27 minutes ago, Chock said:

Whether the main wheels touch and then the tail drops, or it three-points, is down to your own landing in most taildraggers, and this thing is no exception; you can do a 'wheeler' if you want, but if you come in at the right speeds, it is easy to three-point it. Generally speaking it's pretty much 'on the money' in terms of how it flies for the various speeds you go at.

I'm basing that opinion on it being 'on the money' performance-wise on having Air Ministry Publication 1565 E (aka the Pilot's Notes for the Mark V to hand), and what my old mate who flew the real things told me about Spits (and since I was obsessed with the Mark V and and by extension the Mark IX, I was always asking him stuff about it, and fortunately he never tired of talking about it lol).

You can fairly easily lose directional control of the thing if there is a significant crosswind, or if you relax too much on the controls for take off and landing, and it also replicates the fact that the Spitfire has a pretty narrow-track landing gear in that it can fairly easily tip up onto a wingtip if you don't keep on top of things. However, see the bit below about runway choices.

It's worth bearing in mind that this is simulating a Mark IX Spit. As everyone knows, people who flew the real aeroplane would comment on how lovely it was to fly generally, but you have to remember that most of these pilots had spent rather a long time on the Tiger Moth or the Boeing Stearman for their initial flying training, then they would graduate to stuff such as the Miles Magister, T-6 etc before being let loose on the Spitfire, so they were well-used to 1930s-era taildraggers by the time they got in a Spitfire cockpit. Even then there was a good chance at an Operational Conversion Unit, it would most likely be a war-weary earlier Spitfire Mark which the fledgling pilots would first have a go on, so these things usually had a (comparatively) lower-powered 1030 HP Merlin engine in them and would not be carrying a full load of ammunition etc.

Even with all that in mind, the Pilot's Notes for the real thing does caution you that the Spitfire has a very sensitive elevator which can easily pitch it into a stall AoA, so yes it's nice to fly, but you do have to fly it and not be ham-fisted, or it will bite you. Like when you ride a horse, aeroplanes reward skillful handling, but they will take liberties with you if you are not in charge.

So when people say 'it's a Spitfire', they really should specify which Mark of Spitfire they're talking about: Over the space of approximately five years in WW2, the Spitfire went from having 1030 Hp and weighing 5,800 lbs, to having 2,375 Hp whilst weighing in at 12,750 lb in its Mark 47 Seafire variant, and there was about a 100 mph top speed difference between these models. So it basically doubled in weight and power as it was developed, and the Mark IX was about a third of the way along that development timeline.

Back with this Flying Iron Spit, the sounds are nice. They are very obviously recorded off a real Merlin engine and in combination with stuff such as the cockpit airflow wind noise with the canopy open, they are very authentic. You might have to tweak your various volume level settings in the sim's options to get a mix which pleases you personally, but you certainly can do that. 

Something else to consider...

For those having 'fun' with take offs and landings in the Spitfire, keep in mind that part of the problem is modern aeroplanes with nosewheels which steer a lot better on a landing and take off roll, and modern facilities with good, well drained runway surfaces, most of which are grooved. Back in the 1930s and 1940s, RAF airfields typically looked like this picture below. That's a Class A airfield, being RAF Bassingbourn in 1944, but it's a standard airfield layout the Air Ministry approved in the early 1940s and even before this they were essentially like that most of the time. Though they might have had concrete runways, these would not have been as 'grippy' as modern surfaces, but what they would have, is an orientation directly into the wind and a fifty foot wide constantly curved perimeter track allowing access to them, which was easy to see when taxying in a taildragger:

Two very specific features which help with the Spit and other taildraggers on these airfields are that it has the longest main runway on a heading of South-West to North-East, because that's the typical direction of the prevailing wind in the UK, so it's why most airports in the UK even these days have runways quite close to an east-west direction of 09/27. The other important feature that a Class A Airfield has, is two other runways aligned in a triangular A shape, which means it's impossible to have a nasty crosswind with all of those different take off and landing directions to choose from; you will be able to land and take off straight into the wind in any weather conditions, and on earlier RAF airfields where they were essentially just a big grass meadow, you could take off and land in pretty much any direction you liked.

