what strikes me about the numbers Brooke posted are the following:
Ki-84 Hayate (Frank), 3449
Ki-61 Hien (Tony), 3159
N1K Shiden (George), 415
But which do we so the most of in the arenas? Heck, over 400 Niki's lift every night in any one arena alone.
For myself, I prefer the Frank and Tony to the George. The Frank is what I use to lift from and defend a base... my favorite turn fighter. I'm hoping this bird sees some of the options under the rumored "perked ord system".
The Tony, oddly enough, is my favorite dive bomber, esp vs GV's. Fast enough to help me stay out of Flak's sights. 2-250kg bombs, and for a while there, I suspect that the Tony's slow-firing cannon was over modeled, due to how easily I could track or turret a GV with it. Hasn't been as easy of late, but I still like the Tony for anti-GV work.
Also, I read only 260 C205's were produced? The G.55 had 200 produced, 110 that saw operations? Pretty low numbers, but nice that some Italian planes are represented at least. the G.55 would be interesting addition.
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Plenty of planes for historical use in game, but if modeled accurately, would not see much use:
Ki-43 Hayabusa (Oscar) - widly used, comparable to Zero, but even more fragile due to lighter construction.
Ki-45 Toryu (Nick) - early war twin engine fighter that P-40's could eat for lunch
P-61 Black Widow.... only if nighttime is brought back to arenas, and if on-board radar and night scope are modeled. Otherwise, easy prey.
LaGG-1 and LaGG-3... unpopular then, would see no air time now.
Some planes that may see some use, if modeled and in-game:
P-39 Airacobra would be interesting.... I'd add it in it's Soviet skin though, as they got half of them (5007) through lend-lease, and the "second-highest scoring Allied ace, Pokryshkin, flew the P-39 from late 1942 until the end of the war; his unofficial score in the Airacobra stands at nearly 60 Luftwaffe aircraft".
Or it's successor, the Bell P-63 Kingcobra, which was adopted by the Soviet Union (but not the US), who took possession of 2,397 aircraft ferried over the Bering Straight. 1-37mm and 4 -.50's would be popular. As Soviets downplayed lend-lease craft, stories vary as to it's war record. Pokryshkin papers have his group in P63's late in war, but officially he stayed with P-39.
D4Y Suisei (Judy) a fast (342 mph /550 km/h) dive bomber with a 800 kg (1,765 lb) bombload, that also saw conversion to night fighters vs B-29's.
Yak-3... shorter legged, lighter, more maneuverable Yak-9. Or maybe a lightly fueled Yak-9 is close enough in performance?
Fiat G.55... yep...3-20mm mm Mg 151/20 cannons, one engine-mounted (w 250 rounds) and two wing-mounted and 4 - 12.7 mm Breda-SAFAT (all around the cowling?, so nice convergence with them), plus option for two 160 kg (353 lb) bombs. A fine bomber interceptor. Probably useful against GV's too. German evaluation listed the G.55 "excellent" to the 205's "average" rating. Supposedly a much better plane than the Me109G. This would be an interesting plane to add to the mix.
And of course, I'll always argue for things for buff drivers to use their perk points on. More drones (up to six plane total), maxed out ord bombloads for Lancs "specials" and B-17's (remove bomb bay fuel cells for bombs) and Ki-67's (which run light) --- (pretty sure the B-24 and JU-88's are there already), and perk-worthy bombers..... which, all things considered.... is limited to the A-26 Invader (as B-29 not being added, nor, I doubt the He-177 with is ord capabilities). Not too many other perk-worthy bombers out there that I can think of.
