P-36 "Hawk"
P-36A
AEC:
The first Hawk has the highest thrust to weight out of any of the hawks due to its exceptional weight savings. It has the least firepower, ammunition, and fuel of any of the Hawks as well. The P-36A has no issue with getting to its top speed however due to the era of its design the controls lock up and compress badly, making sharp turns difficult. WEP overheats the engine far far too quickly and moving from WEP to 100% throttle is not enough by itself to cool the engine; instead the pilot needs to move to at least 95% or less in order to cool the engine effectivley. Furthermore when the engine does cool down pushing the throttle back to full WEP can be detrimental, so instead putting it up to 103% and cycling between 103% and 89% over and over again is the best way to use this engine.
MEC:
Reducing prop pitch % to 90% and opening the radiator flaps slightly fixes all the cooling issues and allows the aircraft to stay on WEP for the entire duration of the race. I used 90% (pp) and 10%-15% (rads) for the MEC tests without issue. This aircraft makes great use of the A line and deviating in any way from it can be dangerous for racing.
P-36C
AEC:
Overall the P-36C felt similar, it can still get to its top speed and retain that energy even through the sharpest corners easily, but it still has the same compression issue. The engine didn't experience its first overheat until slightly after the P-36A, and responded better in the overheating cycle, however it was just as vicious. The difference in times between the A and C can be chalked up to a combination of a slightly better cooling system and racing the line ever so slightly better.
MEC:
Outside of the difference in weight and cooling the P-36C races pretty much the same. For this aircraft I used 90% prop pitch and 10% cooling until my first over heat, dropped throttle and opened cowl flaps, then after the engine had cooled off I left the engine on 30% rads for the rest of the lap.
P-36G
AEC:
Not only is this the heaviest of the hawk family but it also has a terrible AEC set up. The AEC uses 100% prop pitch and 100% radiator, this means that the engine overheats extremely fast and I have the most drag possible. The radiator closes when I pull off WEP which does not help the engine cooling at all and just makes the overheating cycle start earlier and last longer. The G fails to accelerate to its top speed like the A and C could, so it doesn't have to contend with compression. Every corner is a straight line if you are slow enough.
MEC:
Using MEC to reduce the pp% and fine tune the rads% helps but there's no saving how heavy and slow this airframe already is. That being said 90% 20% works great until you get through the chicane, that's when the engine starts to overheat. After that 30-50 rads% is adequate.
H-75A-1
AEC:
The French Hawk A-1 has practically the same engine and cooling performance as the G and none of the benefits of the later model. Because the H-75 is an export aircraft it was shipped with a slightly less powerful engine, 150 horsepower less in fact. This reduces overall thrust to weight and over all engine power throughout the lap and trust me you can feel it. The overheating cycle is terrible and there's nothing that can really be done to fix it. Just keep moving between 103% and 89% to keep those engine temps cool.
MEC:
This hawk is no different from the other hawks, 90% prop pitch and 10% radiator until the numbers start blinking, cool off the engine then move radiator % up by 5% slowly until you are satisfied with the amount that it's overheating. No amount of radiator % will make this aircraft fast, so at the bare minimum you can keep the engine from exploding.
H-75A-4
AEC:
The A-4 has all the cons of the P-36G and H-75A-1. It has a terrible AEC scheme and the same export engine as well as two additional 7.5mm machine guns. It makes for a terrible race experience.
MEC:
I used the same protocol as before but no combination allows for an infi-wep. Whilst MEC does make the hawks universally faster nothing will save the H-75 from its awful performance.
H-75M
AEC:
The weakest and drag-iest of the Hawk family the 75M is not winning any races. As an export it features a weaker export engine and to allow for more sorties the gear are fixed in place. At least they have a fairing over them. The 75M dives in at 250 mph, with its lackluster speed every corner becomes a straight line. Whilst it does have fairly excellent top end acceleration, flying in the 230-250 range for the duration of the race, that acceleration is being wasted on an otherwise fine aircraft. If the gear folded in perhaps the 75M could get under 8 minutes, and possibly be competitive to the C model. Along with all the other hawks the 75M also has horrific overheating issues; especially after the chicane, where even 100% throttle can be enough to overheat the engine. Once the engine starts its overheating cycle there's no hope of ever using WEP again, so the aircraft is stuck in a weaker power band for the duration of the race. In this weaker power band the 75M will be traveling around 210-230, the slowest out of all aircraft tested so far. On the bright side because this aircraft has decent energy retention (on account of it going so slowly) it really doesn't mind minor course corrections or other deviations performed throughout the race
MEC:
A little change in prop pitch makes a world of difference in the 75M. In my first test I did 90% prop pitch and 10% radiator and that was enough to go most of the race without overheating. With the caveat that after H4 the aircraft did overheat, so I dropped throttle and raised radiator% to 50 but it cooled off so quickly I returned to the previous settings. It seems there are no visible cowl flaps around the engine fairing despite this being an air cooled engine and the aircraft drag being affected by rads%. The second test I did a 95% 30% and this set up had zero issue with cooling however the cooling was so efficient I was noticeably slower on this run. So I knew I could pull things back a little bit and by my next run I had it all figured out. 95% and 20% is enough to make it to H4, flash cool the engine, then return to these settings and finish the race. All other lap times were made under these settings.
Planes I Didn't Test:I didnt test the Finnish H-75A-2 in the German tech tree as I dont have it nor does anyone I know. Any other instances of the previous mentioned aircraft in other trees went untested as they are not unique aircraft.
Fun Facts:As with the P-40 the P-36 Hawk was a very popular export aircraft both before and during the war. With 14 countries operating at least one of the 30 or so variants.
In the future the YP-37 could show up as a premium or event vehicle, it was the prototype that led to P-40.
Here is a link to a video of a counter-rotating prop version of a P-36.