P-51 Combat Tips and Tricks ( Dogfight Guide )

[T}{OR]

You are welcome. Glad to see it works for you as well. Apart from 50 PP what you posted is almost the same as what I use. Now that you mention it, lowering to 50 PP in a dive when you cross the 550-600 km/h IAS mark might just give you that extra needed acceleration. I didn't test the new 4.11.1 Pony as much as I want to yet.

[K_Freddie]

I might add another tip on the P51 when BnZ'ing a FW.

What I do when attacked by a P51 is start a slow turn, tightening as he gets closer and at the moment he tries to line up a deflection shot, roll 90 pull down then roll another 180 a second later.
This move effectively puts him off target, forcing a flypast where he then often pulls up - he has no choice really.. or he'll be swiss cheese.
I'm then am applying flaps to lineup a quick passing shot.... most times there are no hits, but it's off putting to find your targets tracers whizzing by.
It's a great FW defensive tactic which I sort of worked out and applied a few times online with great success.. The P51 attackers then must have been experienced pilots, as they buggered off after 3 attempts

So when in a P51 be aware that you can be nailed on the flypass by a FW.

[pandacat]

Originally Posted by T}{OR

You are welcome. Glad to see it works for you as well. Apart from 50 PP what you posted is almost the same as what I use. Now that you mention it, lowering to 50 PP in a dive when you cross the 550-600 km/h IAS mark might just give you that extra needed acceleration. I didn't test the new 4.11.1 Pony as much as I want to yet.

Keep us posted on your new findings. I am eager to learn. One more quick thing. Once you set rudder trim(say 8 clicks) and after a few hard manuvers you are still at roughly the same speed, do you adjust it again? I often times find after a few turns the ball will go off center even though my speed doesn't change much. I just have this feeling the ball's movement is a bit wacky.

[T}{OR]

Originally Posted by pandacat

Keep us posted on your new findings. I am eager to learn. One more quick thing. Once you set rudder trim(say 8 clicks) and after a few hard manuvers you are still at roughly the same speed, do you adjust it again? I often times find after a few turns the ball will go off center even though my speed doesn't change much. I just have this feeling the ball's movement is a bit wacky.

Will do. I usually do not touch trim unless I am diving. 8 clicks is ideal for ~450-500 km/h IAS and you should maintain this speed/setting throughout your combat maneuvers. But then again, if you are feeling extra diligent, adding 4 more clicks right to keep the ball centered should do it. I only touch rudder trim when diving.

[Freelansir]

Originally Posted by T}{OR

Will do. I usually do not touch trim unless I am diving. 8 clicks is ideal for ~450-500 km/h IAS and you should maintain this speed/setting throughout your combat maneuvers. But then again, if you are feeling extra diligent, adding 4 more clicks right to keep the ball centered should do it. I only touch rudder trim when diving.

From Bud Anderson's "He Was Someone Who Was Trying to Kill Me, Is All"

"He is falling away now, and I flop the nose over and go after him hard. We are very high by this time, six miles and then some, and falling very, very fast. The Messerschmitt had a head start, plummeting out of my range, but I'm closing up quickly. Then he flattens out and comes around hard to the left and starts climbing again, as if he wants to come at me head on. Suddenly we're right back where we started.

A lot of this is just instinct now. Things are happening too fast to think everything out. You steer with your right hand and feet. The right hand also triggers the guns. With your left, you work the throttle, and keep the airplane in trim, which is easier to do than describe.

Any airplane with a single propeller produces torque. The more horsepower you have, the more the prop will pull you off to one side. The Mustangs I flew used a 12-cylinder Packard Merlin engine that displaced 1,649 cubic inches. That is 10 times the size of the engine that powers an Indy car. It developed power enough that you never applied full power sitting still on the ground because it would pull the plane's tail up off the runway and the propeller would chew up the concrete. With so much power, you were continually making minor adjustments on the controls to keep the Mustang and its wing-mounted guns pointed straight.

There were three little palm-sized wheels you had to keep fiddling with. They trimmed you up for hands-off level flight. One was for the little trim tab on the tail's rudder, the vertical slab which moves the plane left or right. Another adjusted the tab on the tail's horizontal elevators that raise or lower the nose and help reduce the force you had to apply for hard turning. The third was for aileron trim, to keep your wings level, although you didn't have to fuss much with that one. Your left hand was down there a lot if you were changing speeds, as in combat . . . while at the same time you were making minor adjustments with your feet on the rudder pedals and your hand on the stick. At first it was awkward. But, with experience, it was something you did without thinking, like driving a car and twirling the radio dial.

It's a little unnerving to think about how many things you have to deal with all at once to fly combat."