I've flown the 16 twice. Once because I was fed up with the billion other Spit XVIs attacking a base so decided to fight fire with fire. I felt so dirty, right up until I got HOed by another fricken Spit about a minute after takeoff.
The other time was in the training arena going over some things with a trainer to port over to the F4U and I had a better opportunity to get a feel for her then. This is what I mostly took away from the experience:
Roll rate is INSANE. Abso-frelling-lutely ludicrous.
She needs a REAL gentle hand on the stick. Even more than the F4U-1 I usually fly it seemed like she wanted to snap right into a spin with any hard or extreme stick deflection, especially back-stick (although I fly with no damping or deadzone). The same trying to roll with any significant application of rudder.
That was really just one flight (well, two) so I know there's more to it. Certainly firepower is good, but not stupendous (I'll take the consistency of six Brownings at convergence over the mixed 20mm/mg armament). From experience in the MA it doesn't take much fire to bring one down as even a brief snapshot can knock off a wing or tail Hell, I fired on a 16 once from less than 200 yards, so close and at an angle that each set of guns was firing down a wing, (3 Ma Deuces hitting each wing) and a 1-second burst took BOTH wings off.