This is why if you look in the pilot's notes for aeroplanes of that era, you won't find a 'demonstrated crosswind' limit for an aeroplane, because nobody in their right mind landed or took off in a crosswind back in those days. There simply was no reason to have to.

So don't worry about departing off the runway in a crosswind a bit in this thing, because keeping these things on a runway with a 20 knots crosswind is never how these things were flown back in the 1940s, and since they are rare and valuable, it's not how they're flown these days either.

Hey Chock - you gave me an awesome response in another thread where I asked about the Arrow. I was busy over the weekend and hadn't yet had a chance to thank you. Thanks very much for the detailed response!

1 minute ago, Bigbluss said:

Thanks for your answer on this! With the CRJ and the Arrow out soon I think I'll leave the Spitfire for now then. I love the plane but I know how it is with me, I'll buy them all and not fly them! Hah

Same as me!  I am like a kid in a sweet shop and buy everything at the moment.  There are not enough hours in the day to fly them all regularly.  I haven't even tried all of the default aircraft yet! 😀

2 hours ago, DJJose said:

The Realair version was so much fun to fly.

Does this version fly as good as the one from Realair for FSX/P3D?

Examples:

When you touch down, do the main wheel touch first, then as the speed bleeds does the tail drop slowly?

Do you lose control of the airplane after the main wheels touch the runway?

How are the sounds?

Those are some the features that made the Realair so immersive.

Thanks.

Jose

 

 

I know Real Air Spit was good but unfortunately I don't remember. The closest airplane come to recent memory is DCS Spitfire and IL2 Spitfire. MSFS version does resemble both. I haven't tried wheely landing yet just three pointer but I like it.

I love sound although I probably a poor judge since I haven't seen real Spitfire sound. Although I do have a lot videos, but still it's not a real life.

1 hour ago, sd_flyer said:

I love sound although I probably a poor judge since I haven't seen real Spitfire sound. Although I do have a lot videos, but still it's not a real life.

One of the problems a developer will face specifically with a Spitfire and its audio features, is that everyone knows that classic sound of a Merlin-engined aeroplane flying past. Beyond the other elements creating the engine's tone, technically it's the doppler shift causing the wavelengths to extend as the sound source moves away, which progressively drops the note lower, but we just know it sounds pleasing to the ear.

Problem is, you'd only really hear that on a fly-by and not when you're sat in the thing or stood next to it, so inevitably people who are used to hearing a Spitfire at an airshow do a fly-by, will associate that doppler effect with the Spitfire, and then if they don't hear that, they'll say the sound is 'wrong' when sat in the thing in their sim, which of course it isn't, but there you go. This is especially true for us Brits; we're all used to hearing Merlin engines pass over us, as there are quite a lot of Spitfires still airworthy in the UK. Even if you don't go to airshows and such, there's a good chance you'll see and hear a Spit, a Hurricane or Lancaster go overhead at least a couple of times a year whilst on the way to some anniversary or pageant or whatever.

It's not helped by the fact that with this sound being so pleasing, inevitably it's the sound which editors will choose for movies most of the time. Can't really blame them for that, after all, everyone wants their movie to have a great soundtrack, but it does tend to make people think a Spitfire always sounds like that, when it really doesn't make that sound at all if you're sat in the thing.

Thus you get all kinds of silly descriptions of 'Merlins purring' and such, but up close the real thing is bloody loud, and the sound is anything but what you'd describe as a purr. Contrary to similarly emotive descriptions of the aeroplane itself, the real things bang and clang like a tin can and they look like they are sweating oil out of front end of the thing to the point where you will probably one to wipe your hand after touching the cowling panels.

With the engine running, Spitfires can and do exhibit supersonic exhaust crackles and pops, not to mention flames and smoke coming out of those six stub outlets, especially when firing that engine up (which hopefully will be added when particle effects can be in the sim, as they are a big feature of the real thing).

