P38s?

[AVRO1]

Originally posted by Ack-Ack
They've got a lot of weaknesses to exploit, which is one of the reasons they are easy to kill.  The only La7s that are difficult to kill are the ones that just simply run and don't fight.  La7 is horrible in the vertical, which is a good way to bleed its energy and either force the La7 into a turn fight or to disengage and run.  The only weaknesses is the one that you pointed out, it's not a very good turn fighter.  And it's got crappy guns, at least velocity wise, which makes them come in close for a kill.  That makes it easy for you to make them over shoot, since most are coming in fast and get on their six for a snap shot on the reversal.

They are horrible in the vertical?
I always believed that with that climb rate that it would slaughter me in the vertical.
They must bleed energy really fast to be horrible.
Thanks for the tip.

No torque should give the P38 a boost.

[moot]

la7s suck in the vert maneuvers, that isn't just power to propel themselves straight up.

[Drano]

Originally posted by moot
la7s suck in the vert maneuvers, that isn't just power to propel themselves straight up.

The La-7 bleeds energy about as bad as any other radial in the verticle in my estimation. What offsets this is its unbelieveable acceleration(far and away best in the game IMO) once it gets the nose back down. The trick is to keep the La turning nose high. Keep that up and you have a chance. Make that *one* nose low turn, the La's gonna turn the tables on you and its good night Irene.
 
      Drano

[moot]

I meant that vert maneuvers don't depend only on upward motion strength. IMO it sucks so bad at maneuvering nose up that anytime it does it is dead shortly after.

[Drano]

Originally posted by moot
I meant that vert maneuvers don't depend only on upward motion strength. IMO it sucks so bad at maneuvering nose up that anytime it does it is dead shortly after.

Preachin to the choir meboy!

Problem is that acceleration factor makes it harder to judge the La's E-state going into verticle moves than most other birds. More often than not that's what gets me killed by La's. They had JUST a little bit more than I'd hoped they did.
   
        Drano

[moot]

yeah, it's like that. For me it's Hurricanes that I always misjudge.. ;-)

[Ecliptik]

IIRC the P-38 is the only twin engine plane in AH that doesn't have torque. I don't recall any other twin engine fighter/attack plane from WW2 that had counter-rotating props.

Interesting.  I don't really fly 110's or Mossies, but I used to take it as a given that they'd have counter rotating props.  It seems like such an obvious design benefit that it's a wonder they aren't built that way.

[Ack-Ack]

bf110 and the Mosquito both suffer from the effects of torque, as does the A-20.


ack-ack