If you want to cover the greatest altitude over the smallest distance (like to clear an Obstacle) you climb at Max angle speed.

Not a zoom climb then

Hmm

Ming

"My Career was pretty short because the other guys in my flight decided to run straight into the hangers rather than turn around and use the runway. So obviously I did the smart thing and resigned my commission immediately. They were Germans anyway so I didn't trust them to begin with, I just liked their plane."

Quote from the OP, man I had to clean tea off my keyboard, that was funny!

BF

I had to clean tea off my keyboard, that was funny!

Same

I wonder if planes can take off and land then take off again. Instructing an AI plane to carry a downed pilot to safety while you cover. Or fly the carrier

If we can then we can fly missions where we can properly rescue crash-landed pilots, stuff like that. Land beside the hiding pilot then wait a certain time (timers are in there) then take off and get the pilot back to a field hospital

All under a master clock I mean, there and back in 30 minutes or mission failure, your passenger dies of shock or he puts his foot through the canvas and drops off the twig trying to stay close to the fuselage

Ming

Think of it this way Ming.

Take yourself back in time to days of Empire there you are a young RAF pilot. You are looking resplendent in your Pith helmet and jodhpurs sipping Pimms in between Chukkas at the Darjeeling Polo club. Looking in the distance you see the mighty peak of Everest and joke to your Navigator "I say old bean how about we take our Westland Wallace and fly over that there pimple ? " The Navigator retorts ... "Mingsy old Chap how do you propose to climb over that ? "

Now before respondinding have a think Zoom climb, Max Rate or Max angle climb

What will be your reply to your Navigator ?

" the mighty peak of Everest ...how do you propose to climb over that ? "

Now before respondinding have a think Zoom climb, Max Rate or Max angle climb

What will be your reply to your Navigator ?

First remember I know next to nothing about planes Ivank and utterly depend upon you and Fred for that stuff

What I was wondering is- do I know what a zoom climb actually is

I take that to mean getting as high as possible as quickly as possible so pulling the nose up sharply and not worrying about the huge loss of energy you must have when you get to the top where you'd be getting ready to take on the stall that must follow

In my thought experiment, some planes wouldn't get as high as another plane in the same time

Whereas a steady climb might have less negative consequences for energy, and the plane that doesn't zoom climb would eventually have an advantage on the plane that pulled up more sharply

Max angle then, I wouldn't do that. It just sounds wrong and therefore could be the trick question. One develops an instinct for these things

Definitely not a zoom climb but that's because my zoom climb sounds like a maximum angle climb. The two are different then and this is when I learn something

Hmm max rate sounds like max angle. But no, max rate must end up with your plane not stalling at the top

What's 'A steady climb that will safely get you over the mountain'? Some calculated angle of climb that you'd present to the mountain in the distance. You couldn't just pick any old angle but there might be one that would be the result of taking into account the plane's specification. Navigator would huddle over the calculations and then say "Shall we go around it?"

Your nose would have to point a little over the mountain's peak. But not too much or you may lose height

Enormously complex to work out for this land-lubber mate you'll have to describe what you'd do please and I'll be your navigator in 'Thought Experiment: The Claiming of Everest in the SPAD'

Everest is 22-27000ft without googling so it sounds possible actually, wrapped up and wotnot

Ming

Your first response to your navigator should be .... "I wont be needing you for a start ... you are are just ballast and I can see where I want to go anyway".

The problem as you have rightly sussed is Angle. The steepest sustained climb angle your aircraft can achieve occurs at only one speed.... Your Max angle climb speed. Now (in simple terms) that speed occurs at that point in the flight envelope were the maximum excess of Thrust over Drag occurs. (A similar speed exists for max rate however this is always a little faster than max angle usually about 1.3times it in fact).

So unless you know your aircrafts maximum climbing angle exceeds the sight angle from your take off point to the top of Everest then your best bet is to do your darnedest and fly at your Max angle speed. Indeed the first to fly over Everest were RAF pilots in a Westland Wallace

A Zoom climb is something like the old Maximum Altitude attempts (F104 etc) would perform in the later part of the attempt. Typically the end point of a zoom climb is 0 or next to no airspeed and a subsequent ballistic flight path. You accept the trade off of airspeed for height it is not a sustained manoeuver.

Well, it will certainly be interesting to see how the multiplayer dynamics fall into place if/when a dogfight server mode becomes available.

It seems a lot of people fly almost any simulator and many of those also have stick time in real aircraft, while some others are pretty much exclusively WWI simulator pilots that fly more or less the way the real ones used to back in the war.

Performance gaps may not be so pronounced in a WWI setting as in simulators dealing with WWII and modern aircraft, but they still exist. I'd guess the ones who'll wipe the floor with the opposition will be the ones who have extensive stick time on energy fighters in IL2, or fly modenr jet sims where knowing things like corner speed, maximum this and minimum that take half the effort. If half the server goes around in circles after each other's tail, it will be all too easy to dominate for someone who's spend years flying FW190s and P47s in IL2.

I can't wait for the "plane XYZ is uber" debates

As I understand it, you are describing the use of a chandelle turn (minumum-radius, climbing turn at Vx) as a tactic for the DVII to attempt to force a SPAD into a scissors fight or a stall. Is that correct?

And you are saying that a SPAD pilot who recognized the chandelle could disengage and simply 'extend' at Vy and come back with more energy at the same altitude as the Vx-ing Fokker?

Without getting too technical (hence the drawn-out desciption, terminology makes things brief but not all are familiar with it), that's more or less the case.

I was going the other way though, first bait the Spad into scissors and when both are sufficiently slow then the D.VII can start the chandelles. You are correct about the Spad disengaging if he doesn't fall for it. You don't even have to disengage completely, it's simply a case of building some lateral separation to give you breathing room, then building up an altitude advantage and going back against the D.VII.

Beware, however, that both you and your opponent are spending from the energy accounts from the start - and the rule of thumb is that the first guy to spend all of his energy first loses.

I was fighting against a Fokker in my SPAD and things weren't looking so good - not only did he start with greater energy, he started from an advantageous position. I was forced to knife fight.

On paper, my goose was cooked, and for the majority of the fight I was looking rearwards.

My opponent got greedy, however, and chopped throttle to cut a corner closer on me. These kites burn energy like nobody's business, and I took advantage of the situation and went vertical.

Not much of a zoom climb, to be honest; maybe five hundred feet or so to the top of the Immelman. But he couldn't hack it, being forced to slide his nose right in an ugly hammerhead with no energy while I had enough to kick rudder and perform the turn at the top.

I stitched his plane from prop to just behind the cockpit.

One of the things I like about the sim is that the gas tank doesn't explode Hollywood style. The vapors fill the fuselage and then blow out panels and supports, leaving a wrecked but mostly intact burning mess to plunge to the ground. I'd like to think the pilot was killed instantly from my machineguns rather than blinded, deafened, and burning on the way down.