque and forward visibility in landing was so dangerous that the records tell us its initial carrier quals were delayed by Navy brass. The Brits solved the problem with a very short, left-turn final approach from the left stern of the carrier that allowed max visibility and also used the left-pulling torque and gentle left wing dips to slide the aircraft into its groove naturally, instead of fighting the plane to keep a straight line on approach from direct astern. This method was later adopted as SOP for ALL aircraft carrier landings from the late war and through early 50's. You see footage of these types of approaches even with the early navy jets. Works really great for emergency landings too.

If you're flying any single prop fighters in CFS2 without some degree of torque pull, you can assume that detail was overlooked in the FM design.

[Jagdflieger]

Great thread on torque and aircraft performance.

With the WW I rotary engines, the whole engine rotated with the prop while the crank shaft remained stationary. This compounded the torque problems and many pilots of the wood and canvas planes of the time claimed they could turn to the left faster by turning a 270 degree circle to the right rather then fighting the torque through 90 degrees to the left.

Here is a neat animated web site for the rotary engine of WW I.

http://www.keveney.com/gnome.html

The site also has animated engines of other types to peruse.

The P-38 Lightning had contra-rotating props to cancel out torque and in a proper flight model for it, you don't need any rudder input to correct for torque.