Others have vastly more experience in this than I do, but I can't imagine flying 100% in the cockpit without head tracking. Flying a scissors against an opponent is just a totally new experience with head tracking. Far less guess work, far more eye contact.
It took me a while with each aircraft to figure out the proper engine settings. As someone else pointed out, real world manuals don't always equal in game performance. You actually have to play around a bit, watch your climb rate and speed AND fuel consumption (for cruising, not for combat obviously). In fairly short order, I was able to figure out the proper configuration for gaining altitude as quickly as possible. Radiator settings also come into play (I tend to fly with them open when not in combat so I have some extra to play with at the beginning of combat). Altitude makes a difference. There are a lot of factors in performance.
Take notes at first especially if you are switching between aircraft on a regular basis.
Personally, I leave aircraft labels on their lowest setting so as to differentiate between friend and foe (offline of course). I figure that the human eye is a lot better at picking out small details, even when you can only see a silhouette, than a monitor's depiction at a given distance. Those labels seem more "realistic" to me personally as compensation for losing the detail of the human eye. Just MHO on that of course.
Splitter
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