First hop in P39

[=38=Tatarenko]

Clearly I need to give it more of a try because at the moment I'd far rather fly the Yak-7, which I really enjoy.

Having said that, I ran across some Ju-88's in a campaign and the P-39 absolutely murders them with the big gun.

[MeoW.Scharfi]

9 hours ago, Finkeren said:

9 hours ago, rolikiraly said:

 

Well i hope it's not really true? Maybe it's a bit of an exaggeration or "survivor" (ace pilot) bias?

 

It’s not true, but it does roll really well.

 

It does outroll it. That doesn't mean it rolls faster than the 190, it means when two planes barrelroll each other, the P39 does it a bit better.

[Guest deleted@83466]

Is it a bug that the oil and coolant radiators flaps only extend from the fuselage at 46% and 60% respectively, or is their something also going on inside that you can't see?  They look closed, but are they truly closed?  In other words, is their ever a reason to continue to shut those radiators down below the above values?

Edited March 15, 2018 by SeaSerpent

[Ehret]

Just now, SeaSerpent said:

Is it a bug that the oil and coolant radiators flaps only extend from the fuselage at 46% and 60% respectively, or is their something also going on inside that you can't see?  They look closed, but are they truly closed?  In other words, is their ever a reason to continue to shut those radiators down below the above values?

 

I don't know but I have two ideas - to close them fully to avoid dirt (or ice) getting inside when parked. They are very close to a ground after all. 2nd idea - to avoid over-cooling when taxing in winter conditions.

 

 

[56RAF_Roblex]

 

What I found was not so much that 'the P39 flies *best* at high speed' as 'The P39 flies badly at low speed' :-)     Even ground attack is difficult at lower speeds as it becomes very twitchy and it is hard to get the sights on the target.   Get some altitude though and come in fast and it suddenly becomes a very stable gun platform and the combination of 37mm with machine guns, even when you take out the wing guns, makes it very good at killing AAA and vehicles .  Of course the issue then is that any sort of turn bleeds energy very fast so you have to take a long time setting up for a second pass by climbing out straight and getting enough altitude so that you can recover the speed you will lose when you turn back.   I had no trouble killing Ace level AI 109 f2s but they still fly like noobs and I suspect human flown 109s will be very hard to defeat unless you are very good at keeping your energy while still staying out of the enemies guns.  

[MeoW.Scharfi]

2 hours ago, 56RAF_Roblex said:

What I found was not so much that 'the P39 flies *best* at high speed' as 'The P39 flies badly at low speed' :-) 

 

No, it's also very decents at slow turning!

[Solmyr]

Wow, love this bird ! *That always start this way until I meet MP with the new toy *

So far I just tried her weapons onto a (poor) AI 109 E-7, I was bad at first shots, then tried to figure the M4 ballistic and then suddenly Booom !

 

It's a so lovely plane with lots of smoothness at every speeds, behaves very well even if needing to think that GC is back, makes her so special, and we can feel it very well imo. I set pitch trim full negative right after take off.

Nice fire platform. Almost decent speed (mh.. not really :D) But that damn lady burns all kinetic E you give to her like your wife burns your pay...

 

Very nice to land, so easy and cool with her landing gear.

Careful on take off though : care the GC that could make you climb suddenly as soon as front wheel takes off and even more when main wheels do same, with high AoA, sudden E conversion, and resulting in a dramatic stall 10-20m above the ground. Maybe flaps shouldn't be used at all, dunno. Maybe I should set trim full -100% before. Will need further tests.

 

Some dead angles quite everywhere in this nice cockpit of course, but essential angles are ok, and gunsight is very comfortable.

 

I love this P-39 L.

I want the same with 200 more hp. 

Edited March 16, 2018 by Solmyr

[BlitzPig_EL]

Took the 39 up last night in the QMB against Ju52s to test the cannon.

 

Ummm...   It's far easier to shoot them down with the machine guns than with the 37mm gun.  Not what I expected at all.  The Ju52 just absorbed the 37 like a sponge and kept right on flying, but just a few pings with the MGs would have immediate effect.  Starting fires, stopping engines, etc...

 

So then I tried it against the He 111.  A bit easier than the Ju, but not by much, still the MGs did better, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the P40 is by far the better bomber killer.

