The key to flying the 109 successfully is discipline, and attention to details, get sucked into the British fighters game through impatience or not protecting your 'E' and you are easy pickings. The British fighters on the otherhand tend to be lazy to fly, as a good deal of 109's will get lured into their combat envelope through the above reasons, then it is just a matter for the spit to get inside them and hose them down.
Unless the spit/ hurri has a clear E or numbers advantage chances are if the 109 is going to get shot down it will be because he sets himself up to lose!

Cheers
Craig

As it was said as you aknowledged 300 for a climb was a bad choice.

400kph is a good exit strategy.

Another one is to use the superior slow speed climb of the 109 (historicaly true) and climb above the nose of your oponent with a speed gradulllty reduced from 250 down to 210. Use lazy scissor to force the Hurri/Spit to seat of their tail (high AoA) and stay in their 10/2hr. Tht way you will gain in 1 min 500m that is enough to roll over them. Mind that some Spit and some Hurri hve some kind of relaxed gravity and will be able to pull the moment you roll into them like straying rockets. But apparts those funny comics it a win win strategy. At least if you hve enough time to do the trick. 1 min is a very long time in a high threat environement ;)

WHat I do usually is to draw my prey away from any fight in a little box of airspace were I know there will be no one. I do that using the fast climb trick. Then I start a wide spirall to force him to get AoA (hence drag). Usually you'll gain 90° and 100m easiliy that way when the speed will hev been down to 250. Then use the Tac described above.

Note you can still do that in a Hurri. This tac work even with a fair amount of E and power disadvantage (I used that in my IL2 A8 against UFO Spits MkIX 2K (singing the Michael knight song)) :rolleyes:

Regarding the CoD's SPit banking : a spit banking hard can climb just like a spit wing level. So keep that in mind in any fight (more can be said on some individuals).

Great advice in your post Tomcat, except for above - I will translate for others if you don't mind:

Some Spifires and some Hurricanes are flying it smart and won't be trying to follow a 109 in climbing spiral to stall underneath him and fall off like autumn leaves. They will keep their speed high enough for a evasive maneuver (usually pulling up and turn appropriately to stay away from his guns.

My advice is - use vertical (what Tomcat and others said) and the sun (son works great in CoD) so he can't see you and / or evade your attack even if he keeps his speed.

No, it can not. The key for RAF is to fly maneuvers clean, trim well, be patient, keep your E high enough, lag displacement rolls, cutting turns, learn how to get close enough even for a brief moment, shoot well.

People keep saying it's the pilot and not the plane: but what if both the pilots are experten? What if a pilot use Hurries or Spitfires the way WW2 warbirds has to be flown?
BnZ and energy fighting is not a prerogative of the 109's pilot... above all during the BoB, when Spitfire and 109 were quite similar.

Because many problems come when the FMs can't reproduce the RL advantages and some notable tactics do not work as the pilot is expecting (what about IL2 1946 and his Fw190 Anton's acceleration?). There is a long time cadet in my squad that I often pick up because he tries to reproduce the manouvres he read on the aviation books, dying of course: after many hours finally he has learned to not trust the ingame planes since they are not flying like the real ones.
And of course there are actually many more aces online than during the real BoB! After all we have died so many times, learning something at every own mistake: I still remember the first time Jaws owned me in his Fw during my first days.

But of course in RL the "it's the pilot, not the plane" is clearly valid. During the BoB there were not some irrealistic aspects we have in the game: alarming sound radar, poor target visibility, missing fatigue, rubbery pilot's heads, complex EM and of course, fear of death.

In real life I would fly with the the better pilots, ingame give me the better planes instead. Of course experience can make the difference, but not if it's an "experten vs experten" things.

I suppose that in this situation either wins the best pilot or the one who makes less mistakes in that particular dogfight, regardeless the FM of the plane.

Piloting a better plane (or better FM if you want) only makes things a little bit easier from my point of view. If you are face to face with a guy who is good piloting his plane you're gonna have to do your best in order to shoot him down regardeless if the FM of your plane gives you a little advantage over the other plane.