But people are still going to forever associate it with that doppler sound as it flies overhead although they didn't all sound like that, and not all the time either. Here's a comparison between a Merlin-engined and a Griffon-engined Spit with them both flying by Dover's white cliffs, recorded on the same microphone. You can definitely tell they are different engines, and I think most people would agree the Merlin does sound 'sweeter', but without the comparison and taken in isolation, that Griffon engine sounds bloody great too.

Part of the sound is of course the propeller tips getting up near the speed of sound, the air intakes and such and even which company made the air intakes can alter the sound somewhat; Austin/Morris-made grilles famously whistle a bit more than other grilles on some RAF fighter aeroplanes to the extent that you can often identify the variant from its sound. And with the Griffon-engined variants of the Spitfire having a much more complex prop, that's almost certainly part of what makes that one sound more powerful too.

Of course what really sounds great when it comes to Merlin engines, is the AVRO Lancaster when that flies by; it's exactly four times better than the sound a Spitfire makes. 🙂

Edited March 8, 20215 yr by Chock

Ok, i bought it. 🙂

I love the feel of it, the sound, the cockpit textures (fantastic!) etc. Takeoff and landing are quite easy, honestly, but that might be because I usually fly taildraggers like the Savage Carbon and that is not too different, I think.

One question I do have, though: Is it realistic that the Spitfire stalls at around 70 mph (or less) with or without flaps? My first landing used the whole 3000 feet of the grass strip because I approached at 90 mph and didn't expect it to float forever. My fault, I assume?

Yup. For a landing circuit, the drill is UMPF. Undercarriage down and locked, Mixture Control Rich, Propeller Control fully forward, Flaps down. Engine-assisted approach speed is 85 mph, glide with the engine off is 95 mph. So you want about 100 mph until you're on short finals, slowing down to 87 mph over the fence ready for the flare, and it's not a bad idea to fly a curved approach.

Other noteworthy speeds...

Flap limit speed is 160 mph. Climb speed is 140 mph. Loop entry speed 300 mph. Best roll rate is obtained between 180 and 300 mph. Upward Roll speed is 350 to 400 mph.

Engine/prop speed for climbing and such is about 2,400 rpm and you want about 2,800 rpm for take off, which should get you about 8lbs of boost, but don't be shy of giving it more throttle for the take off. A typical Spitfire such as a Vb or IXc needs about 750 feet to get off the deck.

Edited March 8, 20215 yr by Chock

40 minutes ago, Chock said:

One of the problems a developer will face specifically with a Spitfire and its audio features, is that everyone knows that classic sound of a Merlin-engined aeroplane flying past. Beyond the other elements creating the engine's tone, technically it's the doppler shift causing the wavelengths to extend as the sound source moves away, which progressively drops the note lower, but we just know it sounds pleasing to the ear.

Problem is, you'd only really hear that on a fly-by and not when you're sat in the thing or stood next to it, so inevitably people who are used to hearing a Spitfire at an airshow do a fly-by, will associate that doppler effect with the Spitfire, and then if they don't hear that, they'll say the sound is 'wrong' when sat in the thing in their sim, which of course it isn't, but there you go. This is especially true for us Brits; we're all used to hearing Merlin engines pass over us, as there are quite a lot of Spitfires still airworthy in the UK. Even if you don't go to airshows and such, there's a good chance you'll see and hear a Spit, a Hurricane or Lancaster go overhead at least a couple of times a year whilst on the way to some anniversary or pageant or whatever.

It's not helped by the fact that with this sound being so pleasing, inevitably it's the sound which editors will choose for movies most of the time. Can't really blame them for that, after all, everyone wants their movie to have a great soundtrack, but it does tend to make people think a Spitfire always sounds like that, when it really doesn't make that sound at all if you're sat in the thing.

Thus you get all kinds of silly descriptions of 'Merlins purring' and such, but up close the real thing is bloody loud, and the sound is anything but what you'd describe as a purr. Contrary to similarly emotive descriptions of the aeroplane itself, the real things bang and clang like a tin can and they look like they are sweating oil out of front end of the thing to the point where you will probably one to wipe your hand after touching the cowling panels.