Edited March 16, 2018 by BlitzPig_EL

[Tag777]

15 minutes ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

Took the 39 up last night in the QMB against Ju52s to test the cannon.

 

Ummm...   It's far easier to shoot them down with the machine guns than with the 37mm gun.  Not what I expected at all.  The Ju52 just absorbed the 37 like a sponge and kept right on flying, but just a few pings with the MGs would have immediate effect.  Starting fires, stopping engines, etc...

 

So then I tried it against the He 111.  A bit easier than the Ju, but not by much, still the MGs did better, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the P40 is by far the better bomber killer.

I did the same test against the Ju-52 with the same results. I do not know but for me it seems that the 37 mm cannon is a litttle underpowered. According to Pokryshkin, a 2-3 seconds burst of the cannon and the nose machineguns breake in two any German bomber.

[Finnsky]

I really like the plane so far. It just flies so smooth. Of course climb rate & speed is not the best, but if you stay fast it is a pretty good aircraft. One thing that I love (and haven’t seen much talk about) is its dive abilities. We were fighting a 190 (A5 I think) on wings yesterday and he tried to get away with a 90 degree dive, us in 2 P39 in full pursuit. We won easily because the 190 ripped its ailerons off in the dive while we had no problems at all. It also stays controllable even at very high speeds, no problems to pull out of even the steepest dives. 

Edited March 16, 2018 by Finnsky

[-TBC-AeroAce]

I love everything about it apart from the climb speed which literally seemed the worst of all the fighters to me. 

 

As for the 37 mm every fighter I have hit with it seems to evaporate especially if you get some mg hits as well. I have not tried against bombers but I was expecting it would be deadly. I bit amazed to see people don't think it is good against them.

Edited March 16, 2018 by AeroAce

[Tag777]

Well, the Ju-52 takes 6 or 7 rounds of the cannon and continues flying. Against the fighters is deadly of course. One hit and one wing is ripped off.

[Finnsky]

15 minutes ago, AeroAce said:

 

 

As for the 37 mm every fighter I have hit with it seems to evaporate especially if you get some mg hits as well. I have not tried against bombers but I was expecting it would be deadly. I bit amazed to see people don't think it is good against them.

 

My experience with the 37mm is kind of mixed as well. Was testing against a 111. Sometimes it went down after 2 hits, sometimes it took 4 hits and showed no sign of damage, not even smoking

[LLv24_SukkaVR]

I think 37mm is good against bombers. 1-3 hits usually does the job. Shot off tails of 2 111's in a row using only 1 round each. MK108 feels a bit more powerful as i it should, since it has bigger explosive load. 37mm is easier to hit with, because of higher velocity. Deflection shooting is hard with both guns.

[216th_Jordan]

12 hours ago, MeoW.Scharfi said:

 

No, it's also very decents at slow turning!

 

Very decent but not every forgiving. I like it a lot, for once a plane that stays in a developed spin and doesn't exit it by itself. (Of course with appropriate countermeasures a spin can be ended quickly)

[MeoW.Scharfi]

Ace in a flight in P39

 

 

[Guest deleted@83466]

20 hours ago, Ehret said:

 

I don't know but I have two ideas - to close them fully to avoid dirt (or ice) getting inside when parked. They are very close to a ground after all. 2nd idea - to avoid over-cooling when taxing in winter conditions.

 

 

 

Yeah, last night on one of the winter maps on WoL, I had to close both radiators way below the 46%/60% limit to keep from getting too cold so it isn't really closed at the MeoW limits, it's just streamlined with the fuselage.

Edited March 16, 2018 by SeaSerpent

[Cpt_Siddy]

58 minutes ago, MeoW.Scharfi said:

Ace in a flight in P3

 

 

Those 37mm shots looks like you are throwing angry grape fruits at the enemy.

 

Nice sortie. 

Edited March 16, 2018 by Cpt_Siddy

[MeoW.Scharfi]

8 minutes ago, Cpt_Siddy said:

Those 37mm shots looks like you are throwing angry grape fruits at the enemy.

 

Or angry birds

[Cpt_Siddy]

10 minutes ago, MeoW.Scharfi said:

 

Or angry birds

 

It all makes sense now! 

[Guest deleted@83466]

What a fun plane this is!

