m10bob
Posts: 8622
Joined: 11/3/2002 From: Dismal Seepage Indiana Status: offline
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I know a lot of the players here are pilots, but for those of you who are not, I will try to explain something. The P 40 was absolutely one of the fastest "rolling" planes of the entire war. A "roll rate" is how quickly the plane is able to alter it's course in the sky, (basically). Turn rate is a different animal altogether. All planes lose speed when climbing, or when turning. The less speed a plane loses when turning, allows it to sustain a turn for a longer time without reaching its' stall speed. Therefore, a plane with a worse turning radius is going to stall out of the sky when it reaches the pinnacle of it's turning radius. Note, all planes turning also lose altitude while turning, so a plane which loses less speed and altitude will win over even faster planes *if the faster plane is dumb enough to try to turn with it*.. This is why the Dr I Fokker Triplane was a great plane against Spads and Se 5's and Camels...They were all good planes but the Tripe had greater lift capacity on its' wings and could maintain speed while turning longer. This was the whole theory behind Japanese planes from the beginning. They intentionally made "dogfighters", while the Allies made their planes to replicate the same "fast hit and run" tactics of the SPAD's, etc, which were faster durning that prior war......
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