With the engine running, Spitfires can and do exhibit supersonic exhaust crackles and pops, not to mention flames and smoke coming out of those six stub outlets, especially when firing that engine up (which hopefully will be added when particle effects can be in the sim, as they are a big feature of the real thing).

But people are still going to forever associate it with that doppler sound as it flies overhead although they didn't all sound like that, and not all the time either. Here's a comparison between a Merlin-engined and a Griffon-engined Spit with them both flying by Dover's white cliffs, recorded on the same microphone. You can definitely tell they are different engines, and I think most people would agree the Merlin does sound 'sweeter', but without the comparison and taken in isolation, that Griffon engine sounds bloody great too.

Part of the sound is of course the propeller tips getting up near the speed of sound, the air intakes and such and even which company made the air intakes can alter the sound somewhat; Austin/Morris-made grilles famously whistle a bit more than other grilles on some RAF fighter aeroplanes to the extent that you can often identify the variant from its sound. And with the Griffon-engined variants of the Spitfire having a much more complex prop, that's almost certainly part of what makes that one sound more powerful too.

Of course what really sounds great when it comes to Merlin engines, is the AVRO Lancaster when that flies by; it's exactly four times better than the sound a Spitfire makes. 🙂

Chock, you have my trust in Merlin sound because I'm clueless. LOL Like I said, I have some videos of Spit I have purchased over the years. Also some "training" like POV vid how to fly certain modeles. I love Spitfire.

Also I even had opportunity  to talk to WW2 vet who flew land lease Spit ( I think mark V it was) in Murmansk covering convoys! And he praised  it greatly ! He said it was the most comfortable and agile airplane he ever flown. And he could compare with one he flew such as Laggs Yaks, P-40s!

From my perspective as flyer I absolutely love it. At the moment ATS Piaggaio and Flying Iron Spitfire are on my pedestal  of top 3rd part MSFS add ons so far. I hope developer will improve it further to satisfy all demands that is include quality of sound!

2 minutes ago, sd_flyer said:

Also I even had opportunity  to talk to WW2 vet who flew land lease Spit ( I think mark V it was) in Murmansk covering convoys! And he praised  it greatly ! He said it was the most comfortable and agile airplane he ever flown. And he could compare with one he flew such as Laggs Yaks, P-40s!

My old friend who flew Spits in WW2 and Meteors after WW2, told me that flying the Spit was the greatest job he ever had and that he couldn't believe he was actually being paid to do it. He said he would have done it for nothing. And that was with people shooting at him. 🙂

A couple of shots of BF273, probably my current favorite livery.

T45

 

 

 

Edited March 8, 20215 yr by Treetops45

How is navigation handled? Is it purely dead reckoning and pilotage?

13 minutes ago, Bigbluss said:

How is navigation handled? Is it purely dead reckoning and pilotage?

Pretty much. However... It will follow autopilot heading commands in the sim even though the real thing did not have an autopilot, so to do that you will need either a hardware autopilot such as the Saitek/Logitech one, or some keyboard commands assigned. Other than that it has a basic RAF PII compass for navigation and you can either look out of the window or use the sim's VFR map and compare that with the terrain out of the window.

The real things followed timed compass headings at specific speeds and used a stopwatch/chronograph watch etc to work these for attack mission courses into France, or the pilots got vectors from controllers when doing intercepts against raids over the UK. It was only used as a daylight interceptor (apart from trying it out as a nightfighter early in the war, which it was not good at since it didn't have a radar). So most of the time it was never flying especially long distances and so pilots could usually see their home airfield, or at least roughly where it was when still over the Channel if they were up high enough although that big Spitfire wing blocked a lot of the view of the ground.

Visual navigation was trickier in some parts of the UK in the 1940s than in other places, although fortunately not over Kent where the Battle of Britain largely took place. The problem was the industrial smoke from chimneys in the Midlands and the North of England, which would smog up at an inversion layer altitude of about 4,000 feet, and that would severely limit the slant range view.

