Dynamic Campaign flight speed

[Scottvdken]

Am I the only one that cannot seem to keep up with the AI when I am not the squadron leader? I can be on emergency power and they still pull away from me, impossible to stay in formation. BF109E, Moscow theater, runway start, playing on normal mode since I'm terrible. Any tips?

Edited March 21, 2018 by Scottvdken

[Herne]

1 minute ago, Scottvdken said:

Am I the only one that cannot seem to keep up with the AI when I am not the squadron leader? I can be on emergency power and they still pull away from me, impossible to stay in formation. BF109E, Moscow theater, runway start. Any tips?

 

Look at the map closely on the briefing. I think it gives you the altitude and speed between way points. If you get your nose down and trim for a speed a little above that on the map, you should catch the leader up quite easily.

I was struggling in the HE111 until I realised that by getting my nose lower and pick up some speed, that my climb rate didn't really suffer

[Scottvdken]

That's what is weird. The speed between waypoints is listed as 410km/h, I'm going 420km/h and still they keep pulling away.

[[DBS]Browning]

Check you are matching the optimum climb rate for your aircraft. The AI are quick, but they do not fly at full power in transit.

[Jade_Monkey]

I'm having the opposite problem where cruise speed is too low for AI, making missions a bit too long when there are long distances.

[Cpt_Cool]

Also try throwing on autopilot and seeing if the plane keeps up on its own, and what engine settings it uses. I seem to recall that the "auto engine management" manager can be un-optimal (it opens cowl flaps etc... wider than they need to be resulting in poor performance). I find that the speed of the formation is very dependent of mission type and situation.

[busdriver]

3 hours ago, Scottvdken said:

That's what is weird. The speed between waypoints is listed as 410km/h, I'm going 420km/h and still they keep pulling away.

 

I found during testing that the nav legs on the map had an airspeed but the AI flew much faster. Unfortunately I didn't get time to test the 109s and 190s much less any of the bombers. Suggest you post down in Tech Issues and Bug Reports subforum.

 

Not that you have to post a map screenshot, but I did along with a screenshot of the HUD airspeed and techochat display showing Combat Power was required to stay in formation. The Devs will fix it if they know about it. 

[Scottvdken]

Well, I figured it out. Typical error between chair and keyboard. I was flying with 4x200 bombs, whereas the ai was flying with 1x250. Logically I had assumed that should not effect my airspeed that drastically compared to theirs but I finally looked at the actual specifications, the airspeed penalty is almost double compared to 1x250. 

 

IRL, why would that be? Do the extra mounts create that much more drag?

[busdriver]

Regarding the drag penalty difference between 4x bombs and 1x bomb, yep that is a RL phenomenon.