calculating aircraft endurance

[trojan58]

Does anyone have an idiot's guide to calculating arcraft range/endurance, preferably using words of one sylable or less. I've tried following the instructions in the editor manual but the figures I get don't add up.


Ta

[Herrbear]

ORIGINAL: trojan

Does anyone have an idiot's guide to calculating arcraft range/endurance, preferably using words of one sylable or less. I've tried following the instructions in the editor manual but the figures I get don't add up.


Ta

Cruise speed X Endurance / 60 = Max Range in Miles.
Cruise speed X Endurance / 3600 = Max Range in Hexes.

Normal Range is 1/4 of Max Range
Extended Range is 1/3 of Max Range

[Subchaser]

Order this book from Amazon... extremely helpful stuff there

[Lemurs!]

God i wish i had that book. There was no bigger headache for me than
calculating range.

I probably have still pissed people off.. all I can say is yikes, it was insane.
As it is Zeroes can now not reach Lunga from Rabaul.
Part of the problem is i have differing sources giving distance... I am going to have to GPS it to get an exact number, and in real life Japan's zeroes mostly staged through or were based at Buka to raid Lunga. Or, in some of the early battles when they flew from Rabaul the pilots were told they did not have enough fuel so they were told to ditch on the way back!

I cannot represent these ideas in the game so you are going to have to live with it until someone makes the 'CHS fix Mike's screwups mod'.

Mike

[doktorblood]

ORIGINAL: trojan

Does anyone have an idiot's guide to calculating arcraft range/endurance, preferably using words of one sylable or less. I've tried following the instructions in the editor manual but the figures I get don't add up.


Ta

I'm assuming that you desire a particular aircraft to have a certain range in the game.

I've found that the easiest way is to...

Start with your desired max range .............example 1200

Multiply by 60............................................. 1200 x 60 = 72000

Divide by cruise speed.............................. ...example 72000/200 = 360

The quotient is the number you put into the endurance box ... in this case 360 to have a 200 cruise speed airplane with a 1200 mile max range.

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Lemurs!

God i wish i had that book. There was no bigger headache for me than
calculating range.

I probably have still pissed people off.. all I can say is yikes, it was insane.
As it is Zeroes can now not reach Lunga from Rabaul.
Part of the problem is i have differing sources giving distance... I am going to have to GPS it to get an exact number, and in real life Japan's zeroes mostly staged through or were based at Buka to raid Lunga. Or, in some of the early battles when they flew from Rabaul the pilots were told they did not have enough fuel so they were told to ditch on the way back!

I cannot represent these ideas in the game so you are going to have to live with it until someone makes the 'CHS fix Mike's screwups mod'.

Mike

Lemurs I see no problems with the zeros reaching lunga from rabaul using andrew browns map....

works for me.... [&:]

[Subchaser]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

Lemurs I see no problems with the zeros reaching lunga from rabaul using andrew browns map....

works for me.... [&:]

Are you sure? It must be some other scenario, not CHS...

Honestly I don't feel it's right... they should be able to reach Lunga.

[timtom]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka
Lemurs I see no problems with the zeros reaching lunga from rabaul using andrew browns map....works for me.... [&:]

I think the database for scn.50 has it set to range 8/11, scn. 154 & 155 to 7/10.

I've been fiddling around with the editor a bit lately and is just beginning to appreciate the headache Mike and the rest of the CHS team has taken on with regards to aircraft. First of all it's seeming impossible to find two sources agreeing on the spefications of an aircraft. Then there's the issue of choosing which version(-s) of a given aircraft to model. Then there's the problem of translating whatever aircraft specifications you've dug up into WitP terms. And I can understand why Mike feels that range is headache numero uno. At least you can define the number of guns on such-and-such aircraft and that's that, but range is different. Maximum range probably relates to reality in about the same way a McDonald's commercial relates to a Big Mac. Looking at the operational record will show examples of very considerable range of so-and-so, but WitP's too crude to model the complicated relationship between bombload and range. So what's the average operational range? How will that translate into ferry-range? And how about fighters? Using escort range as the point of departure overstates their fighter-bomber range and visa-versa. Etc etc...

