Hey TD can you look again at the Corsair..

[IceFire]

Thing about the P-39 was that it was more experimental than something like the P-40 design.

The P-40 was based on the Hawk 75/P-36 which traces its lineage back to the early 1930s. The landing gear is not stored in the cleanest arrangement, the radiator systems are draggy (partly for looks apparently), the whole design is traditional.

The P-39 has a number of advanced features including a low drag coefficient, tricycle landing gear, car-door style canopy opening, and it was designed initially to have but never allowed to use the turbo supercharging gear.

I'm sure when the P-39 showed up at Port Moresby the USAAF personnel there... who were having difficulty with the traditional P-40 would have seen these as some sort of aberration. I've read something to that effect before anyways. So the poor frontline conditions, the need to fight high over the mountains, the much more difficult handling of the P-39 with the center of gravity pushed much further back... no wonder it was called the "Iron Dog" and disregarded as a poor fighter. Everything was working against it in early US service and that reputation killed it I think. But the plane itself, in the right hands and performing the kinds of tasks that its best suited for, is actually quite a good performer.

Especially if you have a hot rodded version like the D-2 that we have in-game with 1500hp on tap. Thats an incredible amount of power. Still don't understand why the D-2 has 1500hp and everything else has between 1100 and 1300hp.