Help with the Prop (P-51H) to Jet (F2H-2) transition

The Academy - Players helping Players
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As the title suggests, I need help with my Prop to Jet transition. I hear from everyone that the two’s playstyle is drastically different and since my F2H is on the horizon with only 50k RP left and a bit more SL, I wanted to know if there’s anything I should keep in mind when playing with Jets compared to Prop planes.

And something I wanted to get more info on regarding “Jet climbing”? Someone mentioned it to me in a game when I talked about it to them and I wanna know how it works and why not just climb normally?

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  • Speed is much more important than altitude in jets. In props, you try to get as high as you can and maybe pick up a little speed before engaging someone. Jets are able to store energy in their speed much better. If you are anywhere near enemies, you should be going pretty fast (for the F2H it should be at least 600 km/h). You will often find that it is much better to be low and fast, rather than high and slow. Speed is life. This is not to say that you shouldn’t climb and altitude does not give you an advantage. You should still climb to gain energy, but for a jet, it is also vital to stay fast.
  • Climbing in a jet is done at a much higher speed. In props, you might be climbing at 250 - 300 km/h. In jets, the climb speed is usually much higher. For early jets it is around 450 - 600 km/h. For later subsonics it is around 600 - 850 km/h. For supersonics it is often around M0.85. (These are ballpark figures). There are two reasons for that:
    • Jets climb more efficiently at higher speeds, compared to props, because props lose quite a bit of power once they go past 300 km/h. Jets tend to produce more power the faster they go (obviously, don’t go climbing at top speed, as you will be losing a lot of energy to drag)
    • If you get caught by an enemy while climbing (or just want to have a quicker reaction time), being slow will often mean you are dead.
  • Lastly, positioning matters quite a bit more in jets, compared to props, which tend to favour whomever is higher. This is much harder to explain and comes mostly down to practice. Pay attention how much your position affects the match. See where you can exert pressure on the enemy team more. See where you get ganged up and avoid going there.
    Most importantly, try to ovoid getting stuck in furballs. If you see one and you want to engage someone in it, set up for an approach (make sure you fly so that nobody ends up being on your ass), go in and get your shots off. If you got a kill, nice. Fly away, reassess and if you think you are safe to do so, go back in. If you didn’t get the kill, don’t immediately stick to the enemy you want to kill, otherwise you end up slow and an easy target. Fly away and make sure you are safe, only then come back (obviously, if you have the energy advantage and you know you can safely stick one someone without the threat of being third partied, you can re-engage immediately).
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Grimtax summed everything up very well, but I just want to add

Basically, when you’re in props you usually take off and immediately set your nose to 10-20 deg to climb, sitting on an average of 250-300 km/h. In jets, if you do want to climb, the more efficient way to do is to pick up speed first by staying low and straight after take off, and then zooming up at around 20-25 deg angle while maintaining ~500 km/h.

The difference between normal climb and zoom-climb becomes very apparent the higher up you go in ranks. Particular examples off the top of my head is the F-104, once you hit about Mach 1.05 you can zoom up to ~10km altitude within a minute, instead of maintaining a gradual climb.

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Thanks for this! I just got into my first jet match in the thing and I had an absolute blast, man it feels good when you can go fast.

If I need anymore advice I’ll be sure to come back, but I think I’m set for now. Thanks for the help!

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Yes. You want to get to about 80-90% of your max level speed before beginning to climb. IIRC in the F2H that’s about 850kmh (IAS, always use IAS). Smoothly transition to a 20deg climb (rank VI+ will be 30-40deg but early jets are not very good at climbing). Once you’re back down to about half your pre-climb speed (~400kmh in this example) level off and repeat as needed.

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