Richard (of 2 seater Spit/P51 fame) (don't know his last name unfortunately) supplied me with a few NACA roll rate plane information from "real" planes. I've decided to "break" the rules and include "real life" data for a comparison just to see how WB compares to "Real" planes. Unfortunately the NACA information I received didn't state whether speeds were TAS or IAS so I'm going to compare my numbers to the NACA numbers assuming they are IAS (TAS is useless for comparison unless I know altitude). As I do not have the reports myself, this information should be taken with a grain of salt, and not used to verify Warbird's flight models. Anyway here goes:
Plane variant types in parentheses represent the Warbirds plane I chose to compare. The NACA data i have didn't indicate the variant, although I suspect early variants for the Axis planes, and later data for the Allied (captured planes that information exists on would be early ones, while data that survives the war for allies would most likely be late-war versions)
| Plane | NACA 100mph |
WB 100mph |
NACA 300mph |
WB 300mph |
NACA 400mph |
WB 400mph |
| Fw190(A4) | 4.8s | 7.5s | 2.7s | 3.2s | 4.4s | 4.9s |
| Spit5 | 4.0s | 7.3s | 3.1s | 5.1s | 5.2s | 10.4s |
| P40 | 8.1s | 10.3s | 3.1s | 3.1s | 3.75s | 4.8s |
| P38(J) | 15.0s | 9.0s | 5.0s | 6.4s | 8.3s | 23.6s |
| P47 | 10.5s | 11.2s | 5.0s | 4.4s | 5.7s | 4.8s |
| P51 | 11.25s | 12.2s | 3.7s | 4.1s | 4.6s | 8.3s |
Note: Roll rate, especially at high speed, is largely a factor of the pilot. At high speeds, wind forces on the ailerons reduces the potential deflection angle the ailerons can be at, and the roll rate is therefore a function of how much force the pilot can exert on the stick, and how much leverage the pilot has. Thus Warbird's roll rates can and are different. Warbirds appears to model a certain amount of simulated Pilot force on the stick, and then works on the amount of "leverage" the pilot has. Low-leverage planes such as the 109 series result in low roll rate, while hydraulically assisted Ailerons found on the P38L can exert much more force on the ailerons than the pilot can and thus have exceptional high speed roll rates.
As you can see, the "real life" data doesn't correspond very well to the results I got from timing Warbirds' planes. But considering the unknowns here, as well as variables like pilot strength used, the data should be different.