I still remember a 202 flight from long ago. I took off of Furball island on the NDIsles map to investigate a large clump of red dots heading south, just east of the island. For some reason I grabbed a C.202.
As I neared the contact I sighted them and it became clear that it was a group of three B-17Gs (This was before the days of bomber formations) escorted by three single engined fighters. They were at about 15k, well above me.
As I moved to position myself behind and below the B-17s the icons appeared and revealed the fighters as two F4Us and one P-51D.
Once I was in positon about 5k below and 12k behind the B-17s I began to slowly climb up the bomber's six like an idiot. The whole time I played the idiot I was watching the fighters, betting that they wouldn't do the smart thing and let the bombers eat the idiot C.202 for lunch (I mean, who attacks a B-17 formation from the low six in a C.202?!?).
After climbing for a bit all three fighters dove on me. I rolled out of the way and all three did flat break turns to get back to me. I saddled up on the P-51D and gave it a long burst scoring hits along the fuselage, putting an oil leak into it and taking off a flap or some such. The P-51D dove away and never returned, must've nursed it home as I never got a kill or assist. As soon as the P-51D dove away I did a break turn to the left to avoid the F4Us that were just getting saddled up on me. One of the F4Us dove to get speed while the other stayed in a decsending turn with me. Shortly I was behind him and with sustained fire took his wing off. The last F4U having gained some E from his dive was zooming back up to me so I rolled and turned away from his fire. We twisted and turned trying to gain a good shot, shortly ending up on the deck with me 200 yards behind him and with a speed of about 150mph. At that speed, range and altitude he couldn't run without offering me a free kill, so he was twisting, rolling and turning as hard as he could in that F4U. I was peppering him with shots, but I couldn't get a solid hit as he was moving too wildly. After about a minute of this he finally lost it and spun into the ocean.
I only landed two kills, but I had a lot of fun stripping a B-17 formation of all of it's late war escorts with my lowly C.202.
That happened about three years ago I guess.
"Useless" planes are for memories like that, scenarios and fans of aircraft other than Spitfire Mk IXs, P-51Ds, La-7s, N1K2-Js, B-17Gs and B-26Bs.
