Basics of Flight

[Nathan Whyte]

Before The Battle:

You need to establish the following:

• What is the terrain around the map? Even though ground units are confined to the map, planes are always moving and will move away. The members have the right to make it up as they fly along, but if two people fly over the same spot and a mountain turns in to an ocean, well, you get the idea. You need to have a good mental map of what is around the map and how realistic the terrain can be.
  
  
• Factors that affect the plane. There are three main things that the pilot can choose which makes a large difference.
  - Fuel. The more fuel, the more the plane can fly, but fuel weighs a lot. The more there is, the less manoeuvrable the plane is, and the more throttle will be needed to create enough lift to move the plane.
  - Ammo. The more there is, the more the pilot can fire, but like fuel, this weighs a fair bit which can affect the manoeuvrability.
  - Convergence. The machine guns on a plane are spread out on the wings, and they are angled in slightly so that all the bullets “meet,” or converge at a certain range in front of the nose of the plane which is worked out through basic trigonometry. This can not be changed by flying, so you need to know what the range is to work out the accuracy. If it’s set to three-hundred meters and the target is at two-hundred, then only some of the bullets will hit.
  
  
• Where are the planes coming from? Especially with the maps set on historic battles, it pays to know where the other planes are coming from. This way, you can say which direction they are entering from, and also it helps you decide how long they have to fight before having to leave and go home. IE, if this was a Battle of Britain battle (although we don’t have the area), the English fighters would have ages in the air, as their airfields are only a short while away, whereas the Germans have twenty minutes tops by flying sensibly.
  
  
• AAA. Finally, it pays to know a bit about the location of any AAA on the battlefield and what they’re set to. Artillery shells don’t just explode randomly, they’re set to a certain altitude, so make this clear, and as it explodes let the pilots know the height. They’ll be able to see the clouds of flak and would be able to adjust themselves to get out of the way.
  
  

Next time: The basics of flight - what keeps a plane in the air?

[Nathan Whyte]

The Basics of Flight – Part 1

Once you get your head around the main principles, flight is actually very simple. Basically, flight is achieved by balancing four forces – thrust, drag, lift and weight.

Thrust and drag are just like a car. Thrust is created by throttle in the engine, and this pulls the plane forward. Drag is air resistance, pushing against the plane as it moves to try and stop it. As speed increases because of an increase in thrust, so does drag.

Lift is created on a fixed-wing aircraft by the leading edge of the wing moving through the air. Through Bernoulli’s Theorem, this creates an area of high pressure and an area of low pressure which causes lift to be formed. Weight is caused by gravity and is basically the earth trying to pull the plane down.


Planes of Control

A plane is controlled on three axes.

Pitch – This is the angle of the nose controlled by pulling the control column backwards (to increase pitch) or pushing forwards (to decrease pitch).

Roll – This is how a plane rolls left or right, making one wing go higher than the other. This is done by tilting the control column in the direction you want to roll.

Yaw – This is how a plane turns without lifting a wing. It can only be used to make small changes in heading; larger turns need to be by rolling. This is controlled by the pedals to turn the rudder.

Speed and Pitch

As the plane moves faster, more lift is created, and vice versa. If a plane goes slow enough, not enough lift will be created, and this creates a stall. If this happens the plane will fall, but it’s easy to recover from, unlike a spin which is when just one wing stalls, but more of that later.

When the plane is going faster and more lift is produced, the nose will raise slightly, causing the plane to go higher. As a plane goes up, it loses speed if the angle is too great. If the plane has a negative pitch, ie, the nose is pointing down it will be gaining speed.

Next Time: Roll and Yaw

[Nathan Whyte]

Right, sorry this took so long, just couldn't find the... well, I don't know I just couldn't get started. Anyway.

Basics Of Flight - Part 2 (Pitch and Yaw)[/u]

Pitch and Yaw are the two planes of control that simply allow a plane to turn.

Roll

To initiate roll, a pilot turns or pulls his control column in one direction or the other. When this happens, ailerons on the wings will move to create more lift on one wing and less on the other. This will make one wing rise, and go slightly faster causing it to pull around. As this happens though, it has the side effect of causing the plane to angle up slightly and start to gain altitude and lose speed. So, to counter this, you have the axis of

Yaw
At the back of the plane, in the empennage their is a movable bit left or right. This is controlled by the foot pedals in the cockpit.

The first use of it is to stabilise turns. By applying opposite rudder in a turn, the nose can be kept level, or even pointed towards the ground to initiate a dive. One of the instruments in the cockpit - the turn indicator - has a ball in a elongated curve. This is used by a pilot to tell if the plane is pitching up or down in a turn, but more on that later.

Another use is to make tiny adjustments to heading. If a pilot needs to turn maybe up to fifteen degrees, he will apply rudder and let the plane yaw around. The problem with this method is that it only works on small turns and that the nose will swing back after the manouevre a few degrees.

The other use of the rudder is that in taildragger landing gear aircraft (where the tail is dragged with a third wheel) the wheel is directly linked up to the rudder, and is used to turn the aircraft on the ground when taxiing.

It is entirely possible to turn only using roll, so if your rudder was shot off, you could still turn, although there is less control and it will result in a fair bit of slowing.

