Whats the best plane for Dog fights?
 

I am playing Pacific fighters at the moment. I am waiting for 1946 to come in the mail.

whats the best fighter plane?

I have been using the F4F-3 1941

I have just been getting the hang of flying and rolls with it and turning , take offs, landings, aiming and shooting.
I am starting to learn how to prevent myself from going into stalls and still be able to maneuver fast and take the plane to its limits without going over them and ending up swimming in the ocean.

But I was just wondering if there are better planes to use for what I am doing.

figured it would be faster to ask then to go through the whole list one mission at a time.

Take a La7 then you can cook anything you want during dogfights/duels.

For beginners, I'd recommend the A6M. If you can, take the A6M3 in the 1942 environment. A6M2 in 1941 and A6M5 later are not really competitive. Also, the Ki-84 in 1944 scenarios is a very a good one.

The US birds are generally the better combat planes, but they aren't really great at turning, and thus not that well suited to less experienced pilots. Of these, the F6F is probably the most fun to fly against all but the Ki-84. It still can't turn with them.

I think you'll find the F4F a reasonable plane to learn to fight with. There are many better-performing aircraft, but they are often a bit of a handful for beginners. The narrow landing gear makes the F4F a bit tempramental to land, but otherwise it is a good compromise between stability and manouvreability. You could also try some of the Japanese fighters - most of them handle fairly well.

Once you have got the hand of the Wildcat, try the F4U Corsairs - faster, better armed, but a bit of a handful - don't try turning dogfights with Zeros though, it can't be done!

I'm not sure which planes are included with Pacific Fighters. If there are P-38s try them out - contrarotating props make the handling much nicer. If you are really struggling with takeoffs and landings, try a Hurricane - nice and stable, with a good view forwards.

Every plane has it's pros and cons. The best plane will allways be the one you are best with. For early war style dogfights, the zero is a very good plane, for later yo-yo fighting, some of the later American machines are good. The Seafire falls somewhere in the middle.

The Martlet is a decent allrounder. It does most thing well, but few things exceptionally. If you like her and are getting her to do what you want, you have found a plane that will serve you well in most circumstances, except against end-of-war superfighters. The guns are not much to write home about, but will do adequately against fighters. If you need to take on something bigger, you'll be better served by something with canons.

C-47 - it gives the dogs enough room to properly get at each other.

That's the good answer. ;)

Answer = The one that's shooting you down.

Try to avoid having a favourite plane for as long as you can; although it's natural to develop preferences, they will stymie your understanding of the other planes, which will be flown by your opponents; the other half of the engagement.

The four aspects that you need to appreciate are: You as fighter; you as target; him as fighter; him as target.

Flying exclusively in 'your' favourite plane will leave you understanding half of the engagement very well at the expense of the other half. Flying your opponents plane types will rob you of some time for your favourite, but gain you understanding of your opponents capabilities first hand.

The latter course of action will be slower, but have the greater headroom for development.

Ki-84 is probably my fav plane to dogfight with in the whole series

Ultra-uber-super-fantastic plane.
On it, you can "play" cats and mices vs even La7 ;-)

But of course, the truth is that "Pilots win dogfights. Not airplanes." (read my signature).