Pt II
Flying and Fighting: The 109K4 will out-climb almost everything and it is the fastest 'non-perk' climber. Thus, try to do as much of your fighting as you can 'nose-up', you will out-perform most aircraft this way.
Compression is an issue for novices in the 109 but I have found that it will often work in the favour of the 109 pilot. Lots of people will try to sucker you into a stupid, lazy dive thinking that you will just compress and plough into the ground. Throttle, rudder and elevator trim manipulation is very important. Your elevator trim is set to the ‘k’ as a default and if you hold this ‘k’ key down it will manually crank your elevator up (this was the solution for real 109 pilots also). This will allow you pull out of a suicide dive even if you black-out, as your elevators stay up. Beware, you will need to re-set your trim to normal either with the ‘i’ key (the reverse of the ‘k’ key) or by re-enabling Combat Trim by pressing Ctrl + X. Most of the time people having pulled this dive move on you will simply go back into a lazy climb to try and retain their ‘E’. This is where your superior climb comes in, simply go back to full throttle, re-set trim and engage WEP and you will catch them promptly.
The 109K4 is also a good turner, you will be able to hang with almost any plane in a turn fight provided it is not flown by an exceptional pilot. N1ks and A6Ms are best avoided in regard to turn-fights… as are early model Spitfires, just use your climb and speed in this case. It is possible to turn with the likes of a Spit VIII given proper use of flaps (flaps are important in turn fighting in the 109). Be careful of getting into this situation with Spits though, generally a pilot of equal or greater skill will beat you. If you’re good you can get away with it, but for now just be wary and keep an escape route open.
The 109 also slows down very well. This is great for warding off La7s and planes with E advantages. Use hard rudder, flaps if possible and a few tight rolls to force the over-shoot. If you enemy is stupid enough to try and slow down with you, let them blow past, WEP on and run them down.
If you find a 190 or a P-51D you will find yourself at large advantage because you can out-turn and out-run these aircraft at some altitudes (check Soda’s site for these details).
Notes: This is my experience with the 109. I am no great stick and don't hold myself to be anything more than fairly experienced with a certain aircraft.
My in-game ID is Archaius and I usually fly for the Bishops with the Screaming Devils, if you'd like to wing with me in 109s I'd be glad to fly with you. (I do live in Australia though, so if you're American we might not line-up time schedule wise)
People far superior with the 109 that you might like to chase up with this are ParIn and Creton, to name a couple.
Good luck and feel free to PM me or reply here with any other questions you may have.
