"I'm going to bed now. Bye." 🤣Had me in stitches - Love the dedication to this. I've tried to get the real-world maths into this in the past, and just can't fathom it, so appreciate the work you put into this. You earned your sleep
Thanks! I tried to explain it so that people without a physics background could at the very least see what's going on. Hopefully it was easy to follow, but even if the theory didnt make sense, I tried to make the process for finding the climb speeds easy to replicate for any plane you want to test.
I used to rely on that outdated spreadsheet RELIGIOUSLY before I saw a video done by AdamTheEnginerd, but I'm too lazy to do proper testing so I "vibe" what IAS I climb at based on the engine power of the aircraft 😂
Its good to know that pretty much almost any information you can find in game and in forums is pretty much meaningless in game, or is based on vibe with some testing for specific aircraft.
I wouldn't say everything up there is useless, a lot of it is still pretty handy or at least is a good starting point when it comes to running your own tests. Trust, but verify.
@@CatWerfer I guess there's a bit of an upside in that, if a fixed angle climb is reasonably close to optimal, then finding that correct angle is probably something that can be dialed in with a few tries, written down on a piece of paper, and then no need for the outdated chart googling.
Dont forget, you are climbing to dogfight! This means that you need speed to manouver. If you only care about altitude, by the time you notice the enemy, drop your nose, and gain speed you will be in a disadvantegous position! So at high altitudes always shallow climb or level out, you can catch so many people by suprise this way.
100%, I usually try to maintain 300kph IAS once I'm at an altitude that I know I'll start encountering enemies at. This video is more of an isolated look at just aircraft climbrate but your point is also important in the actual context of a game
climbing is about building up energy. Speed is also energy, so minmaxing potential energy gain at the cost of kinetic energy can be something of a trap.
Thank you for the vid. Next time i take out my 109 imma just climb 20° and go afk for a few minutes. Also that poor I-16 having a seizure from going too fast 😂😭
Hey, I have actually asked you in the comments about climb rates, and you wrote me this whole essay there. I'm very thankful about that, and I agree with the conclusion....partially. With literally no information about climbing in the game.....at all. A Lot of planes rely on gaining just a tad bit more altitude advantage, and while yes, optimizing climbrate perfectly is useless, but just by climbing at 300 km/h instead of 250 the difference is reasonable enough, especially in a day and age where......I'm not gonna even hold back. full team of US Mains grinding for F-16 going low altitude into the first head-on, full-commit, and just dying, leading to games ending in NO LESS THAN 3 MINUTES......
Lol i agree 100% I wasn't trying to recommend not climbing at all I was moreso saying that if you're already climbing using the set IAS climb method or you care enough about climbing that you're gonna click on a video like this, then the additional height gained by micromanaging climb IAS is relatively minimal, under 500m difference. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't use this information, it's just that for most people playing, AFK climbing is still perfectly workable. There are indeed certain planes that rely on an energy advantage more than others but at the end of the day I'm just saying that you're free to choose to micromanage or just afk climb and based off of how minimal the gains are, I personally am choosing to afk climb
lol just look at a stat card it’s all u have to do to see climb rate😭 and for vsi it’s not that hard to imagine lol you get used to it in your own way, it’s also in some cockpits in game tho
As someone taking an AP Physics 1 class, the equations a and free-body diagrams that you show on screen actually help me to remember what those things are used for, which is pretty cool 👍
ay nice! aerodynamic forces are usually a lot more complex but for climbing, the plane isnt accelerating so all of the forces cancel each other out, which is pretty nice. More technical-style videos coming soon (tm)
The speed is the significant difference I think; calculating the difference in kinetic energy, you'll find that there's approximately a 25% difference in kinetic energy between even a speed difference that small, because kinetic energy scales by the square of speed. Now the thing is, of course, potential energy makes up a greater amount of the total energy. And in the end, I agree with your takeaway that it doesn't really matter a ton in practice. There's so many other more important factors, and even besides that, most War Thunder prop fights nowadays happen at lower altitudes. I would say you can definitely get away with climbing "well enough".
yeah, I calculated that the energy difference between 290kph and 260kph at the end of the experiment would equate to about a 70 meter altitude potential energy difference, not that significant in comparison to the whole thing. One thing I neglected to mention in the video now that I think about it though is that the 17.5 degree climb started with a higher speed going into the climb at 1km too, around 355kph vs 345kph for the max SEP climb, but the original point still stands
Phenomenal, after all this time i can't believe you heed to my request all the way back then! Very thoughtout and informative video, definetly worth the wait, i'm really starting to feel like you're fully becoming AdamTE's spiritual successor. I'm still a bit disappointed with the conclusion that focusing your energy on optimizing and maximizing climb rate is kind of a waste of time, but the video still helped shed some light into the intuition of what to look for in your metrics when doing so. I get that you've said yourself that you don't care to find the gain in climb rate with MEC so i won't bother you with that. But it would be interesting to see the difference in testing and strategy of climbing in jets of various types, like how Adam briefly touched upon in his video, but i guess it would be best for you to look for more fresh and interesting new topics to touch up on. How you doin btw? Is the channel gonna become more active? After seeing this i can't wait for more to come.
Yeah I'm not too interested in micro optimizing past this point. I did lay out all the tools I used to test this though so you can do that yourself if you're really interested. If you do then I'd like to hear what results you get (i just don't wanna do the work myself lol) Oh I know I didn't get into it in the video but zoom climbing is never really worth it compared to steady climbs even in jets from what I can tell. While a lot of early jets perform best at sea level, the specific excess power dropoff from higher altitude isn't big enough that you put yourself in a better state to climb after a zoomclimb. Remember that after you've done your zoom climb, you still want energy left over to keep flying and maneuvering so unless you're going in for a stall shot on someone, a steady climb not only maximizes the SEP generated at each altitude but also sets you up to continue generating the maximum SEP further into your climb. A zoom climb will put you in a position where you may have more altitude than a steady climber, but never more energy or potential to generate more energy. There may be an altitude where zoom climbing is more efficient, probably the service ceiling of the aircraft, but that isn't the case at sea level
In regards to the channel, I went on a kind of long break not just cuz of studies and other stuff but I also wanted to take a crack at "solving" war thunder flight models using the datamines but that trail went a bit cold. I might take a shot at it some other time... Also wanted to take the channel in a different direction in terms of style and presentation since there are enough minimally-edited-voice-commenting-over-gameplay-footage people and I wanted to distinguish myself in some way but the longer I think about it the less sure I am of what exactly that would be so for now I'll be benching that. I like making videos and I like talking to you and other people who comment so hopefully I can get off my butt and actually do that more
Cool video! honestly I didnt know it leveled off that hard in terms of climb rate on the wide speed. Oh and also climb was said give or take 35 times :)
"the overall goal we are trying to achieve when trying to optimize climb rate is to"...deliver the plane into a winning position in the game(/mission). the best climb method will depend on the objective of the climb, which sometimes is to deliver the plane to a given height not just in the least amount of time alone but with a given airspeed at altitude as well. this is most prevalent in jets particularly on an intercept, which will accelerate at low altitude first and then climb at a given mach number (Rutkowski profile). In war thunder props it can sometimes be better to arrive a little later to height with a lot more speed when you get there, especially in planes which rely on speed to survive
@ArtietheArchon I should've qualified that statement with "for the purposes of this experiment and video", I am aware that maximizing sep is not always ideal especially when you need to gain speed for an engagement or get in a certain position relative to the rest of your team and enemy
@@CatWerfer so I did 3 climbs in the P-47, it was dead even getting to 15,000 feet in a 20, 17.5, and 15 degree climb. in that instance the player is almost required to consider other things in choosing their climb angle...at the start of the match a lower climb angle will put you closer to the enemy while a steeper climb angle will leave you with less speed. this is probably worth a video
@ArtietheArchon I am planning on eventually making a video on positioning particularly in the early game. Interesting find, ill test it out myself when I get around to it. Which p47 is this?
