Bf109 v Yak-1

[Welsh78]

Historically, was the bf109 a harder plane to fly than its Russian counterpart?

[DetonateTheShrimp?]

Depends how you define 'hard'. The 109 was known to be quite twitchy, very sensitive. However, it had quite a forgiving stall and good low speed handling characteristics (due to the leading edge slats). I'm not sure about whether the Yak 1 had as many automated systems as the 109 did.

[startrekmike]

In terms of systems operation, no, the 109 had a lot of automatic systems that made the overall workload for the pilot much lower, this was a huge bonus in combat.

The Yak-1 is all pilot controlled in terms of RPM and radiator settings.

Tactically the Yak-1 is perhaps more straightforward and easy to grasp, you can out-turn most German aircraft and that is what you are going to want to try and do. THe 109 requires some degree of finesse, you need to really know how to make the most out of it's boom and zoom capability because that is where it is strongest.

[pixel]

historically, who knows?

in game, 109 is much easier. automatic pitch and mix, and gets handed the offensive position almost by default. can engage and disengage at will

[Elfgren]

Most people tend to gravitate to the Me109 and FW190 because they are easier to fly. All of the Russian aircraft in the sim to date are VERY pilot-workload-intensive. If you are not paying attention to Prop pitch, water & oil cooler settings, mixture and supercharger, you will not be maximizing the aircraft and the Russians can not afford to let that happen given the strengths of the German Aircaft. All the aircraft have their on strengths, weaknesses, and quirks, but on the whole 109 is the best plane for beginners because it is very fast, has better acceleration, better climb, and better high altitude performance. It will allow a less talented pilot to dictate the terms of the fight (ie. when to engage/disengage like pixel said). A talented 109 pilot is a VERY difficult thing to overcome. Be careful when you come up against one.

[Forest Farbrorn]

There are still a handfull of flying bf-109 in the world. Atleast one in England for example so finding out how they operate and to recreate this realisticly will not be a huge problem.

[Forest Farbrorn]

I just hope that (since it's a Russian dev) they do not give the Soviet planes an unfair/unhistorical accurate advantage over the German planes. I have seen Russian developers (Company of heroes 2) "changing history" in the Soviets favour, although with Government involvment but still it happened. And if you have played that game and know anything about history you will understand. ;)

[kazereal]

Originally posted by ii-ViCioUs-SwE__:

I have seen Russian developers (Company of heroes 2) "changing history" in the Soviets favour

Care to explain that??

CoH 2 developer Relic Entertainment is Canadian, publisher Sega is Japanese-American, Relic used to be owned by THQ which was also American before it went bankrupt..

On the otherhand, nevermind: I don't care to know what kind of paranoid delusions you might have and it's entirely off-topic here in any case.

[startrekmike]

Originally posted by ii-ViCioUs-SwE__:

I just hope that (since it's a Russian dev) they do not give the Soviet planes an unfair/unhistorical accurate advantage over the German planes. I have seen Russian developers (Company of heroes 2) "changing history" in the Soviets favour, although with Government involvment but still it happened. And if you have played that game and know anything about history you will understand. ;)

There is not really any Russian bias that I can detect in Il-2 Battle of Stalingrad, the BF-109 (both versions) are extremely capable, so much so that I would even say that they are probably the best aircraft in the sim as it stands now.

The Russian aircraft are much more difficult to use effectively, if you can drag a 109 into a turning fight while flying a Yak, you have a shot but if you are flying the LaGG, heaven help you if you are flying against anything other than a He-111 or a heavily overloaded Stuka.

There is a lot of noise being made by some folks about some myhtical Russian bias but it reallly is just not there, it takes a lot of skill to have a snowball's chance in a fight against a 109 flown by someone who has any notion of the aircraft's strengths if you are flying a Russian plane.

[HAYDEE]

YAK has automatic pro pitch.
and you don't have to care the rpm.
just set rpm 100%.
radiator? yes it is manual but so what?
just check the engine temp and open whenever needed
super charger? just set 2 above 2000m
mixture, just set 100%
it is not that hard for pilot

but Yak has better maneuverability, agility

[Disarray]

As one who plays with the Yak a lot I have to push back on the notion that it is 'pilot intensive' to fly. The RPMs are, for the most part set and forget. You can tune the RPM settings to get 10/10 of performance, but you don't need to and is only really useful in long distance level flight at low altitudes. Radiators are another system that pilot has control over, true, but if you really don't understand the system you can set them to 100% and leave them with little ill effect on performance; we are talking as much as 5 KPH. In terms of technical systems, the Yak is very, very, slightly more complicated than the 109s in that you have to remember to do 2 things 1 time too keep the plane functional.

The 109 is easier to fight in, though. Simply because it has more horsepower and is lighter. This makes the plane faster. While the 109 cannot sustain high speed turns like a Yak can, if you drop the speed blow the doors of a Yak in the turn or easily force an over shoot. 1v1 the 109 is a better plane in just about every category. The strange thing is, even with all these advantages I still see 109s running from fights they could easily win, even with alt, speed and position advantage.