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Subchaser

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

Lemurs I see no problems with the zeros reaching lunga from rabaul using andrew browns map....

works for me.... [&:]

Are you sure? It must be some other scenario, not CHS...

Honestly I don't feel it's right... they should be able to reach Lunga.

hmm well i was using andrews south pacific map scenario but i thought it was based on chs...

maybe not...

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Tanaka

hmm well i was using andrews south pacific map scenario but i thought it was based on chs...

maybe not...

No, my scenarios are not based on CHS.

[Tanaka]

yea you guys are right...

distance of 11 hexes with standard game stats

10 with CHS...

no more trips to Lunga... [:(]

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Lemurs!

God i wish i had that book. There was no bigger headache for me than
calculating range.

I probably have still pissed people off.. all I can say is yikes, it was insane.
As it is Zeroes can now not reach Lunga from Rabaul.
Part of the problem is i have differing sources giving distance... I am going to have to GPS it to get an exact number, and in real life Japan's zeroes mostly staged through or were based at Buka to raid Lunga. Or, in some of the early battles when they flew from Rabaul the pilots were told they did not have enough fuel so they were told to ditch on the way back!
I cannot represent these ideas in the game so you are going to have to live with it until someone makes the 'CHS fix Mike's screwups mod'.

Mike

Actually they were told they MAY not have enough fuel to make it back. Depended on how much fuel they spent dogfighting...Some did make it all the way back. Some did have to ditch. Its one of those too close to call things....

I would agree with Subchaser though...It should be able to be done at the very tip of the Zeros radius...

[Lemurs!]

I don't know... the pilots that flew direct to Lunga and did not yet have Buka to stage back to were all super elite pilots with about a bazillion hours in the air.
Joe and i feel it was a special circumstance and we can not extend range IN GENERAL for every special circumstance.

I am unsure still.

I suspect pilots and crew chiefs knew how to 'read' range numbers
and come up with something useful. I hate to say it but i do not.

Does range mean with an average bomb load or max? Single flight or more than one aircraft? I subtract close to 25% of an aircrafts range for form up time, which is why i am not increasing the range on the Devestator as a recent poster wanted.

Did you know that when more than one plane is in the air a wingman will use 20% more fuel than the flightleader? Is that taken account of in range settings?

I suspect that 11 hex range is Japans idea of 'you probably won't make it back but your Japanese so you will do it anyway'.
There are no rules in WITP to account for flying beyond standard range.

Andrew states the answer in the aircraft post; it is 647 miles between Lunga and Rabaul. The best an A6M2 could do in an organized combat flight with very experienced pilots was 600 miles.

I think the range will stand as is and you will all have a reason to build up Buka or Buin.

Mike

[jwilkerson]

Tinian air wing was tasked to fly both of the air missions which warrant "extra range" for A6m2 ... Clark field and Lunga.

When Clark mission was first proposed to Tinian Air Wing - they chuckled - saying - this mission is beyond the specifications of the aircraft. They were asked to study this mission to allow the carriers the freedom to perform "other missions" !!!

But with practice ( prior to the start of the war ), the Tinian Air Wing pilots determined that they could fly very slowly - virtually gliding through the air - and conserve enough fuel to perform the mission. In other words, with extreme planning and training - they could operate outside the design specs.

When an even longer ranged mission was asked of them in Aug '42 .. they ( the same Tinian Air Wing !!! ) requested that only the best pilots fly a smaller mission ( 18 planes ) ... this was agreed to. While the mission might not be judged a success by all standards, it was flown and greater than zero/zero pilots survived ( which means it was a success for at least the survivors !!! ).

However, these extremely long ranged missions should not necessarily be daily occurances in the game. If we make this so - then the B24 missions from Biak/Nemfoor against Balipapan in late '44 must also be accounted for .. and this would mean extending the range for B24s to 23 hexes, thus making these missions a daily occurence !!!

The B24 missions against Balikpapan required reductions in bomb load, weapons, ammunition, armor and personel ... all of these being "exceptional" relative to the intended mission profile - so, should 23 hex missions be the norm ????

