Why Don’t Flaps Get Stuck or Tear Off in the Game?

[Roland_HUNter]

I’ve been wondering about the mechanics behind flaps in flight simulation games. In reality, flaps can face issues like jamming or even structural failure if deployed at high speeds beyond their limits. However, in most games, flaps seem to work flawlessly, regardless of the speed or conditions.

Why don’t they get stuck or tear off in these simulations? Is it due to simplified mechanics, or do games take these real-life limitations into account? I'd love to hear insights from both developers and experienced players on how flaps are modeled and whether this aspect is intentionally left out for gameplay reasons.

What are your thoughts?

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

I dont think it's as simple as they do or don't globally, it's more that there's a flap lottery on a plane by plane basis. Planes like the P38 will break flaps at moderate speeds if you're not paying attention, and planes like the 109 have flaps that can break, but only in extreme conditions you'll likely not anchieve unless you're purposefully trying to break them. Then there's planes like the Spits or Yaks where their flaps probably would break in-game if you could extend them out further at higher speeds, but the game idiot proofs them, so they auto retract at higher higher speeds. Why do some planes win the lottery, and others lose? I dont know.

[Roland_HUNter]

I have tried to break it on more than 1 plane, only to experience slowdowns.

 

The flaps should jam or break off at around 300-400 km/h.

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

If I'm testing them I start a quick match at 10km and dive with my flaps out, you should be able to get stupid enough to break them that way. Maybe some really are invincible, they're all different, but others just have really high limits.

[Bert_Foster]

Its an oversight in the DM imo. Flap overspeed is a real issue IRL, there should be consequences for misuse. Might alleviate some of the nonsensical combat flap usage we see in game.

[Avimimus]

2 hours ago, Bert_Foster said:

Its an oversight in the DM imo. Flap overspeed is a real issue IRL, there should be consequences for misuse. Might alleviate some of the nonsensical combat flap usage we see in game.

 

There are consequences in game.

 

Flaps jam or break off. The speed at which this happens differs depending on the airplane.

 

  

4 hours ago, Roland_HUNter said:

I have tried to break it on more than 1 plane, only to experience slowdowns.

 

Test more systematically. The second plane I tested had its flaps jam at about 400 km/h (the first still had its flaps functional when it reached terminal at about 550 km/h).

[357th_KW]

The flaps on both the P-51 and P-38 jam in game with only minor exceedances past their speed limits - both had unusually high speed limits on their “maneuvering” settings.  It seems as though every other aircraft can wildly exceed their (generally much lower) flap speed limits.  Simply holding every aircraft to the same flap speed limit standards as the 51 and 38 would likely solve most of the complaints of “magic” flaps and flap abuse.

[Roland_HUNter]

17 hours ago, Avimimus said:

 

There are consequences in game.

 

Flaps jam or break off. The speed at which this happens differs depending on the airplane.

 

  

 

Test more systematically. The second plane I tested had its flaps jam at about 400 km/h (the first still had its flaps functional when it reached terminal at about 550 km/h).

In 90° dives:
I tested the Yak9, the flap was closed at 400 km/h.
La5FN: Flaps jammed on landing position at ~470 km/h.  I needed to dive 3-4000 meter to achieve that.
Spitfire IX: Flaps closed at ~510 km/h
Bf-109 G6Late: Flaps jammed at ~640 km/h 🤣
Fw-190 A8: Flaps jammed at ~550 km/h.
P51D: Left flap broken off at ~490-510 km/h. The right flap not jammed, broken off even at 750+ km/h.🤣
Second test: flaps jammed at 370 km/h, others are the same.
Tempest: from 6K I achieved 580 km/h: NOTHING happened.😅
Second test: 574 km/h: flaps jammed.

[72AG_terror]

Regarding Spit and Yak flaps - they retract kind of 'automaticaly' under airflow pressure. Both plane types had pneumaticaly operated flaps. When the airspeed gets sufficently high, the airflow pressure on the flaps becomes too much for the pneumatics to resist and the flaps are gradualy forced closed and opened again when the speed drops. There was a long and heated discussion on the .ru side early in the development whether Yak flaps mechanism kinematics could hold flaps open under the airflow pressure or not and it was decided that it couldn't.

As per flaps usage in combat... My thought is while they probably would indeed not break at such speeds as we see in combat but flaps extension at high speeds probably would cause shudder and major buffeting on the wings and tail along with the controls as well as wing rock, yaw instability etc. Those kind of split flaps are specificaly designed to disrupt smooth airflow and my guess that this disruption would be way too much on high speeds for any sane pilot to try to use them. Why it is not in the game - I don't know, maybe the calculations are too advanced for the FM to handle. Or I'm simply wrong on this.

[czech693]

The pneumatic flaps on the Spit, Yak, and MiG just provide air pressure to force the flaps down.  Stop the pressure and they retract.  That's why the MiG had to raise the flaps to re-set the Limiter (for which we never got a separate button to operate it separate from the flaps).  Hydraulic fluid is much denser than air.  The hydraulic pump will keep trying to pump the flaps down against a strong slip-stream.  A battle is going on between those two and eventually an O-ring blows out and all your hydraulic fluid in the system goes out into the air (pump is still pumping).  Now your flaps are jammed because with no fluid the pump can't pump them back up.

[Aapje]

But without the hydraulic fluid, the flaps would have only their weight to push against the wind right? So I would expect them to be pushed up at higher speeds.

[354thFG_Drewm3i-VR]

On 12/2/2024 at 10:01 PM, 357th_KW said:

The flaps on both the P-51 and P-38 jam in game with only minor exceedances past their speed limits - both had unusually high speed limits on their “maneuvering” settings.  It seems as though every other aircraft can wildly exceed their (generally much lower) flap speed limits.  Simply holding every aircraft to the same flap speed limit standards as the 51 and 38 would likely solve most of the complaints of “magic” flaps and flap abuse.

This. The 109 and 110/410 are the worst abusers of flaps in-game--particularly online.

[[CPT]Crunch]

The planes that have deliberately engineered and purpose designed combat flaps with published limits are the ones that suffer the easiest failures.  While many that have flap speed restrictions posted in the flight manuals and modeled in the very cockpit placarding's within this game don't have failures anywhere close to these known limits.  Completely Bassackward in implementation.