several questions!

[Soviet Ace]

Originally Posted by Drvn1

If we could play this game like real life.. The FW 190 and P 51 D's would be flying @ 30-40,000 ft and the Bf 109's pilots would stay between 15-30,000ft.
The Yak's and P 51B's and hurricanes would stay at 24,000 and below.. there would be no fighting getting done LOL

Flying at your optimal altitude, doesn't ensure you'd get any action, nor did the pilots (Russian anyway) fly at 24,000 or even 15,000. Yaks, Las, Polikarpov's, and MiGs were all better suited for lower altitude. (Except for maybe the MiG-1 and MiG-3 which were actually more high altitude fighters, but just with crummy engines. Because like their lower altitude counter parts, they wanted to TnB at high altitude hence the lower powered engine. As you guessed it, it didn't work out the way they planned.)

Yaks and Las, along with I-16s, etc. usually flew at no more than 10-11,000 feet, because below there, they could have the advantage, and would then force their enemy to come down to them.