---------------------------------

Right, that in a nut-shell is the basic movements of flight. Knowing that you could fly a plane reasonably level and turn. Next time, I will go in to more detail on aircraft parts and cockpit controls, and the time after that take-offs/landings. Unless something pressing appears.

As always, any questions so far?

[Nathan Whyte]

Plane Parts[/u]

Structurally, the plane can be broken down in to three basic parts:

- Fuselage
- Wings
- Empennage

Fuselage

This is the main part of the plane, from the tip of the nose to almost the tip of the tail. The cockpit is based in it, and depending on the model of plane, it could contain the fuel tank (fighters), bomb bays (bombers…surprisingly) and storage room.

Damage:

Damage here will often have very little effect, as a lot of it is empty space or filled with armoured plating. If, say, paratroopers are sat in the back of a transport, most likely damage is they get a peppering. If it’s a bomber, then the bullets would hit the bombs and not really do much. A really lucky shot might hit the release mechanism and have the bomb fall the moment the doors open, but they wouldn’t detonate hitting the bay doors.

If a fuel tank is in here, then you can almost guarantee it has armour plating, although it varies from plane to plane.

Wings

Now, this may come as a shock, but the wings are the big sticky-outy things on the side of the plane. They have ailerons and flaps on the, which cause roll and can produce extra lift respectively. They also help stabilise the plane. In some planes, you have a “wet wing” where the fuel tank is in the wing. However, not many combat aircraft have this feature as it’s too nice a target.

Damage

If the wing was blown off, then the plane would roll irreparably, and then crash. Not something your average pilot wants. If the ailerons were blown off, the plane would lose a lot of control and your pilot would have to be very careful, but he may just be able to avoid crashing. If he’s VERY lucky. Riddling the wing with MG bullets usually wouldn’t have too much effect.

Empennage

The empennage is at the rear of the plane and is the main control surface. It provides stability, pitch, yaw and general awesome looks. The elevators and rudder are here.

Damage
If this gets blown off, the plane will crash. No ifs, no buts. If the top part of it is blown off, the plane loses stability and goes in to a roll which you will not be able to bail out of. A terrifying way to die, so the sadist pilots should aim for this. Losing one aileron or the other will result in a lack of control and a crash is lieky.

Misc.

Engine – This basically pulls the plane through the air, and damage would be similar to a land vehicle being hit in the engine – only worse as if the engine stops, the plane dives.

Flight Deck – Where the cockpit and all the other little bits like that are. If the instruments are damaged, then a good pilot can do without them. If the pilot is hit, it tends to be a bit more serious, especially if he dies. Other situations include the wireless being hit in heavy aircraft such as Lancasters, which will cripple RADTEL.

Fuel Tanks – In most planes, these were in the fuselage with armour plating to prevent damage.

Generally, however, MG fire will have a low effect unless it hits a “sweet spot” and damages something important, but a lot of space, especially in fighters, is empty to save weight.

With the knowledge so far, you should be able to mod a simple battle. I’m going to go in to more detail now, with stuff like landings, secondary controls and combat manoeuvres.

Next Time:[/u] Take-Off’s and Landings

[Nathan Whyte]

Haven’t written on here for a while. Best do something, eh?

Taking Off

Take off is something considered by most pilots essential for the whole process of flying. It is actually very simple as long as you can multitask. Once lined up on the runway and cleared to take off, a pilot must follow these steps.

• Lower flaps. This will help create more lift at low speeds and aid handling at low speeds. This means that plane doesn’t need to be going as fast to take off.
  
• Apply throttle. Depending on the type of aircraft it depends on how much but for fighters and other small aircraft it’s generally put to 100%
  
• As the plane accelerates along the runway, the pilot must use his rudder pedals which are connected to the landing gear to keep the aircraft straight. The easiest way to do this is to focus on something on the horizon and keep it stable.
  
• (This only applies for tail-draggers) The pilot must keep the plane very steady until the rear of the plane comes up. It is important to note that with tail draggers once the rear wheel is in the air he won’t be able “turn” conventionally as the pedals will only work the rudder.
  
• Once the plane reaches takeoff speed, the plane will start lifting due to the lift created and the pilot will pull back on the controls so that the plane has an angle of attack typically between 5 and 20 degrees.
  

Once in the air, the pilot will gradually gain altitude and speed. Too much pitch can cause a stall, which is not good at all. As soon as possible, landing gear is retracted to reduce drag and flaps are raised.

Landing

This is a bit trickier. Basically you need to be in an exact place at an exact speed at an exact time.

The process is similar, only in reverse. I’ll skip over the process of the circuit where basically a pilot does a loop around the airfield to lose speed and altitude as well as check for wind and that the airfield is clear.

• The first thing the pilot needs to do when he has been cleared to land is reduce throttle. This is followed shortly after by lowering the landing gear and flaps.
  
• Once the pilot is sure he is in line with the airfield, he will carry on his descent reducing speed further.
  
• As he gets very close, only a hundred meters or so away from the runway (a larger distance for larger aircraft) the pilot will raise the nose of the plane to create more drag and to stop propellers smacking in to the ground.
  
• The moment the pilot touches the ground, he will start using rudders to keep his plane steady, reduce throttle to a level of idle. If other aircraft are inbound, small aircraft will usually pull off the side of the runway on to grass. Larger aircraft will need to go to the end of the runway and use taxiways.
  
  As always, it’s a bit more complicated than that but it’s the bones so we can understand it here.