This is a good point, because the Corsair could easily be death to an inexperienced pilot.

Kind of like how more BF-109's were lost in accidents than in actual combat.

The kill to loss ratio reflects losses due to air to air combat.

Unfortunately, it includes losses due to defensive gunners on bombers, not just fighter on fighter action.

Also fighter on bomber successes are also included.

If a fighter operates mainly against poorly armed bombers, it'll have a good kill to loss ratio.

It is more of a "Batting Average" than a dogfight rating.

Opportunity for engaging enmy aircraft is also a factor. By the end of WW2 the Japanese struggled to field any aircraft in meaningful numbers. There just wasn't the pickings for the later fighter planes.

By comparison, the Finns enjoyed a target rich envioronment filled with large numbers of poorly designed, underpowered, unarmoured and undergunned aircraft flown by determined but inexperienced and poorly trained pilots.

Between April 1942 and April 1943, on Finnish squadron of 18 x B-239 Buffaloes managed to shoot down a confirmed 274 Soviet aircraft with the loss of only two aircraft (one through combat damage on landing).

Two thirds of these kills were fighters such as the LaGG-1 and LaGG-3, Mig-3, La-5 and Yak.

Corsairs did spend a majority of their missions on ground support than direct combat. The Hellcat was intended as an air superiority fighter.

I thought I remember reading somewhere from actual pilot accounts that the P-51 had a very nasty and sudden stall if airspeed was too low. Seems this is accurate in game if this is true. Basically the pilots said, you just don't even let the P-51 stall or your really risking your life.

btw, I just got this game after playing the demo. Yes I died multiple times on the P51 mission in demo from stalls. I use a Saitek Avi8tr stick.

True, but the positives aspects on the P-51 are missing in this game. It's top speed is wrong - this is a FACT. It weighs too much - an error that affects it's flight modeling. The p-51 should have great high speed control authority - something the 109 lacked.

But we can't exploit this in game. We can't exploit it with the fw190 either, which should have the same excellent control at high speed.

Both just seem to flop out of the sky as if it were a funny joke to play on players who happen to like those planes.

As always, will be fixed in the update. Anton just confirmed it'll affect other planes as well, so maybe B&Z will become a possibility. At least more than it is now.

So, does BoP have RPM control, or is it "auto". Apparently fo the Merlin engined P-51, it is both important and weird:

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

Yes when I saw the data about the 109k having much higher top airspeed than the p-51 especially at high alt, I was a bit shocked myself. Still, it sure is nice to see a console serious sim, one that is much more realistic than those other arcady versions ( Blazing Angels, etc). Also it's nice to see one of the developers allowed to converse with you on these issues in the game. That is extremely rare, especially on console games. Well, I will play out the game and hope for the best on a DLC patch in the coming months. Prefereably a free DLC to fix issues :)

Before finding itself in the reflector sites of a Spitfire and going down in a nice big fireball?

fixed :D

Now its fixed