Edited March 8, 20215 yr by Chock

20 minutes ago, Chock said:

Pretty much. However... It will follow autopilot heading commands in the sim even though the real thing did not have an autopilot, so to do that you will need either a hardware autopilot such as the Saitek/Logitech one, or some keyboard commands assigned. Other than that it has a basic RAF PII compass for navigation and you can either look out of the window or use the sim's VFR map and compare that with the terrain out of the window.

The real things followed timed compass headings at specific speeds and used a stopwatch/chronograph watch etc to work these for attack mission courses into France, or the pilots got vectors from controllers when doing intercepts against raids over the UK. It was only used as a daylight interceptor (apart from trying it out as a nightfighter early in the war, which it was not good at since it didn't have a radar). So most of the time it was never flying especially long distances and so pilots could usually see their home airfield, or at least roughly where it was when still over the Channel if they were up high enough although that big Spitfire wing blocked a lot of the view of the ground.

Visual navigation was trickier in some parts of the UK in the 1940s than in other places, although fortunately not over Kent where the Battle of Britain largely took place. The problem was the industrial smoke from chimneys in the Midlands and the North of England, which would smog up at an inversion layer altitude of about 4,000 feet, and that would severely limit the slant range view.

Thanks a lot for this info Chock. I read First Light recently which was a fantastic book about a BoB pilot, which is why I'm interested in this model. I'd like to recreate some of his flights. I was also wondering to those with the aircraft, can you use the radios for contacting online ATC? More specifically Pilotedge and Vatsim controllers?

 

1 hour ago, Bigbluss said:

Thanks a lot for this info Chock. I read First Light recently which was a fantastic book about a BoB pilot, which is why I'm interested in this model. I'd like to recreate some of his flights. I was also wondering to those with the aircraft, can you use the radios for contacting online ATC? More specifically Pilotedge and Vatsim controllers?

If you see my video review, you can see that when you start 'cold and dark' from the ramp, the radio doesn't trigger as being switched on in the ATC window (it says your electrics are off, a problem not unique to this add-on), but if you start it with the engine running on the runway, as I do later in my review, you can see the radio ATC pop up window works. The developer is looking at this issue, so the answer currently is, yes, the radio sort of works, but it might not be ideally suited to all kinds of modern navigation and control. The real thing (and what this sim version replicates) had a big valve radio with crystals for a few frequencies located in the rear fuselage behind the seat, this was linked to a head unit on the left front panel with buttons which could allow pilots to select a few specific frequencies to talk to other pilots or the controllers, but it was fairly limited in capability, and had limited range too. It was fairly fragile as well, since it used glass valves (tubes if you are an American).

There was no real capability for radio navigation, and at the time there were very few ground based beacons anyway even if it had had such a capability. The IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) system on board the Spitfire was essentially a precursor to the transponders on modern aeroplanes, in that it could be interrogated by a radar signal and it would send a signal back which identified it as a friendly aeroplane, but that was about it although its usefulness led to the development of transponders after the war. What there was however, were the controllers and operations boards which used a network of spotters, some radars (not many since they were pointed out to sea for the most part) and also some sound locators, to plot where things were, and it was pretty effective as a system and a fundamental part of the victory in the Battle of Britain.

This is what this thing pictured below is all about, and if you have a keen eye, you might even have spotted on some of my youtube reviews, that in the background I have one of those clocks on my wall of the same as the type seen in that control room.

Most WW2 aeroplanes such as USAAF B-17 and B-24 bombers operating from the UK after 1942 would tune a beacon at their airfield known as a 'splasher', and they would circle around it at a pre-briefed altitude until their squadron had all formed up. Then they would navigate to another splasher to rendezvous with other squadrons at a specific time and then they would fly a timed course to hopefully meet up with their escort fighters at a specific location and time.

