Spitfire IX questions

[DrDeath_MD]

I've got about 50 hours in the Yak's which are pretty easy to fly. I recently moved to trying to Spitfire and am a bit confused.

1. What is the best way to control the boost? Mixture of RPM and throttle? It seems like I always put it into emergency mode and that keeping the cruise boost is very difficult and feels like I have low RPS and throttle settings vs. the Yak where you slam it to the firewall?

2. How do you land this damned plane?!! It seems like even at 105 or slower it will still bounce and then LOVES needing a ton of rudder immediately. Also, I ground loop it even when I'm being gentle on the brakes!

3. Convergence range for guns?! In the later Yaks I just relied mostly on the cannon and got pretty good with it but I feel like the Spit just fires BBs. 

4. Any other tips?!

 

[JimTM]

11 hours ago, DrDeath_MD said:

1. What is the best way to control the boost? Mixture of RPM and throttle? It seems like I always put it into emergency mode and that keeping the cruise boost is very difficult and feels like I have low RPS and throttle settings vs. the Yak where you slam it to the firewall?

 

Before you increase the boost, increase the RPM to accommodate that increased boost. For example, if you are at max. cruise setting (+7 boost, 2,650 RPM) and you want to go to combat power, increase prop to 2,850 RPM first and then increase throttle to +12 boost. If you want to go to emergency power, increase prop to 3,000 RPM first and then increase throttle to +18 (or +25 with 150 octane).

 

Before you decrease the RPM, decrease the boost to accommodate that decreased RPM. For example, if you are at emergency setting (+18 or +25 boost, 3,000 RPM) and you want to go to combat power, decrease throttle to +12 boost first and then decrease prop to 2,850 RPM. If you want to go to cruise power, decrease throttle to +7 boost first and then decrease prop to 2,650 RPM.

 

FYI, with 150 octane fuel, you need to switch the supercharger manually.

 

11 hours ago, DrDeath_MD said:

2. How do you land this damned plane?!! It seems like even at 105 or slower it will still bounce and then LOVES needing a ton of rudder immediately. Also, I ground loop it even when I'm being gentle on the brakes!

 

On the first part of the landing, the rudder is still effective, so it's the main control to keep you from wandering.

On the later part of the landing, the rudder is not effective so your brakes are the main control to keep you from wandering.

Memorize the attitude of the plane on the ground and height above the ground and aim to duplicate that when you flare for landing. Approach at 95-100 mph, using a curving approach path so you can keep your eye on the touchdown point until the last seconds.

 

1. Land as straight as you can, pulling the stick right back and keeping it there as you land and roll out on the runway.

2. Watch for any small movements to the left or right and correct them immediately (this is critical) with quick stabs at the rudder (think of dancing on the pedals).
    You can also try quick stabs of brake if you go off track, but don't hold the brakes.

3. As you slow down, switch to quick stabs at the brakes to keep you on track until you stop or slow to a crawl.

 

Edited July 29, 2020 by JimTM

[Diggun]

1) you want to control boost with throttle. In the ix with standard fuel, 75% throttle and 75% boost is max continuous, and 85% throttle and boost is full 'military power' . You can run at full military power for one hour, so this will be where you want to keep it for most flights in game. You can go up to 100 throttle and 100 boost for 5 mins 'max emergency' power, useful in a dogfight. 

 

2) a descending turning approach helps, you want to be doing about 100mph 'over the fence' of the airfield and aim for a 3point touchdown about 85mph. You will have to 'dance' on the brakes regardless during rollout, but keeping some power on usually helps with this. 

 

3)this is personal preference, but I go with 400m. This means you want to set the gunsight range at 437 yards. This puts your targets far enough out for the predictor gunsight to actually be helpful on occasion, but you can still get good results with the target in closer. The 20mm on the Spit ix are genuine murder weapons, you won't need more than one burst on target to ruin someone's day. You won't just delete them like the same burst would from a Tempest, but they'll be out of the fight. 