My approach was always to climb so as to minimize drag, since prop efficiency is more or less constant above 200ias for most planes (though there are exceptions, namely BF-109s). When induced drag dominates, you get visible wingtip vortices in-game, so 20-50IAS above the speed at which the vortices disappear always puts you very close to the optimal climb, and you can easily figure it out on on the fly.
that may work as a rule of thumb for low tier props but generally speaking, the speed at which lift/drag ratio is minimized is not the ideal climb speed. you can look on the wikipedia page for rate of climb for the graph but you're looking for the speed where there is the maximum difference between engine power output and L/D ratio are achieved, which is not necessarily at the speed of minimum L/D ratio. I'll also politely disagree with the claim that prop efficiency doesn't change significantly above 200kph ias for a majority of the planes. As an example, the p51h has a prop efficiency around 60% at 200kph while it only begins to level out at 80-85% at around 300kph ias at sea level. The p51h makes wing vortices at maybe 220kph ias, but 350kph is much more than +50kph from that. though these are just my 2 cents, if your method works for you then what ive said here doesn't really mean anything
@@CatWerfer Look at energy instead of climb rate. For most single-engine monoplanes, prop efficiency plateaus at 80-85%, while minimum drag is between 200-250IAS, where you see prop efficiencies of 65-70%, so you have maybe 20% of effective engine power to gain by flying faster. On the other hand, the power lost to drag increases dramatically at higher speeds (parasitic drag power loss scales with velocity cubed), so you cannot go much faster. Thus, the optimal climb IAS is *slightly* faster than the minimum drag IAS (which is constant) and so it doesn't change much with altitude or engine power, which is why it's standard practice. Note that you can climb at a lower-than-optimal speed and end up slightly higher but with less energy (which is not what you want, maximizing total energy is the goal of a climb) so the optimal climb IAS is difficult to determine, but it exists
@KekusMagnus again, this is probably fine as a rule of thumb but you can't really call it "optimal" if you haven't actually tested it. I think I've made my methods and calculations about as clear as possible and if you still disagree then there's not much I can do for you
@KekusMagnus an increase in drag can still be worth it, as your climb will be faster. Power is velocity times force, with more drag, your climbing force is lower, but a speed increase can more than makr up for this, overall increasing your climbing power.
@@silience4095 This is way simpler than you guys make it out to be. The engine inputs power into the aircraft (power*prop efficiency), drag takes away power from the aircraft (drag*velocity). The rest of the power is turned into mechanical energy (what you want when climbing). Thus, maximizing (engine power*prop efficiency - drag*velocity) gives you an optimal climb, so note how 1) this is only a function of velocity (so climbing by IAS is good practice, since IAS is roughly proportional to drag) 2) prop efficiency changes very little with velocity compared to drag, so the optimal climb has to be near the speed minimizing drag. In practice I have found it is usually slightly higher. I personally tend to trust the "notorious" spreadsheet as most FMs have not changed in 6 years
Yeah I have a bit of an engineering background though aerodynamics isn't something I've studied in depth. If I find the time to I'll probably get around to making more videos soon
Also worthy to note, time to climb is not necessarily the only or best metric to judge by, sometimes its far better to climb at a higher angle/lower speed in order to change your altitude/position when encountering enemies for example
I always aim to find the angle that very slowly increases speed and then droop the snoot a little to increase my speed gain. Dunno if its the best way, but i always seem to end up higher than most every other plane outside of the "meta" props. Can't say the same for jets cause flying high always ends up with me getting obliterated. So i just feather the thruster for max speed near the ground.
yeah it seems everyone has their own climbing strategy and if it works for you and you're conscious enough to put thought into it then tbh you're probably fine. The big issue is the US mains bombing bases in their p51s...
I think WT elevators sap more energy than they're supposed to, or maybe it's AOA. Going straight up only kills my speed when I decide to stop going straight up. Would explain why not touching them gives the ideal climbs. Edit: It's also worth noting that your propeller will give you more thrust per kilowatt of engine output the slower you are. Can easily be worth being below the excess power peak with how it plateaus.
Nice video, although the result was more or less expected for props. I think we'd see much more interesting results with jets. Edit: Maybe we should consider specific energy of the plane at the end of the climb rather than just the altitude to factor in the differences in end velocity.
mm it was kind of unexpected to me, I expected a lot larger of a difference so i was kinda shocked when it wasnt the case. If i get around to testing jets I'll probably make a short video on it but it probably won't be soon... if you wanna try it then go ahead, I'd be happy to hear what the results are. Also you are 100% right about measuring specific energy instead of altitude, the micromanaging IAS for max SEP did end up with a higher specific energy state thanks to the higher end speed, though the difference wasn't that much... I was just too lazy to redo the tests while taking specific energy in mind lol
Hey! There are vids talking bout binding Radiator control and turbo/supercharger on "full-real controls" once you bind them you can go back to simple/mouse aim. Its a trick I noticed fighting the same plane but against a veteran sim player. Sad that there are little to no info regarding what every setting does. Hope it helps!
Yeah i know there are a lot of MEC settings like radiator control and fuel mixture control as well as video guides on how to use them, I'm just saying that I can't be bothered to test them, at least right now😅
@@CatWerfer good on you. Thanks for doing this vid. Still makes my heart yearn; to learn more about other factors and nuances we will spend years understanding. Glad to see, you have a community that's supporting you. Keep pushing mate, cheers!
Very cool video, afk side climbing it is I guess But there's something bugging me, for some planes with an airspawn for example, would you have the most altitude advantage (or minimise your altitude disadvantage) when meeting the enemy by maximising your climb rate as usual, or by speeding towards the enemy base before they have a chance to climb high enough? What about planes that perform better at lower altitudes? The airfields are far away enough from each other that it probably doesn't matter but for weird planes like the mosquito it seems to have some effect on my match performance
Keep in mind folks, this is War Thunder, climb rate and altitude matter only if you exit the climb while going decently fast, it's no use being at 5-7km altitude if you have the aerodynamics of a cucumber and get slapped from the sky by a 4x20mm cannon carrying interceptor
i actually try to base my climb off the deflection angle. for any plane i try to find the speed where my true velocity marker is less than ~5 degrees apart from my nose direction, you can see this in virtual cockpit view. you didnt adress this method in the video but im curious about how effective it really is, for me it usually allows me to find good climb angles really well
ooo thats a really interesting method. if you do end up testing it yourself and timing it compared to the others then let me know how well it works, i'd be interested to hear
@@CatWerfer im not interested in doing a thorough test but i decided to do quick test in the p51h. 1 run each (for this comment, DFA = deflection angle) my test setup: spaded p51h, cold start from runway race to 6km, no mods or anything to set accurate stats, using phone stopwatch to time it. control test ~17.5degree set angle: 4minutes 12.5 seconds or 256 seconds (notes: my IAS was roughly around 290 for a lot of the time start of the test i rose up to 24 degrees climb angle at its peak but eventually had to lower down to 18 again as the deflection angle worsened due to lower air density) variable 3-4 degrees of deflection angle: 4minutes 14 or 258 seconds. i say variable because at the start of the climb it was a bit of testing where to get the DFA and airspeed to stabilise (i am not a perfect human PID controller after all :P). conclusion: the method seems better than set IAS, and either on par with or roughly worse than set angle but hypothetically applies to olmost any plane ignoring other characteristics (me264 would be a notable example with the standard DFA being +5 degrees due to the fucky wing angle). Because every plane suffers from a lot of extra drag with too much DFA and wastes potential climbrate when speed is so high that the DFA is negligent. but the IAS tested in the vid also only up to 290, which as you already mentioned the ideal IAS climbrate is closer to around 340
also i just realized i dont know what AOA or deflection angle exactly even is, because i googled it real quickly and the answers seem conflicting. so just to be doubly clear i mean the difference between true flight direction and plane nose direction (appearently deflection angle is just aileron/elevator angles oops)
This is the easiest way. I usually try to maintain a 14-15° climb with the marker, while also keeping speed at about 190mph (depends on the plane) until I get up to bomber spawn height, then put the nose at about 10° to gain some speed.
it's funny to think that despite the game being analyzed to death by players with thousand of hours, there will probably be hundreds of planes that nobody ever knew the optimal way to climb in them before the servers shut down for good one day.
that may be possible... but there are quite a few people working on cracking the physics engine, so we may actually get to the point where everyone knows precisely everything about every plane and how their flight models work sooner rather than later thanks to the datamines...
This test is probably much more important for the planes that overheat easily like BF109s and FW variants. As you said, with MEC and prop controls you might be able to squeeze out even more, I dabbled in this stuff ages ago but came to the conclusion it was probably just better to leave auto engine management on.
