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Post by felix on Nov 13, 2016 12:30:47 GMT 10
Airacobra or Iron Dog?... the Airacobras the British handed over to the USAAC had a 20mm cannon in its place. This type was called the P-400. It soon became the joke of the Pacific that a P-400 was a P-39 with a Zero on its tail.
Airacobra History - World of Warplanes
The P-39 did have a bad reputation for having some nasty spin characteristics. There was a persistent rumor that, when entering a stall or a spin, the aircraft would enter an uncontrollable tumble from which the pilot could not recover. This reputation still exists in some capacity today. At the time, word of it was widespread enough in the USAAF that it warranted some testing. From August 1-3, 1943 a P-39 was put through an extensive series of tests attempting to recreate this legendary tumble. After about a thousand spins, USAAF test pilots were unable to recreate this mythical tumble. The Army concluded that the P-39 had normal spin characteristics for a pursuit aircraft and recovery from a spin could be achieved in two and a half rotations provided the proper recovery characteristics. Additionally, the ‘tumble’ likely a misinterpretation of the inverted spinning and snap rolls of an improper spin recovery.
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Post by felix on Mar 28, 2019 10:44:10 GMT 10
Engine management:
Basically has one RPM setting (3000) and two throttle settings in combat ie Military (42 for 15 minutes) & Max (60 for 2 minutes). You can clearly hear the engine note change as you cross the threshold from one to the other so engine management is actually quite simple.
Combat at 42 inches of Manifold with occasional short bursts at 60 inches then when you get a chance you drop back to Nominal to rest the engine.
The long drive shaft does not like sudden, large change. For example, if you are over-shooting a target or entering into a spin, chopping and ramming the throttle may snap the drive shaft. This action must be avoided.
It is not a great aircraft for dog-fighting. One pass diving attacks is the method to apply. It is great at ambushes though as it dives fast and hits hard but you have to get the kill first time as it does not climb back up so well so all you can do is push through and use the accumulated speed to get away. Roll is good for evading fighters on your six but it only takes a couple of hits to disable the engine. Very good for killing bombers in one pass if you use the cannon and make use of the roll rate and speed to avoid defensive fire.
Roll rate was notoriously not too good on p39...
p40 should be much better than 39, not so in game..
The Cobra is plane with excellent dive, very high peak top speed and great instantaneous turn rate between 300-450mph indicated. I use clever snapshots and the mirror for scanning surroundings and rarely get surprised by the enemy.
As you can see it differs only by 1ft after 2000ft when compared to 50s! Of course flight time of the 37mm is longer thus the target must stay still to get 37mm and 50s both hitting. Unfortunately it's not possible to get such pattern in the game because we have only a simple convergence option... Yet, from my experience convergence of 300m does approximate it partially.
More irritating is that you have only 400 rounds of the 50s available. That is 200 rounds per gun and it doesn't last for long. 30 rounds for the 37mm is surprisingly enough because the cannon cycles so (2.5 shots per s) slow and it doesn't make sense to spam it.
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