Hellcat anyone?

[Mathman]

I guess I should chime in here.

First, thanks for the kind words, but I really am not that great in the Hellcat.  I just fly it a lot.  I can rattle off a ton of names of guys who can beat me in the Hellcat (Deja, Booky, Zig, Fester, Chead... the list is very long).

Second:
I personally feel that the Hellcat is one of the best planes in the game.  It can carry a good load, has decent range and performance.  I prefer it to the D Hog (which is a great plane too) for almost every mission.  This is probably just personal preference.

It really is a slow Jug that can turn, but I don't know that I really fly it like that.  While some may call it a jack of all trades, master of none, it really excels at combat air patrol situations.  It is a great fleet defender and field CAP plane.

Speed is almost more important in this plane than alt.  I would rather go into a fight at 10k going 300mph+  than be at 15k moving at 200mph.  Also, though it is slow, it has a fantastic dive.  It handles well, though I rarely am able to exceed 450 (and if I do, not by much).  What really makes the dive great is that it holds onto the speed it built up in the dive fairly well.

There are two things that really make it a killer, IMO.  One, it is a very stable gun platform.  Two, the guns themselves.  You really can't beat 6 50's for fights (though 4 Hispanoes are pretty damn good too).

One of the best attributes is its durability.  I almost don't care if I get hit once or twice.  The plane can usually take it (particularly if it is hit with MG rounds - cannons are a different story)

All that being said, the best advice I can give is to practice in it.  Not necessarily the high-speed characteristics.  You need to get used to how it handles around 200-250.  Get a feel for when it is going to depart and spin.  Learn how to get out of a spin fast.  When you do that, you can almost get to the point where you can use the spin to your advantage.  Makes it easy to force the overshoot (provided you don't get hit while you are flip-flopping about the sky).

Of course, all the above may be null and void with the introduction of 1.08 soon.  They are fixing the flight model, particularly the stall modelling.

Also, if I am online and you need help/pointers/whatever, feel free to ask.  I am more than willing to help the disciples out.  

-math

- I feel like I should mention the N1K2 and how to deal with it in the Hellcat.  Don't, unless you have to or feel that you can get away clean if you miss your shot.  Once you get practiced and some success in the F6F, take one or two on.  I have found that many George pilots believe the hype about it and feel like they are invincible in it.  They often get too aggressive.  They overshoot, they don't seem to turn as well at high speed.  Just be smart about you approach to the Niki and you should be able to beat it, or at least force him to run, which, is, IMO, as good as a kill.

[ 09-28-2001: Message edited by: Mathman ]

[Am0n]

Thx Mathman.. I saw ya on last night but i didnt want to bother you with it. I will next time though.  

I love this plane first off, been flying it for 3 days constantly with only taking a feww breaks to fly the old Spit to get my confidence back up.. BnZ is truely a art.

A LA7 gave me a new wall paper for my work PC, how kind ya know? he was a good 10k below me, i thought he had to see me i was persuing hi and not giving up my alt. Heading in the same direction he started a very steep climb and leveled out 1.4k in front of me, i was already diving at this point. The closer i got the more i thought he was going to sudden break turn on me, doom on him he climbed to my alt and leveled out with me closing at 450-500 mph on his six.. what a nice desk top that made.  

One thing i dont understand is how easily the wings break when trying to climb fast in this plane, im used to atleast getting a warning "groan" from the wings, these puppies just snap. That happened a good 4-5 times in a few hours of play. The last few times i wasnt pulling hard and wasnt going over 400 mph. very odd, dunno how these pilots made it home in RL if this is modeled correctly, one sudden jerk and you got no wings.

Mahtman could you tell me some maneuvers that the F6f excells at? Its got a extremely nice sustained turn rate, even at high speeds. So i know this kitty can really move if you know how to move it!

Also its climb ability is unbeivable, with just the slightest angle it can get a lot of lift.

[AKDejaVu]

Ah Zig.. you hit it on the head in regards to the Hellcat and the La-7.  Every time I read a thread about how uber the La-7 was, my first thought was "this person does not fly the hellcat".  What I truly enjoyed was having an La-7 blow past me on the over shoot and try to come full circle to engage me again.  A 50mph slower hellkitty can turn at the same rate in a considerably smaller circle giving you one hell of a prolonged deflection shot on the La-7.  Mmmmmmm... tasty.

