Playing Kuban in my typhoon it took me 3 minutes to reach the enemy and that was rushing straight to the first fighter I saw. This is a lot of time spent doing nothing
Watch tik tok
Honestly though if you want to cope a bit, you are building activity time while climbing so its not a complete waste unless you die without getting any sizeable amount of score.
alt tab and play other game
what i usually do
when im in the air i just pull up 10 deg or 15 deg if im afterburning and fly 60 degree to the left or right depend on the map
then i alt tab and boot up other game
Traditionally speaking, try to position yourself by controlling your relative position with your team, and when and where to engage/ enter the fight. And also watch temperatures and climb speeds
If you want max performance climb,
In Custom Battles with WTRTI showing climb rate (or just read the VSI in your cockpit if your plane has one) you experiment with different MEC settings and IAS and supercharge gear switches until you find the optimum combination for fastest time to altitude, optimum time to altitude & meeting enemy at high energy, least thermodynamic load.
Variables:
- Propellers provide most thrust at lower airspeeds
- Radiators are more effective at higher airspeeds with some planes overheating readily if staying a long time under 300 km/h without super wide rads or low RPM
- High RPM (prop pitch%) provides more low-speed thrust but provides higher drag through finer blade pitch.
- Drag is greater the faster you are, letting you get away with more open rads at lower speed with less impact on performance.
- Supercharge swap altitude varies with ambient temperature, engine RPM/prop pitch. WTAPC, WTRTI and your manifold pressure indicator give you information to make this decision.
- Fat planes want to climb at higher IAS. Lighter planes might benefit from going for a 250 km/h IAS climb. In other words, sometimes less pitch angle means faster climb.
You can try to play with this in a live game as well to amuse yourself.
You can also try play props in ASB instead of ARB and have more fun while climbing by virtue of lack of markers requiring you to attentively scan the environment while making regular micro-adjustments to trim to hold your climb rate. I recommend this option, it fixes most issues with ARB prop brackets (but adds zombers and rigged lobbies but they’re avoidable. Also economy is worse.)
Jet typhoon or prop typhoon?
Prop Air RB is basically nothing more than a contest of positioning upfront any engagement. The effectiveness of the positioning depends also on your energy state and options / capabilities of the involved aircraft.
So the climbing phase (including your route/path and the predicted flight path of your target - assuming you can climb with optimal climb speed) determines your positioning - and usually the outcome of your engagement.
As direct reply to your post: There is no brainless climbing to the first fighter (dot or marker) you see - your relative and absolute positioning vs his whole team is way more decisive. Most of the players got killed not by the enemy they see - they got killed by enemies they were not aware of.
In addition it is not a bad idea to have a rough estimation about your enemies - so checking for squadded players or members of clubber squads (often the same) might help you to avoid unwanted surprises.
Last but not least: Observing your six to avoid getting team killed is always recommended and observing their flight patterns might help you decide which team mate is worth to rescue if two are in danger and you can save just one.
In prop battles while climbing I always check stats of enemies and friendly, so I can estimate which enemy needs more attention and which teammate is capable of play the game properly.
And always watch for spotted enemies and count them. Most of the time the dude (or squad) missing is the one ruining your whole battle, doesn’t matter how skilled he is.