With manuals I can get pretty long MEC with it but then I need to be bothered with it whilst dogfighting which is out of my comfort zone. Not saying it’s impossible, but definitely not sth I would do RN, especially problematic cause the radiators gets damaged more often than not in skirmishes.
Yeah, in active dogfighting (rather than running away/building initial position) MECing PP in a 109 is suicidal. I know some crazier who have enough self-awareness to keep it up by setting it to like 69% or so and enabling manual prop pitch while going into a vertical WEP stall climb and then going back to auto when they roll over onto the enemy but…
More often than not I rip my flaps against sufficiently competent enemies as is lmao. Only takes forgetting during one loop and boom, flapless. Losing engine as well would just be awful.
Radiators tho you can open to 20 or 40% and forget. You can even like toggle between auto and manual there as well to minimize thinking. Manual rads for WEP, auto for combat power. Forgetting to toggle it down from manual only causes issues with drag so not immediately lethal.
I mean with 109G2-trop I just leave it and it’s fine. 109Fs I have to keep watching out for it which is a bit annoying. Couple that with the fact that when I win a dogfight it often comes to nothing thanks to the MG-151 it sucks.
lmao that’s crazy bro, they’re literally fine and balanced where they are, American props are literally so low br it’s laughable, f4u4, f8f, p51h5 to name a few…
Whilst you are not wrong about 5.7 - 6.3 US aircraft - i see it from the perspective of lower BRs and in connection to the purpose of this thread (109s & 190s).
So when i have massive issues fighting A7M2 & Ki-84s in a 4.7/5.0 P-47 even above 6-7 km where i should outperform them substantially i see the average 109 or 190 pilot having way more issues fighting them.
They simply lack 3.400 rounds of API-T which you can spray at very long range (800m convergence) and set a fire with a lucky single hit. Their MG 151s are way inferior to Type 99s Mod 2s.
Have a good one!