Posts by dinu77

Here is a quote from a former F-4 Phantom Pilot (John Chesire):

What I do know is that at altitude, aircraft are limited by their maximum Mach number , far before they ever reach their maximum indicated airspeed. However, when flying fast at lower altitudes, the converse it true. Indicated airspeed rather than Mach number is the limiting factor. This is because of the thinner air at altitude compared to dense air at sea level.
For an example, the F-4 that I flew was limited to Mach 2.23 at altitude. (1,472 mph, 2,370 km/h). However when flying low at sea level, the maximum speed we could fly in the denser air was only 1.34 Mach (863 mph, 1,389 km/h) because of our limit of a maximum of 750 knots indicated airspeed.
Egressing after a combat strike, we flew “on the deck” as low as we could go and as fast as we could go in our F-4s. Sometimes we even exceeded our F-4's 750 knot speed limit if sustaining heavy enemy opposition... and needed to get the heck out of there, fast! In fact we occasionally came back with the paint on the leading edges of our wings bubbled, singed, and burned by the high-speed and low-altitude air friction heat.

Ozav8r and Zed: The best solution of that problem would be an option in the menu, where you can choose an arcade or realistic flight model

regards

Dirk

Jan,

you are Right. In reality it is not possible to fly that fast at sea level but in this sim it is, if you take a look at the mach number, which is displayed in the HUD.

Because of that, I would like to know , if the flight model will become more realistic with a future update.

Ubbi: the Density of the air at low Level is much higher than at 30.000 feet. That's the reason why you can reach high mach numbers at that high altitude.

Beside from that you are right that it is also much colder up at high altitude, so the friction heat is less

regards

Dirk

Hi,

I can fly at Mach 2.0 at sea Level with the F-15, which is not possible in reality due to the air drag in real life at that altitude. Do you plan to implement a more realistic flight model in the future for this great sim ? Btw I love the new Florida DLC. It is really great to fly low and slow with a prop plane there.

thanks in advance

Dirk