This allowed them to form up under radio silence into forces number many hundreds of aeroplanes, however, the German Freya radars in France could see these big circling formations, and so they generally knew when a raid was forming up and getting ready to come. One of the problems with this system was that there were a lot of mid-air collisions when large formations were meeting up and forming and so the size of such raids in terms of bomber numbers was usually calculated to include up to ten percent of the force being lost from collisions and aborts from technical issues prior to the raid setting off for its target.

This is one of the reasons why the RAF preferred to operate at night when bombing and not have their bombers fly in large formation, although this played havoc with accuracy for bombing and it wasn't until much later in the war when aeroplanes could carry radars to identify ground targets that night bombing could really be particularly accurate.

Prior to the USAAF trying daylight bombing in the B-17, the RAF had also operated the B-17C in formations of about 12 aeroplanes on daylight raids against places such as the U-Boat pens at Brest, but the limited range of the Spitfire for escort, and the vulnerability of bombers in daylight led to them preferring night raids. What is not often acknowledged in this aspect of WW2 where the USAAF did continue with massive bombing raids, was that their purpose was not simply to bomb targets, it was to get the Luftwaffe into combat, because even though this meant losing a lot of bomber crews, the Allies could afford this in terms of manpower, whereas the Germans could not keep up in terms of attrition. So when they say there was a very human cost in defeating the n@zis, they weren't kidding, because it was an actual policy.

Conversely, the Luftwaffe had some ingenious radio-navigations solutions to night bombing over the UK. Prior to WW2, the German airline Lufthansa had flown 'airliner' flights over the UK which were really secret photo-recon missions to identify suitable targets in the UK. They were also helped by the fact that many industrial areas in the UK were easy to find at night even during a blackout because most industrial areas in the UK were located near rivers, which reflect moonlight. Historically, lots of stuff was transported from factories by barges and the factories and mills had originally been powered by waterwheels, necessitating that industrial complexes be next to a flowing river, often augmented by canals and such. This is one of the reasons why Liverpool really copped it in WW2, since it is probably the easiest city in the UK to locate, it being on the mouth of the Mersey Estuary.

German bombers used a system called 'knickbein' (crooked leg). This was similar to how we use tuning in to two VOR/DME beacons to locate where we are. The Germans had powerful directional radio beacons in Scandinavia and on the coast of France, and what they would do, was aim two of these widely separated directional radio beams at a town in the UK. The bombers could then tune in one beam and fly along it until its DF loop detected it was crossing the other beam. This would automatically trigger a clockwork timer which would count down and release the bombs automatically at a pre-determined point, which made Luftwaffe night bombing very accurate indeed. The only issue with this, is that these beams could obviously be detected by the British and frequently were long before the raid had even taken off from the European mainland. The British therefore knew which city was going to be bombed many hours before it actually was. This enabled them to focus their nightfighters in the right area, but the Government kept this from the populace in general, since knowing you were going to cop it that night would have been damaging to morale.

Back with the Spitfire though, if you want to read the best book on flying the Spitfire in combat in WW2, get a copy of Wing Leader by Johnnie Johnson. You will not regret reading that, it has some of the best and most detailed descriptions of Spitfire combat against Fw190s and bf109s you will ever read. Johnnie Johnson was a really nice bloke too, like many Brits, I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting to him on a few occasions although I do regret never having got him to sign my copy of that book, which is almost falling apart from having been read so many times.

Edited March 8, 20215 yr by Chock

Amongst 80 other Battle of Britain pilot signatures (Bader, Stanford-Tuck etc) I have Ginger Lacey & Adolf Galland.

Lacey (501 Squadron) converted from Hurricane to the Mk II Spitfire in 1941.

 

1 hour ago, Tinribs said:

Amongst 80 other Battle of Britain pilot signatures (Bader, Stanford-Tuck etc) I have Ginger Lacey & Adolf Galland.

Lacey (501 Squadron) converted from Hurricane to the Mk II Spitfire in 1941.

.... Cool. I have a bunch of 602 squadron pilot signatures on a picture of Squadron leader Sandy Johnston's spit Including one Pete Brothers!

 

 

Edited March 8, 20215 yr by stewartforgie