Balancing like this, IceFire:

To even out the chances on the east front in the early war period, with the +50% bonus it has been given I16 climbs better than 109F4 up to 2000m.
This may not be readily known- I16 is seldom flown, being touchy to fly- but the 109F can hope for the draw at best in such a duel- if very consquently E-flown, or if it runs away.
109E is completely outclassed by the little Ishak, which climbs much faster.
Seen in the light of what really happened, this is simply....laughable:)))))

Most people here seem to be aware of these things- but IceFire, you seem to be very unaware of the grotesqueness of some of the plane performances in game :)

Well that must have been a spot where the luck was against you.
Zero is bad in dive - the controlls tend to lock as the speed gets high; and the acceleration is nothing to brag about.
But, A6M2, for example climbs between 17,7 and 19,8 m/s in game... and it was 15 m/s

This is the less well known balancing in the game- of the Japanese early war planes against US naval fighters. Simillar goes for Ki43, too. Japanese used their early planes, slightly modernized, mid and late war, too, when types like F6F and F4U appeared.
That's the reason your F4F fares worse against Zero than it's historical counterpart.

I-16 was a roaring powerhouse, could handle 109 Email, but not the Femail.

Luft advantage was early training and tactics.

Which shows pilots were more important than performance then, and players more important than flight models today.

The key is modelling the air war environment which would allow most kills to be surprise or bounce kills, and the core gaming challenge should be finding and stalking the enemy, or escaping, using the air war environment. Like the ground warfare environment is mostly stalking and setting up for the kill.

All combat flight sims are at the level of a ground combat sim with no buildings, no rooms, no trees, no ditches, no hills, etc... That's why ground combat sims are successful, and air combat sims are failures.

Have a few computer soldiers in a ground combat game standing tall a few feet away from each other in a flat parking lot blasting away until only one is left. That is the "dogfight" model of combat flight sims. Detailed FM and Detailed Polygons don't make up for that, as sales and customer longevity show.

Well, your statement can be seen as a solipsist one - everyone has his own truth. I agree with such philosophy as far as it underscores the respect for the individual world of each of us. But I cannot look at the each of these truths as equal.
Can a plane have a wingspan of 10, 11, and 12,5 m at the same time? Can it have a max. speed of 480, 530, and 565 km/h at the same time?

'....even when you can find sources (that could allow you to calculate "real numbers" in some very specific configurations)'

Try here, you wont have to calculate anything:

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/

These are original wartime test data for a nuber of important types.

Conspiracies are not my area. This 'compare well with each other' thing :) ..well- please read the other posts.

Cannot disagree more.

You must be talking having to fly the 109 with one hand behind your back that we have now in FB

You must be talking about having to fly the 109 with one hand behind your back that we have now in FB

I16 is my favorite plane. I cannot remember someone beating me in a Friedrich. G2 is definitely better, but not that much that it cannot be fought.

Your powerhouse would need approx. 1500 HP engine to attain such climb rates. 21 m/s is a climb rate of a mid- to late war fighter plane - and I 16 would have been produced at least to 1944 if it had been that good.

You seem to look at the flight sims from the viewpoint of a FPS player, and that explains the lack of understanding. You can turn your rifle there in a split second to shoot someone you can see.
Seeing someone in the sky doesnt mean you can shoot at him at once. Hard part is bringing the whole plane with the guns to bear- and the opponent usually turns to do the same and avoid being shot at.
Someone diving from above , especially if you are in turning fight, can surprise you quite nicely without any bushes and buildings around.
Lots of people like that way of fight, BnZ, - like you obviously do. To my taste it is a bit disgusting to shoot down someone who doesnt know a thing about it- apart from being unsatisfactory - it doesnt tell me who flies better. Tastes are different, of course.

In my opinion, your FPS games are more popular for the same reason it is much easier to train an infantry soldier than a pilot- you do not need to know much to get a rifle pushed into the hands. So anyone can play a FPS without bothering to uderstand the flight behavior of a plane or many other things.

See but thats not really balancing...balancing implies intent but thats jumping to conclusions.

If what you say is true then its one of several things I can think of off the top of my head:

1) Error in modeling
2) Error in data
3) Data used is correct but for a later model of aircraft than the one/year represented (could be better engine tuning, fuel availability, etc.)
4) Was balanced for some strange reason

To assume balancing implies intent which has not been established. Anyone who is suggesting it is impressing their ideas on the situation.

Furthermore my "grotesque" lack of seeing this has somehow managed to survive years of flying this planeset. As far as I'm concerned I'm always going to outclimb a I-16 Type 24 in a Bf109F-2 in an actual fight.

To be honest I grow frustrated with all of the people who feel their "side" has been wronged (I'm not saying this about you PE_Tihi) and advance only the one cause. There are still problems with every plane on all sides...there were many more problems which have been fixed and nobody cares about the ones that were fixed and fixed well.