109 E4 Problems in Bob

[Daiwilletti]

Its good to see a few more threads on Pat's Bob, one of my favourite installs.

These days most of my flying is testing what version of Ankor's shaders I can get to run - the best I can achieve at the moment is the Jan 2018 version, although I have high hopes that MajorMagee's very useful tip about AA compatibility through NVida Profile Inspector or similar will help.

Anyway, I fired up Pat's Bob and its running pretty well on shaders version Jan 2018. So I fired up a campaign flying one of the 109 E-4s. My god, it flew like a dog (or was it me )! All the Mkia Spifires can eat it for breakfast. Surely this is not right? I note some differences in the cfgs for similar E-4s in ETO from those in Bob. I know the BoB 109s are AH versions, whereas the ETO ones seem different.

But there are some surprising differences in the aircraft.cfgs (between BoB and ETO). The ETO 109 Es produce 1000hp before boost, whereas the Bob ones produce 950hp. The Spit Mkias are lighter empty weight (hence demon as AIs) and produce more hp! They are unbeatable.

For some reason, there is an engine setting of -7.5 (a location from mid-point IIRC?) in the 109 E4 cfgs in Bob, which is totally different from 0 in ETO. I've tried reducing that in the Bob cfgs to -5.5, and is it my imagination but that seems to make a difference in handling.

Another radical difference between ETO and Bob is the on-ground-beta in the prop settings - again minimal in ETO, but high (around -15) in Bob. At lower speeds, the Bob version seems to have a strong tendency to invert to the right.

Now I don't want this to start some sort of flame war between different flight modelling philosophies . But if it were feasible to change some settings in the Bob 109 E-4 cfg that one of the Powers That Be might suggest, I would be grateful (just don't tell me to learn to fly because that won't happen ).

Incidentally, the first thing I've done is to give three of the Mkia Spits AI versions set to spawn="y", and changed the stock to spawn="N" which does not of course preclude flying the full version in campaign or missions....The AI versions have had fuel weight added to the empty weight parameter - saves try to find a contact point for null pylons...

[johannesl]

I can't speak to the differences in the flight models, but if they are anywhere near accurate then the faster you go over 300 mph the worse your role rate will be. In real world test flights the pilots couldn't get more than 1/4 aileron deflection because the stick force at high speeds were too great and the cockpit too small to leverage it enough to get a decent role rate. (Spitfires had a similar problem and French Hawk 75s could out role them). Another problem with the 109 was that the rudder could not be trimmed from the cockpit and test pilots complained about how tired their left leg got from pushing the rudder pedal to keep the nose straight instead of pointing to the right which could affect the role too.

[MajorMagee]

Here's some light reading on the early war rivalry between the Spit and the 109:

https://www.luftkrieg-ueber-europa.d...mitt-bf-109-e/

And then something more in depth:

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit1vrs109e.html

"The minimum radius of turn without height loss at 12,000 ft., full throttle, is calculated as 885 ft. on the Me 109 compared with 696 ft. on the Spitfire." and that the corresponding time to turn through 360 deg is 25 seconds for the Me 109 and 19 seconds for the Spitfire.

The back and forth of performance advantages between them went on throughout the war with the various model changes and improvement upgrades. Of course, there were the occasional distractions by the introduction of other fine aircraft like the Fw190 and the P-47/P-51 to divert our attention, but the Spit/109 match-up never really lost its premier status in the minds of the people.

[johannesl]

Sorry we didn't really answer your question. Flight modeling is kind of a balancing act to get it just right and sometimes despite the best efforts close is the best you can get. When I first got CFS 3 I fired it up an tried the Mustang against an Me 109 and I couldn't believe the Mustang was such a dog. Then I set the fuel to 50% and suddenly I could whip any 109 in the game. In FSX l have 2 Cessna 152s with different flight models (props, engines, scalars) that fly straight and level just fine but one climbs like a bat out of hell but descends perfectly while the other is just the opposite and no amount of fiddling seems to get either one just right. I guess this is a long way of saying that the modeler did the best they could with what they had, but then again who's to say a few tweeks couldn't make it better.