Given special planning and training ... exceptional missions could be flown by both sides ... however, we have chosen to represent ranges at a likely averages rather than having the "extreme" become the norm. But this comes at the sacrifice of the "exceptional" missions ... on both sides.

[timtom]

Chance A6M2 endurance to 574 is you don't like it...

Does patches and CHS ovrewrite the existing files and and personal edits you might have done or are they more discerning?

[Subchaser]

ORIGINAL: Lemurs!

I don't know... the pilots that flew direct to Lunga and did not yet have Buka to stage back to were all super elite pilots with about a bazillion hours in the air.
Joe and i feel it was a special circumstance and we can not extend range IN GENERAL for every special circumstance.

The entire war was the chain of special circumstances for Japanese, Clark field raid, Guadalcanal hassle… home defense duties. I think extended range should be 11. Western sources say combat radius was nearly 600 statute miles, while Japanese historians (like Masatsui) say it was almost 650 statute miles with 20 minutes reserve for a fight.

A6M2 was capable to reach Lunga from Rabaul, fight there for 15-20 minutes and return back home. Sakae engine in the combat modes did not consume so much fuel as many authors insist. 80% of rookies that did not return from Lunga missions simply were extremely bad navigators, their aircraft had enough fuel to bring them home. Remember that famous Saburo Sakai flight (when he was badly wounded), his route back to Rabaul on the map looked like weird zigzag, nevertheless, after flight to Lunga, heavy fighting there and the hard way back he had enough fuel to land. Of course Sakai was Zero master, but in that flight he was acting like an average pilot in Tainan Kokutai. Newbies were instructed how to maintain low fuel consumption, they knew about right altitudes, speeds, wind directions… there was even special manual for Zero pilots issued by Koku Hombu in september ’42, so they knew all the factors but often had no idea where they were at the moment, bad navigation and extreme weather were the main reasons of high operational losses in tropics… Zero’s endurance was not the main problem here. A6M2 should be able to reach Lunga… no matter what. Extended range operations and low experience cause high op.losses, so we have the penalty here.

just a fact... carrier borne Zeros had much shorter combat radius, 300-350 statute miles. There were serious problems with radios and homing beacon systems. If carrier was too far away, it was very hard to return back with enough fuel to land... special circumstances?!

[Lemurs!]

Yea, i knew the carrier zeroes were heavier and had less range, that is one reason i am not going to increase the range across the board.

Subchaser, i respect your opinion more than almost anyone here, but i think on this i am going to follow Joe and Andrew and stick with 600 miles.

This model has to represent the average model with radio and navalized because i do not have two A6M2s in the database.

Mike

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Lemurs!

Yea, i knew the carrier zeroes were heavier and had less range, that is one reason i am not going to increase the range across the board.

Subchaser, i respect your opinion more than almost anyone here, but i think on this i am going to follow Joe and Andrew and stick with 600 miles.

This model has to represent the average model with radio and navalized because i do not have two A6M2s in the database.

Mike

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen


After considerable debate we have decided to increase the endurance of the TBD Devastator in CHS.

We will increase endurance to 336, based on the calculations in my post higher in this thread (which also has displays the resultant aircraft ranges).

Note the increase in endurance does NOT result in an increase of Normal range. However both extended and Maximum range will be increased.

I believe this is a very reasonable compromise considering the disparate data and supporting evidence posted on this thread. Like all compromises it will fully satisfy no one but, hopefully, be acceptable to everyone.

Thanks to all for your input. I am continually impressed with the knowledge and data sources of posters on this forum.

Don

How about giving us the same compromise you gave the TBD's....???[;)]

[Lemurs!]

Just for you Tanaka, i will make the Zeros combat range 601 miles!
Don't say i never gave you anything! [:D]

Mike

[Tanaka]

ORIGINAL: Lemurs!

Just for you Tanaka, i will make the Zeros combat range 601 miles!
Don't say i never gave you anything! [:D]

Mike

1 more mile! hip hip hooray!!!