The N1K2 is a different story.  Sometimes I find that people believe the hype and think they can out zoom the F6F in an N1K2 even thought the hellcat came in with considerably more E.  The old hammerhead was one of my favorite N1K2 killer moves while flying the hellcat.

Against the spit... the 6 .50's are just too much.  It would instantly severe spitty wings turning them into a fireball.

The F6F is simple to fly (as proven by the fact that I did well in it).  Once you figure its stall departure out, the plane is a dream.

Oh.. if you do fly it... get used to LW planes running from you.  Actually... get used to most everything running from you

AKDejaVu

[Lephturn]

Just hope they try to dive away Deja.    Nothing I love to see better than a "faster" plane trying to dive away from my Kitty.  Meat on the table.

[Am0n]

Hellcat is the ride for me.. for the past week ive flown it exclusivly and i have to say this is buy far my favorite AC. Before this i was soley flying the F4U and i have to say the numbers dont lie. (dont laugh been playing AH for a month, flight sims in general)

Aamon has 13 kills and has been killed 62 times in the F4U-1D.

Aamon has 29 kills and has been killed 57 times in the F6F-5.

Ok you can laugh i dont mind  

Still much to learn obviously, but thank you all for your help.  


(ohh ya forgot to mention, i have no idea what i was doing to break the wings so much, but i havent had the problem since.)

[ 10-03-2001: Message edited by: Am0n ]

[Bozon12]

AmOn, I never broke the wings of any fighter before no matter how many G's I pulled, so I did some testings...
the only way i mannaged to do it, was when rudder was not exacly centered.
in fact, if you pull hard G's with rudder centered you'll never break any wing, BUT try pulling hard, build G and then put in a lot  of rudder and the plane snaps like a tree branch when a rhino climbs it.
Pretty much the same for the other A/C.

Bozon

[Am0n]

Thanks Bozon

Sounds correct to me, i cant recall exactly the way i was handling the stick at the time, but more than likely pulling the rudder.

When you say centered do you mean center buy not turning the rudder, or not centered buy trim?

[214thCavalier]

Well if you guys are easily beating LA7's with the F6 then you must be fighting some real crap LA7 pilots  
All an LA7 pilot has to do is crawl on top of you and wear you down, oh wait that involves some ACM knowledge  

[Am0n]

214thCavalier

That only applies if you fall for his trick, dont follow energy killing maneuvers and you do just fine. f6f is a LA7 killing machine for sure.


Bozon

after trying out what you said the wings still do break, i tested it my self flying level at 400+ mph, pull up hard and *Snapp!*

i havent lost a wing since i first noted it in the discussion so its not realy a issue, but i just wanted to let you know that they do indeed break with or with out rudder action.


Lephturn

 

Originally posted by Lephturn:
Just hope they try to dive away Deja.    Nothing I love to see better than a "faster" plane trying to dive away from my Kitty.  Meat on the table.

On the money.. i thought about ya last night and kinda laughed to my self after a LA7 that i sixed tried to dive from me around 20k. i was at 700 back when he dove, and i crawled right up his rear and blasted him.. boom boom dead.  

Funny enough he probably didnt even check six due to being able to dive from just about any one any time.

[214thCavalier]

Err Amon when you improve them stats and spend as much time in the F6F-5 as i have then come tell me how it performs.
Personally i fly the F6 about 95% of my time in AH for all sorties, my kills also dont come quickly from endless low level vulching like many others as i prefer a fight rather than a slaughter.
Who knows maybe my play time does not coincide with the enemy LA7 dweeb flyers that give away easy kills or mebbe i am just crap.
Its also a cold day in hell before i give anybody a chance at roping me and my F6.
Any LA7 flyer worth talking about will know that his ride eats the F6 for level speed, acceleration and climb rate, nothing else matters, turn rates dont count at all and they really should be aware of how good the F6 accelerates early in a dive.
And lastly i have never ever snapped a wing off manouvering with or without a full loadout. If your doing so then its not the aircraft at fault but your rough handling of it, exceeding G limits will kill a real aircraft just as quick.
Although i do note you say you have now overcome this problem.

[Am0n]

finnaly the F6f god has arived, all bow at his feet..

Cavalier

Not once did i tell you how to fly the F6F, or how it proforms. i told you how to counter the lamer manuever you were talking about. Other than that i spoke to you not.

Ive bagged more LA7's in the F6F then any other AC ive flown, probably all rookie dweeb huh??

Where were those rookie dorks when i was soley flying the F4 a week prior to this??
They sure flew like pros then.