On some planes MEC actually makes them perform way better. From my testing, on the IAR 81C (It's a premium in Italy, so you can test it out freely if you wish) (rank II BR 2.7 RB) In the next example I am using said plane with the engine on WEP from the moment I start moving. If you leave WEP on, without MEC, plane will overheat the engine while having a top speed of around 390 at sea level, at 385 the temps are orange on the engine and yellow on the oil. Prop pitch is brought way too high in auto mode it just feels like it hits a brick (well, more of a aerodynamic) wall. So it overheats the engine because of the higher RPM, and blocks it from going faster because of the drag of the propeller and the radiator fins. Nice equilibrium there, eh? Same WEP setting, but with MEC, prop pitch at 60% (You'll need ~85% for take-off (careful not to break the engine from over revving, stall speed is around 150 km/h), 72% for up to 240 km/h, and after that speed 60% (I tend to use 85% for take off then once I reach 150 km/h I bring the prop pitch down to 60%) this grants the top speed of 407 km/h at sea level compared to that 385 km/h... decent upgrade, top speed of this plane is 485 BTW), radiator at 0% (wish I was kidding, taking to account I am saying the engine overheats on WEP when left on it's own...), and oil radiator at whatever ya like (100% because it doesn't affect drag at all it seems) it flies at 408 km/h from my testing... 390 km/h if you take the 250 kg bomb. And that is on WEP the entire time... With the temperatures being in the yellow for the engine itself it doesn't exceeds 251 degrees (Celsius) which is 1 degree over the point where the game shows the engine as yellow (so basically the plane can fly at a higher speed that is sustainable than without MEC where it can reach a lower top speed and then you have to get off the WEP because of the heat), and normal temperatures for the oil. (Upon checking the wiki, radiator seems to work best at a speed higher than 341 km/h... so I guess that explains the 0% on the radiator, it's all in the prop pitch it seems). I've flown for at least 15 minutes on WEP and never had the engine's temps go over yellow (252 degrees is where it seems to sit at). But that is at sea level. Top speed of the plane (485) at the height of 5 km can be exceeded slightly with the prop pitch 48%, radiator 0%, oil radiator 100%, Mixture was on 20%. Going under that doesn't seem to affect it in any other way than the engine overheats insanely quick... Another example of the automation screwing up in planes' engine management are the BF109 (tech tree one at 5.3), Yak9 ,G55 and G56 in the italian tree... All of these planes can sustain high speeds on WEP without overheating. (Or at least they overheat way slower with MEC) When I was grinding Air RB I demonized the G55 and G56 for overheating...but it wasn't their fault. It was the game turning the prop pitch to 100% and both radiators to 0%. In order to grant a little bit of extra top speed. Issue with the G55 is tho, radiators fully closed let you go faster but cook the engine really quick. If you open the radiators your top speed goes down by a lot. It depends a lot on how much you can lower your drag, and how much you can optimize the engine in not generating heat, dissipating it OR striking the perfect balance between drag and engine heat (radiators + prop pitch). (BF109 can have either top speed runs with which it reaches 570 km/h for a few seconds, or it can sit on a constant 550 km/h, still testing here, so there might be higher attainable speeds) In theory you can make the IAR or any plane not overheat ever by putting the radiators to 100%. But you won't reach high speeds with that tactic. And as much as I hate saying this, each plane has different percentages where it runs optimal. You yourself need to find it. MEC on the BF109 (G14/AS) Sea Level: Speed: 557 km/h Prop Pitch: 50% Radiator: 5% Oil Radiator: 5% Non MEC on the BF109 (G14/AS) Sea Level: Speed: 548 km/h Temps are in the orange, they go into the red after a minute or so of maintaining this speed. This plane tends to run out of fuel faster tho, so do take a look at the fuel every now and then. BF109 (G14/AS) at 7 km: Speed: 677 km/h (672 km/h without MEC) Prop Pitch: 40% Radiator: 10% Oil Radiator: 10% On this one there isn't an easy way out. It requires a bit of micro managing, whatever goes into orange first, bring the radiator of said fluid to a higher percentage, 30% if you want to keep the speed, 100% if you want to cool off very quickly but give up speed. Gonna be honest, the BF109 is giving mixed signals. I'd say, at sea level altitudes, take control of the pitch, keep it at 47%, at the 7km mark where the plane reaches it's top speed let the game handle the pitch. My pitch changes didn't really do much in reaching higher speeds. Just handle the drag and the temps. Another note: I was flying it with the 20mm cannons installed. 30mms have less drag. And without the gun pods it reaches higher top speeds than this. Also, because this is the italian version, it has better cooling than the german one, so if you have the german version, sorry, you can start off with the stats I have here, and then increase the radiator % until the temps stay at a stable rate, or somewhat stable. G55: MEC Speed: ~500 km/h Prop pitch: 80% Oil Radiator: 20% Radiator: 20% According to a spreadsheet I found a few days ago ("War Thunder Top Speeds at sea level" it's called. I think it shows up in a Reddit post, I'd leave a link, but last time I did that, YT sent my comments to the shadow realms) that started my entire testing here, the G55 can reach a speed of 527 km/h, and yes, it can, but by that point the engine gets damaged and looses power... Bummer. I think I'm gonna end this here tho... I'll do some more testing like this,write down the results and maybe even record and show the methods I've used or who knows, I gave you an idea on a video...but I'd say this has reached it's end point in usefulness and me updating this constantly is a bit tiring. I'll leave a final message on this and say that it depends on each plane. On most I've tested it seems it's better to keep the auto thing off in most scenarios. Depends on the plane, and height. If there's a plane you feel it's underperforming, go into MEC and test things out like I did. It most probably IS underperforming. Game is trying to put the prop pitch too high to a point that the engine can't defeat the drag and propel you at a faster speed. But it tries to do so anyways, and in that constant trying to defeat the drag, it ends up overheating the engine which leads to you having to get off WEP and loose speed. All of the speeds I wrote here are sustained speeds at sea level and the height the game says the top speed is at. Other than the BF109 and the YAK needing some micro managing on the radiators, the other planes I've tested never needed anything changed on the 4 stats you can change in MEC (fuel mixture, propeller pitch, oil radiator and radiator). Only the IAR I tried the fuel mixture on. Most of the time I ran out of fuel before I had the engine overheat.The fuel mixture seems to affect performance at higher elevations, changes very little at sea level and interestingly enough, doesn't seem to change fuel consumption. BF109 doesn't let you modify it. Anyhow, if you have any prop plane ya have a question about and want tested (and is in the italian tech tree) tell me and I'll reply and try to help. At least at the moment of writing this, I only had the italian tech tree researched to about 70%.
@Rob-326 damn bro you wrote a whole ass essay, you think I'm gonna read that? (I am going to read all of it, just not at the moment. This looks like a really detailed explanation, thanks!)
Huh, yeah that is quite interesting... I don't really have anything to add to that cuz idk much about MEC. but thanks for the info! And lmk if you find anything new in your testing
Nicely done video. Very informative and well-explained, even if it might take a couple re-watches or pauses to fully absorb all the math. That said, what I really want to know is how I’m seeing an I-16 with a supersonic shock cone!?
i16 can get a lil quirky at night (its using dev commands only available in testflight. zoltansultan has a video going over some of its options you can look it up and mess with it yourself)
You also have to consider the planes engine performance, planes weight, and its aerodynamics when it comes to climbing. Most American plane are pretty mid when it comes to climbing coz they weigh as much as a whale. Whereas, other planes like Spits and Yaks climb like mountain goats due to their lightweight structure. In reality, just climb between 250kph-280kph. I prefer 260kph for most props. Just for the basics, the more altitude you have, the more potential energy you have that you an convert into kinetic energy, or to keep it simple, more speed. Those are critical basics to know when your energy fighting someone, or when you want to try to energy trap someone.
Awesome video, I've been thinking about climb speeds long before watching this video so I have some ideas on how to improve the calculations, it's all based on intuition so it's entirely possible that it's wrong. I don't think finding the best speed for excess power is enough for discovering the best climb rate. While engine thrust is necessary for climb, it needs to be converted to lift first, which isn't 100% efficient, and different AoAs, Speeds and Altitiudes are going to affect the efficiency of this conversion of energy. I think the optimal climb rate is a compromise between the optimal speed for excess engine power and the optimal AoA for the best lift/drag ratio. So for instance, if your plane's wings generate the best lift/drag ratio at, let's say, 15 AoA, then your optimal climb speed would slightly lower than what your optimal speed for Specific Excess Power is. Add onto this that your propellor efficiency might change depending on AoA and that lift/drag of the wing may depend on many factors, and it gets near impossible to calculate.
