Folks,

I just ran across this excellent summary written by NickM over at the ROF forums.  It was written in response to a frustrated Il2 pilot who was having difficulty adapting the the very different aircraft performance and necessary combat tactics of WWI aircraft.

As it's taken me a long time to adapt to the WWI air conditions (I might just be getting the hang of it now, after 20 months) - I thought I'd copy it here for you to see, in the hopes that it might actually help someone.
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WWI aircraft combat has some very significant differences from WWII aircraft combat. In particular, WWI aircraft are very agile and have quite reasonable power-to-weight ratios so they turn and accelerate well; but they are very draggy. This means that they accelerate quite quickly up to rather low top speeds, will rapidly regain any energy lost in turns and will rapidly lose energy gained in dives.

A WWII aircraft that turns to follow one extending away after a head-on pass will find itself a long way behind by the time it has turned 180 degrees and accelerated to top speed again. But a WWI aircraft can turn 180 degrees in about six seconds and will very rapidly be up to top speed again. So if an aircraft turns to follow a D.VIIF which is moving past at the D.VIIF's top speed of 120 mph, the D.VIIF will still only be ~ 324 m away when the first aircraft has reversed and starts the tail chase.

In the example given, the chasing aircraft was a SPAD XIII, which is the fastest aircraft in the game at low altitude. According to the store data it is 26 kph (7.2 m/s, 16 mph) faster at sea level than a D.VIIF. So even if the D.VIIF is running flat out, the SPAD XIII will nevertheless actually overtake the D.VIIF in 45 seconds if it starts from 324 m away, and will be at a typical 150 m convergence range for a perfect shot in about 24 seconds.

A canny pilot will, of course, have begun to reverse before the merge and will be even closer behind. If he started to reverse only two seconds before the merge he would be commencing the tail chase from only 216 m away - almost at convergence distance to begin with, and would still be at a perfect 150 m convergence distance in only 9 seconds. The D.VIIF can buy a few extra seconds by using energy from a dive to boost its speed. But WWI aircraft just don't hold energy that well and the advantage will not be too great.

In short, the D.VIIF is too slow at low level to risk an attempt to extend away from the fastest aircraft in the game after a head-on merge - even with energy gained from a dive. Further, at low heights the SPAD actually outclimbs the D.VIIF so climbing away is not going to end well either. Better tactics would have been to stalk the SPADS from a safe height advantage until an attack could be made by surprise, or to attempt to draw them into a turn fight where the D.VIIF's excellent sustained turn would give it a very significant advantage. Blasting past would work if it was an Fw 190 vs a P-51, but here it's just not a good tactic.

At bottom, the engagement is still two vs one and the SPAD is a capable fighter aircraft. It is very fast, tough, a stable gun platform and climbs like a rocket. It outclimbs and outspeeds a D.VIIF by significant margins below 2,000 m. Even a very skilled virtual pilot should be wary of taking on two player-flown SPADs under those conditions.

The D.VIIF does begin to have a significant performance advantage over the SPAD XIII in speed and climb (as well as turn) at heights above about 2,000 m and in the late stages of WWI patrols were often flown at heights of 15,000' and above. The D.VIIF was optimised for this high-altitude role and up there it did very well. It was never intended to fight at low level.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Nick

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S!

Gunny