 

4) Much is made of the ix being slower than the opposition. This can be mitigated with the 150 octane fuel (which I personally don't like as it complicates engine management a bit), but in in game situations I've never felt like the speed of the ix has held me back. When engaged, try to equalise energy states as quickly as possible. Make the bad guy bleed off speed trying to get snap shots at you. At anything below Very Fast Speed the ix will outmanouver the hell out of pretty much everything. 

 

Because of this manoeuvrability, pilot G-LOC can come on quickly and viciously. Practice throwing the crate around so that you can get used to it and ride the edge of the blackout for fun and profit. 

 

I love the clipped wings. Clipped wing LF IXe is, to my mind, the most beautiful Spit. Aesthetics aside, clipping your wings loses you some turn rate but you gain roll rate. Since you already have turn rate to spare, it's handy to have the extra roll rate to enable you to roll with those pesky 190s. Be aware that with the clipped wings from some angles you will look very 109 flavoured. Consider a skin with some D-day stripes for the benefit of trigger happy team mates. 

 

Take a bomb with you in MP and you can run as a truly multirole aircraft. You can take up to 3 bombs, but since they all come off at once I generally stick to just the 500lb centerline bomb. You can scoot over to a target, lay your egg, and then suffer a very minimal performance hit (a few kph off top speed, and, as mentioned above, absolute speed ain't everything) while you merrily zoom around the target area, covering your buddies, dragging aaa, and generally looking cool and froody. 

 

Tea is optional, but very much encouraged. Milk, no sugar. 

Edited July 29, 2020 by Diggun

[oc2209]

I'm hardly an expert with the Spitfire IX, but I've flown it a fair bit in single player and a few times in multiplayer (where I enjoyed something roughly akin to success even as a total rookie).

 

I can't help you much on engine management, since I fly with it on auto-manage while in single player. In multiplayer, I've learned enough through trial and error to match my RPM to my desired throttle setting (cruise, combat, emergency). Other people here have already explained that better than I could, however.

 

In terms of landing, I have little trouble touching down, but I do tend to loop at the end of the landing run before my speed's totally under control. The 30-50 MPH area most often. For some reason, I find the Spitfire harder to control on the ground than the 109, despite both suffering from the same problem of narrow landing gear. Again, the posts already made are more helpful than I'll be.

 

On shooting: I have my convergence set to 200m. Which of course makes long shots impossible, but I consider 90% of long shots a futile waste of ammo anyway, especially with as low an ammo count as the Spitfire (compared to German planes). The trick, I've learned, to maximizing the efficacy of the Spitfire's .50 guns: try to only use them for engine/cockpit deflection shots on a turning enemy. I find them largely wasted if used from directly behind the target, especially so if you're not firing at the ideal convergence range. The cannon, of course, are valuable from any deflection angle, but still have to be aimed far more carefully than nose-mounted guns if you want to get fatal fuselage hits instead of simply shredding wings. I expect the Yak spoiled you in this regard.

 

For other tips, I find the Spitfire has an irritating 'floaty' feeling, in part because of its very powerful elevators. The lightest touch will be a gross over-correction if you're not careful. So it essentially must be flown differently than any other plane. Where the Yak can be yanked around, the Spitfire must be smoothly guided; both to avoid over-correction, and to avoid blackouts that can come very quickly. I would also suggest learning vertical maneuvers to take advantage of the Spitfire's rate of climb; if all you do is turn with it, you'll be quite predictable.

[FTC_DerSheriff]

Keep some throttle on landing that way you keep some rudder authority during the landing. Doesn't need to be much. Just a bit.

[=X51=VC_]

Power setting is always a combination of RPM and boost, move both as others have said, limits are in the stat card.

 

I saw in a Youtube convergence tutorial video that the RAF standard convergence for Spitfires was 250 yards, or ~230m. So that's what I set to in IL2 but really most of the time I am firing much closer than that. Don't care much about the .50s, those two Hispanos wreck things pretty well though.

 

One extra advice I would give, the one thing I would say which "made" the Spitifre for me, was turning the "sensitivity" setting for the pitch axis all the way up to 80.