 

Don't care too much one way or the other, but I'm a little bit curious why the developers chose to model the "L" version of the plane, which probably wasn't as common as a lot of others.  Is it just more of a middle of the road variant that sort of stands in for a the variety of models that were in use around the time of Kuban?

[unlikely_spider]

I was testing it yesterday for the first time... I had throttled down then after a bit, hit max throttle quickly which immediately killed the engine! Is that expected behavior?

[Cpt_Siddy]

13 minutes ago, SeaSerpent said:

What a fun plane this is!

 

Don't care too much one way or the other, but I'm a little bit curious why the developers chose to model the "L" version of the plane, which probably wasn't as common as a lot of others.  Is it just more of a middle of the road variant that sort of stands in for a the variety of models that were in use around the time of Kuban?

 

Well, perhaps more snek variants will be sold as premiums :^) 

 

A-5 and A-3 comes to mind.

[Finkeren]

4 hours ago, MeoW.Scharfi said:

Ace in a flight in P39

 

That didn’t take you long.... 

 

Deadliest girl in the air. Remind me never to get on your wrong side.

[LukeFF]

50 minutes ago, SeaSerpent said:

What a fun plane this is!

 

Don't care too much one way or the other, but I'm a little bit curious why the developers chose to model the "L" version of the plane, which probably wasn't as common as a lot of others.  Is it just more of a middle of the road variant that sort of stands in for a the variety of models that were in use around the time of Kuban?

 

It's the most common variant in use at the time the game simulates, yes.

[GridiroN]

On 14/03/2018 at 5:15 PM, Windmills said:

Am I missing something or do the specifications not match the ingame tech tips for the engine power level? Tech tips just say continuous/combat/ emergency as far as I can tell, while the specs mention military/take off/maximum?

 

The Tech tips ignore the middle power setting. It goes straight from combat to emergency. 

 

This is really only a potblem for people who do not fly by their guages but it's still annoying. 

Edited March 16, 2018 by GridiroN

[56RAF_Roblex]

2 hours ago, engrish_major said:

I was testing it yesterday for the first time... I had throttled down then after a bit, hit max throttle quickly which immediately killed the engine! Is that expected behavior?

 

Yes.  In fact you can break a few aircraft doing that.   I did it on a Mig-3 once, I chopped the throttle during a  dogfight then slammed it forward  again and the engine just went 'clunk' and stopped :-)    It has never happened since though.  It is something to do with the regulator that adjusts your rpm to match the manifold pressure not reacting fast enough.

Edited March 16, 2018 by 56RAF_Roblex

[Ehret]

6 hours ago, engrish_major said:

I was testing it yesterday for the first time... I had throttled down then after a bit, hit max throttle quickly which immediately killed the engine! Is that expected behavior?

 

The prop pitch governor is little slow - the engine may over-rev before the pitch changes to finer setting.

 

[56RAF_Roblex]

Typical.  After saying it had not happened to me for a long time it has just happened again... in a P39 :-)   I was in a dogfight and chopped the throttle because I was overshooting then when I started dropping back again I pushed the throttle forward too fast and the engine broke.    It seems the P-39 is particularly susceptible.     It is the same engine as the P40 I think but I always treat the P40 very gently,  I certainly don't go slamming the throttle forward quickly.  The P-39s engine did not seem quite so delicate but it obviously still needs a gentle touch.

[56RAF_Roblex]

Interesting page in the P-39 pilots manual about spin recovery.  TL:DR version:-    They say the stall is very docile and that if you do manage to start a spin it will recover in 1.5 - 2 turns provided you follow the correct procedure.  They do go on to say that if you don't follow the correct procedure it wont recover at all :-)

 

 

[bzc3lk]

On 3/15/2018 at 1:45 PM, Nic727 said:

Am I the only one noticing weird sound when looking the P39 from the front? Maybe it’s normal, just want to make sure.

 

thx

I think the whining sound is from the straight cut gears in the reduction gearbox, found in the nose of the aircraft

Edited March 17, 2018 by bzc3lk

[-TBC-AeroAce]

18 hours ago, GridiroN said:

 

The Tech tips ignore the middle power setting. It goes straight from combat to emergency. 

 

This is really only a potblem for people who do not fly by their guages but it's still annoying. 

 

Also if you are using auto engine management it will not go into some of the modes.