[Daiwilletti]

Thanks guys for your thoughts. Although I really do need to stay alert flying the 109, can't admire the scenery, I have found a couple of minor tweaks (NOT involving an increase from 950hp, LOL) which have made me competitive with the Brits, but boy I have to really work at it and half my wingmen will be shot down on a campaign mission.

[johannesl]

Good you found something that works for you. Most experts would say that in the final analysis the winner between an Me-109 E and a Spitfire Mk 1 came down to who was the better pilot, they were that closely matched. As for your wingmen, c'est la guerre.

[Daiwilletti]

Good you found something that works for you. Most experts would say that in the final analysis the winner between an Me-109 E and a Spitfire Mk 1 came down to who was the better pilot, they were that closely matched. As for your wingmen, c'est la guerre.

Indeed! For all the criticism of CFS3, if you set up pilotattributes and MissionEnemySkill levels properly, it certainly isn't an arcade shoot-em-up!

[gecko]

The number one cause of problems for a Bf 109 is Spitfires. Uninstall all Spitfires and it will be better.

Seriously though, as I've gotten more into flight modeling, I've found that there are a lot of garbage values in cfgs for quite a few aircraft. As a rule, engines are not set up to behave correctly, and stock CFS3 has it's limitations even when it is done right. Short of some in depth study of what the different values mean in the real world, followed by what they should be for the aircraft in question, and then the cleanup of the rest of the FM to take care of the collateral damage caused by fixing part of it, I can only suggest tweaking things till they seem better to you and not worrying if it is exactly as it should be.

The 109E/F is on my shortlist for a full overhaul, but I'm still up to my eyeballs in Spitfires at present.

[33lima]

I find the ETO 109Es a pig to fly too. They seem often to want to fight with you over which way to turn, like severe adverse yaw or some such effect. Even plenty of rudder doesn't seem to help much, and it's hard even to push the nose down so you can try a yo-yo. Moranes aren't a major problem, but Huricanes seem just as nasty as Spits, even allowing they are probably flying at empty weight (every fighter should really have a handicapped AI double with the player version set not to spawn).



I suspect part of the problem is my experience is mostly with QC, which pitches you into a turning fight of the kind 109Es were better not to get sucked into. I do better in WotR, whose FM may be different but whose Emils I also find a bit of a pig, but perhaps that's because I fly campaigns, get a bit more choice and variety in terms of the engagement, and specialise in chasing down AI Spits and Hurris when they are running away on their own, which happens a lot in WotR.

Dealing with the empty weight appears to be essential. I made an empty weight mod for OFF, before changes in WoFF rendered it un-necessary. Something similar for the ETO mod (or any other install) would appear to be a good idea.

BTW there was one 109 pilot who strongly disputed that Spits could out-turn 109s. He said he often fought them and could always out-turn them. He said less experienced pilots often backed off when the 109's slats banged out, but for the old hares, that was when the turning really began. Deighton's 'Fighter' gives the 109E a superior turn radius at half fuel at 300mph at 10,000 feet (750 feet radius, compared to 800 feet for the Hurricane and 880 feet for the Spitfire). I don't know how that was arrived at and am not advocating FMs where 109s can routinely out-turn Spits and Hurris, but at least a level playing field so that AI fighters in any CFS3 install do not fly at empty weights.

[gecko]

Yeah, it's good to point out that the 109 is not an easy plane to fly by any means. Generally speaking, you had to be quite good to get the most out of the aircraft, where this wasn't such a problem for other aircraft. Today among modern warbird pilots it still has an intimidating reputation.

[Daiwilletti]

The number one cause of problems for a Bf 109 is Spitfires. Uninstall all Spitfires and it will be better.
. . .
The 109E/F is on my shortlist for a full overhaul, but I'm still up to my eyeballs in Spitfires at present.

LOL, those pesky Spitfires ! As mentioned, I have created AI versions of a number of the Mki Spitfires in my Pat's Bob install, so that they fly with a bit of fuel weight.

The engine position of -7.5 has been changed to -5.5 in the aircraft.cfg for the 109E4, it seems to help a bit. I also reduced the on-ground beta of the propeller, because of the stark difference between the Bob version and the ETO version. I've no idea what I'm doing, it's monkey see monkey do, but the changes seem to help.