I’m referring to the D-30. No matter what, unless it’s an Fw-190 the plane just seems to be an utter crapshoot against any enemy this plane faces.
Yes, I understand shallow climbs and shallow dives to get separation, I don’t need the 50th tutorial regarding this. The part no one talks about is how to reengage your opponent. When you have spitfires and Bf-109s and J2Ms chasing you to the ends of the earth at 6000m. I can’t engage them because I’ll bleed speed turning around to engage, they basically destroy me in a dogfight so I have to just sit there and just force headons and wait 4-5 minutes for more separation. What’s the fun in that?
What can I do for myself to actually give myself a fighting chance instead of “Oops, he’s on my tail, guess I’ll either just die or run forever.”
I fly quite often in my Italian P-47 D-30 (with 4 Ju 288s) against the P-51 D-30 - and the P-51 is the better plane in every aspect. A good flown P-51 is a serious threat - for me on the receiving end it still seems that the P-51 has this rudder issue, so they struggle at very high speeds to get guns on target.
But as soon as i outclimbed them (mainly as they stopped climbing) they are limited to use speed only as main weapon - as long as i avoid headons and maintain energy advantage the better pilot wins, most of the time i dive on them with air brake released, park at their 6 and just spray them down…
From my perspective you outrun any J2Ms or Spits, so as long as you stay very fast and above 6-7 km you are almost untouchable.
That video is cool and all, but it shows you have to rely on teammates to live in some capacity as everyone else can utterly obliterate you. I’m not saying the D needs P-51H status, but I’m simply referring to the fact that facing that Bf-109 in the beginning was a major risk and if the bf-109 committed, Defyn would be worse for wear big time.
