Whould you guys like to have a game mode where you would fight between 8,000 ft and max altitude of your plane. So depending on the Br you could adjust the the lowest altitude and would be out of bounds. If you go below this altitude you would get a warning and have 30 seconds to get back into the area or you explode like in ground rb. Have a big enough map where you can spread out the fight instead of running to the middle or a furball.
Russians might ge intrested 😆
TBH, high alt dogfighting isn’t that fun. The thin air doesn’t allow for much maneuvering.
And with that, people get upset when they face Air Domination because it’s ‘boring’ or something.
I support every player trying to improve Air RB.
But we have this in props - without an altitude limit. I frequently fight at very high alt (=8.000 meters ~ 24.000 feet and more) in my B7A2 or SM 92. Both have very good high alt performance engines and can be flown with full WEP above 6-7 km without any overheating.
But i am forced to fly there mainly because my (often US) team died like headless chickens completely in 6 - 8 minutes. Climbing is necessary to get rid of hordes of Wyverns, Spits and Yak-3s at my six - they suck at high alt due to lack of engine power and they can’t turn that well at high alt.
If you try to fight RU or JP lanes below 4 km you are dead…and with my IT P-47 D-30 high alt is the only chance to fight Yak-3Us anf LF Mk IX Spits - anything lower than 7-8 km and you are dead.
Really?
I mean just the US has really convincing (combined with way too low BRs) high alt fighters for fights between 8 and 11 km. Just by chance i found out that i can outrun and outturn J2Ms above 8km in my SM 92 - they lose their extreme good handling at very low speed and compress quite often. So axis pilots need to fly Ta 152 H-1s…
Dragging US boys below 6km (in order to use turn advantage vs P-51s) was a common LW strategy - so killing of planes due to a hard deck limit is not my thing.
I disagree.
Exactly because of this.
B7A2, SM 92 and stuff like P-47s and Ki-83s have very large wing areas compared to 109s, Yaks or P-51s - making them way better turners at high alt. I read decades ago that at least one RB-36 was able to escape attacking MIGs by turning with them at very high alt.
For sure not in props, but MiG 15s had a way higher service ceiling than F-86s…
@Ravanos - nice picture btw, 5€ that just a few guys know the type of the enemy plane. Have a good one!
The yak 3 and Bf-109G have far lower wing loading than all of your examples bar the B7A2 - and only when the B7A2 is on low fuel. Wing area alone doesn’t mean much. The theory was that the B-36 would easily be able to evade Soviet jets, because the Americans struggled immensely trying to get firing solutions on it in F-86s, F-84s and F-80s at 40,000ft.
The J2M2 and J2M3 suffer horrendously at high altitude in the engine department, they lose so much power that almost anything with a second supercharger gear can outperform them above 6-7km. They aren’t compressing, that isn’t what compression is, everything just generates less lift at higher altitude where the air is much less dense. You’re taking that hit too.
Man, do we need to go over this again? Every nation’s teams kinda suck in the 16v16 meta, not just the US, and you’re forced to fly up there because you run away from fights where you don’t have a significant advantage and climb over your airfield. You need to get out of this restrictive mindset that you only stand a chance at 8+km.
This is a Game discussion, not suggestions.
Another thing high altitude has happened several times it just isn’t common.
US planes would actually be useful for once and not hopelessly overtiered
Do some research and you find out that your arguments do not work at very high alt (and wing loads are overestimated even at lower alt) and are besides other things like air foil design strongly connected to engine power available. As i am not here to educate you, do it by your own.
Wikipedia won’t help you - i was talking about a real combat. You find barely any data in the web regarding combat losses or fights of US spy planes vs VVS interceptors of the early Cold War period, you need books.
Try to perform a fight at 8-10.000 meters and you might see that you talk about theory - i about experience. Repeating widely known facts about J2M high alt power plays a minor part - the general loss of lift combined with less engine power makes it almost impossible for them to use stall fight tactics - if they try a high speed reversal combined with a dive they compress way earlier as the thinner air prevents them from pulling out - planes pick up speed extremely fast in a dive at very high alt.
Besides the fact that i told i you already in 2022 & 2023 that i am simply not interested in your opinions, again: I am not interested in your opinions. I kindly ask you to stop quoting me. Thx in advance!
This would probably be a good event idea. Is there a historic scenario that a high alt event could be attached to?
This was regular Air RB few years ago when people understood that altitude gives you big advantage
You misunderstand. OP means up in the stratosphere.
Wing loading is mass / wing area. It seems like you’re the one needs to do some research.
Do you have a source for it? I’m genuinely interested but I couldn’t find one from some quick browsing around.
The J2M2’s power loss at high altitude is huge and an enormous obstacle. I know this because I’ve flown it at high altitude trying to intercept space climbing bombers and fighters and it’s a nightmare. The J2M2 is overall pretty agile compared to most heavy fighters at high altitude, it just struggles to generate energy whereas other fighters with superchargers geared for higher altitude will have an easier time of it. Diving out and high speed reversals aren’t the only way to fight up there, and imply already having found yourself in a poor position.