What you must do is get moving before you climb after the others. Get up, get wheels up, get flaps up and trim trim trim the whole time. Don't even shallow climb until you're faster than whatever waypoint cruise speed your flight plan is. You want to catch up on the horizontal more than on the vertical. They will be cruising at 70% or less speeds.
The faster you go, the more lift you get out of a little more AOA. Nose down and slow, excess lift is small and more AOA slows you down more. 240-270 kph is not the speed to climbout. More like 360 if your flight plan says 340. Then you rise only as much as you can maintain 350 kph.
Pretty soon you get co-alt and then just zoom up and try to slide into position without sliding right on past. IL2 planes-at-distance graphics isn't the best for judging distances and speeds. I liked Rowan's MiG Alley Ace for the detailed planes, IMO looked better than the IL2 LOD's at the same virtual range, what they are and what they are doing is more clear.
When you turn, rise or fall during the turn. If you are going very fast and want to turn, zoom climb steeply then roll until your canopy points where you want to go and you have changed direction quicker than you can fly a flat curve and you have height to dive from and regain your original speed.
If you're not at high speed and turning to make contact with enemy let your plane drop 100-150m alt in the first half of the turn, speeding up and a slightly tighter turn than a flat turn would have been, and finish the turn in a shallow climb. You can come out moving faster than you started. Even going straight-line, unload the wings a few full seconds to lower induced drag. Your speed picks up quick going downhill. Then regain alt slowly while still building speed.
One long hard turn and it's start over, too. Gain alt once you're really moving, it's money in the bank of physics. Just whatever you do, don't fly around nose-high and slow. In IL-2 you must trim all the time for minimum PC joystick deflection. Bud Anderson wrote of constant trimwheel adjusting during combat in WWII P-51's. He detailed the action as automatic, like tuning a radio while driving a car.
Last is check The Ball if you still can't get speed up. Then flaps. Then gear.
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