First fight in a 109

[jimbop]

Originally Posted by ATAG_Dutch

- Stifles sense of unbridled horror!

That's right and I felt guilty! At least they were on their way home after having made their drop, though. Nothing worse than getting all the way over and picking up a 109 on the final run.

[jimbop]

Thanks for the tips all, the looking forward to the next outing.

Originally Posted by MoGas

Like I did I guess it was you and me today isnt it? Well I would have follow you down to a certain point, but if my enemy turns his nose to Calais, then I am not following. But I couldnt keep up with you anyway, on youre dive and climb as I saw it at the first time, what your tactic would be, I stopped following.

You just didnt go low enough (on our start), for this to work you need to go down at 500m and keep playing the game (RED pilot believes to catching you still) until the Hurri or Spit is stuck behind, then you start the climb.

If he dosent descend, I would climb again in my own fields, and watch my enemy what he is doing. If he comes again I lower slightly my nose to speed up, and try again to drag him down. What I see online, after a little while, people loose the passion, and wanna take you NOW, and in such points mistakes gona happen. And you get youre E advantage again.

In such game, good SA is needed.

Yes, I thought it was you, MoGas. I managed to crash land and planned on writing something in chat from the menu but had an instant CTD when I hit escape.

One thing I found amusing on TS was the complaints about how tough the red AA was. You could exchange 'red' for 'blue' and have exactly the same discussion on the other side! Sounds pretty balanced to me.

[jimbop]

Thanks guys, the debate has been interesting to watch. I think I agree with both of you!

Maintaining high energy should be a top priority, especially in the 109, but it is useful to know escape methods just in case things go wrong. As they frequently do for me...

[justme262]

Interesting debate.
I think it's even sweeter to beat a red opponent on his turf. On the deck. It just rubs it in really doesn't it
I think if you flew perfect discipline in the bf109 red would almost never shoot you down. Now that's not very sporting is it?!
I can think of more than one occasion when an over confident red has over shot my 109 while I was break turning with combat flaps... I even put the gear down once cause I was sure I was gonna die! But I whooped for joy moments later when he over shot and I turn back onto him and lit him up with 20mm. I even remember that that guy was trash talk'n me in the chat window before all this happened. heheh
It was my finest hour.

Maybe I'm too impetuous for jg5_emil to fly with me but I'm haven fun.

[JG5_emil]

Fun is what it is all about and that's all that matters. Our fun is different to your fun that's all. We take great pleasure in flying as a team and working together to win. We don't go in for certain kinds of fighting because that's not what we're about. We exclusively flew coops in IL2 so discipline was very important, if you lose a couple of aircraft in the beginning of the engagement things tend to go rapidly down hill.

[jimbop]

Well since the OP I've become much more familiar with the 109. My conclusion is that if you are careful to fly the 109 the way it is meant to be used you are close to untouchable with the current models. Slow, gentle turns to avoid bleeding energy and extending away feature heavily. Want to turn and burn? Fly a G.50 or fly red. Just don't even bother turning with red - even a half decent pilot will have you.

I was in a furball with three reds earlier and by carefully timing my dives into the fray I was able to boom and zoom effectively over about 20 minutes. Good,solid hits on them but I'm still getting used to the 109 gunnery which seems to behave differently to the red. 303s in terms of velocity and therefore lead shooting. Or maybe I'm just rubbish! (Which leads me to another question: why is the Hurri so fragile when I am being shot at and so strong when I am shooting at it?)

The only danger is that the current top level speed of the Hurri and 109 seem quite close if the Hurri is well trimmed. If you find yourself co-E with one down low then you are in strife. He might not catch you but you might not get away fast enough.

Most red pilots who are engaged in a furball will turn back when you extend away, often sharply which further reduces their energy. That is the signal to climb again in a slow turn, rinse and repeat the dive. And that cannon!

I only got into trouble twice today: once when I sacrificed my advantage to draw a spit away from our bomber (I was neatly shot down) and once when I made a mistake with the prop pitch on extension (wrong direction ahem...) and a Hurri gained on me rapidly. I was already on the deck so I tried the solution described above and braked hard into a turn. The red pilot saw it but was too late to stop an overshoot so rammed me instead.

Great fun but I must admit to still being red unless the server is uneven! And I wish the 109 had rudder trim.