[.041 Safety Wire]

The stick forces in most WWII fighters was not as great as one might think as most of these warbirds were outfitted with servo or boost tabs on the control surfaces to lighten the stick forces during combat manuvering. Thes tabs move opposite the movement of the control surface and lighten the pilots workload considerably. Most pilots will tell you that you use right rudder on take off to counter engine torque which is not quite true. The forces acting on the aircraft during the TO run are P-factor, Gyroscopic precession, and assymetrical thrust during the climbout. This is what you are countering with the rudder. These forces are especially pronounced on tailwheel aircraft. As far as the aircraft trying to roll because of engine torque you do not feel this thru the stick. Rudder in a turn is used to counter adverse yaw which is the high wing creating more drag than the low wing and trying to yaw the aircraft away from the turn. The high wing is developing more lift because of the down aileron hence more drag and that is what yaws the aircraft away from the direction of bank. Basically the rudder streamlines your turn.

Stick forces were terrible.Many pilots died from not being able to pull out of dives.One of the main complaints of BF109 pilots was that cockpits were so cramped that they couldnt use leverage to muscle the plane around and thats part of why it was a notorious handle at speed.

Thats BS not being able to pull out of a dive is a compressibility problem

Posted Sun November 16 2008 11:20 Hide Post
Well the dive is just an example even at level speeds the later war 109's just wont turn. anything beyond 400Kph and the elavator will only deflect about 10 degrees. Now name any fighter that you only have 10 degrees stick movement against just as fast fighters with full deflection and ill show you a dead pilot. Sure you can slow down below that and turn just great but the problem is that your opponent doesnt want to slow down!

Now we can go into the argument of well the real 109's had a heavy stick at high speeds. This is true and I do not dispute that claim but The late Mark Hanna flew the restored 109G-10 and had this to say about its handling.
"The roll rate is very good and very positive below about 400Kph and the amount ofeffort needed to produce the relevant nose movemnt seems exactly right." and "Pitch tends to be heavy above 400Kph but it is still easy to manage up to 500Kph and the aircraft is perfectly happy carying out low level looping menouvers from 550Kph and below. Above 550Kph, one peculiarity is a slight nose down trim change as you accelerate. When you menouver above 500Kph, two hands are required for a more agressive performance, either that or get on the trimmer for help. Despite this heavying up, its still quite easy to get 5 G's at this speed"

Now that is nothing like the 109's we have in this sim who get their sticks cemented into place way sooner than expected and way to suddenly. Their is nothing gradual about this phenominun. You hit a certain speed and thats it no stick movement.

"The FW-190 is a small aircraft period. It flys like its huge, It hits like its huge but in dimensions its tiny. Goering didnt call it his deadly horse fly for nothing"-Me