AdamTheEnginerd (or old name Adam514) has the best video on climb from a few years ago that im too lazy to find links for Sadly (or fortunately for his mental health) he stopped making videos about 2 years ago, he has by far the best videos regarding flight characteristics and explanations
this video addresses some of the key flaws in his methodology, I talked with him over discord and when I asked him about some problems with his methodology he did admit that he made a lot of assumptions that work well for the most part but can't be generalized over all altitudes. His method is simple and effective, I just wanted to give a more nuanced take You can go ask him yourself, he's still pretty active on his discord
me looking at these graphs knowing i just use 20 degree climb universally and adjust by looking at speed. too slow? reduce angle; see what happens; adjust if neccessary. generally staying above 300 kph. works just fine. after all its just wt most people dont even climb at all so any angle above 0 is good lol
you mention 17.5 degree climb being the best climb angle for the P-51H, is that universal among all (at least prop) planes in the game, or is that only for the P-51H (and maybe a few other plane that just so happen to share that rate of climb)?
It's probably not universal, the P-51H has a strong engine so most other planes would probably do better at a shallower angle, thought I haven't tested it so I can't really confirm. A lot of people seem to want it so I might end up making a spreadsheet for this stuff down the road... but that would also take a super long time to test...
I am sorry i am lazy as fuck :D but are you planning to make a spreadsheet with the most used props and the ideal climbing angle so that i can leech of your hard work? Thanks
Maybe I'll make a spreadsheet but to be honest I'm just as lazy as you and so unless I want to go super sweaty mode I don't think I'll keep testing this knowing that the benefit you gain from optimizing climb is kind of minimal. I'll probably test at around sea level and just steadily decrease the IAS i find there as I climb
I'm probably using the wrong word, sorry for not doing a more detailed look into it, I probably shouldve when making a technical video like this. I don't really know that much about engine internals and how they work so I kinda guessed hoping i was right (but i guess i wasnt) There is a distinct performance inflection point at 2km and 4.4km for the p51h engine though so if it isnt supercharger gear then it at the very least is something that's hardcoded in the game
You’re correct about the 51 have gear superchargers. Though your conclusion that 2.2km and 4.4km are the gear change altitudes is a little off, but not by much. 2.2km is the critical altitude for the superchargers first speed. 4.4km is the critical altitude where the the first speed can no longer generate enough boost to make up the HP deficit caused by engaging the second speed for the superchargers. If you kept testing you would find an inflection point at 6ish km that looked like the one at 2.2km, where the second speed peaks. Geared superchargers usually gain power until their peak altitude. This is because the engine cannot fully open the throttle on the supercharger until that point without over-boosting the engine. Superchargers hate throttling because the engine has to use the same amount of power for less boost. After the peak altitude the engine loses power because the supercharger cannot sustain the needed boost anymore. Running the second speed takes more power. Hence why you wait to change gears until a certain alt
Great job experimenting - it's funny a game so popular has a question this fundamental a question answered by "uh check that steam guide from the 2010s and hope not much has changed."
Using Mec probably not necessary because with mec the engine is usually running at slightly reduced power and open rads to keep cool. It'll be the same results just slightly longer to reach the same alt
MEC doesn’t adjust engine power. You can toggle at 100% prop pitch vs auto, and there is no difference in horsepower generation. The radiators are what make it slower, and even then, some planes don’t kick in rads until your engine is cooking.
@@lukefrombk So... it depends on the plane. For 90% of planes, your prop pitch will be at 100%. There are some exceptions where reducing prop pitch is necessary where full rads don't do enough. The G55S for example suffers very little loss in thrust at 90% pp vs 100%.
@@TheSierraMadre_ I agree but it does reduce performance nonetheless. I'm not 100% certain how prop pitch in WT affects engine power. It may reduce hp maybe it reduces engine rpm. Knowing Gaijin I wouldn't be surprised if there's something wrong with it
@@CatWerfer I respect that you put the work in though, now I can rest soundly on that conclusion - whoever said math is useless was a fool :P I think I'd rather invest the time to learn MEC, radiators and superchargers.
IMO 350kph is way too high. I don't have the 51H to test, but when I tested the Wyvern at some point I got 320kph which makes sense, since it's quite heavy and has significant jet thrust left over from the engine. The SEP value in WTRTI has started jumping about a few months ago, idk why.
I'm not telling you to climb at 350kph in all planes, I'm saying thats the speed to climb at at sea level in the p51h, the other planes you would have to test yourself The WTRTI values for SEP jump because before, WTRTI used a different localhost output for velocity that had high precision but was inaccurate at high AoA and so they switched to the more accurate but less precise localhost velocity output. Taking the derivative of this velocity which has much lower precision is going to lead to a lot more jaggedness. I'm pretty sure this is why cuz I was the one who told the WTRTI dev about the bug originally.
@@s_ziel ...I did and it gave me worse results. I'm not sure if you watched the video because I explicitly tested different speeds so if you say stuff like that I'm just not gonna respond
@@CatWerfer I did watch the video, but I'll watch it again since it was late at night 😀 I remember the chart looking different than I'm used to, IMO it should have a visible peak and not be a plateau, at least that's what my charts looked like.
@@CatWerfer I found an old account and did the test, I got about 340 km/h which is basically the same result as yours, considering the inherent error in this method of gathering data. I'm surprised it's so high and wonder if it's because the prop is just too small to use this much engine power.
Bro just imagine there’s a VSI and try to keep it on the indicated climb rate that’s already on the stat cards😂 its already there for you in meters per second and automatically changes for mods/payload
Bro still thinks the statcard is a reliable source, you'd think most people would've grown out of it by now... If you actually thought about what you're suggesting, you're saying that if the statcard says something like "Rate of Climb: 20m/s", that means that the plane's ideal rate of climb is the same at all altitudes? From sea level into the stratosphere? I'd like to see a prop plane that can climb at ALL above 12km
Actually the best way to climb is to spam flaps on and off so your plane flies like a bird, no need to make up words like “kilometers” or “velocity”.
you did it. you won funniest comment of the day
I’ll show this video to my friend whenever he complains about me afk climbing while playing Genshin
@@immort4730 imma make a "how to put us in queue for a game without taking 2 hours" theory video just for u
"I'm going to bed now. Bye." 🤣Had me in stitches - Love the dedication to this. I've tried to get the real-world maths into this in the past, and just can't fathom it, so appreciate the work you put into this.
You earned your sleep
Thanks! I tried to explain it so that people without a physics background could at the very least see what's going on. Hopefully it was easy to follow, but even if the theory didnt make sense, I tried to make the process for finding the climb speeds easy to replicate for any plane you want to test.
dude just play the yak3U and never think about it anymore
true there are some planes that are just monsters in the energy department that none of this matters
Yeah but playing the 3U is basically enabling cheats lol
bruh structured his war thunder video like a physics lab video 😭
for homework go do this with every plane you have.
also the number of times i said "climb" in the video will be on the exam
Continuation of Adam514s style I like it @@CatWerfer
I used to rely on that outdated spreadsheet RELIGIOUSLY before I saw a video done by AdamTheEnginerd, but I'm too lazy to do proper testing so I "vibe" what IAS I climb at based on the engine power of the aircraft 😂
lol yeah thats what i do if im just playing casually.
cant be bothered to test everything, that would take ages
Its good to know that pretty much almost any information you can find in game and in forums is pretty much meaningless in game, or is based on vibe with some testing for specific aircraft.
I wouldn't say everything up there is useless, a lot of it is still pretty handy or at least is a good starting point when it comes to running your own tests. Trust, but verify.
@@CatWerfer I guess there's a bit of an upside in that, if a fixed angle climb is reasonably close to optimal, then finding that correct angle is probably something that can be dialed in with a few tries, written down on a piece of paper, and then no need for the outdated chart googling.
Same- the table is a baseline, my ass is the dyno. Kentucky windage for the win!
Dont forget, you are climbing to dogfight! This means that you need speed to manouver. If you only care about altitude, by the time you notice the enemy, drop your nose, and gain speed you will be in a disadvantegous position! So at high altitudes always shallow climb or level out, you can catch so many people by suprise this way.
100%, I usually try to maintain 300kph IAS once I'm at an altitude that I know I'll start encountering enemies at.
This video is more of an isolated look at just aircraft climbrate but your point is also important in the actual context of a game
climbing is about building up energy. Speed is also energy, so minmaxing potential energy gain at the cost of kinetic energy can be something of a trap.
yep! that's why the video focuses on maximizing total energy gain rate, not just altitude. That's also why zoom climbing is a bad idea
Thank you for the vid. Next time i take out my 109 imma just climb 20° and go afk for a few minutes.
Also that poor I-16 having a seizure from going too fast 😂😭
yeah somewhere between 15 and 20 is probably a good spot for the 109
the i16 can get a little excited sometimes :)
20deg is way too much, unless you're at low alt
Hey, I have actually asked you in the comments about climb rates, and you wrote me this whole essay there.
I'm very thankful about that, and I agree with the conclusion....partially.
With literally no information about climbing in the game.....at all.
