In my case the Spit was always the plane i hated to fly against, was too easy to control and yet, because of this the temptation to fly foolish was too great, so i ended up doing worse in it than when flying other aircraft that require more discipline.
For example, a 190 needs disciplined flying just to fly, so i used that and as a result i wouldn't get into tight situations that often. Whenever i would fly Spit, i would be all like "it's so easy to fly, let's gooooo" and end up getting shot down.
What i'm trying to say is that it was very easy to fly, but not that easy to be good in it.
This carries over to the new simulator series for me to a certain extent, but i'm not making any concrete judgment until the FMs are finalized. With the new systems modelling and CEM, as well as the light armament, i now find it a welcome challenge in certain aspects.
Also, i think that when making comparisons we should be accurate about what we're comparing and if it even matters for the goal at hand.
Is it easy to fly? Sure is.
Can it be countered? Sure can, like any other plane, but this is a big discussion in and of itself, not an "end of discussion" statement.
Is it historically modeled? As with most planes in the sim, not yet.
Saying that it can be countered because a handful of 109 experten run rings around it doesn't hold much value for the average flier in the server. The same is true for saying "you can catch 109s easily in Hurricanes, that player does it all the time on the server".
It just proves it's doable, it doesn't prove it's easy, historically correct or independent of heavily situational parameters.
What i'm trying to say is, let's all take a deep breath and relax, not slag off each other's favorite ride and don't make arguments based on what a handful of virtual aces can do but the rest of us cannot.
Balance should be an issue of mission design after all, not a case of artificially boosting or neutering each aircraft. The aircraft should fly close to the real thing, the mission should create situations to mitigate their advantages if a certain server host wants to create a level playing field for their players.
Also, the FMs are not even final anyway
If it was up to me i would go for as accurate FMs as possible, accurate ammo loadouts (no 109s running with full minen shells and no Spits running full AP/De Wilde), dynamic online environment with a supply chain modeled via scripts and accurate amounts of aircraft at the start of such an online campaign, leaving only the planning and tactics to the players.
What that means is that the majority of RAF would fly Hurricanes, the luftwaffe would have more aircraft available, but the RAF would have a higher rate of replenishing losses in pilots (virtual lives) and aircraft.
From that point on, it would depend on what targets the players decided to bomb and what the opposition did in terms of CAP and interceptions. If blue players attacked the correct targets and used their fighters correctly, they would probably win, but if the red team bombed blue's aircraft on the ground then blue would have a hard time catching back up and maintaining the numerical advantage.
Otherwise, 1v1 comparisons between aircraft are only good for 1v1 scenarios or small furballs.
