Flight speed

[Feuerfalke]

If you compare yourself to other people flying online, well, that is always a bit tricky. Most experienced pilots use Boom and Zoom tactics, which means they gain altitude, then drop down on a target, of course increasing speed a lot, then fire and pull up, using the speed (also called "energy") to climb up fast again.

Naturally these are a LOT faster than you.

As BadAim mentioned, there are also a few things to experiment with.
Trim for example counters the momentum of the engine, which constantly turns and slips your aircraft in a way, that you have a much larger drag. Trim counteracts these effects. Especially rudder-trim is very useful here.

You should also note, that some planes have an extra-boost. They use different techniques, but the principle is the same: Inject a chemical into the engine to boost the power. You can press "W" to enable or disable this one, but not all aircraft have those.

Another large influence is the radiator. You can press "r" to open or close it on most planes. Of course the more open the radiator, the slower you are. If you close it or use a low setting (2 or 4), you can usually go a lot faster, but your engine will overheat quickly.

Proppitch is a bitch. It can help you on a lot of planes and it can totally ruin your performance on others, especially since you constantly have to adjust it to your maneuvers in a fight.