Blue Max Designer's Notes

The following formulas were used to design the statistics for the aircraft in Blue Max. Maneuver schedules were created using a more subjective method comparing each aircraft with others knowing the characteristics of the aircraft and matching them to hex-based maneuvers.

Engine
Inline engine = 8 boxes : Rotary engine = 6 boxes.
Wings
Square footage of both wings divided by 10 = # of boxes. For monoplanes with small wing surfaces (ex: Fokker D-VIII) multiply this by 1.5 to adjust for difficulty to hit the single wing.
Fuselage
1 box for every foot of length.
Tail
Includes vertical stablizer and horizontal tailplane. Small = 4 boxes : Medium = 5 boxes : Large = 6 boxes. This is somewhat subjective by the designer.
Speed
One hex of movement=95mph at 15,000 feet then goes up by 5mph per hex.
Time
One turn = 3-4 seconds.
Fuel
Fuel is used as a limiting factor to prevent everyone from spending the whole game at top speed and is derrived from the planes endurance. It also provides an end point that is equal to about 2 minutes of action. It was a general rule that if a pilot lasted the first 2 minutes of combat he would survive the fight.
Altitude
Altitude bands are listed below. Aircraft who have maximum altitudes that cross between 2 bands or are close to the maximum for a band (within 500 ft.) are given the lower of the two bands and a + rating. Some creative license is taken in giving + ratings to aircraft noted for an exceptional ability to climb at high altitudes (Ansaldo, Fokker D-VIII).
     0 - 5,000  ft. - VL - Ground    
 5,001 - 10,000 ft. - L  - Low      
10,001 - 15,000 ft. - M  - Medium  
15,001 - 20,000 ft. - H  - High 
20,001 ft. and up   - VH - Very High