+1 on tis mate!

But still, as for what Manu asked - equally good pilots in Bf 109E and Hawker Hurricane with Rotol prop at cca co-alt co-E = 109 pilot wins hands down (imho).

Here I would disagree. ;)

Sure the 109 can use his smaller size and slightly better control at low speeds in scissoring it out, but the outcome is maybe 51/49 for him and not hands down. Or he can extend after a nose-to-tail manouver and try to gain 100m after 5mins run in one direction, so he actually lost, given his task of controlling an given airspace or escorting some bombers, because he has left that airspace trying to gain energy. Otherwise a good hurricane can be on the six of the 109 in a nose-to-nose manouver of a what so ever good 109 pilot fast enough to have one good chance of hitting and the one hitting first in 1vs1 is mostly the winner and the Hurricanes 8x0.303 simply wins.

So I in the 109 would go for a hook-up manouver and in the hope the Hurricanes misses his first chance of hitting me and I don´t and then scissor it out, because I would define running away for a better E-situation as an lost encounter. I would be interested in how you would win against a Hurri on co energy hands down?

I think the Hurricane Rotol is the best plane allies have excluding the Spit II.

A good Hurricane pilot is well able to defeat a 109 in manoeuvres the 109 should excel atm.

You say "less mistakes" but if both the pilots are "identical" and as experten they don't make mistakes on their own then they are forced to reach the plane's limits, because, like you say, they have to fly at their best.

And it's in this case that the FM matters, where the better plane wins.

After all speed and service ceiling were the most important things for a fighter pilot (he wanted to fly faster and higher), and these are plane's feature.

I'm sure you know that an experten will not jump in a furball without analyzing the situation, he will avoid dogfights because an ambush is by far the better tactic. He will gain tactical advantage before the attack. If the players are both experten there will be a long fight at distance to gain advantage (both energetic and positional) because both will not risk to been fired at.
During the training session in my squad I can be an experten in the red team but if the cadet in the blue team is closely going to follow the orders of an expert pilot then he's untouchable... probably he will not kill me but surely I will not have his head... because he was flying in the better plane (better climber or faster)...
Because of this the training sessions are become quite long and boring... you know the result since the start of the mission: the team with the better planes wins. We start the fight at 2km and after 10 minutes we find ourselves at 8km.

So the plane's performance IMO are the keys in a fight between experten.

Of course, personal opinion, feel free to disagree. 109 is faster, more powerful (except at high alt), climbs better, dives better, rolls better, has cannons, no problem to push your sexy yellow nose down :). But if you slow down, you're dead. I am talking good 109 pilot against equally good Hurricane pilot. And this good 109 pilot will not even think about slowing down into scissors or turning with you in a Hurricane. He will scissor with you at high speed though, because that's when your Hurricane becomes a brick. When he's good and confident enough, he will outturn you in descending spiral with no problems at all - you'll be struggling in a Hurricane. He will be able to extend from this spiral (shall he not suceed shooting you down) with far more E than you and go vertical and do whatever he wants. Your only chance will be good defense making him waste ammo, but if he's not doing anything silly, it's just matter of time and you will lose. Just an example...

9 out of 10 duels in favour of a Messerschmitt ;)

I am talking 1 on 1 - aeroplane that extends horizontally or vertically is not losing, the fight is finished when one of the two gets shot down. Bombers don't matter! I am talking more fighter against a fighter at co-E situation, not multi-target enviroment.

I would extend (possibly vertically) and then I would repeatedly hit him with bullets untill he crashes and dies. If you start turning with Hurricane, slowing down in the process or if you're thinking about horizontal scissors in front of a Hurricane, you're dead.

This is quite hypothetical as co-E fights rarely happen and sane German pilot would extend ond come back with an E advantage (RAF dude can't extend as he's slower), but if we take classic duel, 1st merge no shooting, co-E, co-alt => 109 will climb higher and will possibly win the fight. Hands down that is.