Hello!
I always found the SBD-3 slow - and recently even slower than I remembered.
Tested in Air RB:
At spawn altitude of around 4000m or at sea level, even with no load, and minimal fuel, I found it near impossible to go beyond 250/ 260 km/h
Then I took a look at the stat card:
439 km/h at altitude of 4500 is LEAGUES above what I experience in the game.
And before you claim “stat cards showing incorrect data”, this is the original pilot handbook of the SBD-3, and it on page 6 and 7 it claims that even with a 1000lbs bomb it has 194 knots (395 kph) at sea level and 212 knots (392 kph) at 16000 ft. Unloaded those increase to 202 knots (374 kph) and 223 knots (412 kph) respectively.
Those are fully unreachable for me…
I request giving the machine its HP back or whatever is going wrong here.
– E.
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“Cruise speed at 613HP = 355kph”
Cruise speed is correct* [over-performing slightly].
Top speed is under-performing slightly.
Either way, it’s not anywhere as low as 260kph even on full fuel.
I was using combat figures from the SBD-3 handbook for my testing.
FYI, setting your fuel load to 50% on the SBD-3 gives an aircraft weight of 9,019 lb (4,091 kg) in the test flight.
During the test flight with a 50% fuel load, I was able to reach 194 knots (359 km/h) at sea level. This is correct.
However, I was unable to reach 214 knots (396 km/h) at 16,000 ft (4,877 m) with the same configuration. The highest speed I managed was 297 km/h IAS, which is about 100 km/h slower than the expected value. This is incorrect.
I have already submitted a bug report regarding the SBD’s incorrect engine power: https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/dekLmX4kXKOb
I noticed that at approximately 4,800 m, the SBD is producing about 50 PS less power than expected, peaking at only 755 PS. According to the SBD-3 Performance Data sheet, the engine should produce 811 PS at 16,000 ft (4,877 m) under normal power.
So yeah, I concluded that the SBD has an incorrect engine power curve, which explains why it cannot achieve the handbook speed of 396 km/h at that altitude.
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