Originally posted by BaldEagl
Huh? Have you ever flown these planes? Spit XVI will outclimb a P-38 easily.
Or are you talking about diving? If so have you ever heard of throttle control?
Just wondering.
BTW, to whomever above said they stay low in their 38 to bring the Spit down to them and force the overshoot I saw a 38 about 5K below me one night. He went to the deck and turned his tail to me. I chopped throttle and floated in on his 6. 3 rounds and he was done. Nice tactic.
Just because a plane has a better climb rate doesn't mean it has better vertical performance.
As for those P-38 pilots you've run across, they sound like they didn't know what they were doing in the Lightning. And I'm sure you're stretching the truth just a wee bit.
You want to kill a Spifire in the P-38?
Keep the fight fast, above 300mph IAS or faster.
Use vertical maneuvers to gain an angle
If you can't fight at high speed, fight at stall speeds. Works great on the deck, Spitfire can't dive out for speed and runs a greater risk of spinning in because it couldn't get enough speed to recover from a stall. Using the Cloverleaf maneuver is great for this. Great tactic to use against the Spitfire XVI.
And the most important tip is...
Keep the fight out of the medium speed range. Spitfire will chew up a P-38 in this range. Fight high or low...
Basically, using the strengths of the P-38 while exploiting the weaknesses of the Spitfire. Of course, if the Spitfire driver is as good as the P-38 driver then things can get really exciting and usually boils down to who made the first mistake or who was able to squeeze more out of their plane.
ack-ack