[Am0n]

Kinda off the "help" topic..

 My oh my, they really done a number on the F6F.. i couldnt belive it, turns like a dream.

this changes everything  

You guys get a chance to check it out?

I noticed you did Mathman, i saw you say "YOU CAN BREAK TURN NOW WITH OUT SNAP ROLLING!!  "[/i]

which told me that you was more than content   (and correct indeed!!)

then i saw the "Victory 2 by Mathman" and i knew i had to land the F4 and get that F6 air borne, because all i seen in the sky was 262's and if you landed 2 kills, had to be doing somehting right  


 Being less skilled than your self i wasnt so fortunate, didnt get much productive flight in it due to all the 262's about, but everyone was having a blast flying them so i wont complain at'll.

 I Did try out some basic flight manuevers in it (F6) around 15-20k and i was more than impressed.

[Mathman]

Yes, I am a very happy camper now.  With the new stall model, it is now much easier to fully display the Hellcat's fangs.

A few things I noticed concerning the F6F with the new release:
1:  Breaks when getting bounced are much nicer now.  No more snaprolling (at least when you have decent airspeed).

2:  The Hurri has the potential to be a real Hellcat killer.  It turns better and the cannnons just shred the plane to pieces.  The best thing to do against it is to hit and run.

3:  The 262 is only a threat if you let it surprise you.  Only times I was killed by the 262 while in the Kitty last night was in a furball where I wasn't paying attention.

4:  Maybe I was just flying it faster because of all the 262's so I didn't notice it before, but the F6F tends to get a little mushy at very high speeeds.  This is probably kind of a good thing.  It keeps me from ripping the wings off.

5:  After flying it with the stall, I found that I wasn't using it's max turn because I was so used to the stall.

More to come am sure.

[214thCavalier]

OK Am0n you may now arise from your knees  
But to be serious the best place to fight from is above the enemy, especially if you have better climb rates and speed and enemy can turn better.
You meet an LA7 who exploits these facts and you are going down.
Its for this reason the later war aircraft went for speed and climb rates rather than turn ability, turns dont count for crap if the enemy can keep regaining the high ground at will.
WW2 spit V's could out turn  the 190a5 all day long when it appeared on the scene, only problem is the spit V's were getting slaughtered because the 190A5 used this technique.
This is why i say the easy kill LA7's people have referred to are probably newbies and dweebs looking for what they think of as the best plane for an easy ride.
Anyway if you consider a plane fighting from above a lamer manouver then that will be a problem for you.
It would be a lame manouver to try and follow him yes but the trick is to keep enough E to counter it when needed.
With the F6 if you can practice E saving techniques during a fight which means reducing or eliminating energy sapping yanking and banking and wasted flat turns then you really can surprise and beat many other aircraft.

Regarding the tone of my earlier post i guess having flown competitively on other sims ladders my pride kinda rebelled at you telling me how to counter the most obvious of moves.
Was not a good night for me as the wife just came in saying she put the car in garage and decided it was not in straight so backed it out and managed to put a small dent in it. Having gone outside and inspected the small dent i was fekd to see she had actually dragged the whole front wing along the garage door frame succesfully stoving in the complete wing.
That was not a good time to post any replies to the BBS.

[Am0n]

cavalier

 NP atll, bad time for my self. I try not to flame flames but it was as i said a bad time for me.

 I actually deleted what i wrote several times, you got the "toned down" copy, because i was really not that angry with you.

 I just get tired of the negativity around the internet, the lack of negative people is what really pulled me to this community. As a former die-hard 3d shooter gamer, all i was surrounded with was pre-pubesant 13 year olds who know nothing about life and want to start things with everyone.

 As far as your attacking method you speak of, very effective vrs the "fur balling" types. They seem to think noting but "kill kill kill" so they make silly moves like climbing to get the adversary right above them.

 In that situation i would lean towards the defensive role and make no move at them. Let them dive on you and counter it. Also hope that they turn and try to persue so i can turn the table and bleed your E. Being a good pilot with a good sense of fighting in the sky, you wouldnt fall for it, but most would.
 
 another thing in this situation you could do is ask your self "What the heck am i doing flying lower than a LA7 anyway???"

 One of my problems is i always go to where the fur balls are, and end up fighting 6 to 1 odds.. bad for me, my mechanic hates it  

 As of now with the new F6F flight model i am certain it can contend with the LA7, and almost every other plane.


PS: dont you love how women only "dent" or "bump" things.