[CB77Don246]

Yes and they say the Spitfire is one of the best WW2 planes in GB it is one of the worst for me all the single engine Russian , German are a lot easy to fly than the Spitfires on the ground the Spit is a pig to control. 

[Diggun]

29 minutes ago, CB77Don246 said:

on the ground the Spit is a pig to control.

A b*tch on the ground and a lady in the air! You sure you're using the brakes right? 

 

And if you think the ix is a handful on the ground, can't wait to see how the xiv handles! 

[RedKestrel]

3 minutes ago, Diggun said:

A b*tch on the ground and a lady in the air! You sure you're using the brakes right? 

 

And if you think the ix is a handful on the ground, can't wait to see how the xiv handles! 

Once you get it airborne it is an absolute joy to fly. On the ground it is very tricky but its not a car, its an airplane. The MiG-3 is almost as bad, in some cases worse due to that wacky tailwheel locking arrangement.

And its not really difficult to fly. You need barely any rudder to keep her coordinated. If you take the clipped wings it rolls like crazy. You have to be careful of the elevator to avoid blacking out but that's because you can out-turn anything in the sky at medium-low speeds. 

And the climb! If you get into a Spitfire after flying a P-47 you feel like you have rockets attached to the tail. Once you are up high you can negate most speed advantages by coming in with a bit of altitude, and your ability to regain energy through your climb and acceleration is top notch.

Engine management is dead easy, just throttle and RPM, and you only ever need to use two settings - 2850 RPM/12lbs boost, and 3000RPM/18lbs boost. As opposed to all the soviet fighters, which require throttle, RPM, water radiator, oil radiator, and in the case of the Yaks, no auto setting for mixture so you have to manage that too.

 

[JimTM]

39 minutes ago, Diggun said:

A b*tch on the ground and a lady in the air! You sure you're using the brakes right? 

 

And if you think the ix is a handful on the ground, can't wait to see how the xiv handles! 

 

You can actually taxi the Spit without using brakes (except to stop). Just be very gentle with the throttle once you get it rolling. Apply some left or right rudder along with small throttle inputs to steer in a zig-zag pattern (to see the route ahead of you). It takes a bit of finesse, which comes with practice, so you can use some brake if you need to. 

 

Remember, once you start a turn, start to stop it. For example, apply some right rudder and a bit of throttle and once you start to turn right, apply some left rudder and a bit of throttle to prevent the turn from becoming a ground loop. Start out with very small turns and very gentle throttle application.  Once you gain experience, you'll know how much rudder and throttle is enough.

 

If necessary, you can use some left and right brake to help you steer if the plane gets away from you while taxiing, but I learned from someone that brake use is not the normal way to steer while taxiing.

Edited July 29, 2020 by JimTM

[Heckpupper]

17 hours ago, DrDeath_MD said:

2. How do you land this damned plane?!! It seems like even at 105 or slower it will still bounce and then LOVES needing a ton of rudder immediately. Also, I ground loop it even when I'm being gentle on the brakes!


 

 

I'm gonna sound sassy, but if 105 MPH is slow to you, I'm afraid to ask what speed you land the rest of your fighters with. Spitfire's don't stall until about 65 MPH in landing configuration, so for a smooth touchdown cross the treshhold at about 80-85 MPH, then hold three point attitude a few feet off the ground until your speed drops below stall speed and the aircraft settles itself on the ground. Remember, if you ever bounce then your landing technique is at fault here - if your touchdown speed is correct your aircraft won't have enough airspeed to get back up. Don't break until very slow, just let her roll out. Runway lenght shouldn't be a problem if you touch down at low enough speed. 

[oc2209]

2 hours ago, ACG_Onebad said:

 

I'm gonna sound sassy, but if 105 MPH is slow to you, I'm afraid to ask what speed you land the rest of your fighters with.

 

You don't want to know my typical landing speeds. It's my general policy to do everything as stupidly as possible, and landing is no exception. One benefit of making so many sloppy landings, though, is that I'm pretty good at making high-speed forced landings after being heavily damaged. I rarely flip or break up.

