Yup, i agree with thegrunch. In fact, i think it's pretty much standard operating procedure for real airplanes to use high pitch values during landing and takeoff.
Think of pitch like your car gears. The higher the pitch, the more RPM and torque you get (useful for climbs and accelerating), but also more drag as a high pitch % means that more of the prop blades meet the air head-on. Think of 100% pitch like your 1st gear in a car, good for starting, going uphill and braking via engine resistance when going downhill.
Similarly, lower pitch % values are good for fuel economy, cruising and getting to higher speeds when you don't need a lot of "force" to pull you around. For example, in most planes you can go faster if you are high, straight and level and use 80% pitch instead of going at 100% pitch all the time. The moment you get jumped however and need to evade your speed will start dropping if you maneuver. It is then a good idea to increase pitch. Or alternatively, keep it where it is and dive to get speed, as you gain speed keep reducing pitch, something like 10% lower for every 100km/h you gain past the 500km/h mark. These are not hard and fast rules mind you, they're just empirical guidelines based on flying the Fw190A series on manual pitch. Other birds have their own best settings, i'm just using the numbers as an example.
What you need to remember is that high pitch % is like a low car gear and vice versa. The catch however is that cars have predetermined gear ratios that suit them best, but the airplanes in the sim don't have pitch presets. Which means that after a point you won't get any speed increase from lowering your pitch, in fact you might lose some, as it's like modifying your 5 gear car by adding an additional 2 gears and running it on 7th gear. These gears will be too small to drive your small engine efficiently and your car will slow down. Just like that, in most planes in the sim going below 70-80% will mean you start slowing down if you're flying straight and level. However, on a dive it pays to go as low as 50%, because the reduced resistance helps you pick up speed quicker. Just like in the previous car analogy, you know that on a downward slope running with 5th gear will mean a higher speed and acceleration than running with 4th gear. In this example, having a 6th and 7th gear wouldn't be inefficient, as these would only be used in such a case to let the car roll on its own under decreased resistance. We don't have that in cars, so you might say it's like switching to neutral and leting the car roll downhill.
What should be apparent from this discussion is that it makes sense to use 100% pitch during takeoff and landing. Just like your 1st car gear, it's the "strongest" pitch setting even if it's the slowest. Well, on take-off you need this force to start you on your way and during landing you won't mind the slowing-down effect it has. The biggest advantage of using 100% pitch though is that, just like your 1st car gear, it's also the most
responsive setting. This simply means that throttle changes take effect much faster when you run at high pitch, which is only a good thing during take off and landing. If you need to abort the landing and go around, an engine that runs 35% throttle and 100% pitch during the descent will be much better in accelerating the plane above a safe speed than an engine that runs 60% throttle and 30% pitch.
As another example, it was often stated that the wingmen burned more fuel than the leader did. This isn't only because they have to throttle up and down to keep formation when the leader flies on a pretty much constant setting. It's also because they needed their throttle input to be responsive and hence, used higher pitch settings than the leader. It's like racing cars (again) and your goal is not to overtake the opponent, but stay glued to his rear bumper. He might be doing 200kmh on his 6th gear and his engine running at 5500RPM, but if you want to follow him and have good control over your throttle inputs to manage your distance you would be wise to drive one gear lower than him, for example 5th and run your engine at 6500RPM as a result. As you can see, this means burning more fuel in exchange for a more responsive throttle.
Hope it makes sense
