MichaelJP wrote:
Thanks Pat - the ME-163 is modelled in the superb combat flight sim IL-2,
trying it last night they must have modelled this aircraft quite nicely as I
found it very difficult to bleed off enough speed in the hold-off, exactly
as you said above. Landing on the grass the skid dug in and certainly a real
aircraft would have been destroyed.

Obviously somebody did their research when writing the program for it.
It might have something to do with the fact tat the ailerons also serve
as its elevators.
Does the simulator have the spoilers on it?
The controls for them are located just to the left of the control stick.
There's a manual pump mechanism handle with a ball top, and to the rear
of it the actual flap control lever.
On the actual aircraft you turn the control handle 180 degrees, then
pump the pump handle six times to put the flaps fully down.
Difference is I could reset for another go

Doing some other testing I found it impossible to recover from a spin
entered from a slow-speed stall. Wonder if that's correct?

It's supposed to have a very abrupt and severe stall according to Eric
Brown's flight notes; he states it goes into a steep spiraling dive, but
you can recover from it in a "straightforward" manner. I don't know it
that means you turn into the spin and convert it into a dive or what.
BTW, he was able to get the one he was flying up to 440 mph in _gliding_
flight in a dive, which gives you some idea of just how aerodynamic this
little thing was.
He wrecked his Komet by doing progressively faster and faster ballasted
landings as tests for a British high speed research aircraft that the
RAF was planning, till the skid finally came through the floorboard of
the cockpit after a landing at 158 mph.

Pat