A Lot of planes rely on gaining just a tad bit more altitude advantage, and while yes, optimizing climbrate perfectly is useless, but just by climbing at 300 km/h instead of 250 the difference is reasonable enough, especially in a day and age where......I'm not gonna even hold back.
full team of US Mains grinding for F-16 going low altitude into the first head-on, full-commit, and just dying, leading to games ending in NO LESS THAN 3 MINUTES......
Lol i agree 100%
I wasn't trying to recommend not climbing at all
I was moreso saying that if you're already climbing using the set IAS climb method or you care enough about climbing that you're gonna click on a video like this, then the additional height gained by micromanaging climb IAS is relatively minimal, under 500m difference.
This doesn't mean that you shouldn't use this information, it's just that for most people playing, AFK climbing is still perfectly workable.
There are indeed certain planes that rely on an energy advantage more than others but at the end of the day I'm just saying that you're free to choose to micromanage or just afk climb and based off of how minimal the gains are, I personally am choosing to afk climb
lol just look at a stat card it’s all u have to do to see climb rate😭 and for vsi it’s not that hard to imagine lol you get used to it in your own way, it’s also in some cockpits in game tho
Also I hope ur not flying at 300km, maybe in the bv238 😂, you need momentum
@@NickjustdabsExtremely confidently wrong here
As someone taking an AP Physics 1 class, the equations a and free-body diagrams that you show on screen actually help me to remember what those things are used for, which is pretty cool 👍
ay nice! aerodynamic forces are usually a lot more complex but for climbing, the plane isnt accelerating so all of the forces cancel each other out, which is pretty nice.
More technical-style videos coming soon (tm)
The speed is the significant difference I think; calculating the difference in kinetic energy, you'll find that there's approximately a 25% difference in kinetic energy between even a speed difference that small, because kinetic energy scales by the square of speed.
Now the thing is, of course, potential energy makes up a greater amount of the total energy. And in the end, I agree with your takeaway that it doesn't really matter a ton in practice. There's so many other more important factors, and even besides that, most War Thunder prop fights nowadays happen at lower altitudes. I would say you can definitely get away with climbing "well enough".
yeah, I calculated that the energy difference between 290kph and 260kph at the end of the experiment would equate to about a 70 meter altitude potential energy difference, not that significant in comparison to the whole thing.
One thing I neglected to mention in the video now that I think about it though is that the 17.5 degree climb started with a higher speed going into the climb at 1km too, around 355kph vs 345kph for the max SEP climb, but the original point still stands
Phenomenal, after all this time i can't believe you heed to my request all the way back then! Very thoughtout and informative video, definetly worth the wait, i'm really starting to feel like you're fully becoming AdamTE's spiritual successor.
I'm still a bit disappointed with the conclusion that focusing your energy on optimizing and maximizing climb rate is kind of a waste of time, but the video still helped shed some light into the intuition of what to look for in your metrics when doing so.
I get that you've said yourself that you don't care to find the gain in climb rate with MEC so i won't bother you with that. But it would be interesting to see the difference in testing and strategy of climbing in jets of various types, like how Adam briefly touched upon in his video, but i guess it would be best for you to look for more fresh and interesting new topics to touch up on.
How you doin btw? Is the channel gonna become more active? After seeing this i can't wait for more to come.
Yeah I'm not too interested in micro optimizing past this point. I did lay out all the tools I used to test this though so you can do that yourself if you're really interested. If you do then I'd like to hear what results you get (i just don't wanna do the work myself lol)
Oh I know I didn't get into it in the video but zoom climbing is never really worth it compared to steady climbs even in jets from what I can tell.
While a lot of early jets perform best at sea level, the specific excess power dropoff from higher altitude isn't big enough that you put yourself in a better state to climb after a zoomclimb.
Remember that after you've done your zoom climb, you still want energy left over to keep flying and maneuvering so unless you're going in for a stall shot on someone, a steady climb not only maximizes the SEP generated at each altitude but also sets you up to continue generating the maximum SEP further into your climb. A zoom climb will put you in a position where you may have more altitude than a steady climber, but never more energy or potential to generate more energy.
There may be an altitude where zoom climbing is more efficient, probably the service ceiling of the aircraft, but that isn't the case at sea level
In regards to the channel, I went on a kind of long break not just cuz of studies and other stuff but I also wanted to take a crack at "solving" war thunder flight models using the datamines but that trail went a bit cold. I might take a shot at it some other time...
Also wanted to take the channel in a different direction in terms of style and presentation since there are enough minimally-edited-voice-commenting-over-gameplay-footage people and I wanted to distinguish myself in some way but the longer I think about it the less sure I am of what exactly that would be so for now I'll be benching that.
I like making videos and I like talking to you and other people who comment so hopefully I can get off my butt and actually do that more
Cool video! honestly I didnt know it leveled off that hard in terms of climb rate on the wide speed. Oh and also climb was said give or take 35 times :)
lol ill take your word on it
"the overall goal we are trying to achieve when trying to optimize climb rate is to"...deliver the plane into a winning position in the game(/mission). the best climb method will depend on the objective of the climb, which sometimes is to deliver the plane to a given height not just in the least amount of time alone but with a given airspeed at altitude as well. this is most prevalent in jets particularly on an intercept, which will accelerate at low altitude first and then climb at a given mach number (Rutkowski profile). In war thunder props it can sometimes be better to arrive a little later to height with a lot more speed when you get there, especially in planes which rely on speed to survive
@ArtietheArchon I should've qualified that statement with "for the purposes of this experiment and video", I am aware that maximizing sep is not always ideal especially when you need to gain speed for an engagement or get in a certain position relative to the rest of your team and enemy
@@CatWerfer so I did 3 climbs in the P-47, it was dead even getting to 15,000 feet in a 20, 17.5, and 15 degree climb. in that instance the player is almost required to consider other things in choosing their climb angle...at the start of the match a lower climb angle will put you closer to the enemy while a steeper climb angle will leave you with less speed. this is probably worth a video
@ArtietheArchon I am planning on eventually making a video on positioning particularly in the early game. Interesting find, ill test it out myself when I get around to it.
Which p47 is this?
@@CatWerfer the only one that's not outright masochism IMO, the D-28 and clones
I like all of them, they're not all meta but I have a lot of fun in the razorback, and the P47N is nice in ground rb as cas+cap
My approach was always to climb so as to minimize drag, since prop efficiency is more or less constant above 200ias for most planes (though there are exceptions, namely BF-109s). When induced drag dominates, you get visible wingtip vortices in-game, so 20-50IAS above the speed at which the vortices disappear always puts you very close to the optimal climb, and you can easily figure it out on on the fly.
that may work as a rule of thumb for low tier props but generally speaking, the speed at which lift/drag ratio is minimized is not the ideal climb speed. you can look on the wikipedia page for rate of climb for the graph but you're looking for the speed where there is the maximum difference between engine power output and L/D ratio are achieved, which is not necessarily at the speed of minimum L/D ratio.
I'll also politely disagree with the claim that prop efficiency doesn't change significantly above 200kph ias for a majority of the planes.
As an example, the p51h has a prop efficiency around 60% at 200kph while it only begins to level out at 80-85% at around 300kph ias at sea level.
The p51h makes wing vortices at maybe 220kph ias, but 350kph is much more than +50kph from that.
though these are just my 2 cents, if your method works for you then what ive said here doesn't really mean anything
@@CatWerfer Look at energy instead of climb rate. For most single-engine monoplanes, prop efficiency plateaus at 80-85%, while minimum drag is between 200-250IAS, where you see prop efficiencies of 65-70%, so you have maybe 20% of effective engine power to gain by flying faster. On the other hand, the power lost to drag increases dramatically at higher speeds (parasitic drag power loss scales with velocity cubed), so you cannot go much faster. Thus, the optimal climb IAS is *slightly* faster than the minimum drag IAS (which is constant) and so it doesn't change much with altitude or engine power, which is why it's standard practice.
Note that you can climb at a lower-than-optimal speed and end up slightly higher but with less energy (which is not what you want, maximizing total energy is the goal of a climb) so the optimal climb IAS is difficult to determine, but it exists
@KekusMagnus again, this is probably fine as a rule of thumb but you can't really call it "optimal" if you haven't actually tested it. I think I've made my methods and calculations about as clear as possible and if you still disagree then there's not much I can do for you
@KekusMagnus an increase in drag can still be worth it, as your climb will be faster.
Power is velocity times force, with more drag, your climbing force is lower, but a speed increase can more than makr up for this, overall increasing your climbing power.
