I think one of the primary assumptions many people on this thread (not all) are making in an F6F vs. Spit/Zero contest is that the Spit or Zeke driver will be passably competent.
I also think there's a tendency to jump in a Spit, Zero, or LA7 when you see a hellcat porking your town, because those are perceived as being the plane that will give you the greatest advantage with repelling the attack - and that's probably true. However, I think a lot of pilots who normally favor other rides don't give enough consideration to how much of a factor their lack of experience with these specific planes is when they up them.
The reason I say this, is that I can recollect dozens of times over the past year where I've dumped ords on an airfield's town, and then entered a turning fight with a capping spit, zero, or la7, and handily beat them. In most cases they entered the fight with a respectable energy state. That's also considering that I'm probably an intermediate pilot at best, skillwise. After the affair I'll sometimes check a score or two at the boards and discover that the pilot I just shot down is a much better flier than I am, but that they typically fly other, 'non-dweeb' rides (to use the vernacular that has been tossed around on this thread already).
To the guy who was talking about getting his flap-control down in the TA: This probably goes without saying, but if you don't have a set of rudder pedals (like my broke butt), try mapping them to a logical mapping on a cheap-o stick that has lots of buttons. In my case, I use my $29 FoxPro2 stick's lower button for "flaps down" and upper button for "flaps up". This way I never have to remember which button does what when I'm in the heat of battle - down means down & up means up (hope that makes sense). I took to this layout straight away and it's really helped me get my flap-usage to improve.
One last thing - I don't see how anyone could rate the F6 better than a Jug as a Jabo. I think people are hard on the Jug because they tend to pack it to the gills with ords, ammo and fuel, and then complain when a Niki or Spit comes along and hands them their oscar. This problem gets compounded by the fact that, because folks are using their Jugs as mini-B17s, they tend to try to hold onto their ords far longer than they would in other rides in the same situation.
If you think the Jug feels a bit heavy, try taking less internal fuel (especially in the N model), the lighter 8X50cal ammo load, and the same amount of ords as the Hellcat (don't add the extra 500 lb bomb). Once you've done this, try a zero G or negative G full power dive on a town to drop your ords and then WEP climb away - at very high speed the Jug trades its E for alt better than any other plane I've ever flown, and as much as I like the F6F, I think the Jug easily excells over the Hellcat in Jabo'ing - if you give it the aforementioned similar ords load-out, and use WEP to compensate for the plane's heavier weight in dive/climb situations. Add in the two extra 50 cals and four extra rockets you get in the deal and you have a great recipe for airfield suppression & de-acking. Really, the only thing you have to do for that trade is start your run 1 or 2 k higher. In a Jug with that loadout, the extra alt amounts to 1-2 more minutes on autoclimb before you begin your run.
In summary, as much as I love the F6F, I still think the Jug (when properly loaded out) is a better ride when it comes to Jabo missions - unless your intent is to drop ords and turn with an enemy like a dog chasing its tail.
Just my 0.02 cents.