 

Once, for instance, I was in a Spitfire and turning on the deck. I had some large cannon-made holes in my wing, which I think changed my stall characteristics; and as I was still being shot at, I did the suicidal thing of snap-rolling into the opposite direction of the turn I was in. It looked great and shook the aim of my attacker... until I shortly thereafter stalled and hit the ground just ahead of a treeline at about 130-150 MPH. I had just enough control to hit the ground perfectly flat and skid straight forward; tore both wings off on trees and the pilot survived.

 

That can safely be filed under 'dumb luck.' Or maybe 90% luck, 10% skill.

[DrDeath_MD]

The other planes I landed were the yaks and those are easy--plus they use metric. I got used to landing the yak mostly by feel.

Any advice on not blacking out constantly?! I use a CH fighterstick with near 100% saturation and black out if I move the stick halfway back. It is even worse if I am flying linearly. When fully linear I black out moving the stick about an inch.

[cardboard_killer]

Don't move the stick so much

 

[rogueblade]

This is great info! Saving this for when I eventually move on as a new player from the Yak7b to the Spit IX. 

I still can't defend myself effectively in any dogfight and want to get the fundamentals down in my simple Yak before moving to the insta-blackout Spit

[Bernard_IV]

Cut the throttle and load up the turn slowly giving it more and more.  I still do black out occasionally but am pretty good in the Spitfire.

[DrDeath_MD]

I'm getting better at AI dogfighting if I don't black out. In a few hours today I've shot down 4 planes (2 FW's in 2 missions) with limited ammo. Normally if I can get above I can just circle, high yo-yo and wait for the FW to attempt a dive then stay behind him; pull up a bit when he does and close the gap at that point. I've gotten 2 kills when the AI pulls fully vertical. 

The AI seems to fight in a more dive and climb than in my prior campaign in a Yak where they seemed to want to circle and go down more. 

Note: I'm using the PWCG

[Voxman]

Been flying this bird for the last few days and have had the issue of landing ground loops.  Best tip that I found searching these forums was applying brakes, which I mapped onto one of my control stick buttons, prior to touchdown and holding while gently pulling the stick back.  Also applying some throttle and stabbing rudder pedals to keep the bird straight on the runway.   Brakes constant.  

[MasterBaiter]

On 7/29/2020 at 5:59 PM, CB77Don246 said:

Yes and they say the Spitfire is one of the best WW2 planes in GB it is one of the worst for me all the single engine Russian , German are a lot easy to fly than the Spitfires on the ground the Spit is a pig to control. 

well the Spit IX is one hell of a fighter when flown correctly

[Heckpupper]

It also doesn't help that the Spitfire MkIX, which came at about the same time as a Bf-109G2/G4 is facing off against K-4s and Doras most of the time.

[=RS=Stix_09]

Taxis (applies to MKV also)
The spit will turn slightly to left during taxis, small rudder inputs and gentle braking (only if required, as it uses differential brakes don't over do it) , with practice its easy to taxi once used to it. On grass runway it will start to move forward at about 15% throttle, 10-12% is plenty once its moving, so ease off ones it starts moving as it gets more unstable the faster you taxis, and then its easy to ground loop. 

Landing:
All planes in GB bounce if you are too fast on touchdown, and all seem to drop tail on landing(at correct landing speed) and you end up doing a three point landing. I've tried to land on mains on every plane and its impossible as speed has to be too high (and you get bounces), so it always end up being a 3 point landing , spit is no dif (it actually did like to be 3 point landed)
Spit touchdown speed is about 85 mph (flare about 10mps faster). (gives three point landing) any faster and it bounces.

 

Spitfire Landing Farnborough (2010) - YouTube

 

(I think the Mig 3 is worse to land)

With spit a small amount of throttle on landing (about 5% is all you need) helps stabilise the spit, and applying brakes (pules at first when  it slows down more then full brakes and some back pressure on stick as it slows down to a stop).

