Impact of radiator setting on Yak-1 speed

[JtD]

I've speed tested the aircraft in game and got curious about the impact of the radiator drag on the speed in actual numbers. I've chosen the Yak-1 as my testbed. I've tested the aircraft in standard atmosphere with rads closed, half open and fully open and the effect can be seen on the attached chart. Down low, we have a difference of a little under 30km/h between fully open and closed, while up high we get more than 40km/h. Real life handbook figures are exceeding 50km/h, but no altitude or speed is given.

 

What is relevant is that the settings necessary to keep the engine temperatures within operational vary with altitude. I've found that 50% open is insufficient down low, but up high you can pretty much fly with rads closed to 10%.

If you compare the speed results with real life figures, you can see that (in particular considering the necessary radiator settings), the speed is very much spot on down low, but gets increasingly optimistic as altitude increases. Old news, but the chart is putting radiator settings in perspective.

Since I've also tested compressor stages separately, you can see the right altitude for gear switch in the chart.

[Crump]

Interesting...

 

Nice job.

 

It is not hard to ballpark what you should be seeing if you know some design parameters for the Yak 1 radiator.

 

http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/reports/1920/naca-report-62.pdf

[303_Kwiatek]

Good job. Its clearly show that Yak is overperforming expecially noticable at higher alts even with only radiator 50% or 100%. At low alts difference is less. Question if developers will do something with these expecially when some other planes are much accurately done like G2 or A3 refarding maximum speed which cause abnormal relative performance between these planes.

 

Cheeez at 7 km alt there is about 60 kph overspeed :/

 

Russial really would like to have such Yak in 1942

Edited February 15, 2016 by 303_Kwiatek

[Turban]

Good job. Its clearly show that Yak is overperforming expecially noticable at higher alts even with only radiator 50% or 100%. At low alts difference is less. Question if developers will do something with these expecially when some other planes are much accurately done like G2 or A3 refarding maximum speed which cause abnormal relative performance between these planes.

 

Cheeez at 7 km alt there is about 60 kph overspeed :/

 

Russial really would like to have such Yak in 1942

 

Do you have actual data backing your claim that german planes are more acurate when it comes to the influence of the radiator on speed ?

 

Claming that russians planes are OP is getting so old........

[JtD]

It's not what he's claimed. What he claimed is that considering the radiator settings, some aircraft are more accurate than the Yak-1. Maybe he's got no data to back it up, but given that I've tested all aircraft, I do. It's outside the purpose of this topic, though.

 

In the meantime, feel free to test the Fw190 at all the radiator settings available to it.