@@silience4095 This is way simpler than you guys make it out to be. The engine inputs power into the aircraft (power*prop efficiency), drag takes away power from the aircraft (drag*velocity). The rest of the power is turned into mechanical energy (what you want when climbing). Thus, maximizing (engine power*prop efficiency - drag*velocity) gives you an optimal climb, so note how
1) this is only a function of velocity (so climbing by IAS is good practice, since IAS is roughly proportional to drag)
2) prop efficiency changes very little with velocity compared to drag, so the optimal climb has to be near the speed minimizing drag.
In practice I have found it is usually slightly higher. I personally tend to trust the "notorious" spreadsheet as most FMs have not changed in 6 years
ive been looking for something like this for like 3 years
thank u internet human
I'm glad you found this interesting,
you're welcome internet human
Nice video good to have you back. Do you do something Physiks related IRL? it appeared quite professional. BTW are you goona do more videos again?
Yeah I have a bit of an engineering background though aerodynamics isn't something I've studied in depth.
If I find the time to I'll probably get around to making more videos soon
Also worthy to note, time to climb is not necessarily the only or best metric to judge by, sometimes its far better to climb at a higher angle/lower speed in order to change your altitude/position when encountering enemies for example
Yep
Really useful and informative, Thx!🎉
I always aim to find the angle that very slowly increases speed and then droop the snoot a little to increase my speed gain. Dunno if its the best way, but i always seem to end up higher than most every other plane outside of the "meta" props. Can't say the same for jets cause flying high always ends up with me getting obliterated. So i just feather the thruster for max speed near the ground.
yeah it seems everyone has their own climbing strategy and if it works for you and you're conscious enough to put thought into it then tbh you're probably fine. The big issue is the US mains bombing bases in their p51s...
@ 2:12 when a aeronautics engineer plays war thunder
plane game do have planes tho
peak yo! thanks for the vid and missed your vids bro
I think WT elevators sap more energy than they're supposed to, or maybe it's AOA. Going straight up only kills my speed when I decide to stop going straight up. Would explain why not touching them gives the ideal climbs.
Edit: It's also worth noting that your propeller will give you more thrust per kilowatt of engine output the slower you are. Can easily be worth being below the excess power peak with how it plateaus.
that background music has unlocked deep memories of feeling like an idiot
brain so smooth i only absorbed the music, dr kawashima is very disappointed
The I-16 going supersonic in the background 😆
mfw rey says "i bypassed the compressor" in starwars ep 7
Nice video, although the result was more or less expected for props. I think we'd see much more interesting results with jets.
Edit: Maybe we should consider specific energy of the plane at the end of the climb rather than just the altitude to factor in the differences in end velocity.
mm it was kind of unexpected to me, I expected a lot larger of a difference so i was kinda shocked when it wasnt the case.
If i get around to testing jets I'll probably make a short video on it but it probably won't be soon... if you wanna try it then go ahead, I'd be happy to hear what the results are.
Also you are 100% right about measuring specific energy instead of altitude, the micromanaging IAS for max SEP did end up with a higher specific energy state thanks to the higher end speed, though the difference wasn't that much... I was just too lazy to redo the tests while taking specific energy in mind lol
I have one rule... if it's a prop, you climb at 200-250 kmph. Idk about jets or turboprops though... don't have them yet
@tf2weeb663 not optimal but if it works it works ig
Omg he's back. You are at 1k already.
Looks like you're back too :)
@@CatWerfer I was waiting for an upload fr. I see you in other wt comment sections sometimes.
lol i got a few more coming soon (tm)
Hey! There are vids talking bout binding Radiator control and turbo/supercharger on "full-real controls" once you bind them you can go back to simple/mouse aim.
Its a trick I noticed fighting the same plane but against a veteran sim player. Sad that there are little to no info regarding what every setting does. Hope it helps!
Yeah i know there are a lot of MEC settings like radiator control and fuel mixture control as well as video guides on how to use them, I'm just saying that I can't be bothered to test them, at least right now😅
@@CatWerfer good on you. Thanks for doing this vid. Still makes my heart yearn; to learn more about other factors and nuances we will spend years understanding.
Glad to see, you have a community that's supporting you. Keep pushing mate, cheers!
Very cool video, afk side climbing it is I guess
But there's something bugging me, for some planes with an airspawn for example, would you have the most altitude advantage (or minimise your altitude disadvantage) when meeting the enemy by maximising your climb rate as usual, or by speeding towards the enemy base before they have a chance to climb high enough? What about planes that perform better at lower altitudes? The airfields are far away enough from each other that it probably doesn't matter but for weird planes like the mosquito it seems to have some effect on my match performance
yep, if the difference was much bigger i'd actually care to put effort into climbing but for an additional 200m i dont think its worth it
Keep in mind folks, this is War Thunder, climb rate and altitude matter only if you exit the climb while going decently fast, it's no use being at 5-7km altitude if you have the aerodynamics of a cucumber and get slapped from the sky by a 4x20mm cannon carrying interceptor
my favorite cucumber is the j7w, good climb and tastes pretty good when pickled but is kinda bland to eat raw
i actually try to base my climb off the deflection angle.
for any plane i try to find the speed where my true velocity marker is less than ~5 degrees apart from my nose direction, you can see this in virtual cockpit view.
you didnt adress this method in the video but im curious about how effective it really is, for me it usually allows me to find good climb angles really well
ooo thats a really interesting method. if you do end up testing it yourself and timing it compared to the others then let me know how well it works, i'd be interested to hear
@@CatWerfer im not interested in doing a thorough test but i decided to do quick test in the p51h. 1 run each
(for this comment, DFA = deflection angle)
my test setup: spaded p51h, cold start from runway race to 6km, no mods or anything to set accurate stats, using phone stopwatch to time it.
control test ~17.5degree set angle: 4minutes 12.5 seconds or 256 seconds
(notes: my IAS was roughly around 290 for a lot of the time start of the test i rose up to 24 degrees climb angle at its peak but eventually had to lower down to 18 again as the deflection angle worsened due to lower air density)
variable 3-4 degrees of deflection angle: 4minutes 14 or 258 seconds. i say variable because at the start of the climb it was a bit of testing where to get the DFA and airspeed to stabilise (i am not a perfect human PID controller after all :P).
conclusion: the method seems better than set IAS, and either on par with or roughly worse than set angle but hypothetically applies to olmost any plane ignoring other characteristics (me264 would be a notable example with the standard DFA being +5 degrees due to the fucky wing angle). Because every plane suffers from a lot of extra drag with too much DFA and wastes potential climbrate when speed is so high that the DFA is negligent.
but the IAS tested in the vid also only up to 290, which as you already mentioned the ideal IAS climbrate is closer to around 340
also i just realized i dont know what AOA or deflection angle exactly even is, because i googled it real quickly and the answers seem conflicting. so just to be doubly clear i mean the difference between true flight direction and plane nose direction (appearently deflection angle is just aileron/elevator angles oops)
This is the easiest way. I usually try to maintain a 14-15° climb with the marker, while also keeping speed at about 190mph (depends on the plane) until I get up to bomber spawn height, then put the nose at about 10° to gain some speed.
@@jevry4307 hm thats pretty neat, thanks for the find! maybe I'll also test it since it seems like a pretty reasonable compromise of a climb method
Are we ignoring the I-16 going mach 4 at the end?
dont worry the i16 just gets a little excited sometimes
This was really interesting!
Nice vid!
very interesting vid
Sometimes I switch to the cockpit view and look at the variometer.
it's funny to think that despite the game being analyzed to death by players with thousand of hours, there will probably be hundreds of planes that nobody ever knew the optimal way to climb in them before the servers shut down for good one day.
that may be possible... but there are quite a few people working on cracking the physics engine, so we may actually get to the point where everyone knows precisely everything about every plane and how their flight models work sooner rather than later thanks to the datamines...
This test is probably much more important for the planes that overheat easily like BF109s and FW variants. As you said, with MEC and prop controls you might be able to squeeze out even more, I dabbled in this stuff ages ago but came to the conclusion it was probably just better to leave auto engine management on.
Huh ok good to know
On some planes MEC actually makes them perform way better.
From my testing, on the IAR 81C (It's a premium in Italy, so you can test it out freely if you wish) (rank II BR 2.7 RB)
In the next example I am using said plane with the engine on WEP from the moment I start moving.
If you leave WEP on, without MEC, plane will overheat the engine while having a top speed of around 390 at sea level, at 385 the temps are orange on the engine and yellow on the oil. Prop pitch is brought way too high in auto mode it just feels like it hits a brick (well, more of a aerodynamic) wall. So it overheats the engine because of the higher RPM, and blocks it from going faster because of the drag of the propeller and the radiator fins. Nice equilibrium there, eh?
