SoA2,
I flew the Tiffy a heck of a lot in December, 147 Kills / 19 Deaths in Tiffy, most of which were JABO missions. My Tiffy is fast as heck. It easily runs down F4Us, A5s and A8s. In fact the only non-perk planes that are faster at sea level are the D-9 and La-7. Your faster than even a G-10 or P-51 at sea level.
It does have a few quirks:
The engine rotates in the opposite direction from all other planes except the Tempest. This is probably why you feel weird stall behavior.
The engine loses power from 6.5k to 11K. The worst non wep speed at mid- altitude is at 11K. Conversely, it uses the least fuel at 9.9K. That is where you want to cruise. It's best low alt speed is 6.5K, so if you cruise at 9.9K it's an easy drop down to 6.5 and full speed.
The Tiffy has a high sink rate under 180 mph. It almost feels like you're in an elevator. And it's struggling to keep the nose up at under 165. Worse, the flaps don't deploy until 160, so if you are slow enough for flaps, you're dead.
There is only one way to describe the roll rate, abysmal. But I come from flying the Mossie, which is even worse, so the Tiffy is like a great performance leap to me.
It has incedible drag. Lose your engine to a radiator ping and you have a glide rate like a brick thrown off the top of a barn.
However you can use that drag for offensive purposes too.
The key to the Tiffy is keep her fast. The only time you should be under 250 is at the top of a zoom climb.
As to why yours is slow, I don't know. Are you burning up all your wep on the climb out?
Look for me in the MA, we'll wing a mission and see what the problem is. Or we can go to the TA and work on it.
