P-40 steady gun platform ?

[4thFG_Cap_D_Gentile]

The P-40e is extremely wobbly to  me, I always thought, from numerous accounts, it was a steady gun platform, any ideas ? And why is it impossible to trim it nose heavy at full throttle ? I can not recall ever reading that anywhere, meaning accounts from the Med to New Guinea through Australia and the CBI. 

 

JF

[4thFG_Cpt_Godfrey]

Couldn't agree with you more.  Extremely hard to strafe, dive bomb. Vicious spins if the stick is not eased into any maneuver. Perhaps my stick is not set up right, but no other plane in the game does this. I also agree that by the accounts I have read, it was a steady gun platform. When diving onto a target, it reacts as if one is twisting the rudder left and right. By all means,,,,someone enlighten us.

[indiaciki]

I've been flying her for three days now. She is very stable but extremly sensitive to rudder. You have to work that rudder very gently and very activly (happy feet) or leave it alone. Here's a video of her flying level at 115 mph (Final appraoch speed)  very near stall speed with 50% flaps,gear down, nose trimmed way up, landing configuration with a little more throttle to keep her level Very stable at very low speeds. I'll try a strafing run, now. BTW she's so nose heavy I would know why you should trim her down when strafing - she's underpowered and heavy. If you trimmed her down you would probably end up crashing?

 

 

Video with wInd 2m/s, turbulance 2m/s

Edited November 21, 2015 by indiaciki

[indiaciki]

tryed straffing ships. You're turns / steep turns have to be coordinated well - you have to gently work stick & rudder at all maneuvers. Then she's very stable at strafing The more I fly the P-40 the more I love this bird. When diving to attack a ground target - trim her up and even use some flaps below 200 mph. Don't dive too fast. I had my gun covergence for ships between 150-210 m !

Edited November 21, 2015 by indiaciki

[Finkeren]

As a gunplatform it's stable, but the plane itself can be somewhat sensitive and is wobbly at high fuel loads. At 60% fuel and with careful piloting, it's a pretty good shooting platform though. It has much less shaking compared to the Soviet designs. 

[indiaciki]

I actually think she's more stable with 100% fuel and trimmed, but that's subjective, of course. Just bombed a ship for the first time and sunk her. You're right. she's very sensitive. Has to be activly flown. My first combat sim after 20 years was ROF so I'm okay with instability.

Edited November 22, 2015 by indiaciki

[indiaciki]

not wobbly at all (bombing and attacking ships) P-40 - 2min 27s (full length is 11 min):

 

 

slow attack. lots of flaps, throttle and trimming, very stable. This i my first ground attack. Shooting is terrible

Edited November 22, 2015 by indiaciki

[LLv24_Zami]

not wobbly at all (bombing and attacking ships) P-40 - 2min 27s (full length is 11 min):

 

 

slow attack. lots of flaps, throttle and trimming, very stable. This i my first ground attack. Shooting is terrible

Well, your bombing was great!

[Brano]

Wasn´t stability issue of early models like we have (E) adressed in later versions by elongating the tail section?

[indiaciki]

I don't know but the should have enlarged the fin and shortened the rudder section. That would have helped. But she's still extremely underpowered and slow for a 40s fighter. She doen't accelerate at all. I've flown her with min fuel and without ammo and she's still a brick.I have never used so much flaps and trim flying any fighter. You have to work her constantly. That's why I really doubt her capabilities as a ground attack plane. She's very dangerous near the ground bcause of lack of lift and acceleration.

Edited November 23, 2015 by indiaciki

[4thFG_Cap_D_Gentile]

As a gunplatform it's stable, but the plane itself can be somewhat sensitive and is wobbly at high fuel loads. At 60% fuel and with careful piloting, it's a pretty good shooting platform though. It has much less shaking compared to the Soviet designs. 

So as a gunplatform it is stable even though the gunsight is all over the place due to wobbling ? The slightest touch of the rudder and the nose movements (read wobbling) starts making me seasick, even at high speeds i.e. 450 mph.

I don't know but the should have enlarged the fin and shortened the rudder section. That would have helped. But she's still extremely underpowered and slow for a 40s fighter. She doen't accelerate at all. I've flown her with min fuel and without ammo and she's still a brick.

 

Hard even to perform a split S :-)

[indiaciki]

She really doesn't wobble. You can't use rudder when attacking static targets. All you do is pointing your nose at the target but you're still flying in another direction so do the bullets. You're slipping. You can't aim while slipping if you're not 50m from you're target. 50m - Ground target and you're dead because you can't pull the p-40 up unless you're flying 150 mph and then you're dead anyway because you're an easy target. Please explain the wobblining. I didin't notice it once. Please do. The E-7 is sensitive the P-40 is lazy. Do you have a video of the wobbling?

Edited November 23, 2015 by indiaciki

[Guest deleted@50488]

The P40 was well known for it's directional instability IRL.

 

One can find many sources of info on that matter. Directional instability played it's major role during takeoff and landing, but also during high speed dives, so, I think the model in BoS pretty much matches the real thing.

 

From one of the texts I found:

 

"One flight characteristic that carried over from from the earliest long nosed P-40s was poor directional stability. The plane had a marked tendency to swing it's nose during takeoff and landing and it wanted to roll in a dive. [...]

The Curtiss design staff tried several fixes to improve stability by modifying the tail of the Hawk 87 [...] Curtiss was still working on the stability problem when the manufacture of the P-40F began in January 1942 ..."