Ok, I've debated whether to post here or not. After my little infamous N1k film episode; I've steered clear of these types of theads. I've decided to make a couple points though:
I fly the D hog quite a bit. It's not a bad plane, but unfortunately it's not as competitive as it was last version. Many planes can out: roll, turn, run, accelerate, climb, gun you. (La7, 190d9 (not turn), n1k (barely slower).
Just for fun, since I haven't flown a c hog in 13 tours, I took one up offline. Here's what I noticed: (No flames please, just a civilized discussion.

) I personally don't have much trouble with c hogs vs other planes like n1ks. I was only trying to do a fair comparison.
1. Almost no torque in zoom climbs. I was able to film myself hanging on the prop, then hammerheading in about 2.5 seconds. When I've tried this in the d-hog it will go into a very hard to recover flat spin.
2. D-hog DOES roll faster, and *may* accel slightly faster. Climb rates nearly equal. Overall c-hog is less likely to stall on you in rudder manuvers vs d hog IMO. You can decel to about 250 mph, hard right roll, hard left rudder, pull back on stick, and the plane will almost instantly roll over and dive away about 45 degrees from original flight path. There is virtually no loss in speed. D hog can't do this without spinning if roll is used.
3. The guns. Very powerful, compared to typhie even. Here's what I noticed that made them that way: It seems that your fire is in 2 "pairs". It's kinda hard to explain, but basically you hit with 2 cannon rounds on the exact same spot for every hit sprite you see. (Try it offline in the dirt, then compare to tiffie. You will see that 2 rounds hit at a time.) This is what gives it the "one ping of death" IMO. The typhoons firing pattern is much more spread out, and 1 round at a time impacts the target. Like the d-hog the gunsight is about the best in the game IMO. It's very easy to lead moving targets. HS cannons also don't drop as much as other cannons, making them ideally suited for snapshots.
Overall now I'd say there are better fighters, but nothing can match those guns and ammo capacity. This makes the plane easily the #1 choice for attack missions. In addition it is best for carrier duty.
My impression is that if a d hog and c hog met co-e and with pilots of equal skill (and ho snapshots were not allowed), that the d hog is a slightly better fighter. (That may just be because I'm more used to it.

) If the pilot of the d-hog can keep from spinning, he should win.
It's definately an interesting plane as an A2A platform. It is generally outperformed by many planes in the set now, but none have the ability to end the fight with quick snapshots at 700. I found the guns VERY easy to hit with at around this range. Like 50 cals, but the HS actually do real damage at that range with the 5 to 6 hits you get in a snapshot. Firing on the drones I found 2 hits would take the rudder off nearly everytime. 3 to 5 hits would take off a whole wing and set the plane on fire. 1 or 2 pings to the engine area always resulted in a dead radiator or engine, and often pilot kill.
Those are my opinions after an hour or so of testing offline. What do the rest of you think?
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bloom25
-MAW-
(Formerly of the)
THUNDERBIRDS