Same WEP setting, but with MEC, prop pitch at 60% (You'll need ~85% for take-off (careful not to break the engine from over revving, stall speed is around 150 km/h), 72% for up to 240 km/h, and after that speed 60% (I tend to use 85% for take off then once I reach 150 km/h I bring the prop pitch down to 60%) this grants the top speed of 407 km/h at sea level compared to that 385 km/h... decent upgrade, top speed of this plane is 485 BTW), radiator at 0% (wish I was kidding, taking to account I am saying the engine overheats on WEP when left on it's own...), and oil radiator at whatever ya like (100% because it doesn't affect drag at all it seems) it flies at 408 km/h from my testing... 390 km/h if you take the 250 kg bomb.
And that is on WEP the entire time... With the temperatures being in the yellow for the engine itself it doesn't exceeds 251 degrees (Celsius) which is 1 degree over the point where the game shows the engine as yellow (so basically the plane can fly at a higher speed that is sustainable than without MEC where it can reach a lower top speed and then you have to get off the WEP because of the heat), and normal temperatures for the oil. (Upon checking the wiki, radiator seems to work best at a speed higher than 341 km/h... so I guess that explains the 0% on the radiator, it's all in the prop pitch it seems). I've flown for at least 15 minutes on WEP and never had the engine's temps go over yellow (252 degrees is where it seems to sit at). But that is at sea level. Top speed of the plane (485) at the height of 5 km can be exceeded slightly with the prop pitch 48%, radiator 0%, oil radiator 100%, Mixture was on 20%. Going under that doesn't seem to affect it in any other way than the engine overheats insanely quick...
Another example of the automation screwing up in planes' engine management are the BF109 (tech tree one at 5.3), Yak9 ,G55 and G56 in the italian tree... All of these planes can sustain high speeds on WEP without overheating. (Or at least they overheat way slower with MEC)
When I was grinding Air RB I demonized the G55 and G56 for overheating...but it wasn't their fault.
It was the game turning the prop pitch to 100% and both radiators to 0%. In order to grant a little bit of extra top speed.
Issue with the G55 is tho, radiators fully closed let you go faster but cook the engine really quick.
If you open the radiators your top speed goes down by a lot.
It depends a lot on how much you can lower your drag, and how much you can optimize the engine in not generating heat, dissipating it OR striking the perfect balance between drag and engine heat (radiators + prop pitch). (BF109 can have either top speed runs with which it reaches 570 km/h for a few seconds, or it can sit on a constant 550 km/h, still testing here, so there might be higher attainable speeds)
In theory you can make the IAR or any plane not overheat ever by putting the radiators to 100%. But you won't reach high speeds with that tactic.
And as much as I hate saying this, each plane has different percentages where it runs optimal. You yourself need to find it.
MEC on the BF109 (G14/AS) Sea Level:
Speed: 557 km/h
Prop Pitch: 50% Radiator: 5% Oil Radiator: 5%
Non MEC on the BF109 (G14/AS) Sea Level:
Speed: 548 km/h
Temps are in the orange, they go into the red after a minute or so of maintaining this speed. This plane tends to run out of fuel faster tho, so do take a look at the fuel every now and then.
BF109 (G14/AS) at 7 km:
Speed: 677 km/h (672 km/h without MEC)
Prop Pitch: 40% Radiator: 10% Oil Radiator: 10% On this one there isn't an easy way out. It requires a bit of micro managing, whatever goes into orange first, bring the radiator of said fluid to a higher percentage, 30% if you want to keep the speed, 100% if you want to cool off very quickly but give up speed.
Gonna be honest, the BF109 is giving mixed signals. I'd say, at sea level altitudes, take control of the pitch, keep it at 47%, at the 7km mark where the plane reaches it's top speed let the game handle the pitch. My pitch changes didn't really do much in reaching higher speeds. Just handle the drag and the temps.
Another note: I was flying it with the 20mm cannons installed. 30mms have less drag. And without the gun pods it reaches higher top speeds than this. Also, because this is the italian version, it has better cooling than the german one, so if you have the german version, sorry, you can start off with the stats I have here, and then increase the radiator % until the temps stay at a stable rate, or somewhat stable.
G55: MEC
Speed: ~500 km/h
Prop pitch: 80%
Oil Radiator: 20%
Radiator: 20%
According to a spreadsheet I found a few days ago ("War Thunder Top Speeds at sea level" it's called. I think it shows up in a Reddit post, I'd leave a link, but last time I did that, YT sent my comments to the shadow realms) that started my entire testing here, the G55 can reach a speed of 527 km/h, and yes, it can, but by that point the engine gets damaged and looses power... Bummer.
I think I'm gonna end this here tho... I'll do some more testing like this,write down the results and maybe even record and show the methods I've used or who knows, I gave you an idea on a video...but I'd say this has reached it's end point in usefulness and me updating this constantly is a bit tiring. I'll leave a final message on this and say that it depends on each plane. On most I've tested it seems it's better to keep the auto thing off in most scenarios. Depends on the plane, and height. If there's a plane you feel it's underperforming, go into MEC and test things out like I did. It most probably IS underperforming. Game is trying to put the prop pitch too high to a point that the engine can't defeat the drag and propel you at a faster speed. But it tries to do so anyways, and in that constant trying to defeat the drag, it ends up overheating the engine which leads to you having to get off WEP and loose speed. All of the speeds I wrote here are sustained speeds at sea level and the height the game says the top speed is at. Other than the BF109 and the YAK needing some micro managing on the radiators, the other planes I've tested never needed anything changed on the 4 stats you can change in MEC (fuel mixture, propeller pitch, oil radiator and radiator). Only the IAR I tried the fuel mixture on. Most of the time I ran out of fuel before I had the engine overheat.The fuel mixture seems to affect performance at higher elevations, changes very little at sea level and interestingly enough, doesn't seem to change fuel consumption. BF109 doesn't let you modify it. Anyhow, if you have any prop plane ya have a question about and want tested (and is in the italian tech tree) tell me and I'll reply and try to help. At least at the moment of writing this, I only had the italian tech tree researched to about 70%.
@Rob-326 damn bro you wrote a whole ass essay, you think I'm gonna read that? (I am going to read all of it, just not at the moment. This looks like a really detailed explanation, thanks!)
Huh, yeah that is quite interesting... I don't really have anything to add to that cuz idk much about MEC. but thanks for the info! And lmk if you find anything new in your testing
@@CatWerfer I recently found out about the MEC stuff too.
Had way better results in matches where I was using MEC than in ones where I didn't.
Nicely done video. Very informative and well-explained, even if it might take a couple re-watches or pauses to fully absorb all the math. That said, what I really want to know is how I’m seeing an I-16 with a supersonic shock cone!?
i16 can get a lil quirky at night (its using dev commands only available in testflight. zoltansultan has a video going over some of its options you can look it up and mess with it yourself)
You also have to consider the planes engine performance, planes weight, and its aerodynamics when it comes to climbing. Most American plane are pretty mid when it comes to climbing coz they weigh as much as a whale. Whereas, other planes like Spits and Yaks climb like mountain goats due to their lightweight structure. In reality, just climb between 250kph-280kph. I prefer 260kph for most props. Just for the basics, the more altitude you have, the more potential energy you have that you an convert into kinetic energy, or to keep it simple, more speed. Those are critical basics to know when your energy fighting someone, or when you want to try to energy trap someone.
...you are aware that thrust, weight, drag, and speed are all accounted for in specific excess power? like it's in the equation.
Awesome video, I've been thinking about climb speeds long before watching this video so I have some ideas on how to improve the calculations, it's all based on intuition so it's entirely possible that it's wrong.
I don't think finding the best speed for excess power is enough for discovering the best climb rate.
While engine thrust is necessary for climb, it needs to be converted to lift first, which isn't 100% efficient, and different AoAs, Speeds and Altitiudes are going to affect the efficiency of this conversion of energy.
I think the optimal climb rate is a compromise between the optimal speed for excess engine power and the optimal AoA for the best lift/drag ratio. So for instance, if your plane's wings generate the best lift/drag ratio at, let's say, 15 AoA, then your optimal climb speed would slightly lower than what your optimal speed for Specific Excess Power is.
Add onto this that your propellor efficiency might change depending on AoA and that lift/drag of the wing may depend on many factors, and it gets near impossible to calculate.
Maybe, let me know if you find anything interesting in your testing, i'd be interested to hear where you go with it
yoo more videos?
haha jkjk... unless?
