Results of chaning from Ki-84 to Spitfire Mk XIV...

[Karnak]

The other night, after flying the Ki-84 for awhile, I decided to take a Spitfire Mk XIV up for a go.

In my esteemed opinion, the Spitfire Mk XIV is a pig....  The Ki-84 seems to dance on air compared to the Mk XIV, which seems to struggle with the idea of doing anything other than rolling over and nose diving into the ground.

Basically, the Ki-84 helps you fight.  The Spitfire Mk XIV fights you.

[frosty]

...and the Spit XIV is perked.

You're absolutely right.  The Ki should be perked as well.

[Vad]

Try Spit 8 or 16 after Ki-84.
Ki is one of the best fighter in the game but Spit 8 after Ki is like  BMW335 after Infinity G35. You can do wahtever you want.  Great feeling.

[DEMONSLAYER]

i thinks the spits are the most well balenced plane in the game any spit should own a ki84 except for a spit14 maybe.

[tedrbr]

Different pilots, different planes and characteristics.

Never really got into flying the Spits.  Ki-84 is my favorite furballer, though.  Ki-84 is about the lowest ENY plane I tend to fly as well, I avoid all the low ENY planes.

[Squire]

I fly it like a 109G-14 Karnak, vertical manuevers, stay fast, its not a IX or an VIII for manueverbility.

[Karnak]

Oh, I know what I am supposed to do.  Just, it fought me the whole time.

As to Spits, well, I signed up to Aces High way back in v1.03 just to fly the Spits.  Finnaly left them, mostly, due to the constant anti-Spit whines we have to endure.

Spent a long time in the Mossie, but AH2 mostly pulled the Mossie's teeth, at least in my hands.  It became much, much harder for me to survive in the Mossie than it was in AH1.

As to the Spit VIII, it is my favorite Spitfire, but I feel like the Ki-84 has the edge on it by a fair margin, other than guns.

[Squire]

Ya, I feel the same way re: the XIV. It does fight you. I usually take it offline for a few before rolling it in the MA, just to get the quirky feel back.

[WMLute]

Try a Spit XIV vs. Ki84 fight over 22,000 feet.

See which one is a pig.

[Karnak]

Originally posted by WMLute
Try a Spit XIV vs. Ki84 fight over 22,000 feet.

See which one is a pig.

Done that too, well, vs an La-7, took me about 5 minutes to drag the La-7 up to 25,000ft and it took the La-7 about 20 seconds to dive back to the deck once he realized how outclassed he was up there.

Sorry, not impressed.

Maybe if there was something keeping the enemy up there, but in AH there isn't.

[Husky01]

The P-47 is the best plane in Aces High spits and KI-84s are pigs!

[Widewing]

Originally posted by Karnak


As to the Spit VIII, it is my favorite Spitfire, but I feel like the Ki-84 has the edge on it by a fair margin, other than guns.

Naw, the Spit VIII owns the Ki-84.... Given equal pilots, the Spit eats it up.

As to the Spit XIV, it's a pure energy fighter. It's a monster up high and extremely capable when flown to its strengths. I've used it to duel the best La-7 driver in the game. It was dead even fighting on the deck. The beating the Spit XIV gives to the Ki-84 is epic. You simply use the Spit14's strengths, meaning you avoid stall fighting. Fight in the vertical, manage your E and the Ki-84 is little more than a crash test dummy for the Spit. Yeah, the Ki-84 turns a little bit better, so what? You don't fight that fight. You use the vastly better climb rate, speed and acceleration to gain position and simply kill it. Co-E, Co-Alt, you can engage or disengage at will.

Think about the P-51D. Since the drag remodeling porked its flaps, the P-51D can't out-turn a P-47D-40. The only fighters it can out-turn is the 190s. However, that's only a limitation if you impose it upon yourself. Flown to it strengths, it can dominate far more maneuverable aircraft. The same goes for the Spitfire XIV, only it can turn well enough to be a real threat to many fighters. It's fast, offers the best acceleration of any fighter from 150 mph to 200 mph, and is nearly dead even with the Tempest up to 300 mph. It climbs like a 109K-4 and out-turns either the 109K-4 or the Tempest. The higher you go, the better it gets until up around 27k, where it has few peers. Sure that's impractical for the MA, but you can still exploit it and be very successful. But first, you have to get comfortable with and learn its limits. Drop by the TA some evening and we'll get that accomplished.

My regards,

Widewing

[Karnak]

Originally posted by Husky01
The P-47 is the best plane in Aces High spits and KI-84s are pigs!

Um, no, I think not.

I still fondly remember the first P-47 I ran into after the Mossie was released.  I was flying my new Mossie and the P-47 gleefully dove on my "lumbering, twin engined fighter" and I then bled his energy out and shot him down in a stall fight on the deck.

Mossie is less of a pig than the P-47.  

[Husky01]

The real truth is its the pilot not the plane. Put any good stick in a jug mossie or any other kind of larger fighter plane they will still kill a newb la7 or spit16 in a turn fight.

[Karnak]

Widewing,

I have never used the Mk XIV as a turn fighter.  I knew before it was added to AH that it was to be used in the vertical and kept fast.  That is how I was using it when, thanks to Apple minimizing AH for me to ask if I wanted to update my Apple software, I pancaked it at 400mph.

My issue is just that it made it very hard to do anything with it as it always wanted to fight my control inputs.

I know that fighting a team based, conservative fight the XIV will eat the 84s for lunch, but from a down in the muck, AH brawl standpoint, it seems to me that the Ki-84 is the better fighter.  It doesn't fight me.  The Mk VIII doesn't fight me either, it just doesn't respond as smoothly as the Ki-84, or so it feels to me.

EDIT:

Also, I have thousands of kills in the Mosquito Mk VI, which is used in similar fashions to the Mk XIV.  The Mossie doesn't try to throw me off it's back, so to speak, at every oportunity, even with its weird stalls.