Just be aware because the spit uses differential braking it will pull to the side the rudder is active on, so too much rudder at at slow speed it can overdo it easy and u will then need to stab rudders side to side.

 

( MkIX seems to need a bit more rudder  input with full  brakes also to avoid looping. With no brakes  it will loop as it stops)  . (this is easier with pedals)

 

Its just practice, I had problems with the spits also when I first flew them. 

Side note:
I've never found landing FM in GB that accurate to be honest to a real plane. It's one area of FM I find incorrect in game, not all planes should need a three point landing at correct touchdown speed, (all planes seem to tail drop at correct landing speed and go into the 3 point position any faster and they all bounce)
 

Edited November 26, 2020 by =RS=Stix_09
video added

[cardboard_killer]

4 hours ago, =RS=Stix_09 said:

(I think the Mig 3 is worse to land)

 

I think the Bf-109 is the worst plane on the ground. I just started flying it and it has no rudder authority at any rpm. I'm invariably taxing with full right rudder and some right break just to keep straight. Even then I feel I have to gun the throttle from time to time to get more rudder authority. I won't say I have no trouble with the sptifire, but its a dream compared to that messer.

[=RS=Stix_09]

5 hours ago, cardboard_killer said:

 

I think the Bf-109 is the worst plane on the ground. I just started flying it and it has no rudder authority at any rpm. I'm invariably taxing with full right rudder and some right break just to keep straight. Even then I feel I have to gun the throttle from time to time to get more rudder authority. I won't say I have no trouble with the sptifire, but its a dream compared to that messer.

 

BF109

Spoiler

 

With tail unlocked its got lots of authority, I only lock it in straight lines and for takeoff. Some ppl taxi with it unlocked.
Unlocked some right rudder and gentle use of toe brakes to turn as required, not to much throttle or like spit its unstable.
On grass fine pitch at about 1500rpm it starts rolling , taxis at about 1000-1200 rpm.

NOTE:
After relocking tail wheel you have to go straight to realign the tail wheel before it will lock.
I think the bf109 is one of those easy to fly , experience & training to master planes, flown incorrectly and its easy to kill.

While all planes are energy fighters, this a real strength of the bf109. One of my fav planes as it takes skill to fly well, and i'm still not a master of it.

 

 

TIP:
Watch turn and bank indicator during taxis

 

Having pedals with toe brakes makes taxi a lot easier on all planes.

Edited November 26, 2020 by =RS=Stix_09
added note

[rogueblade]

Coming back to this over half a year later as I'm moving on from the Yak7B and starting learn the Spitfire Mk.IX. I'm confused on a number of things to do with engine management.

1. When you say to increase/decrease RPM, are you referring to "Propeller RPM control" as labelled in the key bidings menu?
2. If the above is true, then is the best practice to keep this at the same percentage value as my throttle? So 50% throttle = 50% prop RPM control?
3. When changing these values, am I overriding the "Automatic RPM limiter" as labelled in the key bindings menu, or is that a separate function?
4. When using the 'boost' modes (normal, combat, emergency), do I simply 'toggle' said modes by moving my throttle to a certain % amount? What are the throttle position values to transition between the three boost modes? Is it 75%, 85% and 100% throttle?
   (In game it doesn't match the values I see in this thread; in game the HUD UI says  "emergency mode" at >=70% throttle, and anything under that is "combat mode".
5. When you refer to boost values +7, +12 and +18, am I supposed to adjust a combination of my throttle and RPM control to hit the desired boost value?
6. If using the 150 octane fuel, at what point do I manually switch the supercharger on?

Edited March 3, 2021 by rogueblade

[rogueblade]

FYI it all came down to realising that "boost" is just a shoddy naming terminology for manifold pressue. It all makes sense now.

[vampir0104]

On 7/29/2020 at 5:03 PM, ACG_DerSheriff said:

Keep some throttle on landing that way you keep some rudder authority during the landing. Doesn't need to be much. Just a bit.

 

This advise was so helpful in turning this aircraft from a beast to a kitten.  Thank you!