@@CatWerfer please do lmao
AdamTheEnginerd (or old name Adam514) has the best video on climb from a few years ago that im too lazy to find links for
Sadly (or fortunately for his mental health) he stopped making videos about 2 years ago, he has by far the best videos regarding flight characteristics and explanations
this video addresses some of the key flaws in his methodology, I talked with him over discord and when I asked him about some problems with his methodology he did admit that he made a lot of assumptions that work well for the most part but can't be generalized over all altitudes.
His method is simple and effective, I just wanted to give a more nuanced take
You can go ask him yourself, he's still pretty active on his discord
ruclips.net/video/v7JCYCnSM3I/видео.html
The two people who are always on deck disliked this video.
There are always at least two...
me looking at these graphs knowing i just use 20 degree climb universally and adjust by looking at speed. too slow? reduce angle; see what happens; adjust if neccessary. generally staying above 300 kph. works just fine. after all its just wt most people dont even climb at all so any angle above 0 is good lol
yeah if it works well for you then its probably good enough lol. just so long as you're not lawnmowing lmao
you mention 17.5 degree climb being the best climb angle for the P-51H, is that universal among all (at least prop) planes in the game, or is that only for the P-51H (and maybe a few other plane that just so happen to share that rate of climb)?
It's probably not universal, the P-51H has a strong engine so most other planes would probably do better at a shallower angle, thought I haven't tested it so I can't really confirm.
A lot of people seem to want it so I might end up making a spreadsheet for this stuff down the road...
but that would also take a super long time to test...
I am sorry i am lazy as fuck :D but are you planning to make a spreadsheet with the most used props and the ideal climbing angle so that i can leech of your hard work? Thanks
Maybe I'll make a spreadsheet but to be honest I'm just as lazy as you and so unless I want to go super sweaty mode I don't think I'll keep testing this knowing that the benefit you gain from optimizing climb is kind of minimal. I'll probably test at around sea level and just steadily decrease the IAS i find there as I climb
I don't think the Mustang has supercharger gears, since it uses turbocharging. At least the Merlin engined ones.
I'm probably using the wrong word, sorry for not doing a more detailed look into it, I probably shouldve when making a technical video like this.
I don't really know that much about engine internals and how they work so I kinda guessed hoping i was right (but i guess i wasnt)
There is a distinct performance inflection point at 2km and 4.4km for the p51h engine though so if it isnt supercharger gear then it at the very least is something that's hardcoded in the game
You’re correct about the 51 have gear superchargers.
Though your conclusion that 2.2km and 4.4km are the gear change altitudes is a little off, but not by much.
2.2km is the critical altitude for the superchargers first speed. 4.4km is the critical altitude where the the first speed can no longer generate enough boost to make up the HP deficit caused by engaging the second speed for the superchargers.
If you kept testing you would find an inflection point at 6ish km that looked like the one at 2.2km, where the second speed peaks.
Geared superchargers usually gain power until their peak altitude. This is because the engine cannot fully open the throttle on the supercharger until that point without over-boosting the engine. Superchargers hate throttling because the engine has to use the same amount of power for less boost.
After the peak altitude the engine loses power because the supercharger cannot sustain the needed boost anymore.
Running the second speed takes more power. Hence why you wait to change gears until a certain alt
@@zedoktor979 ooo okay, thanks for the thorough explanation.
Do you think this changes much about the conclusions I arrived at in the video?
He’s back
heya how've you been?
10/10
You know shit gets real when you need math in wt
*uses math in war thunder to prove that math was not actually that useful in war thunder
Oh yes props needs 5 min climb and positioning not like f14 iriaf that needs air spawn because fakour are totally not a menace
I just climb at an angle where i dont stall or lose speed
if it works, it works :)
I just try to keep my AOA as low as possible during a climb ...
you do you buddy
well you basically don't climb lol
Great job experimenting - it's funny a game so popular has a question this fundamental a question answered by "uh check that steam guide from the 2010s and hope not much has changed."
Using Mec probably not necessary because with mec the engine is usually running at slightly reduced power and open rads to keep cool. It'll be the same results just slightly longer to reach the same alt
mmm I'd have to test it to be certain but for now ill take your word on it
MEC doesn’t adjust engine power. You can toggle at 100% prop pitch vs auto, and there is no difference in horsepower generation. The radiators are what make it slower, and even then, some planes don’t kick in rads until your engine is cooking.
@@TheSierraMadre_ Using reduced prop pitch during climbing to not overheat the engine vs auto prop pitch there is a noticable difference in climb
@@lukefrombk So... it depends on the plane. For 90% of planes, your prop pitch will be at 100%. There are some exceptions where reducing prop pitch is necessary where full rads don't do enough. The G55S for example suffers very little loss in thrust at 90% pp vs 100%.
@@TheSierraMadre_ I agree but it does reduce performance nonetheless. I'm not 100% certain how prop pitch in WT affects engine power. It may reduce hp maybe it reduces engine rpm. Knowing Gaijin I wouldn't be surprised if there's something wrong with it
I unno man I think I'll just fli plen.
lol that was basically my conclusion, that doing all this optimizing isnt really worth it
@@CatWerfer I respect that you put the work in though, now I can rest soundly on that conclusion - whoever said math is useless was a fool :P I think I'd rather invest the time to learn MEC, radiators and superchargers.
easy
get up to good speed
climb at as much angle as possible that doesnt decrease speed
you do you buddy
finally, school mathematics has a use!
what with the hypersonic i16 lmao???
i16 just needs a bit of encouragement sometimes :)
@@CatWerfer how do I encourage the i16 to do that????
tell it some compliments :)
@@CatWerfer bruh.... tell me how to hack the game pls 🙏 😔 🙄 😭 😪 🙃 🙏 😔
@@SHEEPS_123 zoltansultan has a video on devtools and how to use them, you can do a quick search of it on youtube
Bro you do need some sleep. Go to bed. Good night
😴
Really. ...
fr
Hm
honestly quite incredible
IMO 350kph is way too high. I don't have the 51H to test, but when I tested the Wyvern at some point I got 320kph which makes sense, since it's quite heavy and has significant jet thrust left over from the engine.
The SEP value in WTRTI has started jumping about a few months ago, idk why.
I'm not telling you to climb at 350kph in all planes, I'm saying thats the speed to climb at at sea level in the p51h, the other planes you would have to test yourself
The WTRTI values for SEP jump because before, WTRTI used a different localhost output for velocity that had high precision but was inaccurate at high AoA and so they switched to the more accurate but less precise localhost velocity output. Taking the derivative of this velocity which has much lower precision is going to lead to a lot more jaggedness. I'm pretty sure this is why cuz I was the one who told the WTRTI dev about the bug originally.
@@CatWerfer no no, I understand that the value is plane-specific, I believe that 350 is too high for the 51H. I'd probably try about 280-300
@@s_ziel ...I did and it gave me worse results. I'm not sure if you watched the video because I explicitly tested different speeds so if you say stuff like that I'm just not gonna respond
@@CatWerfer I did watch the video, but I'll watch it again since it was late at night 😀 I remember the chart looking different than I'm used to, IMO it should have a visible peak and not be a plateau, at least that's what my charts looked like.
@@CatWerfer I found an old account and did the test, I got about 340 km/h which is basically the same result as yours, considering the inherent error in this method of gathering data. I'm surprised it's so high and wonder if it's because the prop is just too small to use this much engine power.
Ideal thing is to climb at 15 degrees at max possible speed
Have some 400kmph true air speed when going into fight, or maybe more
probably not "ideal"... but if it works it works
@@CatWerfer in other words fly with constant true air speed cuz energy
start at 15 degree, after 2500 m, change that to 10 degrees, all planes are shit after 5000 m
you do you buddy
Not true. Planes that are optimized for higher altitudes, or alternatively, have turbochargers, maintain manifold pressures well above 5000m.
Bro just imagine there’s a VSI and try to keep it on the indicated climb rate that’s already on the stat cards😂 its already there for you in meters per second and automatically changes for mods/payload
Bro still thinks the statcard is a reliable source, you'd think most people would've grown out of it by now...
If you actually thought about what you're suggesting, you're saying that if the statcard says something like "Rate of Climb: 20m/s", that means that the plane's ideal rate of climb is the same at all altitudes? From sea level into the stratosphere? I'd like to see a prop plane that can climb at ALL above 12km
The statcard isn't accurate, and this is about gaining energy, not just altitude.
Neeeeeeeeeeeeeerd
i have been called out and i am emotionally devastated
7:38 what in hell is going on in the background
i16 gets a little excited sometimes :)