My initial impressions flying the P-39s

[GRUNHERZ]

Bf109G6 is quite competitive in its time. 

[Serenity]

Fox, you'd have to get some info from Tony Williams, I guess, but the rounds seem fairly weak. Against small fighters they almost always do major damage, but I had to pop a P-51D a second time with a 37mm fireball after the first one didn't do much last night.

On the other hand, one round to the front of an a6m5s radial disabled/killed that plane, and 1 round to the aft end of a typhoon took its tail off. It depends.

Vs bombers, forget it. Don't even try. Unless you get a pilot kill it is worse than the yak9t's gun for explosion damage.

Ive never really had a problem with tatering fighters. Both with the Mk 108 and the 39's 37mm, the only time an aircraft has ever survived a single hit is if I hit a jug square in the nose, In which case, I agree he probably wont die right away. But bombers absorb taters like they were BBs. Its rediculous!

Also, as far as armament goes, my first flight in the 39D, I believe I took the 20mm option, (I of course changed to taters when I realised it had them), I fired a single burst of ALL guns, and it seemed like a laser beam. Perhaps alone the MGs arent the best, nor is the cannon, but if you get them all together... 

[Stoney]

Ground handling is among the best, and landing is very easy without any drama whatsoever. There is a bug in auto-takeoff that causes the rudder to oscillate back and forth, inducing snaking on the takeoff run. Manually taking off is easy, but requires considerable rudder to offset torque.

Sitting in the runway, apply full power and the P-39Q accelerates smartly, getting airborne after a very short run.

On manual takeoff, I think there's some tweaking that needs to be done.  Unless the P-39 had a free castoring nose wheel, the nose shouldn't yaw nearly as hard at the beginning of the takeoff roll.  There should be some resistence if the nose wheel is steerable.  Perhaps someone can tell me if the nose wheel was steerable or free-castoring.

[angelsandair]

It's a little more sluggish. I find the convergence an issue, as they have more ammo than the nose guns so your last 200 rounds (100 rpg) are really wide, and you have to be at perfect convergence or you're just not hitting hard enough to do damage.


WW, before you edited your post you had a speed and climb chart on there.

It showed the P-39Q climbing almost 4000fpm up to about (?) 8k or so. I don't think those climb numbers are right. According to jbaugher's webpage, he says:

"Climb to 5000 feet in 2.0 minutes. Climb to 20,000 feet in 8.5 minutes."

That would put initial climb at about 2500, not almost touching 4000 like your test shows in AH. Any idea why AH's version apparently climbs like a 109?

What would be a perfect convergence for it? I dont use the P-39Qs wing guns very much though. But if I want to go and no matter what get alot of kills, what should their convergence be? I got everything set at 225

[BaDkaRmA158Th]

300-350 works well for me with the 39D
That 37mm is NOT useless on bombers, everything has a weak spot, aim for the spot between the fuselage and the inner engine on any heavy bomber, and you WILL have a fireball, rinse and repeat on the drones, pull away with your enemy puffin' flames from all three planes.

Simple, and very effective...well simple if you can hit them. 

Its also well to note, if you think you will be fighting, use the 20mm.
37mm only for ground targets, or bomber hunting.With the Q its realy a no brainer as the x4 .50's give you as much punch as any older american ride, with a 37mm when things are juuust right.

[Brooke]

After flying the P-39Q an evening in the Main Arena, I find that the roll isn't as horrible as I felt offline.

Having only 30 cannon rounds really impacts my ability to hit and kill things.  2 0.50's isn't going to do it all that well, and I have trouble landing hits with the P-39Q.  One of the issues might be that the gunsight is not correct -- the aiming dot is too low.  I made a new gunsight last night that has correct aiming (tested it with the target at 400 and 200 yards to make sure).

Here it is for any interested.  To use it, just save this bmp file in your "C:\Program Files\HTC\Aces High II\sights" folder and then go into your options for gunsights and select "p39_brooke.bmp" (or whatever you choose to name it) as the gunsight for the P-39Q.  The P-39D doesn't have the same problem, so you wouldn't use this gunsight for the P-38D -- only for the P-39Q to correct its problem.

[moot]

I was going to do that, but never had time with some other stuff I'm doing.. Thanks Brooke.

[BaDkaRmA158Th]

Uhm, wait..i thought thats one thing that was fixed in the lated little patch, altho not mentioned the gunsights are now on, and the auto takeoff swing is not so bad.

[moot]

Nope.  Brooke's sight is on target in 2.12.2.

[BaDkaRmA158Th]

Sorry moot, i stand corrected.
I got a few kills tonight thanks to this brooke, helps alot. 



W00t 

[Squire]

The P-39 has torque effects on takeoff like any other fighter, I dont find the yaw much worse than other types. I dont use auto-takeoff, so I cant speak to that.

Thanks for the gunsight Brooke. 

[Bronk]

Anyone else find rudder/elevator response quite impressive? It appears little stick movements get you big gains.

[Widewing]

Anyone else find rudder/elevator response quite impressive? It appears little stick movements get you big gains.

Yes, the elevators are extremely powerful and sensitive (great modeling, as they were this way in real life).

This apparently was a surprise to some noobs. Thus, there has been a lot of whines about blacking out in P-39s. These guys just jumped in and didn't get any stick time before venturing into the MA... I like this type of pilot, they are fun to watch, spinning, augering and generally flopping around like a landed tuna. 

My regards,

Widewing

[Murdr]

Have seen several people complaining about the amount of damage the 37mm causes.  Is there any truth to this or is it perhaps a matter of not hitting with it because of poor ballistics?  Thanks.

Page updated.  It's about 20% less powerful than the NS37 in the game.

[Lusche]

It's about 20% less powerful than the NS37 in the game.

A small comparison of the three big fighter cannons in game:

30mm MK 108 (109's, Me 163, 262, 190A8 Ta 152)
velocity 505 m/s, projectile weight 330g, ROF 10/s, AH damage 11.6
one second burst damage value: 116

37mm M4 (P-39)
velocity 610 m/s, projectile weight 608g, ROF 2.5/s, AH damage 13.2
one second burst damage value: 33

37mm NS-37 (Yak-9t)
velocity 900 m/s, projectile weight 735g, ROF 4/s, AH damage 16.7
one second burst damage value 66.8